Book - Good Rockin' Tonight

GOOD ROCKIN’ TONIGHT SUN RECORDS AND THE BIRTH OF ROCK N’ ROLL
By
COLIN ESCOTT with MARTIN HAWKINS
Foreword by PETER GURALNICK

Paperback
275 pages, 240 photos

Memphis, Tennessee. The early 1950’s. The Mississippi rolls by, and there’s a train in the night. Down on Beale Street there’s hard-edged blues, on the outskirts of town they’re pickin’ hillbilly boogie.
     
At Sam Phillips’ Sun Studio on Union Avenue, there’s something different going on . “Shake it, baby, shake it!” “Go, cat, go!” “We’re gonna rock…”
     
This is where rock ‘n roll was born—the Studio that launched Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, and Carl Perkins. The label that brought the world “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” “Breathless,” “I Walk the Line,” “Mystery Train,” “Baby, Let’s Play House,” “Good Rockin’ Tonight.” Good Rockin’ Tonight is the history, in words and over 240 photographs, of Sam Phillips’ legendary storefront studio, from the early days with primal blues artists like Howlin’ Wolf and B.B. King to the long nights in the studio with Elvis and Jerry Lee. As colorful and energetic as the music itself, it’s a one-of-a-kind book for anyone who wants to know where it all started.

If you read only one book on Sun Studio and its Artists - this is it! Fun to read, the story of the
Sun Record label with 240 vintage photos. A one of a kind book about the “Birthplace of Rock n’ Roll.”—SUN STUDIO

“A resounding success…A cogent, highly entertaining and eminently readable history.”
--Variety

“Tricked out with photos of Sun’s stars and staff—which is to say, with faces that just plain take your eyes into custody—this book’s as glorious a bit of Americana as blue suede shoes.”
--Booklist

Chapters Headings:
1. “That Muddy Old River…”
2. Blues Before Sunrise
3. Sellin’ My Stuff
4. Elvis Presley: Sun #209
5. Johnny Cash: Hillbilly Heads Uptown
6. Cashing In
7. Carl Perkins: Prophet in Blue Suede Shoes
8. Roy Orbison: A Cadillac and a Diamond Ring
9. The Studio at Work
10. Those Who Would Be King
11. Jerry Lee Lewis: The Ferriday Wild Man
12. Lonelier Weekends: Charlie Rich and Carl Mann
13. Into the ‘60’s
14. Sun in the Age of Plenty