Editing Sun Studio (section)

==Elvis Presley==
In August 1953, fresh out of his high school graduation the previous June, the 18½ year old Presley walked into the offices of Sun. He aimed to pay for a few minutes of studio time to record a two-sided [[acetate disc]]: "[[My Happiness (country song)|My Happiness]]" and "[[That's When Your Heartaches Begin]]". He would later claim he intended the record as a gift for his mother, or was merely interested in what he "sounded like", though there was a much cheaper, amateur record-making service at a nearby general store. Biographer [[Peter Guralnick]] argues that he chose Sun in the hope of being discovered. Asked by receptionist [[Marion Keisker]] what kind of singer he was, Presley responded, "I sing all kinds." When she pressed him on whom he sounded like, he repeatedly answered, "I don't sound like nobody." After he recorded, Phillips asked Keisker to note down the young man's name, which she did along with her own commentary: "Good ballad singer. Hold."<ref>Guralnick, 1994, pp. 62–64</ref> Presley cut a second acetate in January 1954—"I'll Never Stand In Your Way" and "It Wouldn't Be the Same Without You"—but again nothing came of it.<ref>Guralnick, 1994, p. 65</ref>

Phillips, meanwhile, was always on the lookout for someone who could bring the sound of the black musicians on whom Sun focused to a broader audience. As Keisker reported, "Over and over I remember Sam saying, 'If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars.'"<ref>Miller, 2000, p. 72</ref> In June, he acquired a demo recording of a ballad, "Without You", that he thought might suit the teenaged singer. Presley came by the studio, but was unable to do it justice. Despite this, Phillips asked Presley to sing as many numbers as he knew. He was sufficiently affected by what he heard to invite two local musicians, guitarist [[Scotty Moore|Winfield "Scotty" Moore]] and [[double bass|upright bass]] player [[Bill Black]], to work something up with Presley for a recording session.<ref>Jorgensen, 1998, pp. 10–11</ref>

The session, held the evening of July 5, proved entirely unfruitful until late in the night. As they were about to give up and go home, Presley took his guitar and launched into a 1946 blues number, [[Arthur Crudup]]'s "[[That's All Right]]". Moore recalled, "All of a sudden, Elvis just started singing this song, jumping around and acting the fool, and then Bill picked up his bass, and he started acting the fool, too, and I started playing with them. Sam, I think, had the door to the control booth open ... he stuck his head out and said, 'What are you doing?' And we said, 'We don't know.' 'Well, back up,' he said, 'try to find a place to start, and do it again.'" Phillips quickly began taping; this was the sound he had been looking for.{{sfn|Guralnick|1994|pp=94–97}} Three days later, popular Memphis DJ [[Dewey Phillips]] played "That's All Right" on his ''Red, Hot, and Blue'' show.{{sfn|Ponce de Leon|2007|p=43}} Listeners began phoning in, eager to find out who the singer was. The interest was such that Phillips played the record repeatedly during the last two hours of his show. Interviewing Presley on-air, Phillips asked him what high school he attended in order to clarify his color for the many callers who had assumed he was black.{{sfn|Guralnick|1994|pp=100–1}} During the next few days the trio recorded a [[Bluegrass music|bluegrass]] number, [[Bill Monroe]]'s "[[Blue Moon of Kentucky]]", again in a distinctive style and employing a jury-rigged [[Delay (audio effect)|echo effect]] that Sam Phillips dubbed "slapback". A single was pressed with "That's All Right" on the A side and "Blue Moon of Kentucky" on the reverse.{{sfn|Guralnick|1994|pp=102–4}}

===Selling Presley===
Within months Phillips saw his label expand significantly owing to the number of Presley records sold. Radio stations and record stores all over the South were eager to play them, and as Presley's profile grew over the next year, Phillips realized Sun was not large enough to break him throughout the United States. In February 1955, Phillips met with [[Colonel Tom Parker]], a man known for his hustling skills as well as his managerial ones. Parker persuaded Phillips that Presley needed a national record label to help him further his career, and after several more months Phillips agreed to sell Presley's contract.<ref name=Victor399/> He told Parker that he would require a $5,000 down-payment by November 15, as an advance on a $35,000 buy out fee. At the time, $35,000 was an unheard of amount of money for a recording artist's contract, especially one who had yet to prove himself on the national stage.<ref name=Victor399/>

Although Presley didn't want to leave Sun, according to Sun engineer Jack Clement, Phillips sold his contract because he needed the money to settle debts and pay off costs still associated with Rufus Thomas's "Bearcat" copyright-infringement suit.<ref name=Victor399/> Phillips, however, insisted that he only offered Presley's contract for $35,000 because he believed it would put off any other record label from purchasing it. Regardless, Presley signed a record contract with [[RCA Victor]] in November 1955, and left Sun. Phillips used some of the money to further advance the careers of his other artists, by now featuring [[Johnny Cash]], [[Carl Perkins]], [[Jerry Lee Lewis]], and [[Roy Orbison]].

===Million Dollar Quartet===
{{See also|Million Dollar Quartet}}
{{More citations needed section|date=September 2013}}
On December 4, 1956 an [[impromptu]] [[jam session]] among [[Elvis Presley]], [[Jerry Lee Lewis]], [[Carl Perkins]], and [[Johnny Cash]] took place at Sun Studio. 
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 studio 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 (song)|Matchbox]]". Phillips, 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 piano on the Perkins session.

Sometime in the early afternoon, Presley dropped in to pay a casual visit accompanied by a girlfriend, Marilyn Evans.<ref>{{Citation | last = George | first = Jason | title = How the Tribune tracked her down | newspaper = Chicago Tribune | pages = Live!, page 4 | date = 2008-11-11 | url = https://www.proquest.com/docview/420798196 | no-pp = true}}</ref>  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 Perkins’ session, which he pronounced to be good. Then he went out into the studio and some time later the jam session began. At some point during the session, Sun artist [[Johnny Cash]], who had recently enjoyed a few hits on the country charts, popped in. (Cash wrote in his autobiography ''Cash'' that he had been first to arrive at the Sun Studio that day, wanting to listen in on the Perkins recording session.) [[Jack Clement|"Cowboy" 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. After jamming through a number of songs using someone else's guitar for an hour, Elvis and girlfriend Evans slipped out as Jerry Lee pounded away on the piano. Cash claims in ''Cash'' that "no one wanted to follow Jerry Lee, not even Elvis."

During the session 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 studio 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-famous photograph of Presley seated at the piano surrounded by Lewis, Perkins and Cash (the uncropped version of the photo also includes Evans, shown seated atop the piano). This photo proves Cash was there, but the audio doesn't provide substantial proof he joined in on the session.