Television critic Glenn Garvin digs deep into new CMT miniseries Sun Records, which explores the roots of rock ‘n’ roll:
“All rock ‘n’ roll came out of Sun Records!” declares Jerry Lee Lewis in the opening moments of CMT’s bopping new miniseries. Like a lot of things in Sun Records, it’s not quite true, but you’ll be too busy dancing to care. Sun Records rocks!
Filling out the early-1950s birth certificate of rock ‘n’ roll is no easy task. Did the water break in Chicago, where Chuck Berry was underlining his tone poems about the lives of an emerging demographic, the teenagers, with a jangling guitar? Or Philadelphia, where Bill Haley was punching up western swing music with machine-gun saxophone lines? Or West Texas, where Buddy Holly’s nerd glasses distracted parents from his ragged cries to their kids to rave on?
Memphis, perched just above the Mississippi Delta at a strategic spot where icy bluesmen and hillbilly shouters were bound to collide, has as good a claim as any of them. And Sam Phillips, owner of the corner-store Sun Records, if not the father of rock ‘n’ roll, was surely its midwife.
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