Current Reading - June 2022

I finished Good Rockin' Tonight: Sun Records and the Birth of Rock 'n' Roll by Colin Escott with Martin Hawkins. This is a fun, briskly written history of one of the seminal record labels in American popular music and it's founder and driving force, Sam Phillips. Phillips, in his relatively primitive Memphis recording studio, had an ear for unique, forceful--even raw--singers and musicians. His genius was that what he wanted to do was not to make these musicians fit popular molds, but instead to highlight each musicians raw qualities, to enhance the elements that made them stand out. Rather than smooth over the rough edges, Phillips wanted to make that roughness stand out in sharp relief, and he was skilled at getting the best of these musicians in the studio. He would listen to anybody, always hoping to find a diamond in the rough. In this manner, Phillips, through his famed record label, Sun, first brought to national prominence such stars as Howlin' Wolf, B.B. King, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and, most famously, Elvis Presley. None of them stayed very long with Phillips and Sun--his inability to promote more than one or two musicians at a time saw to that, as did the larger contracts that national record labels could offer once a musician's initial contract with Sun had run its course. But many of these musicians made their best and most enduring music in their early recordings with Phillips.

In the course of relating the rise and fall of Sun (though not Phillips, who went on to do just fine for himself in a slew of endeavors after his recording and promoting days were over), the authors also give us a revealing snapshot of the inner working of the popular music industry in America during the mid-1950s through mid-60s. In addition, there are fascinating thumbnail biographies of many of the most famous (and also the lesser known) musicians who came recorded for Sun to lesser or greater ultimate success. Also, the curtain is lifted on the creative recording process of these musicians, as Phillips and his musicians moved from blues and R&B, through country music, into the earliest days of rock and roll, and pop music as well. The book was published in 1990, and many of the musicians, technicians, promoters and producers who worked with Phillips were still around to be interviewed, as was Phillips himself. (He passed away in 2003 at the age of 80.) The authors seem to have done plenty of interviewing, in fact, and they also quote from the work of other music writers to round out their accounts. This is not the most in depth account one might read, I guess, though on the other hand, I don't know if there are any others. At any rate, it is a fun book for anyone interested in the topic.