Steven K. Rogstad published his 72-page paperback 'The Million Dollar Quartet and the Challenges of Oral Testimony'.
When something fun or exciting happens extemporaneously, the people involved rarely notice that what is taking place may be significant or worthy of remembrance. What they do recall afterwards - especially if it has been clothed in historical significance - is often filtered through the distorted lens of time and influenced by their role in it. This story is about such an occurrence, when four young recording artists - Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley - grouped around a piano and sang themselves into music history.
It started when Elvis Presley unexpectedly walked into the recording studio at Sun Records in Memphis and sat down on a bench in front of a piano, playing and singing “Blueberry Hill.” He caught the attention of his friends Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash, who also happened to be in the room and began harmonizing with him on a few gospel songs. Then Jerry Lee Lewis appeared and joined the trio, adding his high vocals to more songs Elvis was in the mood to sing. Perkins would later describe the group as “scooting around the piano” with his band “kinda knocking along.”
As Presley played the piano and sang lead for the quartet, a technician eventually turned on a taping machine, while someone else called a local newspaper for a reporter and a photographer to capture the event for posterity. A few hours later the impromptu jam session was over and the group went their separate ways. But a few photographs had been taken and numerous songs had been recorded. It would be the only time the four men would ever sing together as a quartet. “It could have happened only at Sun Records,” one music historian has determined, “and probably only in Memphis….”
You can check this out yourself, the book is available through >>> Amazon (associate link).
(Source: Elvis Information Network)