Template:The parable of the two Elvi: Difference between revisions

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A few miles up Elvis Presley Boulevard, on the outskirts of the Memphis downtown area, is 706 Union Avenue. It was a car-parts warehouse called “The Magic Throttle Company” until Sam Phillips opened the Memphis Recording Service in 1950. By 1952 Phillips had started his own record label, and in the summer of 1954 a 19-year-old Elvis Presley recorded his first single there.  
A few miles up Elvis Presley Boulevard, on the outskirts of the Memphis downtown area, is 706 Union Avenue. It was a car-parts warehouse called “The Magic Throttle Company” until Sam Phillips opened the Memphis Recording Service in 1950. By 1952 Phillips had started his own record label, and in the summer of 1954 a 19-year-old Elvis Presley recorded his first single there.  


You can visit Sun, which by night is still a working studio, today. The tours cost $15 a head, take about an hour, are led by knowledgeable, passionate volunteers and take in an ad hoc museum of the popularisation of “race music” from Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King and Little Richard. They saved Dewey Phillips’ radio studio from demolition and have recreated it in the museum. The studio proper is as it was in Elvis’s day, with some of the original microphones and instruments, and x marks on the floor indicating where are Elvis, Scotty and Bill stood.  
You can visit Sun, which by night is still a working studio, today. The tours cost $15 a head, take about an hour, are led by knowledgeable, passionate volunteers. The studio proper is as it was in Elvis’s day, with some of the original microphones and instruments, and x marks on the floor indicating where are Elvis, Scotty and Bill stood. There is also an impressive museum of this little building. Sam Phillips discovered and recorded B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf, Ike Turner, Rufus Thomas, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich, and Roy Orbison. Say what you like about  rock ’n’ roll, but that’s an extraordinary contribution to the cultural history of the 20th century from one car-parts workshop in the middle of nowhere.


Sun Studios is a lovingly curated, interactive, almost spiritual experience. It might not make as much money, but the memories the faithful take away will be indelible.
Sun Studios is a lovingly curated, interactive, human, experience. It might not make as much money, but the memories the faithful take away will be indelible.

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