Last Thoughts On Little Richard, 1932-2020.

Little Richard is dead.

Long live Little Richard.

Until he died earlier today, Little Richard was arguably the most influential living rock & roll artist. He counted Elvis Presley, James Brown, Buddy Holly, Sam Cooke, The Beatles, & Otis Redding not only as contemporaries, but as disciples.

He was the self-proclaimed Architect Of Rock & Roll, & was making the music before virtually every other rock & roll pioneer, with the exception of the late Fats Domino. Perhaps no one captured the implications of Little Richard better than Lillian Roxon in her landmark Rock Encyclopedia in 1969:

His pompadour was high & his hip action wicked when Elvis was still a pimply kid mowing lawns in Memphis. He was the model for 99 percent of the screaming, jet-propelled pelvic freakouts of the post-Elvis early rock era, down to the shiny suits, lurid showmanship & acrobatic piano-playing...Once you have seen Little Richard it is very difficult to take any other rocker seriously. He did it all first.

He also did it among the very best.

For just over 2 years--September 13, 1955 to October 18, 1957--Little Richard recorded a catalog of songs for Specialty Records that rival Elvis's pre-Army sessions, The Beatles' psychedelic era, & Bob Dylan's initial electric albums as some of the most consistently excellent rock & roll  ever recorded. Virtually every song was a hit, classic, or standard (or at least should have been). "Tutti-frutti." "Long Tall Sally." "Slippin' & Slidin'." "Rip It Up." "Ready Teddy." "The Girl Can't Help It." "Lucille." "Send Me Some Lovin'." "Jenny, Jenny." "Miss Ann." "Keep A-Knockin." "Good Golly, Miss Molly." & those are just the songs that made the pop charts.

This is remarkable for anyone, let alone a very wild & flamboyant gay African-American man from the Deep South in the mid-1950s. The fact that "Tutti-Frutti" was originally a celebration of anal sex ("Tutti-frutti, good booty!" went the original lyric), was lost on the many who covered it, including Pat Boone, whose tepid white-bread version of the song scored the bigger hit among pop (read: white) audiences. At the time, this incensed Little Richard to no end, but he came around in later years. He once explained how, for many white kids, while it was Pat Boone's version of "Tutti Frutti" that lay on the teenager's nightstand, it was his version that was secretly tucked away in the drawer underneath. That got him in the room, he acknowledged.

With his hits covered by every white rocker worth their weight in sweat--Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, The Everly Brothers, Bill Haley, Eddie Cochran, & Gene Vincent--& a hereto-unknown generation cutting their teeth on his music on the other side of the Atlantic--The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, & The Kinks--Little Richard was a legend even if he stopped making music right then & there.

Which he sort of did.

Suspended several miles above the ground in an airplane that nearly went down, Little Richard promised God that he would turn to the Church if the plane could land safely. Little Richard kept his promise, which, along with the fact that Elvis was in the Army, Chuck Berry was in jail, Jerry Lee Lewis was disgraced in scandal, & Buddy Holly was dead, helped bring the first great rock & roll era to a crashing close as quickly as it had appeared.

But of course, Little Richard's soul was too conflicted to stay in one place too long. For much of the rest of his career, he remained torn between the rock of blues & the rock of the Church, all the while serving as a reminder--along with such peers as Ray Charles & Aretha Franklin--that African-American gospel music is largely the same thing as rock & roll, only played on Saturday night instead of Sunday morning. 

So, he recorded gospel records, he tried his hand at new rock recordings, & re-recorded inferior versions of his Specialty hits time & time again.

But the die was cast & Little Richard was the rare legend who touched so many other legends.

Paul McCartney learned how to sing by copying him.

Bob Dylan wrote in his high school yearbook that his ambition was join Little Richard's band.

Jimi Hendrix actually did join Little Richard's backing band & it was his big break into the music industry.

The Kinks' first single was a cover of "Long Tall Sally."

Otis Redding began his career directly lifting his style.

The Band liked to do "Slippin' & Slidin'" as a searing encore.

Rock's first great history, Nik Cohn's Rock--From The Beginning, was retitled Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock & Roll.

Rock's first great cultural study, Greil Marcus's Mystery Train, opened with Little Richard exploding in mad fury on a late-night talk show.

& Little Richard became something of a latter-day pop culture icon, appearing in those Nike commercials with Spike Lee & Bo Jackson, rapping on Living Colour's "Elvis Is Dead," & singing "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" on Full House.

He's done the awards laps. His landmark 1957 debut album, Here's Little Richard, is the first (& so far ONLY) '50s rock album inducted in the Grammy Hall Of Fame & he won an honorary Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1993.

In 1997, he received the American Music Award of Merit.

In 1994, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rhythm & Blues Foundation.

In 1990, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

& in 1986, he was one of the first ten musical inductees into The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, along with Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, & Elvis Presley. There has literally never been a better class ever inducted.

& now, after the passing of Chuck Berry & Fats Domino in 2017, Little Richard was one of the last remaining members of that first class. Now all that's left is Don Everly of The Every Brothers, & Jerry Lee Lewis.

Which means that Jerry Lee Lewis is one man closer to being The Last Man Standing.

"It is with a heavy heart that I ask for prayers for the family of my lifelong friend & fellow Rocker 'Little Richard,'" The Killer told Rolling Stone today. "He will live on always in my heart with his amazing talent & his friendship! He was one of a kind & I will miss him dearly."

Other accolades are already pouring in about Little Richard that are as magnificent as the man himself.

Bob Dylan: "His was the original spirit that moved me to do everything that I would do."

Mick Jagger: "He was the biggest inspiration of my early teens & his music still has the same raw electric energy when you play it now as it did when it first shot through the music scene in the mid 50's.

Brian Wilson: "He was there at the beginning & showed us all how to rock & roll."

There are many more & there will be many more echoing this sentiment.

But for me, Little Richard comes down to one distinctive sound that is now so ripped off, it's amazing to think it was ever someone's signature vocal lick. Because no one could hit a thrilling "ooooo" like Little Richard. Straight from the Church, he drove it into the rock & rhythm & blues, a falsetto wail of a cry that captured the crazy guts & glory of rock & roll like few other sounds.

When Little Richard sang "ooooo," it lit a flame in the ear of his millions of fans.

& that flame will never go out.

The Top 10 Greatest Chuck Berry Covers.

As I wrote in my Last Thoughts On Chuck Berry, Chuck Berry's songbook is the rock & roll songbook. Only Bob Dylan is more covered than he is, but with 10 years on him, Chuck Berry's covers have the wider scope.

While I'm now listening to a lot of Chuck Berry, & a greatest list of his own best recordings is to come, I thought there was no finer tribute to his life & influence than the ways in which others have breathed life into his art. Hence this list, which attempts to fight through the countless Chuck Berry covers out there to make a definitive Top 10 list.

I tried to go by the quality of the recording (or in the case of The Sex Pistols, lack thereof), not who was doing it. I was very tempted by Bob Dylan's version of "Nadine," David Bowie's version of "Round & Round," & Jerry Lee Lewis's "Little Queenie," but ultimately left them all off because it would have been more about including those artists on the list, as opposed to their versions of Chuck Berry's songs.

Some of these songs were major career-defining hits, others were shelved outtakes or rough demos; some appeared at the dawn of an artist's career, others in the twilight. What they all have in common is a love for Chuck Berry--which is to say, a love for rock & roll itself.

10. The Sex Pistols: "Johnny B. Goode," Demo, c. 1975.

By the time The Sex Pistols emerged in the mid-'70s, the once-raw genre of rock & roll that Chuck Berry helped usher into the world had become lifeless & bloated. The Pistols helped to rebuild the genre by tearing it down to its studs, & here in a classic early demo later released on The Great Rock & Roll Swindle soundtrack, they take on Rock Version 1.0, wherein they attempt to play "Johnny B. Goode," the greatest rock song of all. SPOILER: THEY CAN'T. But if they sound like a bunch of no-talent snotty kids banging around in the garage that's the point. & even though they had yet to release their first single, singer Johnny Rotten's venom is already fully-intact, bluffing his way through the words like they were caustic nails. It was this same hellfire that helped to reignite rock for the next 35 years & counting.

9. The Band: "Back To Memphis," Studio Outtake, 1973.

As if anyone needed evidence of the range of Chuck Berry's appeal, look no further to one of the least-talented rock bands (above), followed by one of the most-talented ones here. Initially recorded for their 1973 album of classic rock covers, Moondog Matinee, this Berry super deep-cut was shelved in favor of a solid-but-unremarkable version "Promised Land." By the late 1980s, however, the reissue powers-that-be were reissuing this song on Band compilations everywhere, after dubbing in fake crowd fanfare to pass it off as a live performance. Here is the undoubted original studio recording, which shows why no one questioned the authenticity of the fanfare--it's the rare Band studio recordings that capture their contagious onstage energy.

8. Johnny Rivers: "Memphis," At The Whiskey A Go Go, 1964; #2 US.

This could be a sequel to "Back To Memphis" if it wasn't recorded nearly a decade earlier. It is also probably the most classic Chuck Berry song that no one realized was originally a Chuck Berry song. A down-home country ballad of a man pleading with a long-distance operator, it was remade into a minor rock classic with Johnny Rivers' live version here (it also interestingly inverts The Band's recording above in that instead of featuring a fake crowd on a studio recording, this is a real live recording that sounds like a fake one). & for those wondering how Johnny Rivers made a list with greater rock idols, perhaps he is a secret weapon of rock covers--when pressed for his favorite cover of one of his songs, Bob Dylan famously said Johnny Rivers version of "Positively 4th Street." So maybe his presence here isn't so strange after all.

7. The Beatles: "Roll Over Beethoven," With The Beatles, 1963; #68 US.

To modern ears, Chuck Berry's original versions can sometimes drag a bit, even when the singing & playing are top-notch ("Johnny B. Goode," of course, is an exception to this). Often, when you name a classic like "Roll Over Beethoven," people are actually thinking of The Beatles cover of it, not because it is necessarily better, but simply tighter, faster, & more modern. In one of George Harrison's earliest vocals, he tries his hand at this classic & announces the arrival of a second generation of rock & rollers. Within a few years, albums like Revolver & Sgt. Pepper would be hailed as artistic achievements that actually would rival Beethoven in a very real way. But here, they're still having fun in a track that was strong enough to kick off their second American album & even be a minor hit on this side of the pond.

WARNING: THIS IS NOT THE ORIGINAL STUDIO VERSION OF THE SONG, BUT THE LIVE BBC VERSION. IT IS VERY CLOSE TO THE ORIGINAL, BUT THE ORIGINAL VERSION SHOULD BE SOUGHT OUT. IT IS BEST HEARD ON WITH THE BEATLES OR ON THE OLD 1970s DOUBLE-LP BEATLES COMPILATION ROCK & ROLL MUSIC.

6. The Rolling Stones: "Bye Bye Johnny," The Rolling Stones [EP], 1964.

It's not easy picking an early Rolling Stones cover of a Chuck Berry song; there were simply so many. "Carol" was strong enough to be released as a Top 10 hit in France, while "Around & Around" was a fine tribute recorded at Berry's own Chess Records. But their cover of Berry's little-known sequel record to "Johnny B. Goode" is the best to my ears, released on their first EP in 1963. It documents The Stones as raw & hungry, at once near-amateurish compared to the production values of their rival Beatles, yet able to provide a dense onslaught of sound that already full of toughness & swagger. Plus, lead guitarist Keith Richards already establishes himself as Berry's spiritual eager kid brother. They would record bigger & more popular Berry covers in the years to come, but the sheer sound of this one leaves the others in the dust.


5. The Yardbirds: "Too Much Monkey Business," Five Live Yardbirds, 1964.

Long before the likes of Cream, Derek & The Dominoes, & a sprawling solo career, Eric Clapton was a scrawny guitar hero in The Yardbirds. He was nicknamed "Slowhand" because he played his guitar so fast that he'd break strings & have to change them to the sound of a slow handclap; within months, "Clapton is God" graffiti began appearing in the London subway halls (much to Clapton's embarrassment). Before he left The Yardbirds for more greener (or rather, blues-ier) pastures, he left this searing document, taken from their sets at the Marquee Club. This song was their opener & they all but blow the roof off the top of it in the performance. While everything revolves around Clapton, I'm always most tickled by Keith Relf's vocals, solidly singing the words in verse, shouting them in another, & then dutifully reciting them in a detached sense of boredom that cuts to the teenage blues at the heart of the song. Before getting obliterated once again by those guitar solos.


4. The Million Dollar Quartet: "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man," Studio Jam, 1956.

Long before the likes of Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry was rock & roll's premiere wordsmith. Compared to contemporaries like Elvis or Fats Domino, Berry's songs were epics where the others' were merely three-stanza poems. Berry was a man who truly loved words & putting them together in memorable ways. One realizes this when listening to the famous Million Dollar Quartet jam session where Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, & Johnny Cash turned to Berry's "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man." For several takes, you can hear them collectively honing in on the song, different people remembering different parts of different verses, until it all comes together here. If one needs any further evidence of strongly Berry was on the rock founders' minds, look no further than the fact that aside from "Don't Be Cruel," this is the only rock song sung by The Million Dollar Quartet for the nearly 80-minute session.

3. Buddy Holly: "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man," Reminiscing, c. 1956; #113 US, #3 UK.

An opposite take on "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man" by no less of a founding rock god. Precise where The Million Dollar Quartet was loose, & rocking where they were almost folksy, Buddy Holly's version of the song reshapes it into a driving rockabilly masterpiece (with a seeming tip of the hat to The Champs' "Tequila," although Berry himself loved a good Latin groove as well). & when the snare drum hits to emulate the high-fly being hit into the stands, it is a subtle use of sound effects that presages songs like "Penny Lane" by a decade. Although not originally released during Holly's lifetime, it saw the light of day just before The Beatles invaded America, even making the Top 5 in the Holly-loving UK.


2. Elvis Presley: "Promised Land," Promised Land, 1974; #14 US.

Elvis's last truly classic recording was also his first great cover of a Chuck Berry song. He had tried in overeager readings of "Maybellene" at the Louisiana Hayride & later in listless recitations of "Johnny B. Goode" in Las Vegas, but only his mid-'60s country take on "Too Much Monkey Business" was close to interesting, & only then because it was the only Elvis recording to feature the word "Vietnam." But in 1974, Elvis showed he still had something left to prove when he attacked Berry's "Promised Land." Perhaps it was because the song contained an idea as big as Elvis--THE Promised Land--that he was up for the challenge, but its rock star travelogue version of The American Dream never sounded better than in Elvis's telling. Cut at Stax Records, it provided Elvis with the last Top 15 pop hit of his lifetime, although it deserved to go all the way to #1.


1. The Beatles: "Rock & Roll Music," The Beatles For Sale, 1964.

The Beatles' cover of Chuck Berry's "Rock & Roll Music" is easily the greatest Berry cover of all time. It encompasses all of the key elements that can be found in the other songs listed above--a sense of rawness, of quality, of reinvention, of tightness, of fun, & of simple, irreverent joy. Like they already had with "Roll Over Beethoven" the year before, The Beatles took Chuck Berry's original & tightened it up, locking it together in a way that the original version merely suggested. The words were never the problem in Berry's original--it was that the music never matched their promise. The Beatles fixed all of that. With Lennon shouting his finest vocal this side of "Twist & Shout," the group shows that even in the wistful, post-A Hard Day's Night period of late 1964, they could still rock out with the best of them.

& in doing so, more than hold their own against none other than their idol, Chuck Berry.

WARNING: THIS IS NOT THE ORIGINAL STUDIO VERSION OF THE SONG BUT A CRAPPY LIVE VERSION. (THANKS, BEATLE LAWYERS!) THE ORIGINAL VERSION MUST BE SOUGHT OUT. IT IS BEST HEARD ON THE ORIGINAL BEATLES FOR SALE LP OR THE OLD 1970s DOUBLE-LP BEATLES COMPILATION ROCK & ROLL MUSIC THAT BARES ITS NAME.

Last Thoughts On Chuck Berry, 1926-2017.

Years ago, I once read that Chuck Berry is the rock upon which rock & roll rests; to this day, I cannot think of a better way to put his influence.

Only The Beatles, Elvis, Dylan, & The Rolling Stones can rival him in influence, & of those 4, only Elvis is conceivable without him.

Simply put, Chuck Berry is rock & roll.

The depth, range, & influence of artists who have covered him is staggering: The Beatles, Elvis, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, The Sex Pistols, Jerry Lee Lewis, David Bowie, The Animals, The Kinks, The Band--& that's just off the top of my head & only counting songs that were officially released on official albums. Throw in live recordings, jam sessions, & bootlegs, & you'd have basically everyone ever.

His music is the blood that flows through the veins of rock & roll; take it away, & the history of the music dies.

The Beatles cut their teeth on his records. They paid credit both directly, with blistering covers of "Roll Over Beethoven" & "Rock & Roll Music," but also indirectly, when Lennon lifted the "Here come ol' flat top, he come groovin' up slowly" from Berry's "You Can't Catch Me" to begin his classic "Come Together." Lennon could be forgiven though; it was simply proof that by 1969, Chuck Berry was simply rock's second mind.

The Rolling Stones' first single was a cover of Berry's "Come On," while one of their early standout covers was "Carol." They also went to Chess Records, the temple where Chuck recorded, & laid down a great version of "Around & Around," which was also covered by The Animals that same year. (David Bowie cut a version of the same song seven years later; it was originally slated to go on the Ziggy Stardust album.) Did I write that Chuck Berry was rock's second mind by 1969? I take that back. By 1965, Mick Jagger took the line "I can't get no satisfaction from the judge" from Berry's "Thirty Days" & wrote what many consider to be rock's definitive anthem.

Those people are wrong, though. Rock's definitive anthem came seven years earlier when Chuck Berry released "Johnny B. Goode."

From the blazing guitar intro through the lyrics and the solo, no one could ever beat it, not even Chuck himself. It was the story of the American Dream told through the eyes of a young guitarist, highlighted by those two-note driving solos that Berry used build rock guitar's (which is to say, rock's) basic vocabulary. Any time you hear someone blasting out those double-note riffs, they are reaching for Chuck Berry's performance in "Johnny B. Goode."

Yet that said, "Johnny B. Goode" was not surprisingly the toughest Chuck Berry song to cover. Both The Beatles & Elvis made passes on it in live performances, but neither could come close. To best illustrate the point, listen to The Sex Pistols set it aflame in an early demo where they can't play it & Johnny Rotten doesn't know the words. They end up shouting "Go! Go! Go!" because it's all they can do. It's a pathetic mess, but in its own raw way, it blows away those versions by The Beatles & Elvis.

Elvis couldn't do a Chuck Berry song justice until he tackled "Promised Land" in 1975, & it was his last truly classic recording. Berry had written it in jail some fifteen years earlier & like "Johnny B. Goode" before it, it too told a version of the American Dream, only this time from East Coast to West, &, as Greil Marcus pointed out when he called it the greatest American song of all time (as in, song about America), rags to riches. It's like one big musical montage that ends with a phone call to the folks back home where it all began.

When Elvis had the famous Million Dollar Quartet jam session with Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, & Johnny Cash, Chuck Berry was virtually the only rock on the menu that wasn't someone already in the room. The majority of the session leaned on gospel, country, & blues, but there was a hilarious stretch where they try to remember the words to "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man" & piece it together in a gesture of love & admiration, with Elvis strumming away frantically on the acoustic guitar. Once they finally get it, Carl goes into a story about coming off of tour with Chuck Berry.

Chuck Berry touring was an interesting thing by the 1980s, where Berry would show up to a club with his guitar in hand, get his money, then go onstage & play with whatever band was there. Every band knows his songs, he rationalized, because his songs are the rock & roll songbook. A young Bruce Springsteen was in one of these bands in the 1970s; twenty years later, he would back Berry at the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Concert in 1995. In the years in between, he released a live version of "Run, Run Rudolph," proving even Berry's Christmas songs were nothing to be ignored.

& then there are the Chuck Berry songs that lead to other songs. Brian Wilson so clearly lifted Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen" for The Beach Boys' 1963 breakthrough "Surfin' U.S.A." that Wilson eventually had to give him a co-authorship credit; years earlier, rhythm & blues singer Richard Berry (no relation) used the pidgin English of Chuck's "Havana Moon" as a main inspiration for "Louie, Louie," later immortalized by The Kingsmen in a song that all but invented punk rock.

& then there is the popular memory. Back To The Future (Marty McFly playing "Johnny B. Goode" while the film's greatest line is spoken: "Hey Chuck, this is your cousin Marvin, Marvin Berry! You know that new sound you've been looking for? Well listen to THIS!") & Pulp Fiction (the twist dance contest scene, set to "You Never Can Tell") put Chuck Berry into motion picture history in a way that even his own Hail, Hail Rock & Roll documentary could not. When John Lennon & Yoko Ono cohosted The Mike Douglas Show in the 1970s, they jumped at the chance to have Chuck Berry on, & then jumped at the chance to play with him on stage (it serves as a reminder that for everything that Lennon's presence supposedly represented about the counterculture, he was still most wowed by '50s rock & roll). & when NASA shot a rocket into space representing human culture, Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" was among its artifacts. Saturday Night Live famously quipped that the first response from alien life has been received & it is: "Send more Chuck Berry."

& as some like to tell it, Chuck Berry's 1955 first hit single, "Maybellene," was the first rock & roll record of them all.

The one & only time I ever saw Chuck Berry was 50 years to the day after "Maybellene" was released, in August of 2005, at the nightclub he owned in St. Louis, Blueberry Hill, which oddly named after a Fats Domino song. Even odder was that, after much fanfare about this being the 50th anniversary of "Maybellene," he didn't even play the song. My sister & I had gotten there early, stood in line for a few hours, & sat in the front row. Even though he was in his 80s, he came out like a king & was rock royalty in a way I have only ever seen in person from his contemporaries like Jerry Lee Lewis & B.B. King--those pre-television legends who could really hold a stage.

With his son leading the band, Berry played 10 songs in 60 minutes, 9 of his classics & one Jimmy Reed cover. He was spry, sprightly, having fun, & basking in the glow, & during "Johnny B. Goode," he even duckwalked, to my astonishment. He closed with "Reelin' & Rockin'," never one of my favorites at that time, but a favorite ever since. His band shrewdly pulled up girls onstage to dance (of which my sister was thrilled to be among the first, invited up by none other than Chuck Berry, Jr.), which allowed him to sneak out the back behind the wall of dancing girls. It was the rock & roll equivalent of disappearing in a cloud of smoke.

Now Chuck Berry is truly gone. It may be cliche, but it seems like there is nowhere else to end but with the final verse of "School Day," yet another song that, like so many others, is so vital to rock's repertoire but escaped my stream-of-conscious words above.

As the man said:

Hail, hail rock & roll

Deliver me from the days of old

Long live rock & roll

The beat of the drums, loud & bold

Rock, rock, rock & roll

The feeling is there, body & soul

Chuck Berry is dead. Long live Chuck Berry.

The Band: King Harvest.

Ever since Donald J. Trump was elected President, part of me has been numb. I joked on my Twitter feed that I was going through the stages of Trump grief--denial, anger, depression, acceptance--but in truth, I have yet to get past denial. His election represents an America I do not know, an America that I can only fear from a distance.

I need an America that I could hold close, a refuge, a place that felt like home, an America I could crawl into. Punk rock was too harsh and the best of the political stuff was British. Bob Dylan was too omnipresent in my life, he was more like a constant than a place to which I could retreat. Elvis was too big; bands of people I knew personally were too small. So I went to the most American place I knew in rock music: The Band's self-titled second album. I have long considered it "The Great American Novel" of rock and roll.

I've been listening to The Band ever since. Technically, they are only 1/5th American--drummer Levon Helm is from Arkansas, while guitarist Robbie Robertson, bassist Rick Danko, pianist Richard Manuel, and organist Garth Hudson are all from The Great White North--but it doesn't matter; more than any other band, The Band has been able to define that quintessentially American sound, that quintessentially American idea, better than anyone else this side of Bob Dylan, who was their early collaborator and, one imagines, American spiritual mentor.

As an outfit, The Band is both classic yet distinct--no other group in popular music can nail the way the way in which they could sound so simultaneously loose and tight. Helm is one of rock's finest and most thoughtful drummers; Danko's bass had a lilting, slippery sound that was the sonic equivalent of a paintbrush swishing its way across a canvas; Manuel's piano could be a Saturday night honky-tonk or a Sunday morning church service, pounding straightforward chords or adding lovely embellishments; Robertson's guitar often darted around the other instruments, sometimes blending back with chords and sometimes taking a brief spotlight with a stinging solo; Hudson was everywhere at once, his organ (and/or horns, accordion, keyboards, etc.) textures hanging like tapestries in the background, coloring the songs in ways that could only be felt.

No wonder they got away with calling themselves The Band.

* * *

The Band's music is a sweep that takes in the whole of rock and roll music. They began as the backing band for Ronnie Hawkins, a minor rockabilly singer who figured out that while he may be one in a million in America, in Canada, he was the only game in town. He went up with drummer Helm and, as his fellow Arkansas musicians drifted back down South, he replaced them with The Band That Would Be The Band. Eventually, The Band struck out on their own as The Hawks and earned a reputation as one of the hardest and toughest blues-and-R&B-based rock bands of the pre-Beatles era, playing an endless string of one-night stands up and down the coasts. When Bob Dylan was looking for a band to back him on his first electric tour, he reached out to them, and a legend was born.

Although they only played on one Dylan studio release--the minor hit "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?"--they accompanied him for his infamous world tour of 1966 (minus Helm, who didn't enjoy being booed), where they all but invented the modern rock sound; they also stuck with Dylan after the tour when they all moved to Woodstock (with Helm back in the fold) and dabbled in the bottomless still water pool of American folk music in the basement of their ugly pink house, lovingly called Big Pink. The recordings made there have long since been known as "The Basement Tapes," while around this same time, The Band became known officially as The Band.

Picked up by Dylan's manager, The Band was signed by Capitol Records in 1968, leading to their first album, Music From Big Pink, in July of that year. The record has gone down as one of the most influential rock albums of all-time. Like The Velvet Underground & Nico, it probably helps if you were there, but the lack of pretense, the slowness, the sense that this was a group of people listening to each other, blending instruments and voices, made it unlike anything else going on. There were no guitar solos, just winding songs that filled the American landscape with quasi-religious folk parables and wanderers, in a sound that was at once timeless yet new. A cover of Dylan's "Tears Of Rage" set the stage for an America that was lost within itself, but it was The Band's own "The Weight" that would deservedly become their most famous song. Although neither the song nor the album it appeared on was a big hit (stalling at #63 and #30, respectively), they stayed on the charts and the radio for months and months, serving as an essential midpoint between Dylan's John Wesley Harding and The Rolling Stones' Beggars Banquet as the way out of psychedelic rock.

The following year, The Band followed Music From Big Pink with The Band. It was their finest album and one of rock's true masterpieces. The 12 songs seemed to touch upon every side of American popular music--rock, country, blues, and folk; love songs, badman ballads, sea shanties, and work songs; songs sung from the perspective of married men, old-timers, children, and thieves on the lam; there were drums, fiddles, horns, and what sounded like a radioactive Jew harp; one can hear crooning, harmonizing, shouting, and yodeling. "Up On Cripple Creek" was the closet they got to a hit--#25 in the U.S. pop charts, but it got them on The Ed Sullivan Show and the cover of TIME--while "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," the finest pop song ever written about The Civil War, was their contribution to The Great American Historical Songbook. More than any other rock music I've ever heard, there was a stamp of timelessness that marked the music; it was as though you could put these songs into any era of American life and they would sound organic, they would ring true, whether on the prairie or the plains, East Coast or West Coast, on the 19th century frontier, in the turn of the century city, or through a modern-day computer. It was magic music that was Americana the way few have touched before or since.

And yet, up through when The Band was recorded, The Band themselves had not appeared on stage. Ever the single unit, they deferred live engagements after Danko was injured in a car wreck and wasn't able to perform. When they did finally emerge from the depths of Big Pink and their recording studios, it would alter their course forever. The conventional wisdom is that facing their audience--that is, the real America, after spending their creative time holed up in their own America--was startling, and led them to see the land for something closer to what it was, as opposed to how they imagined it. While this may seem a bit extreme, there is a definite shift in The Band's career from The Band to everything that followed, and the harbinger was the title of their third album, Stage Fright.

While Stage Fright is an excellent, underrated album--and technically, a slightly bigger chart hit than The Band--it is not nearly as rich as the two albums that preceded it. In Helm's autobiography, much is made about Robertson getting sole songwriting credit for nearly everything on The Band (Helm holds the songs were written collaboratively), but on Stage Fright, the songs are written entirely by Robertson himself. Oddly, Helm has since disavowed large parts of his autobiography, including his feud with Robertson, but again, there is a tangible shift in material, regardless of the source. The singing feels less organic, the lyrics try harder, the music sounds slick as opposed to off-handed. There are still great songs--"The Shape I'm In" would become a Band standard for the rest of their career, and the title track "Stage Fright" was quite effective--but there were just as many near-missed or attempts. A naturalness was gone from their music.

Still, The Band soldiered on. It is said that Robertson took over The Band in order to save it, and their fourth album, Cahoots, seems to confirm it. Again, nearly all of the songs are by Robertson but the vignettes and character sketches now sound strange; for the first time, the album was not a hit, influentially or commercially. Tellingly, only one song from Cahoots--"Life Is A Carnival"--was included in their following live album, Rock Of Ages, a double-LP that found The Band remaking their catalog with a horn section to a rousing success. Though largely forgotten today, it was chosen by Rolling Stone as Album Of The Year, and contained their second--and to date, last--Top 40 hit, their masterful remake of Marvin Gaye's "Don't Do It," which made it to #34. "Don't Do It" is the rare rock and roll recording to tell the history of the music--built around the Bo Diddley Beat, stopping for funky breakdowns, and containing doo-wop-esque longing harmonies, this was a four-and-a-half minute history lesson posing as state of the art rock and roll. It kicked off Rock Of Ages in true style, the rest of which was largely comprised of cuts from their first three albums. The album's closer, a cover of Chuck Willis' "(I Don't Want To Hang Up My) Rock And Roll Shoes," was selected as a follow-up single; it bottomed out at #113.

As implied by "Don't Do It" and "Rock And Roll Shoes," it seemed The Band's most exciting way forward was to go backwards. 1973 brought Moondog Matinee, a cover album of old rock and R&B tunes The Band played while cutting their teeth with and without Ronnie Hawkins. A version of Helm singing "Ain't Got No Home," originally by Clarence "Frogman" Henry (who, like Ronnie Hawkins, is still alive, by the way) was a minor hit at #73, but far better was Manuel's take on Bobby "Blue" Bland's "Share Your Love With Me," which could only be heard within the grooves of the album. Much like Music From Big Pink tapped into a larger turn away from non-psychedelic rock, Moondog Matinee can perhaps best be heard alongside contemporary nostalgia albums like David Bowie's Pin-Ups and John Lennon's Rock And Roll.

And then, just as they were reaching the end of their rope playing rock covers as Levon & The Hawks, The Band once again teamed up with Bob Dylan and revitalized themselves. They backed Dylan on his first(!) #1 album, 1973's Planet Waves, and then backed him on a split Dylan/Band tour in 1974, summed up on the live Before The Flood. They regrouped the following year to record their last great album, Northern Lights--Southern Cross, definitely their finest work since Stage Fright and possibly since The Band. Although they recorded it as continuing creative outfit, hindsight has proven it to be a worthy studio farewell.

The following year, Robertson decided it was time to retire The Band from the road, and so for the bicentennial Thanksgiving, they staged The Last Waltz, a grand concert featuring The Band, a horn section, and their famous friends from along the way (Ronnie Hawkins, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, and a bunch of others), which was filmed as a documentary by Martin Scorsese and released as a triple-LP live album by Warner Brothers. Once again, the vast majority of music by The Band was at least half a decade old, and while the performances were solid, they were nothing compared to the Rock Of Ages double album from only four years before. Among the finest new interpretations though was a version of "The Weight" with The Staples, who brought out the gospel leanings implied in the song all along.

Oddly, The Last Waltz wasn't intended to be the retirement of The Band as a working band, only as a touring one. And so, the following year, The Band released what was to be the last studio album of the classic lineup, the disappointing Islands. It sounded like the roundup of leftovers that it was, most of it being recorded before The Last Waltz project began. Not long after, Robertson left the group, leaving Helm, Danko, Manuel, and Hudson to continue on through Manuel's death in 1986--even releasing a few albums with a new guitarist and keyboardist in the '90s--and end with Danko's death in 1999. Helm continued performing Band songs until his death a few years ago in 2012; only Robertson and Hudson now remain of the classic lineup.

* * *

The Band is one of those groups that should be easy to anthologize, but in reality prove to be much trickier. The main problem is that they are primarily an album band, as opposed to a singles one. Couple that with the fact that their first two albums far exceed all of their other work, and you've got problems of balance and representation. And with only two bonafide Top 40 hits, non-single "standards" in the context of the group regularly appear on compilations, which were either fan favorites or concert staples, such as "Chest Fever" and "King Harvest (Is Sure To Come)."

In 1976, The Best Of The Band appeared, which contained most of the songs you'd expect along with the non-LP non-hit single "Twilight." To this day, it is the only single-disc collection you can get that actually contains their two Top 40 hits. Two years later saw the double-album Anthology, which filled the story out and added a few cuts from Islands, the dismal "Right As Rain" and the wonderful "Livin' In A Dream." It also omitted both the non-hit "Twilight" as well as the hit "Don't Don't Do It" from The Rock Of Ages album, but began the long tradition of putting "Acadian Driftwood" from Northern Lights into The Band canon.

Both The Best Of The Band and Anthology were issued on CD; they were soon joined by others. In 1989, The Band received their first compilation of the CD era with the two-CD To Kingdom Come: The Definitive Collection (long out of print, though it can still be found on iTunes). Aside from a previously unreleased version of Chuck Berry's "Back To Memphis," it contained almost all of the usual suspects, plus a few rarities: The unreleased studio cut of "Endless Highway" and the studio version of "Get Up Jake," which had only been released as a live recording on Rock Of Ages. It also contained their lovely Christmas song, "Christmas Must Be Tonight."

And then The CD Box Set Era came. By the mid-1990s, very major artist needed one, and just in time for the 1994 Christmas Season there came Across The Great Divide, a three-disc retrospective in a big box with a big booklet. This was the collection that broke the mold. The first two discs were the standard run-through of their hits and classics, but the third contained rarities, including some of their much-talked about but at-that-point-impossible-to-find Levon & The Hawks material. The disc played like an alternate history of The Band, and did so marvelously--some Basement Tapes material, live tracks including a cut from The Woodstock Festival, the non-hit "Twilight" single, and highlights from The Last Waltz. If hindsight has shown that some material was AWOL (the much-maligned "Time To Kill," which was a minor hit at #77, as well as the other non-hit, non-LP single, "Georgia On My Mind," which has yet to appear on an American compilation), it was one of those rare collections that felt like the whole story, even if it wasn't.

With the new millennium--or, more tellingly, The Beatles' 1--every major rock artist needed to put out their single-disc CD of essentials, and The Band was no exception. Somehow, a Band album called "Greatest Hits" had eluded them up to this point, and so, The Band's Greatest Hits was born. (OK, The Band's Greatest Hits came out only 13 days after The Beatles' 1, so it was probably already in the works; either way, I bet Captiol was kicking themselves for letting a quarter century go by since their last official single-disc best-of.) It remains the default best-of to buy with all of the major classics ("The Weight," "Up On Cripple Creek," "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"), many of the minor hits ("The Shape I'm In," "Life Is A Carnival," "Ain't Got No Home," and FINALLY, "Time To Kill"), as well as those fan-favorite standards-in-the-world-of-The-Band ("Chest Fever," "King Harvest," "Acadian Driftwood"). And yet. For an album called Greatest Hits, it leaves off half of their Top 40 hits, which is to say, "Don't Do It," from Rock Of Ages. This is truly mind-boggling when one considers that they did include "The Saga Of Pepote Rouge," a perfectly-fine song, sure, but is clearly there if only to represent Islands. Any review of this album you read should be docked one star for this inexcusable error.

By 2005, Across The Great Divide was long out-of-print and the good people of Capitol Records simply did not know what to do. So for some reason or another (The 40th Anniversary of The Band teaming up with Dylan? The 30th Anniversary of "Ophelia" scraping the charts?) they released A Musical History, a deluxe five-CD, 1-DVD boxed set that featured 102 sound recordings, 9 live videos, and one hard-cover book. It sought to be the final word on The Band, and it essentially was. For the first time, their entire story was told from The Hawks to Dylan's backing band to The Band, with over 30 rare or previously unreleased recordings. For the diehard Band fan (and what other kind of fan is there, really?), it was amazing; for anyone else who was less interested (or less financially padded) there was a single-disc best-of CD that mixed hits and rarities to tell an abridged version of the story. The latter picked out most of the larger set's essential rarities, the twin victories being Robertson's solo run-through of "Twilight" (which sounds like a demo, even though it was apparently was recorded after the single version) and Danko's lovely "Home Cookin'," a casual team effort with a natural sound that so often eluded the group after Rock Of Ages.

Now, as with any major band attempting to make a definitive boxed set, there are some issues. The main one for me is that hard-to-strike balance between too much and too little, especially in the case of an act like The Band, whose first two albums are near flawless (and have all but one song represented in some form or another on A Musical History between them--sorry, "Jawbone"). It's always great to hear undeniably outstanding music, but as a document, it staggers the flow of the listening experience. There is also the case of length. I love The Band, but 5 full discs can get a bit unwieldy even for someone like me. I'm happy to have it, but it's hard to get through as a front-to-back listening experience. Furthermore, since then, there have been more recent one-disc overviews Opus and Icon, which fall somewhere between a "best of" and a "finest songs" collection; of course, both contain "Up On Cripple Creek" but not "Don't Do It."

So what's a Band fan to do?

* * *

I spent weeks trying to come up with a definitive Band collection, which I have termed my "King Harvest" project. It has resulted in three different Band collections: A one-disc, two-disc, and three-disc version, in the spirit of Greatest Hits, To Kingdom Come, and Across The Great Divide, respectively. The goal was to find a line between quality and history, with an eye on listenability.

To guide my approach, I took an inventory of all the above-mentioned compilations, plus an additional dozen of the international vinyl, cassette, and CD era. Many were European, Japanese or Australian. My only condition was that the album had to contain the original studio versions of "The Weight," "Up On Cripple Creek," and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"--so long as these original recordings were included, any collection was game. I see those as the bedrock of any decent Band collection.

So of the 20 Band compilations I surveyed, there are 20 songs that appear on 7 albums or more:

1. The Weight [20]
2. Up On Cripple Creek [20]
3. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down [20]
4. The Shape I'm In [19]
5. Stage Fright [19]
6. Life Is A Carnival [18]
7. Ophelia [17]
8. It Makes No Difference [15]
9. I Shall Be Released [15]
10. Rag Mama Rag [14]
11. Tears Of Rage [13]
12. Chest Fever [13]
13. Don't Do It [Live] [12]
14. King Harvest (Has Surely Come) [11]
15. When I Paint My Masterpiece [10]
16. Acadian Driftwood [9]
17. Time To Kill [8]
18. Across The Great Divide [7]
19. Ain't Got No Home [7]
20. Mystery Train [7]

As it so happens, all 20 songs do not fit on a single album. The Top 17 do fit on one album, with one to spare--I keep going back and forth between giving the 18th spot to "Ain't Got No Home" (which is one of their eight Top 100 hits) or "Across The Great Divide" (which is the better song); thankfully, the overrated "Mystery Train" is too long to fit as an 18th spot with these other songs. For the moment, I'm favoring history over quality. I call this...

The Real Greatest Hits, One-Disc Edition:

1. The Weight
2. I Shall Be Released
3. Tears Of Rage
4. Chest Fever
5. Up On Cripple Creek
6. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
7. Rag Mama Rag
8. King Harvest (Has Surely Come)
9. Time To Kill
10. The Shape I'm In
11. Stage Fright
12. Life Is A Carnival
13. When I Paint My Masterpiece
14. Don't Do It [Live]
15. Ain't Got No Home
16. Ophelia
17. Acadian Driftwood
18. It Makes No Difference

But as lovely as the idea of a "Greatest Hits" album is for The Band, their lack of hits and rich history make them a unique candidate for a Beatles' Anthology-style mix of hits and history. This is what makes A Musical History so compelling; it is also what makes The Best Of A Musical History another near-miss like the Greatest Hits album. 

I consider those 9 songs that make 15 Band compilations or more the center of The Band Canon--"The Weight," "I Shall Be Released," "Up On Cripple Creek," "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," "The Shape I'm In," "Stage Fright," "Life Is A Carnival," "Ophelia," and "It Makes No Difference"--along with the live version of "Don't Do It," as the 10th, as it comprises one half of their Top 40 hits. With this in mind, the one-disc version of the King Harvest project is built around those 10 songs, with key other songs, live performances, and outtakes added around them to comprise a full portrait of both hits and history. Determining the scope was a bit more of a challenge. I initially intended to take things back to Ronnie Hawkins, then see it through Levon & The Hawks and Bob Dylan before reaching the "modern" Band, but while that is historically instructive, the essence of The Band lies in the decade that covers their 1967 Basement Tapes recordings through their final 1977 studio recordings for The Last Waltz. In this one-disc overview, only The Band is represented with 3 songs; all other studio albums are represented with 2, with the exception of Moondog Matinee and Islands, which have a single song apiece.

King Harvest, One-Disc Edition:

1. Ain't No More Cane
2. Katie's Been Gone
3. The Weight
4. I Shall Be Released
5. Tears Of Rage
6. Up On Cripple Creek
7. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
8. Rag Mama Rag
9. King Harvest (Has Surely Come)
10. The Shape I'm In
11. Stage Fright
12. Slippin' & Slidin' [Live]
13. Life Is A Carnival
14. Endless Highway
15. Don't Do It [Live]
16. Share Your Love With Me
17. Ophelia
18. It Makes No Difference
19. Twilight [Song Sketch]
20. Livin' In A Dream



In many ways, the 2-disc version is the crown jewel of this project. Is it any wonder that Across The Great Divide is long out-of-print while To Kingdom Come is still available on iTunes? 40 songs allows for a very strong sampling of The Band's catalog; there are 6 songs from The Band, 5 songs each from Music From Big Pink and The Basement Tapes, 4 songs each from Stage Fright, Cahoots, and Rock Of Ages, 3 songs from Northern Lights--Southern Cross, and 2 songs each from Moondog Matinee and Islands, plus a small lion's share of rarities that derive from A Musical History. "Mystery Train" was originally slated to make the final cut, but its length and funkier sound broke up the flow of the pure Band Americana to my ears. I also feel like 2 songs is more than enough to cover Moondog Matinee, and the best songs to do it is the Top 100 hit "Ain't Got No Home" and the finest song on the album, "Share Your Love." Band purists may balk, but that's how I hear it. After much deliberation, these 40 songs capture the essence of The Band.



King Harvest, Two-Disc Edition:

Disc 1:

1. Ain't No More Cane
2. Katie's Been Gone
3. The Weight
4. I Shall Be Released
5. Tears Of Rage
6. To Kingdom Come
7. Chest Fever
8. Yazoo Street Scandal
9. Orange Juice Blues (Blues For Breakfast)
10. Bessie Smith
11. Up On Cripple Creek
12. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
13. Across The Great Divide
14. Rag Mama Rag
15. Whispering Pines
16. King Harvest (Has Surely Come)
17. Time To Kill
18. The Shape I'm In
19. Strawberry Wine
20. Stage Fright
21. Slippin' & Slidin' [Live]


Disc 2:

1. Life Is A Carnival
2. When I Paint My Masterpiece
3. 4% Pantomime
4. The River Hymn
5. Endless Highway
6. Don't Do It [Live]
7. Caledonia Mission [Live]
8. Get Up Jake [Live]
9. The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show [Live]
10. Loving You (Is Sweeter Than Ever) [Live]
11. Ain't Got No Home
12. Share Your Love With Me
13. Ophelia
14. Acadian Driftwood
15. It Makes No Difference
16. Twilight [Song Sketch]
17. Home Cookin'
18. The Saga Of Pepote Rouge
19. Livin' In A Dream


And last but not least, here's King Harvest, Three-Disc Edition.

This is the true harvest of King Harvest, with 7 songs from Music From Big Pink, 8 from The Band, 5 apiece from Stage Fright, Cahoots, and Rock Of Ages, plus revealing alternate takes, outtakes, and demos that fill out the story. After all, in its own way, the studio version of "Don't Do It" is just as marvelous as the more familiar live version, while songs like "Endless Highway" and "Loving You (Is Sweeter Than Ever)" have become virtual Band standards, even though they were never released while The Band was a functioning unit. King Harvest has it all, with the 21 tracks from the crucial 1967-1969 period in "To Kingdom Come"; 20 tracks covering the solid 1970-1972 period in "Stage Fright", and 19 tracks covering the underrated 1973-1977 period in "Twilight", for a total of 60 tracks in all. No Ronnie Hawkins, no Bob Dylan, only The Band, in a much more digestible compilation than the wonderful but overwrought A Musical History. Hear them step onto the center stage as one of the most influential bands of all-time in "To Kingdom Come," retreat back from the spotlight in "Stage Fright," and then search for a way home in "Twilight." It is an epoch contained in a band, or rather, The Band.

* * *

The Band: King Harvest [1967-1977]

Disc 1: To Kingdom Come [1967-1969]

1. Ain't No More Cane On The Brazos
2. Katie's Been Gone
3. Ruben Remus
4. The Weight
5. I Shall Be Released
6. Tears Of Rage
7. To Kingdom Come
8. In A Station
9. Long Black Veil
10. Chest Fever
11. Yahoo Street Scandal
12. Orange Juice Blues (Orange Juice For Breakfast)
13. Bessie Smith
14. Up On Cripple Creek
15. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
16. Across The Great Divide
17. Rag Mama Rag
18. Whispering Pines
19. Rockin' Chair
20. The Unfaithful Servant
21. King Harvest (Has Surely Come)


Disc 2: Stage Fright [1970-1972]

1. Time To Kill
2. The Shape I'm In
3. All La Glory [Early Version]
4. Strawberry Wine
5. Daniel & The Sacred Harp
6. Stage Fright
7. Slippin' & Slidin' [Live]
8. Don't Do It [Studio Version]
9. Life Is A Carnival
10. When Paint My Masterpiece
11. 4% Pantomime
12. The Moon Struck One
13. The Rhythm Hymn
14. Endless Highway
15. Don't Do It [Live]
16. Caledonia Mission [Live]
17. Get Up Jake [Live]
18. The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show [Live]
19. (I Don't Want To Hang Up My) Rock & Roll Shoes [Live]
20. Loving You (Is Sweeter Than Ever) [Live]

Disc 3: Twilight [1973-1977]

1. Ain't Got No Home

2. Share Your Love With Me

3. Mystery Train

4. Going Back To Memphis
5. Ophelia

6. Hobo Jungle
7. Acadian Driftwood

8. It Makes No Difference

9. Twilight [Single Version]

10. Georgia On My Mind

11. Christmas Must Be Tonight

12. The Saga Of Pepote Rouge

13. Livin' In A Dream

14. Forbidden Fruit [Live]
15. Twilight [Song Sketch]
16. Home Cookin'

17. Out Of The Blue
18. Evangeline -- w/ Emmylou Harris

19. The Weight -- w/ The Staples

The Million Dollar Quartet At 60.

On December 4, 1956, Jerry Lee Lewis was at Sun Records playing piano on a Carl Perkins session when Elvis Presley came to the studio to say hello to some old friends; not long thereafter, Johnny Cash swung by to pick up a paycheck. The four began jamming, Sun founder Sam Phillips switched on the tape, and the legend of the Million Dollar Quartet was born.

There have been great dates in rock and roll before and after, but none so great as this one, 60 years ago today.

You've got February 9, 1964, when The Beatles played on The Ed Sullivan Show, and July 25, 1965, when Bob Dylan "went electric" at The Newport Folk Festival, but in those cases, historical context is the main driving force and the taped performances are secondary. The Beatles sound fine enough, if a bit rushed and nervous (for good reason), while Dylan's electric outfit sounded under-rehearsed and poorly mixed (which some claim is the real reason for the booing). In both cases, it is the audience that is the key element of the performance.

When Elvis, Jerry Lee, Carl, and Johnny jammed at the Million Dollar Quartet, there was no audience. Or not a traditional one, anyway. There were friends, girlfriends, and hanger-ons, and eventually the press as the ever-resourceful Phillips called the Memphis Press-Scimitar--people drifting in and out of the storefront studio. Instead of playing for audience, they were instead playing for each other, playing for history, and playing for posterity. They were playing for us.

I remember first being told the myth of the session when I visited Sun Records as a teenager. I dutifully bought the then-current 1990s release of the recordings and raced to listen to them. I figured it would be a Sun Records greatest hits album times four. "That's All Right," "Blue Suede Shoes," "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On," "I Walk the Line," all the rest. This was gonna be great.

Turns out I was very wrong. With the exception of Elvis's "Don't Be Cruel"--more on that in minute--there were none of these hits, or any others. In fact, there was a lot of gospel. And country. And blues. And some more gospel.

As I kept listening, what had initially disappointed me about the session was the key to its invaluable worth. It was less a traditional rock and roll album as it was four founders of the music giving a history class. This was their common ground, a meeting place of fervor and joy. Which makes sense. If you got George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton together, they'd probably be talking about Locke and Rousseau, as opposed to themselves.

But ironically, the finest moment of the session does come the one time one of the legends sings one of their biggest hits. Elvis had recently gone to Las Vegas and bombed, but while there caught a show by the R&B vocal group Billy Ward and His Dominoes. Despite the name, Ward was never the lead singer of the group, he was instead its founder and manager. The group first launched Clyde McPhatter--one of Elvis's biggest influences--who then left the group for his own major solo career at Atlantic Records. If Elvis had gone to see the Dominoes for his idol McPhatter, he was to be disappointed as a new singer was in his place.

Elvis remembers the singer trying to do a few of his songs--"Hound Dog" among them--but striking out. Then, he does "Don't Be Cruel." It was slower and more slender than his own version, Elvis explained, but in the end it was better than his. Elvis then tries to imitate the young African-American singer, who in turn was trying to imitate Elvis. "You know I can't be fo-oo-ound," Elvis sings while a guitar strums. "Sittin' home all a-ha-lone--" Then Jerry Lee's piano marches in with all of the subtlety of an elephant. Soon Carl's electric guitar snaps right in there too, while his band, still in their seats from his session, backing Elvis. "Don't be cruel," Elvis sings. "To a heart that's true..." As the group crashes to a finale, you can hear them reaching for the sound Elvis hears in his head. They don't quite get that sound, but what they create is even more exciting and visceral. Elvis keeps going back it, talking about how that young R&B singer emphasized "tel-e-phone" and how he stepped back with his head shaking, "I don't a-want no other a-love-ah..."

It turns out the singer that Elvis had gone to see was none other than a young Jackie Wilson, already proving himself to have the most exciting timing (and punctuation) of any singer of his era.

On the original 1990s CD I got of the session, "Don't Be Cruel" was sandwiched somewhere in the middle, with the gospel stuff on top and country run-throughs on the other side. Now, with the 50th Anniversary album that came out a decade ago, the chronology was mended and more songs were added to make a clearer picture of the day.

First we get Carl and Jerry Lee playing an instrumental, before jamming on "Jingle Bells" and "White Christmas," still with no vocals. Elvis steps out of the booth to talk about (and sing) Lowell Fulton's "Reconsider Baby," one of his favorite songs, which he will later record on his first album after being discharged from the Army. Although he is partially off-mic, he sounds just as he will in the familiar version from 1960. Then comes "Don't Be Cruel." It is the first complete performance, and the place in which everything comes together. This is clearly what Elvis is most excited about, and is eager to convey to his friends and fellow musicians.

From there, they slip into parlor music ("There's No Place Like Home") and a spiritual ("When the Saints Go Marchin' in"), and then into a string of gospel standards that are among the most memorable performances of the day. Elvis sings "Peace in the Valley" with all of the sorrow and regret that is only hinted at in his later studio version, "Down by the Riverside" and "I Shall Not Be Moved" are made into a cross between jump-blues and doo-wop.

"I am with a crowd, but oh so a-looooone," Elvis sings beginning the next set. The full band is gone, though Carl and Jerry Lee are still unhand to offer vocal support and ideas. Elvis's girlfriend requests "Farther Along," which again takes them from spiritual music to parlor music, followed by Elvis running down a list of his favorite songs, alternating between country and gospel. Carl gets in a lovely take at the gospel song "Keeper of the Key"; Elvis sings the praises of Pat Boone and his latest record, "Don't Forbid Me."

Then, just when you think it's all gone off the rails, they come together in the united front of Chuck Berry, all jamming on "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man." Elvis can't remember the words, so Carl and Jerry Lee help, coaxing him along, reminding each other of verses, laughing at jokes in the song that have become so familiar even the most ardent rock fan has forgotten they were ever heard as comical punchlines. They are like a bunch of old friends at the back of bar right at last call, playing to see if they can make it to the next verse. It is loose, easy music, with a sure sense of freedom.

Elvis then touches on "That's When Your Heartaches Begin," one of the first songs he recorded as an acetate at Sun, and brings the story full-circle. Then, he seems to disappear, and all that is left is Jerry Lee Lewis, ready and eager to debut the sides of his recent first release, "Crazy Arms" and "End of the Road." He then reaches back into the rag "Black Bottom Stomp" and then the Gene Autry standard "You're the Only Star in My Blue Heaven," and then you can hear everyone shaking hands and saying goodbye.

There has been over 45 performances of some 40 songs, including rock, pop, R&B, blues, country, bluegrass, spirituals, gospel, and Christmas songs. There have been standards like "When the Saints Go Marching in," "White Christmas," and yes, "Don't Be Cruel"; there have been obscure tunes like "Keeper of the Key," "Out of Sight, Out of Mind," and yes, "Don't Forbid Me." There have been songs that have been performed by Louis Armstrong, Bill Monroe, Jelly Roll Morton, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Charley Patton, Bing Crosby, Jackie Wilson, The Ink Spots, and Gene Autry, not to mention songs sung by slaves, sharecroppers, and the Union Army of the Civil War.

And yet for all there is, let us pause to consider what there is not (at least to my ears, anyway): Johnny Cash.

Some have speculated that Cash only showed up for the newspaper photo shoot but split before the tapes began rolling; contemporary reports have him singing "Blueberry Hill" with the others, although that song has never been found with the tape. Cash himself claims in his autobiography that he indeed was there and can hear himself singing, only he is farthest from the mic and is singer in a higher range than his usual hit sound.

Maybe, but try as I may (and have), I can't hear him. Also, the fact that at one point Elvis's girlfriend asks "this Rover Boys' Trio" to sing a song leads me to believe there were only three principles there for the main part of the recording, as well as the fact that Elvis later mentions Johnny Cash by full name, in a way that seems to imply that Cash is not on the premises.

This is not to take away from the power of the sessions. If anything, it adds to their mystery. For even without Johnny Cash actually there (audibly, anyway), so much is. There is the stream-of-conscious history lesson of modern American music. There is the only known recordings of Elvis and Jerry Lee together. And there is the only full-length recording we have of Elvis talking at length and off-the-cuff about music. Seems crazy, but it's true.

It all adds up to a session that for me encompasses the whole of rock and roll, much more than a greatest hits album ever could. That said, the latter is almost too irresistible--just check out The Million Dollar Quartet musical by Floyd Mutrux and Colin Escott, which uses the session as a heavily-fictionalized structure by which to tell the story of these Sun Records legends, greatest hits and all. This is all well and good and I'm glad it gets the myth and music out to an even wider audience, but for me, the real magic is in the tape from December 4, 1956.

For all of its bum notes and tangents (both musical and conversational), it is a testament to a brave new music, the young men who made it, and the old world that they conjured up in doing so.