Sun Studio, Memphis

Sun Studio at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis is the room where rock and roll was born, or as close to a specific address as that claim can be taken seriously. Sam Phillips opened the Memphis Recording Service at this address in 1950, offering recording time to anyone who could pay for it, and 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 and distributed by accident.

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 by chance. All of this happened in a room with an egg carton ceiling that Phillips installed for acoustic control.

Sun Studio is still standing at 706 Union Avenue and has been operating as a museum and working recording studio since 1987. Tours run through the original studio space; musicians can book time in the same room. The building has been designated a National Historic Landmark. 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.