Sun Studio Story Coming To Dubai's QE2

Above, Sun Studio in 2016. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

If it wasn't for a little storefront recording studio in Memphis, Tennessee, we probably would have rock 'n roll today.

The Sun Studio story cries out to be told and Dubai's QE2 is telling it.

According to The National:

If rock ‘n’ roll has a spiritual home, it’s at 706 Union ­Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee – the address of an unassuming, ­garage-sized recording studio where Jerry Lee Lewis ­conjured Great Balls of Fire, Carl Perkins polished his Blue Suede Shoes, Johnny Cash walked the line and Elvis Presley hopped on board the Mystery Train. 

Legend has it that rock’s fuse was lit one day in 1954, when a 19-year-old Presley spontaneously broke into a rendition of bluesman Arthur Crudup’s That’s All Right at the shoebox Sun Studio, and handed founder Sam Phillips a hit record. Within a year pop music would be changed forever – and Elvis would be the world’s first rock star. 

It’s surprising that the Sun ­­Records story was not ­serialised until 2017, by American television channel CMT. The tale of how a small, independent label created the ­latter-20th century’s ­greatest cultural movement appeared on the small screen but it deserves to be told more widely and on a grander stage. 

Dubai’s QE2 will provide that opportunity in this country, with Sun Records: Where Rock n’ Roll Was Born, an authorised ­musical tribute to the Sun Studio story, playing from Wednesday until Friday. “It’s enough to say that ­without Sam Phillips and Sun Records, there would not be rock ‘n’ roll,” says Pete Tobit, who ­produces the show.

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