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Memphis DJ for WHBQ radio, Dewey Philips,
played the recording a
few days later on July 8 and a nation of teen-aged girls fell
under the spell of the modest young man from Tupelo Mississippi
who had moved to Memphis as a preteen. Other singers jumped on
the bandwagon and Elvis's brand of Rock and Roll dominated the
airways until the British invasion by four young
men from Liverpool changed the style to a more
international one.
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| Rock and Soul Musuem's
sharecropper exhibit |
For those of us of a certain age, Memphis with its musical
heritage is like a pilgrimage. Start your visit with a tour
of Memphis Rock and Soul Museum. John Doyle, executive
director explained why Rock and Soul Museum is so important
in telling the history of Rock and Roll. "We are the only
museum that is a full standing museum outside of D.C. that
isn't owned by but is totally researched and curated by the
Smithsonian. Kind of a cool story. They were doing a couple
of research projects tracing the history of Rock and Soul
which they maintained were two true American generas of
music."
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| Black Soul musicians display
at Rock and Soul Museum |
As in the course of any evolution,
Rock and Roll didn't spring forth on its own. Several
earlier music forms contributed. In West Tennessee, in the
early- and mid-twentieth century, cotton was still king. The
sharecropper system which replaced slave labor kept the
families who actually worked the land poor. Both Black and
White farm families lived in small cabins where the kitchen
with its battery operated radio was the heart of the home.
On Saturday night, almost everyone was sitting around
listening to The
Grand Old Opry. Since many of the farm workers worked
together picking and planting cotton, both races were
exposed to the other's music. The gospel and soul music that
Black farmers sang as they trudged through the fields
mingled with the banjo and twanging sounds White farmers had
carried with them from their ancestors in Ireland and
Scotland.
Rock and Soul Museum offers a audio
visual tour where you put on a headset and listen to the stories
of how these two forms morphed into a new and explosive sound.
The museum is extensive and follows music from the early days of
sharecroppers to the present. Follow
Ike Turner in 1951 as he records one of the first songs that led
to the new sound, Rocket
88. See how a young Elvis was influenced by the Black
musicians of the time. Both of these young musicians recorded
their first songs in a local Memphis studio originally called
Memphis Recording Studio.
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| Marion
Keisker, first person to hear an Elvis record |
Million
Dollar Quartet photo in Sun Studio |
Next stop, Sun Studio. This is the high cathedral of Rock and
Roll. Jason, our guide,
traced the history of the studio. In 1950. Sam Philips
opened the first recording studio called the Memphis
Recording Studio. He recorded anything but was interested in a
new sound. Mostly he recorded Blues, his first love. One of his
first discoveries was a man named Chester Burnett, better known
by his stage name, Howlin' Wolf. Sam Phillips began to realize
he needed to have his own label and changed the name to Sun
Studio, home of Sun Records. Upstairs is a museum that shows you
the history of the studio coinciding with the history of rock
and roll. One of my
favorit exhibits is the actual WHBQ radio station booth Dewey
Philips used when he played That's All Right Mama.
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| My biggest thrill, singing in
the same mike Elvis used |
Jason explains the workings of
Sun Studio, then and now |
You might think Elvis
just walked into Sun Studio and immediately soared to star
status. Not so. In 1953, Elvis paid $4 to make a record. He saw
Marion Keisker, Sam Phillips' office
manager and assistant. Elvis recorded a song called
My
Happiness. Marion made a copy and played it for Sam Phillips
but Sam was not impressed. The song was just another
conventional pop song. Sam was enamored with the Blues.
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| WHBQ radio station booth where
Dewey Philips first played Elvis's record. |
In 1954 when Marion convinced Sam to listen to Elvis, Sam put
him with Country musicians since he had no band
of his own. They tried a conventional country sound but
no good song came out of it. Then Elvis did a version of Arthur
Crudup's 1949 blues song,
That's All Right Mamma. Sam loved the sound. He quickly
signed him to a three year
contract. About a year and half later Sam sold the contract to
RCA for $30,000 because he was in financial trouble.
Phillips success with Elvis led the way
for other singers. Carl Perkins had a big hit with his
Blue Suede Shoes.
Johnny Cash had already begun to garner a few hits on the
country charts. Jerry Lee Lewis was still a relatively unknown
piano man and singer. The four came to be known as the Million
dollar Quartet. While
they were just jamming among themselves
in the studio, someone quietly flipped a switch and
recorded them, illegally since at this point Elvis was under
contract to RCA.
The recording all occurred downstairs in
the sacred ground of the original studio. The most important
relic you can actually touch is the microphone used by Elvis,
Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, B.B. King and other music legends.
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| Exhibit in
Country Church at Soulville |
Issac Hayes
gold plated car |
Since Rock and Roll owes so much to Soul don't miss Soulville:
Stax Museum of American Soul Music. According to Odis Redding's
biography, soul music is "music that arose out of the black
experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and
rhythm and blues into a form of funky, secular testifying."
In 1960, Jim Stewart and his sister
Estelle Axton, opened Stax Studio. At Stax, the color barrier
was ignored. White and Black musicians worked together with
mutual respect . Some of the '60s greatest music came out of
Stax. Booker T and the MGs. Rufus and Carla Thomas, Aretha
Franklin, Otis Redding Wilson Pickett and many others.
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| Soulville as it is today |
Here you can see a reconstruction of a simple country church
recognizing the influence gospel had on this music. Move from
simple to over-the-top with Stax Records musician Isaac Hayes'
caddie trimmed with gold plate.
Death of Otis Redding just four days
after he recorded Dock of
the Bay, which became his first number
one hit posthumously, is retold in a poignant video.
Originally theater that housed the studio went downhill
during civil
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