SONGS AND SCRIPTS AND DUNKING BISCUITS

On a mid-October day back in the mists of time, I stood alone in Sun Studios in Memphis.

A few weeks earlier, back home in England, I had caught a documentary about this very room, a high temple of rock history. The documentary was about a how a young, unknown Elvis Presley and his fledging band had toiled here in one long night in 1954 with studio owner and producer Sam Phillips to cut a ballad, to no avail.

Philips, frustrated and tired of the process, suggested a break. Elvis tried to loosen up, and began singing the Arthur Crudup song ‘That’s Alright’ a blues hit from 1947. The band joined in. They were just having fun.

What they were doing, was creating a moment of unbridled magic. They were lighting a flame that would result in the world of rock and roll catching fire. Thankfully Sam, back in the cramped recording booth, recognised it for what it may be, and flicked the recording button. In those few moments, the cultural phenomenon that was Elvis Presley, was born.

The documentary had inspired me to visit Graceland on my forthcoming, somewhat loosely planned trip across the US on Greyhound bus.

I’d wandered around Graceland like a voyeur, its rooms frozen in time from the moment he had collapsed in the bathroom upstairs, a bloated vessel of wrongly prescribed drugs.

Alone, I had strolled into the garden out back and in error, came upon his grave, next to his mother Gladys and brother Aaron, who died in childbirth. The eternal flame, that had stood above Elvis’s headstone, had been allowed to go out. This was my most defining memory from Graceland.

Later, on the other side of Elvis Presley Boulevard, at a mini-mall that sold a depressingly large amount of Elvis souvenirs for the curious, the passionate, and the slightly baffled, I got chatting to a guy called Gary. Gary told me he had just purchased Sun Studios, and asked me if I’d like to visit.

Would I ever.

As Gary gave me a lift back into the city on a pick-up truck, pointing out to me where Stax Studios had once stood, he told me how Sun had been a hairdressing salon for many years, the studio itself used as a storage room for hairdressing equipment.

I couldn’t help but think of The Cavern Club back in my home city of Liverpool, the very launchpad of The Beatles, that had been demolished by the short-sighted attitude of the local city council, only to be re-built years later yards from where it originally stood, when the cultural significance and potential tourist pull was finally recognised.

As Gary and I pulled up outside Sun Studio’s, looking exactly like it should, no longer a centre for blue-rinses and blow dry conversations, it was hard not to feel overwhelmed by the moment. Not a particular Elvis plan, I was still fully aware of its immeasurable musical heritage, as I walked into the reception area where Presley had stood many times, begging to get some studio time.

From the reception space we then stepped through a doorway into the studio itself. It was tiny. At one end was the recording booth where Philips used to sit, exactly as it was. The rest of the space was almost barren, save for a couple of retro guitars and an upright piano.

On the wall to my right stood a picture of Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee-Lewis, named as the Million Dollar Quartet who held an impromptu session there in the first few days of December 1956.

From the reception area the telephone rang. Gary excused himself, but before doing so flicked a tape machine.

From speakers on the wall came the recording session for ‘That’s Alright,’ the very same spontaneous performance I’d been transfixed by on the documentary week’s earlier, the performance that had happened pretty much where I was now standing.

Elvis’s young voice swirled around the room. His band members played along, partly in knowledge, partly on instinct. Sam Philips shouted out occasional encouragement or instruction. History was being created.

But no-one was physically there. No-one except me, soaking it up, living the most surreal few moments of my life.

And then those moments were gone. Elvis Presley had left the building.

The very next month U2 went in there to record their hit ‘Angel of Harlem,’ and the accompanying video, which shows the tiny space packed with one of the biggest bands on the planet.

By then I was home again. But every year, as the world commemorates the demise of the Rock ‘n Roll King, I recall the day we shared a few moments together at Sun Studios, Memphis, Tennessee.