DC Larson's JUKEBOX JURY: Sun Records

Showing posts with label Sun Records. Show all posts

Sunday, July 26, 2026

Margaret Lewis

How Would You Know

(Sun)

One falls silent in respectful awe when Margaret takes the turntable. Her Sun ventures shine brilliantly. Each is a 1960s Country testament to how remarkable art undeniably is, when imperial songcraft, musicianship of executive caliber, and glossy (but never overly so) production fall in behind velvet voicings. You've reached popular music's acme.

(Together with Mira Smith, Margaret authored hits for Jeannie C. Riley, Connie Francis, Margaret Whiting, and more.)

Recommended: "How WouldYou Know," "Kangaroo of Love," "Moondawging," "Holding onto You," "Mrs. Cooper's Tea Party," "Honey (I Miss You Too)," "Miss to Mrs. to Misery," "Milk and Honey," "Stop Turn Around," "Last Day in the Mines"

Videos: "Kangaroo of Love" "Moondawging" "Mrs. Cooper's Tea Party" "Miss to Mrs. to Misery" "Stop Turn Around"

Wednesday, November 19, 2025

Carl Perkins

Some Things Never Change

(Sun Records)

Some 70 years have transpired since unpolished picker Carl staggered all creation with a sound too sprawling for bucolic containment. Before us spins fresh wax whose geniality, calloused-hands character, and unpretentious, good-times fruition affirm the title's aptness.

Spirited originals recall idiosyncratic persuasions; numbering among those are six-string flourishes that bespeak a Country/Blues amalgam that must be lived, and a comfortably grained voice as winkingly home-styled as the sharecropper in the next row, but possessed of singular tunefulness.

(Carl and associates also dispense wonderment via interpretations of others' works. Carl's erstwhile Sun confederate, the Man in Black, and John Hiatt turn up in varied garments.)

The determinate stomp of "Don'tcha Know I Love You" registers what could be considered a happy update of 1957 Perkins song "Movie Magg." The giddy suitor grew up, and his ardor swelled. (We were all pulling for him.)

I won't for one moment dispute the validity of Carl's recognition by numerous Halls of Fame, nor his Grammy statuary. He deserved official praise.

But of far more significance are the blazes he kindled in the hearts of kids who, though dirt-poor as he had once been, grabbed up guitars and became members of the Rockabilly culture: a go-getter sect drunk with ambition. Its missionaries danced in the streets over Carl's '90s reemergence, and the Rebel subculture will endure so long as folks dig fun.

"When I was a young lad, about all that I had, was an old guitar and rhythm in my soul," Carl sang. Purpose transcended hard luck life.

(Available digitally, on CD, and "blue-suede splatter" translucent vinyl.)

Recommended: "Baby, Bye Bye," "Don'tcha Know I Love You," "Memphis in the Meantime," "Messin' Around with Rock'n'Roll," "Some Things Never Change," "Miss Muddy," "Where Does Love Go," "Get Rhythm," "Heart of My Heart," "Baby, Bye Bye" (Jackson Demo)

Videos: "Baby, Bye Bye" "Don'tcha Know I Love You" "Messin' Around with Rock'n'Roll" "Where Does Love Go" "Heart of My Heart"

Tuesday, August 26, 2025

Back in the Day, 1956 and 1957

Ray Harris

"Come on Little Mama" b/w "Where'd You Stay Last Night" single

"Greenback Dollar" b/w "Foolish Heart" single

(Sun)

Common knowledge among those whose familiarity with golden-age Rockabilly exceeds marqee icons, Ray, too, windmilled in that class. He issued these two singles (other recordings by him went unreleased in their eras.) "Come on Little Mama" remains one of the genre's more sweat-flinging and histrionically whooping specimens. Wayne Cogswell tore off six-string franticness that courted psychiatric investigation. Somewhat measured, "Where'd You Stay Last Night?" also attested to Ray's unique bent.

"Greenback Dollar," a Folk standard, and courtly Country outing "Foolish Heart" were fine vehicles for Ray. But predecessor "Come on Little Mama's" live-wire spectacle made it vastly more meritorious. That the song pops up in current-day combos' set lists ain't nuthin' but right.

Once opining that he had been "on the wrong side of the mic," Ray turned to producing. We'll never know what might have transpired, had he maintained mic-stance.

Videos: "Come on Little Mama" "Greenback Dollar, Watch and Chain"

Bandcamp (Sun)

Wednesday, June 18, 2025

Back in the Day, 1964

Scotty Moore

The Guitar That Changed the World vinyl

(Sony Epic)

Of course, truck-driving kid Elvis loomed highest on the earlier Sun was incarnations of these earthquake, but the late Scotty and his polished, back-country master picking also claimed abundant regard; indeed, so much so that the inspirational flames he ignited then will surely blaze into perpetuity. As the legendary string-maestro enjoys instrumental latitude in these reinterpretations, his soloing is of greater body, its poised pronouncements make idiosyncratic impacts, and consistently adventurous articulations - ones echoing hillbilly persuasions and youthful exuberance - knock cats seasoned and crisp off their feet.

The cover asserts lofty credit: "And at [Elvis's] right hand from the beginning - from ragged rehearsals in a boardinghouse room and first record sessions to barnstorming the flatbed truck circuit, from flat-broke to that historic first appearance with Tommy Dorsey, from roadhouse to the glittering spotlight in Las Vegas, from hillbilly honky-tonk to Hollywood - Scotty was there."

In later years, this 1964 LP was rereleased in CD format.

Recommended: "Hound Dog," "Loving You," "Money Honey," "My Baby Left Me," "Heartbreak Hotel," "Don't Be Cruel," "Love Me Tender," "Mean Woman Blues"

Videos: "Money Honey" "My Baby Left Me" "Heartbreak Hotel" "Mean Woman Blues"

Saturday, September 28, 2024

Jerry Lee Lewis

Killer In Stereo: Good Rockin' Tonight

(Sun Records)

While the Killer hurls his own takes on tracks identified with Elvis, Little Richard, Gene Vincent, and Chuck Berry, it's on other numbers that he flares most lustrously. His tossed-off Louisiana drawl and battering of innocent ivories was nonpareil. The world will never see his like again, but at least we had him for a while. And one day, we will know him anew.

Recommended: "High-Powered Woman," "Hello Josephine," "Just Who Is To Blame," "When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again," "When I Get Paid," "Save the Last Dance For Me"

Videos: "High-Powered Woman" "Just Who Is To Blame" "When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again" "Save the Last Dance For Me"

V/A

Tin Roof: Small Town Country Music

(Sun Records)

In 1971, at 12 years old, I spent a weekend with a paternal uncle and his family. They lived in one of Iowa's tiny rural towns.

I was from a city. So, for me, country life was a different reality. Sunday meant all-day fundamentalist church, punctuated at noon by a houseful gathering. A table was loaded down with hot dogs, cold meats, breads, pop, and potato salad. A spirited throng gathered, dressed in church-going finery.

Roaming the rooms, I found a black-and-white 8x10 stashed on a bookshelf. It was a posed publicity shot, and depicted a Country Western combo complete with stand up bass, drums, acoustic, electric, and steel guitars. They sported de rigueur cowboy attire: big hats, neckerchiefs, boots.

I didn't know the photo's vintage, nor did I recognize anyone featured. (Some distant family members, perhaps -- ones who'd once dreamed vainly of celebrity?)

In future years, though, I came to understand that authentic Country and Rock'n'Roll sprang from the same real-folks well.

(The foregoing was excerpted from my Flesh Made Music, published in 2016 by Retro Riff Books)

Sam Phillips knew what I later grasped, of course, back when these real Country tracks were put to wax. He had for decades rubbed shoulders with the regular folks who'd ambled into his crackerbox Memphis studio and recorded sounds that would electrify generations and tear up the extant popular-music blueprint.

Presented are some 50 minutes of home-folks America. Tracks capture quintessential Country -- unpretentious picking, steel-guitar sways, resolute beats, and affable drawls -- as well as the healthy nationalistic pride too many today wrongly think malign.

Also humbly offered are the playful whimsicality later spotlighted on Hee Haw and misty recollections of earlier, simpler times and much-loved elders who'd gone to rewards.

Some songs are so backwoods-lively as to wreath faces in open grins while prompting couples' whirling. More sedate others invite listeners to ponder plain-spoken narraratives and perhaps even gaze inward.

All will gratify.

Recommended: "Troublesome Creek" (Ben Story), "Tin Roof" (Jimmy Louis), "Don't Bite the Hand That's Feeding You" (Leroy Van Dyke), "Mule Skinner Blues" (Dennis Roberts), "Howard Hughes Is Alive and Well" (Sonny Hall), "Ants In My Plants" (Wanda Birdsong), "My Own Native Land" (Johnny Freedom), "If I Could Get One More Hit" (James O'Gwynn), "Granny's Patches" (Ben Story), "Shade Tree Fix-It Man" (James O'Gwynn)

Video: "Don't Bite the Hand That's Feeding You" "Howard Hughes Is Alive and Well" "My Own Native Land"