The Ultimate Rock 'N' Roll JamSession

Fri 26th Nov, 2010 in Features

At 706 Union Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee, there stands a tiny recording studio that influenced the music you’re listening to right now. Three years after hitchhiking to Memphis to start his music career in 1947, one BB King laid down tracks at Memphis Recording Service, a small studio where Sam Phillips – arguably the most important man in rock ‘n’ roll history — was soon renting some space to run his record label, Sun Records. In due course, Sam took over the entire operation stamping his Sun onto the studio that truly transcended racial divides and bought rock ‘n’ roll to the world.

Only a couple of years after Sam took possession of Sun Studios – having already seen Howlin’ Wolf, Jackie Brenston and Ike Turner working over tracks in the engine room – he discovered Elvis Presley, who joined now-legends Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis among those (including Roy Orbison) recording 45s.

It wasn’t until December 4, 1956, though, that Presley, Perkins, Cash and Lewis found themselves running into each other at Sun Studio and bashing out some tunes for a lark. It was no coincidence that Mr Sam Phillips pressed the record button on the laidback jam session that uneventful Tuesday. While office workers in adjacent buildings on Union Avenue were likely answering the telephones, filing, drinking coffee they were totally unaware that at number 702 rock ‘n’ roll history was being made. Sam ran the acetate all day long, tagging the four men “The Million Dollar Quartet” and capturing an undeniably remarkable time in modern music.

More than 50 years later, on the opposite side of the planet, four unlikely chaps — whose careers are all unequivocally inspired by The Million Dollar Quartet — have found themselves celebrating that magical day in 1956. Country singer*James Blundell*, Australian rock staples Nick Barker and Dave Larkin, and young pianist fireball Ezra Lee have been bought together by the team that created The Man In Black starring Tex Perkins as Johnny Cash. It might seem an odd collaborative fit , but somehow The Ultimate Rock ‘n’ Roll Jam Session works. In a conversation with Dave Larkin, the Dallas Crane/Gun Street Girls frontman assures me no one’s more surprised than them.

“We started off modestly in some regional venues around Victoria just to test the waters, to see if there was a future [for the show] and it was great. We went off stage to standing ovations every night and we were all surprised. I mean, the nature of the show is that it’s a jam session celebrating a day a lot of people didn’t know about in Sun Studio’s history. But, with such a fine band together why wouldn’t you stand up and bloody applaud?”

For punters who didn’t see The Man In Black what’s the template of this narrative/theatre showcase. What exactly goes on?
We’re talking people through the day, but we go a bit deeper into the characters. We give a bit of a background on all four artists and where they were in their careers. At that time Carl Perkins was a house songwriter [for Sun Records] – a lot of people don’t know that he wrote some of the early Beatle songs, like Matchbox; he wrote Blue Suede Shoes – a lot of those early rock ‘n’roll standards were Carl Perkins songs. He was just doing a recording in the studio and Elvis walks in and Cash walks in; Jerry was the house pianist.

[The Million Dollar Quartet] is not a polished recording. There was a lot of fun, stopping and starting; which was kind of the nature of the day. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Sun Studio but when you think back to 1956 to this little studio that was not much bigger than your average milkbar, it’s very much a place where local musicians would have dropped in just to see what the other fellas were up to; not unlike a studio in Melbourne. History obviously tells a different story given the personnel we’re talking about here. Obviously, Sam Phillips, being the guy that he was, just hit record straight away.

We go through that and put it in time, but it’s also very much about the significance of Sun Records, and Sam Phillips. This guy was the first major visionary of rock ‘n’ roll and leaves an incredible legacy behind him.

There were 50-odd songs recorded in that session – a lot of material. Is the set list for The Ultimate Rock ‘n’ Roll Jam Session predetermined, or does it evolve?
We chop it up a little bit, but generally we get about fifteen songs in the show. We get the narrative, a little bit of ham acting [laughs]. It’s like a narrated concert.

The four of you didn’t allocate the singing parts of specific artists, though.
No, that’s very important. It’s not a tribute show. At all. None of us take on the role of Cash, or Elvis – none of us would dare think we could pull it off. We’re sharing a load of songs in the singing and the playing and it really is a jam between four unlikely guys. I mean, Blundell, Nick Barker and me playing along with Ezra Lee; it’s kind of something you’d look at – and we did – and think, no, that looks a bit weird. That’s why it works.

I’m sure you’re pulling out the big hits, your Blue Suede Shoes what have you, but what lesser known songs have proved to elicit a good crowd reaction?
The band we’ve got is very true to the period but it’s not over-contemporised or anything. But we do a lot of rock ‘n’ roll numbers like Matchbox, Brown Eyed Handsome Man, Hound Dog those sort of things you’d expect. But then stripped back versions of Long Black Veil, incredible versions of old gospel songs. There’s a whole lot of different stuff in there – I don’t wanna give too much away. The whole gamut and different dynamics of the artists… and it’s done really well ’cause apart from me the singers are really good.

And you’re having fun doing it?
Love it! It’s been fantastic. I mean, just playing the songs is enough for me. My band Gun Street Girls does a cover of Long Tall Sally, which also features in this show, ironically…That rips the diaphragm off the mic – bursts a few hearing aids. You know, one thing about these songs – I mean, even when Gun Street Girls plays anything of that era: blues rooted songs – it’s all back to the basics. That primal energy that comes out of those songs – the boogie, the everything – that’s what it’s all about. You can see why so many people went crazy for it at the time. It’s got just such a raw power to it and it’s so much fun to play. When any band’s getting too far up their own dates with their music you come back to the blues and play those songs and remember what it’s all about. And that’s what it’s like playing these shows. It’s all back to the source.

Rock ‘n’ roll has become so sanitised and so hi-fidelity-ised – that’s a word – the greatest thing about early rock ‘n’roll is that it was recorded on crap gear, on crap guitars and it was played on shitty stereos but it sounded unreal and that’s what people responded to. That was no channel of distortion between player and listener: it just is what it is.

I remember looking out [from stage] on the first couple of shows and seeing a group of young kids in their teens in the front row and thinking, “You guys are gonna hate this. This is not for you.” And of course they were the first ones up and dancing. It was really great. Just responding to the basic nuts and bolt of rock ‘n’roll.

I guess that’s why bands like AC/DC are so popular, why any sort of blues-rooted music does really well, like The Stones, because it’s all about the basics. The boogie, the groove, the rock ‘n’ roll, the backbeat, the guitars. That’s it. That’s all you need.

The Ultimate Rock ‘n’ Roll Jam Session tour:

Running until – Sunday 28th November -Twelfth Night Theatre, Brisbane
Wednesday 8th – Sunday 19th December – Comedy Theatre, Melbourne
Tuesday 15th – Sunday 27th February – Sydney Opera House