The Million Dollar Quartet 50th Anniversary Special Edition (2-CD)

(Charly) 41 tracks 1956 plus bonus CD (32 original Sun recordings)

Original promo text:

Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash’s legendary session at the Sun Studios. This 2CD set also features solo highlights from all four members.

This year marks the 50th Anniversary of a one-off meeting of rock ‘n’ roll giants at Sun Studios on December 4th 1956. The recordings made on that day by the so-called Million Dollar Quartet really do have legendary status.

Carl Perkins was completing a recording session at which Jerry Lee Lewis had been playing piano for him when Elvis Presley dropped by to visit his old friends at Sun, where he had made his first seminal recordings a couple of years earlier. The scene was set for an extraordinary, impromptu jam session which was fortunately recorded for posterity by Sam Phillips.

Supported by Carl Perkins’ band, Elvis, Carl and Jerry spontaneously run through a mixture of popular songs of the day, country favourites as well as old country-gospel tunes which so influenced the trio.

Johnny Cash’s actual involvement in the surviving tracks featured has for many years been a matter of conjecture. Although his voice does not seem to appear on any of the surviving tracks, several reliable authorities, including Cash himself in his autobiography, have stated that he was definitely present and performed on several songs.

The music we hear is a mixture of snippets of songs, passages of dialogue as well as several complete or near-complete songs. In one particularly fascinating segment, Elvis talks about and sings three of his own then – current songs, ‘Don’t Be Cruel’, ‘Paralysed’ and ‘That’s Where Your Heartaches Begin’.

Disc One of this special anniversary double set includes all the performances by the Quartet which have been found to date. Although other songs are known to have been performed on the day, they have not been found and are now presumably lost forever.

Disc 2 of this unique set features eight specially chosen solo titles from each of the Quartet members.