‘Sun Records’ will strike a chord with Memphians
One of the first voices heard in the program’s first episode is gruff and shaky with 81 years of age, yet also welcome and familiar.
“Rock and roll all came out of Sun Records,” the voice testifies. “I know, I was there. I’m the Killer, Jerry Lee Lewis, and this is how it all happened.”
The Killer’s endorsement aside, the records that inspired the new “Sun Records” television series are more musical than historical. Would you have it any other way?
In the program, Sam Phillips and Marion Keisker have sex on a chair in the Sun front office. Ike Turner steals a tip jar to pay for a recording session. Jerry Lee and his cousin Jimmy Swaggart clown around like Louisiana Bowery Boys — bayou boys, maybe. Even the Creature from the Black Lagoon makes an appearance, on a drive-in movie screen, behind the future King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.
In one early scene, that future King, Elvis (charming Drake Milligan, an “Elvis tribute” artist since boyhood) and his girlfriend, Trixie (AlexAnn Hopkins), park near the Mississippi River beneath the “old bridge” while Elvis stares wistfully into the distance and muses about the “big ol’ world.” Says Trixie: “You sound like you been reading — what’s that thing everyone’s been read-