On Dec. 4, 1956, the forefathers of rock ‘n’ roll — Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley — serendipitously convened at the Sun Records studio in Memphis, Tennessee, for an impromptu jam session.
Studio owner Sam Phillips had the foresight to record the session of what would become known as the Million Dollar Quartet.
John Mueller’s production of “One Night in Memphis,” which opens Dec. 26, for a three-night run at the Egyptian Theatre, is a musical-retelling of that night, said John Mueller, who not only created and directed the show, but also portrays Perkins.
“(The show) is not done in a scholarly fashion,” he said. “It’s more of a fun reenactment with jokes and stuff. It’s definitely more of a concert than a musical, and there is a lot of audience interaction.”
The cast includes Travis LeDoyt as Presley, Blair Carman as Lewis and Neil Morrow as Cash, Mueller said.
“We talk about some of the history behind the songs we sing, and how that whole night occurred,” he said.
The actual evening, which took place 67 years ago, stems from Perkins, who booked a session at the studio.
Perkins, who recruited his brothers Clayon and Jay to respectively play bass and rhythm guitar, was set to record with Lewis on the piano and W.S. Holland on the drums.
While Perkins, who most people recognize through his hit, “Blue Suede Shoes,” isn’t as well known as the others, the Million Dollar Quartet would not have happened without him, Mueller said.
As the story goes, Perkins recorded a song called “Matchbox,” shortly before Cash and Presley stopped by, and in the jam, the four recorded a string of songs including “Down By the Riverside,” “Blueberry Hill” and “Peace In the Valley.”
“The recordings stand as a monument to four American legends in their prime, and it’s also a living testament to how talented they all were,” he said. “All of the guys grew up listening to and singing gospel music in church. And it’s fascinating to hear that mixture of gospel, country music and rhythm and blues that formed rock ‘n’ roll.”
When Mueller was pulling the show together, he wanted to make sure people got to know Perkins.
“One thing I didn’t know until I did my research was how poverty-stricken he was when he was growing up,” Mueller said. “Carl’s parents were sharecroppers, and they were literally picking cotton in the fields and his whole family helped out. So, he was picking cotton until he started to make a decent living from music. A lot of people come up to me after we perform the show and tell me they loved hearing a lot of stuff about Carl Perkins’ background and stuff like that.”
The idea to create “One Night in Memphis” was pitched to Mueller by an agency who had seen his show, “Winter Dance Party,” which is based on Buddy Holly’s final tour that included Waylon Jennings, J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson and Ritchie Valens.
Holly, Richardson and Valens died in the early-morning hours on Feb. 3, 1959, after the plane, a 1947, single-engined V-tailed Beechcraft 35 Bonanza, they were riding in crashed shortly after taking off from Mason City Municipal Airport in Iowa.
“The agency told me about a Broadway musical called ‘The Million Dollar Quartet’ that was starting to tour,” Mueller said. “They said it was an extremely expensive production, so there was a demand for something that was more concert based.”
Since Mueller portrayed the Buddy Holly lead in “Winter Dance Party,” he wanted to step back a bit from such a demanding role for “One Night in Memphis.”
“With Carl, I felt I could sing a few songs and be the narrator or emcee of the piece, and let the other guys do the hard entertaining,” he said with a laugh. “The main secret of the show’s success is the personnel, and I have the best of the best.”
One of the challenges of finding the right people for the right roles was to make sure the characters wouldn’t be reduced to caricatures, according to Mueller.
“I did not want the show to come off with that,” he said. “So I had to find people who were on the same wavelength as me. There are some people who do things like this for the money, and there are others who truly love the music and truly love the history. So, I found people who love the history, and do this in the most authentic and sincere way.”
Upping his musicality was another reason why Mueller jumped at the chance to create a show about the Million Dollar Quartet.
“Carl, and Scotty Moore, who played behind Elvis, were great guitarists, and I thought this would be a great opportunity for me to ape what they had done with their great guitar licks and riffs,” he said.
Mueller’s older brother and sister fueled his love for early rock ‘n’ roll.
“I got their hand-me-down records of The Beatles, Elvis and Buddy Holly,” he said. “And when I was growing up in the ’70s, record stores had cut-out bins, where they would put old records that were mostly artists from the ’50s. Since I couldn’t afford to buy records from the current artists of the day, I would go to these bins, and I fell in love with that beat and sound.”
Although Mueller got made fun of in high school for not listening to the Bee Gees, the music of Presley, Perkins, Lewis and Cash stuck with him.
“I used to be friends with Niki Sullivan, one of Buddy Holly’s original Crickets, (who passed away in 2004), and asked him why this music has lasted so long, and he said it’s because it’s fun, happy music,” said Mueller, who is also an original singer, songwriter and recording artist. “I’ve incorporated some of that style into my original music, to an extent.”