Price: £6.99
Format: CD
Artist: The Million Dollar Quartet
CatNo: SNAP026CD
Tags (click for related products):
Million Dollar Quartet Elvis Presley Carl Perkins Johnny Cash
'The friendly face-off between the King and the killer is still phenomenal. It's like eavesdropping on the jam session of the Gods - Perkins' guitar-picking is divine, while Elvis and Jerry Lee bust a lung trying to out-earnest one another on the mostly gospel repertoire.' -  Record Collector
 
These recordings from a meeting of rock'n'roll giants at Sun Studios on December 4th 1956 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.
 
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'.
 
A limited number of those tracks were first released by Charly in 1980 and these were followed in 1988 with this 40 track, 67 minute collection which includes every available track from the session.
 
The accompanying 12-page illustrated booklet by noted Sun authority Martin Hawkins documents the fascinating story behind these truly unique recordings.
 
1. You Belong To My Heart
2. When God Dips His Love In My Heart
3. Just A Little Talk With Jesus
4. Walk That Lonesome Valley
5. I Shall Not Be Moved
6. (There'll Be) peace In The Valley (For Me)
7. Down By The Riverside
8. I'm In The Crowd But Oh So Alone
9. Farther Along
10. Blessed Jesus, Hold My Hand
11. As We Travel Along On The Jericho Road
12. I Just Can't Make It By Myself
13. Little Cabin On The Hill
14. Summertime Has passed And Gone
15. I Hear A Sweet Voice Calling
16. Sweetheart, You Done Me Wrong
17. Keeper Of The Key
18. Crazy Arms
19. Don't Forbid Me
20. Brown Eyed Handsome Man
21. Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind
22. Brown Eyed Handsome Man
23. Don't Be Cruel
24. Don't Be Cruel
25. Paralysed
26. Don't Be Cruel
27. There's No place Like Home
28. When The Saints Go Marching In
29. Softly And Tenderly
30. Is It So Strange
31. That's When Your Heartaches Begin
32. Brown Eyed Handsome Man
33. Rip It up
34. I'm Gonna Bid My Blues Goodbye
35. Crazy Arms
36. That's My Desire
37. At The End Of The Road
38. Jerry's Boogie
39. You're The Only Star In My Blue Heaven
40. Elvis Farewell