PROGRAM #1
Good
Rockin'
Tonight
FOUNDED BY an Alabama sharecropper’s son, Sun Records boasted a rebellious cast of rockabilly stars. Sam Phillips opened his tiny brick-front recording company with the promise: “We record anything, anywhere, anytime.” First releasing blues records from African-American singers who migrated north from Mississippi cotton fields, he then switched to recording primarily rockabilly, which appealed to a growing audience of teenagers. On this program, we visit Memphis in the segregated Fifties and discover how white artists crossed racial lines to create the rockabilly sound. We’ll profile two of Sun’s first rockabilly stars, Elvis and Carl Perkins.
21-year-old Elvis Presley receives royal kisses from the Queen and her Maid of the annual Cotton Carnival in Memphis, Tennessee. Elvis was backstage before a packed Ellis Auditorium audience on May 15, 1956. That year, he sold 10 million records including his RCA Victor single “Heartbreak Hotel.” Elvis started his career barely two years before, with a cover version of bluesman Arthur Crudup’s “That’s All Right,” blending country and the blues into a style later named ‘rockabilly.’ (Robert Williams / The Commercial Appeal)