SUN RECORDS
Sun Records is an American independent record label founded in Memphis, Tennessee, which began operations on March 27, 1952. Founded in 1952 by Sam Phillips, who also founded the recording studio Sun Studio, Sun Records discovered, and first recorded, such influential musicians as Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash. (Presley’s recording contract was sold to RCA Victor Records for $35,000 in 1955 to relieve financial difficulties which Sun was going through.) (More from Wikipedia)
The term “rockabilly” – the word is an amalgamation of rock and hillbilly (an early term for country music) – was thrilling to me even before I actually knew what it meant. It was one of the earliest forms of rock and roll and the first to be played primarily by white musicians, going all the way back to “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and His Comets. The roster of rockabilly stars over the years starts of course with The King, Elvis Presley, along with Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and most of the other artists at Sun Records in the 1950’s, plus Wanda Jackson, Eddie Cochran and others. There was also a rockabilly revival in the early 1980’s led by the Blasters and the Stray Cats. To this day, when a band wants a rawer sound, they will incorporate rockabilly into their music.
Sun Records had amassed perhaps the greatest aggregation of talent in the history of popular music and, not incidentally, had for my money the best looking record labels ever. In 1956, Sun Records was able to show off by hosting an impromptu jam session by the Million Dollar Quartet, having a genuinely stupendous line-up: Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis (Sun-signed artists all, though Elvis was by now at RCA). Most agree though that Sun had begun to lose its edge by the end of the decade.
(May 2011)
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Greg Shaw began collecting records at a time when last year’s albums were regarded as being not much above trash, when whole boxes of albums and 45’s could be purchased for a few dollars. He has written of his joy at owning a complete set of all of the records that were released by legendary music companies like Phillips Records and Sun Records.
(August 2012)
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Elvis Presley is justly labeled The King; courtesy of the visionary recording industry mogul Sam Phillips (founder of the seminal Sun Records, among his many achievements), Elvis was ideally suited in many ways to be the one to bring rhythm and blues to white audiences.
(June 2013/1)
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I did find this brief mention of the song on the Wikipedia article on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan: “Unlike the other material which Dylan recorded between 1961 and 1964, ‘Mixed Up Confusion’ attempted a rockabilly sound. Cameron Crowe described it as ‘a fascinating look at a folk artist with his mind wandering towards Elvis Presley and Sun Records.’”
(June 2013/2)
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Continuing the overview of Iggy Pop and his seminal proto-punk band the Stooges from earlier in the year, here is a band that (until the present century) left behind just three studio albums, with a total of only 23 songs. By comparison, the Beatles’ Abbey Road album alone has 17 songs. For those who are fans, that can be extremely frustrating – and I know that all too well as someone who writes about Under Appreciated Rock Bands who often (though not always) don’t have a recorded output that is even that large. Iggy Pop started his prolific solo career quickly enough, but Iggy’s solo albums are as different from his work with the Stooges as Elvis Presley’s music after he got out of the Army is from his early rockabilly sides at Sun Records and RCA.
(September 2017)
