‘MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET’ RECORDS IN MEMPHIS

Gathered around the piano at Memphis’s Sun Record Studios on this day in 1956, prototype rockers Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley and Carl Perkins with country allstar Johnny Cash musically dallied together on an impromptu set of predominantly country-gospel material. Presley and the lesser-known Lewis did most of the lead singing. Cash, furthest from the microphone, is hard to hear on the recordings released later. An article the next day in the Memphis Press-Scimitar carried the headline “Million Dollar Quartet,” even though the foursome received no payment. The article was accompanied by a now-famous photograph of Presley seated at the piano surrounded by the other three musicians, with the King’s companion, the Las Vegas showgirl Marilyn Evans, seated atop the piano. Today, the photo is often presented with Evans cropped out of the image, in order to enforce a rock ’n’ roll Mount Rushmore moment. A picture is worth a thousand words – strategic edits, even more – and a million dollars then would be worth more than $10-million today.