Sun Records Quotes

Elvis Presley, you can't define him in a couple of sentences, but he was a country boy and he was very respectful.

People out there maybe know who Junior Parker is and some of those Sun Records blues guys.

Elvis was a giant and influenced everyone in the business.

I started out just as Elvis was going into the army, Jerry Lee Lewis married his 14-year-old cousin, and Little Richard became a priest.

... so much of what we do now started in 1954 at Sun Records in Memphis Tennessee ... those guys were inventing that stuff (Rock & Roll) ... you can really tell on some tracks ... they were actually afraid at times of what they were playing. But Rock & Roll definitely didn't come before that time; it started right there

Wouldn't it be interesting to take Elvis back to his Sun Records period? I don't know. But I'm content to listen to his Sun Records. I don't want to dig him up out of the grave.

It just took the right time. I was fully confident that I was going to see Sam Phillips and to record for him that when I called him, I thought, I'm going to get on Sun Records. So I called him and he turned me down flat. Then two weeks later, I got turned down again. He told me over the phone that he couldn't sell gospel music so - as it was independent, not a lot of money.

It was Elvis who really got me hooked on beat music. When I heard 'Heartbreak Hotel' I thought, this is it.

Elvis Presley, The Everly Brothers, and a lot of American artists were my greatest influences.

I was raised on Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly and discovered the Stray Cats when I was 11 or 12 years old.

The only way you can get Scotty Moore's tone is with a big hollowbody guitar.

I've loved music always, and my music fire was lit by Elvis Presley, really, and all that was happening back then.

Elvis Presley's Sun stuff - there's an album out in England with just about all those sides on it - you know, the sound of that upright bass slapping away: that's what I like to listen to. That and Richard Pryor, that is.

God bless the boys from Memphis, blue suede shoes, and Elvis.

I was an original Elvis fan. He was the voice of my generation. I was listening to him on the radio when he released his great Sun records with Scotty Moore on electric guitar and Bill Black on bass.

You had to pick something like Blue Suede Shoes because it's the flagship of the Sun label, but then I wanted to dig down and find something like Rakin' and Scrapin'.

When I met Johnny Cash, I didn't know what to ask: where were you born, who was your favorite recording artist, what's your favorite color - I didn't know.

My dream collaboration would be Elvis.

There wasn't really a lot of difference from a Mississippi perspective between what Elvis did on 'Mystery Train' or 'Milkcow Blues' or what Bill Monroe was playing or what Flatt and Scruggs was playing; it was rock 'n' roll to me.

I was always drawn to the roots music, bluegrass, blues, early rock - Sun Records, Elvis [Presley]. And I still love that music to this day. Memphis never gets the credit. It's much more musically rich than Nashville ever will be. Nashville manufactured that hokey-hillbilly image way back.

That rockabilly sound wasn't as simple as I thought it was.

I saw footage of Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley just hanging out together in Memphis when they were young guys getting started at Sun, listening to records together. That was beautiful to me.

Sam Phillips responded most to a song of mine called, "Hey Porter," which was on the first record.

If you went to school in Nashville, you were aware of all those '60s rockabilly people.

I knew about Elvis. Of course, everybody knew about him then.