Sun Studio

Sam Phillips opened the Memphis Recording Service at 706 Union Avenue in January 1950, offering recording services to anyone who wanted to make a record. He began licensing recordings to Chess Records in Chicago — early sessions with Howlin' Wolf, B.B. King, Ike Turner, and others established his ear and his philosophy. When he founded Sun Records in 1952 and began releasing records himself, the studio produced Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, and Charlie Rich in a burst of creativity that lasted less than a decade and changed popular music permanently.

In July 1954 an eighteen-year-old Elvis Presley returned for a session with guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black that produced "That's All Right" — the record that is as close to a founding document of rock and roll as the form has. It was recorded in a room the size of a large living room, with an egg carton ceiling that Phillips installed for acoustic control.

The Sun catalogue is one of the most astonishing accumulations in American recording history: Elvis's first five singles, Johnny Cash's first recordings, Jerry Lee Lewis's "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" and "Great Balls of Fire," Roy Orbison's earliest work, Carl Perkins's "Blue Suede Shoes," and the extraordinary bootleg known as the Million Dollar Quartet — an informal session from December 1956 in which Elvis, Cash, Lewis, and Perkins played together in the studio after running into each other. All of this happened in a room with an egg carton ceiling.

Sun Studio at 706 Union Avenue still operates as a recording facility and museum. It has been designated a National Historic Landmark. Guided tours run throughout the day, covering the original equipment, the room acoustics, and the extraordinary history of the building. Musicians can book time in the same room. Artists including U2, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr have recorded there in tribute to its legacy. Standing in the original studio, looking at the microphone positioned where Elvis stood, the egg carton ceiling overhead, is one of the most direct encounters available with the specific moment American popular music changed permanently.