This spring a new musical is opening on Broadway called 'Million Dollar Quartet'. While it contains songs that you already know and love, it's far from the stereotype of that new breed of 'jukebox' musicals. Unlike those other jukebox musicals - in which a thin plot is contrived around an artist's catalog of songs - this 'Million Dollar Quartet' is based on a true event - no need to create any plot or any added drama. It's about artists you already know and love - with their music you already know and love - and about a day that you may not know about, but most certainly have to love.
Million Dollar Quartet is the name given to recordings made on Tuesday December 4, 1956 in the Sun Record Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. The recordings were of an impromptu jam session between Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash.
'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 wished to try to fatten this sparse rockabilly instrumentation, had brought in his latest acquisition, singer and piano man extraordinaire, Jerry Lee Lewis, still unknown outside Memphis, to play the piano on the Perkins session.
Sometime in the early afternoon, Elvis Presley, a former Sun artist himself, but now at RCA, dropped in to pay a casual visit accompanied by a girlfriend, Marilyn Evans.[1] He was, at the time, the biggest name in show business, having hit the top of the singles charts five times, and topping the album charts twice in the preceding 12 month period. Less than four months earlier, he had appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, pulling an unheard-of 83% of the television audience, which was estimated at 55 million, the largest in history, up to that time. After chatting with Philips in the control room, Presley listened to the playback of the Perkins’ session, which he pronounced to be good. Then he went into the studio and some time later the jam session began. Phillips left the tapes running in order to "capture the moment" as a souvenir and for posterity. At some point during the session, Sun artist Johnny Cash, who had also enjoyed a few hits on the country charts, popped in (Cash noted in his autobiography Cash that it was he who was the first to arrive at Sun Studio that day). As Jerry Lee pounded away on the piano, Elvis and his girlfriend at some point slipped out. Cash claims in Cash that "no one wanted to follow Jerry Lee, not even Elvis."
As the session continued, Phillips spotted an opportunity for some publicity and called a local newspaper, the Memphis Press-Scimitar. Bob Johnson, the newspaper’s entertainment editor came over to the studios accompanied by a UPI representative named Leo Soroca, and a photographer.
The following day, an article, written by Johnson about the session, was published in the Memphis Press-Scimitar under the title, "Million Dollar Quartet". The article contained the now well known photograph of Presley seated at the piano surrounded by Lewis, Perkins and Cash.' *from Wikipedia
If not for the actual recordings of that day - it seems too good to be true. Four musical legends in the same room, no agenda but to jam out and play with each other. One can only dream of being a fly on the wall in that room. And what of the musicians themselves? There is proven psychology behind playing with other experts - you become a better musician when you play with people who are better than you. Although forgive me for not wanting to say who was better than who on that day. And who's to say? Four masters like that in a room...nothing less than inspired.
It makes you wonder - in this day in age...the age of Facebook, Myspace, Garage Band, and I'm sure many other programs that I-of-close-to-middle-age know nothing about, are there still musicians out there, playing with the door open? Open to collaboration and jamming with their peers. My gut says - yes of course. But again, I wonder if Elvis, Jerry Lee, Carl and Johnny had lived now...if that day would happen, and if their careers for that matter would have looked different.
On another note - it just goes to show that when you are open to opportunity and new ideas - you never know what kind of amazing things will unfold.
