Million Dollar Quartet is the name given to recordings made on Tuesday December 4, 1956 in the Sun Record Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. The recordings were of an impromptu jam session among Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash.
This thorough account of the session includes:
- The events of the session. Very few participants survive.
- Includes interviews with the drummer and the sound engineer.
- A detailed analysis of the music played - and its relevance to subsequent popular music.
- The early lives and careers of the quartet - where they were in 1956.
- Relevant social and economic factors which meant that a massive audience of young people were keenly looking for a new kind of music they could call their own.
- The "reunions" of surviving members of the quartet.
- The emergence of the tapes, first on bootleg and then on legitimate CDs.
- The genesis of the stage show and its reception - the enduring appeal of the music.