Sun Studios in Memphis TN is the supposed birthplace of Elvis Presley career and there are hundreds of people willing to tell you all about it. What I can tell you about is the feeling in there. A Memphis based band called ‘Good Question’ would rehearse there and I had the great honor of hanging at Sun. Its a rather nondescript place with a back alley door to the studio and a sound board that’s hmm pretty darn small. Back in 1988/89 I believe, it wasn’t revamped or cleaned up at all. Van Duren and his band would fire up amazing sounds in that room, its been a long time. Wonder how the boys are now.
What I recall most about the place aside from the fact that it was so small was how unpreserved or unprotected it was. I mean Elvis Presley recorded here.. what the hell? Shouldn’t there be velvet rope or security or something? But no. Just a room with a couple pictures on the walls and that cheesy sort of almost paneling painted white, plexi glass around the mixing board.
Not at all what you’d expect.
I wish I had taken a formal tour of the place, I was way too cool to do that. Not a tourist ya know.
But I recall so clearly almost feeling as if I were intruding. The great thing about Memphis is the deep musical soul that oozes from the pavement.
But Sun? Sun was far too sacred for someone like me to be trudging through, that’s for sure. But that’s how it was treated and hopefully still is. Not as a tourist attraction but as a real live recording studio. There was more memorabilia and kitsch stuff at the Sun Studio Cafe, but he studio was kept rather bland.
But sitting on the floor back then I couldn’t help but feel almost as if I were trespassing.
My hope is to go back soon, perhaps this summer. Memphis is an amazing place. Graceland is a nightmare but a part of Americana I suppose, as is the Graceland Car Wash on Elvis Presley Boulevard. Wonder if its still there or renamed. As an Elvis fan the Sun Sessions rule, the out takes the sound quality all come together to create an experience of almost being there. Elvis sounds so young.. but he was. And say what you will about the cape wearing fried banana eating caricature, he still kicked ass. Sitting in that room no surrounded by raw wires and amps, its hard to think what greatness began in such humble surroundings.
Greatest single ever released