Memphis Recording Service

Now 75 and better known as Sun Studio, here's a look at rock and roll's foundation

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“We Record Anything, Anywhere, Anytime.”

That was Sam Phillips’ calling card when he opened the Memphis Recording Service Studio on January 7, 1950, one day before his most famous client turned 15. Three years later, Elvis Presley, by then out of high school and working to become an electrician, stopped by and plopped down a whopping $3.98 to record two ballads.

When Elvis walked through that door in 1953, Phillips had already recorded what is debatably the first rock and roll record — 1951’s “Rocket 88” by Jackie Brenston & His Delta Cats, with an uncredited assist from Ike Turner. He also had started a record label — Sun Records — and had renamed the studio after it.

Initially, Phillips’ label focused primarily on Black musicians such as Howlin’ Wolf and B.B. King, both of whom cut their debut singles at Sun. But Phillips, whose story later would be told in a Broadway musical — the often fictionalized “Million Dollar Baby” — also was a showman, an eccentric, and, ultimately, a businessman. To pay the mortgage, he lived up to his initial motto, recording weddings, parties, funerals and anyone who wanted to plop down a few bucks for a double-sided acetate.

Famously, Phillips was not in the studio on the day that Elvis cut “My Happiness” and “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin” as a present for his mother, but bookkeeper Marian Keisker took note of Presley’s unique style and mentioned it to him. A year later, Phillips recorded Elvis’ debut single “That’s All Right” and the music world, unknowingly, was about to change.

Phillips sold Presley’s contract to RCA in late 1955, in part to raise the capital to support the other rockabilly artists who had been signed to Sun’s roster. In a heady period from 1955 to 1960, he produced records by Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis; when Presley stopped by the studio in late 1956 and started playing with the trio, Phillips pressed record and captured a rough but riveting “Million Dollar Quartet.”

In 1960, Phillips opened a larger recording studio, then sold the Sun label in 1969. He died in 2003, and his life story is told by Peter Guralnick in the 2015 biography, Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Today, the original studio at 706 Union Street is a National Historic Landmark. It reopened in 1987 for tours and is connected to an adjoining two-story space with souvenirs and exhibits that talk about Sun’s history. Recordings still are made in the original space, which still has the same acoustic tiles on the walls and a ceiling with waves and grooves. When you take a tour, you can hold a vintage microphone and stand on a taped X where Presley and others have recorded two- and three-minute pieces of history.