December 4, 1955 saw an unexpected gathering at Sun Records in Memphis - Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash. It seems that the gathering happened by chance: Perkins came to record something of his own; Sam Phillips called the still unknown Jerry Lee Lewis in to play piano for Perkins; Elvis and his girlfriend dropped by just to say "hi"; Cash dropped in to listen to Perkins' session.
The guys started goofing around playing, and engineer Jack Clement realized that he would regret it later if he didn't press the "Record" button. 17 tracks of History were made, although the record wasn't released until 1981, 25 years later. Elvis was long dead and Cash had a contract with Columbia; Columbia sold the rights to these tracks for $100,000 and the record was pressed.
Wow!
ReplyDeleteThat's great!
ReplyDeleteI can just bet that the guy who found those demos was a hero in the studio for a long ass time.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in west Michigan, and we had a few recording studios in Grand Rapids, and I did a few things for them much later, but not as a kid. I just did it to say I did. But it is a solid gig for a family guy. And you can make good money, but you have to be good, and be ready for what they are looking for.
I had never heard of this. Great that the sound engineer had a shot of common sense.
ReplyDelete