MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET

"Million Dollar Quartet" is a recording of an impromptu jam session involving Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and Johnny Cash made on December 4, 1956, in the Sun Record Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. An article about the session was published in the Memphis Press-Scimitar under the title "Million Dollar Quartet".

The jam session seems to have happened by pure chance. Perkins, who by this time had already met success with "Blue Suede Shoes", had come into the studios that day, accompanied by his brothers Clayton and Jay and by drummer W.S. Holland, their aim being to cut some new material, including a revamped version of an old blues song, "Matchbox". Sam Phillips, the owner of Sun Records, who wanted to try to fatten this sparse rockabilly instrumentation, had brought in his latest acquisition, Jerry Lee Lewis, still unknown outside Memphis, to play piano (at the time, a Wurlitzer Spinet) on the Perkins session. Lewis's first Sun single would be released a few days later. Sometime in the early afternoon, 21-year-old Elvis Presley, a former Sun artist now with RCA Victor, dropped in to pay a casual visit accompanied by a girlfriend, Marilyn Evans. At some point during the session, Sun artist Johnny Cash, who had recently enjoyed a few hits on the country charts, popped in. Jack Clement was engineering that day and remembers saying to himself "I think I'd be remiss not to record this" and so he did. The recordings show Elvis, the most nationally and internationally famous of the four at the time, to be the focal point of what was a casual, spur-of-the-moment gathering of four artists who would each go on to contribute greatly to the seismic shift in popular music in the late 1950's.

During the session, Phillips called a local newspaper, the Memphis Press-Scimitar. Bob Johnson, the newspaper’s entertainment editor, came over to the studios with UPI representative Leo Soroca and a photographer. Johnson wrote an article about the session, which appeared the following day in the Press-Scimitar under the headline "Million Dollar Quartet".

A photo taken that day of the Million Dollar Quartet

So........last night I went to see the performance of the show "Million Dollar Quartet" in Branson, MO.  Yep, I'm in Branson and this is the first show I have seen.  I had heard it was good and well worth seeing.  It is.  I will say that it started out a little slow, but definitely got better as it went.  It is a lot of acting and explaining the history of how this impromptu jam session happened through the dialogue.  It also includes a lot of singing by each character and their performances are very good.

Elvis

Carl Perkins, Elvis, and Johnny Cash

The guy who played Johnny Cash sounded EXACTLY like Johnny Cash.  Not only when he sang, but even when he spoke.  He is a much littler guy than Johnny, but I thought he was pretty amazing.  The guy who played Elvis was really good too.  When he sang, he did a really good job of imitating Elvis' tone and inflections in his voice.  The guy who played Jerry Lee Lewis could PLAY THE HECK out of that piano.  OMG! I use to play the piano and if I could play like that, I would probably still be playing the piano.  He also did a good job of acting crazy (sort of like being 2 bricks short a load) like Jerry Lee.  I didn't really follow Carl Perkins and don't know much about him to know if the guy who played him did a good job or not.  I will say that he was entertaining and could really play the guitar. 

So, the show was well worth going to and if you are in Branson, this is one worth seeing.

Jerry Lee Lewis (playing the piano while sitting on top of it), Carl Perkins standing on his brother's bass fiddle, Elvis on his knees looking at Jerry Lee, and Johnny Cash playing his held high guitar.