There may not be a better musical focus for a jukebox musical than the sounds of Memphis’ plucky Sun Studios in the 1950s, where Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash (and a dozen more names) came up with their first vibrant hits.
Focusing on a chance get-together in the studio of the above named giants one afternoon in December1956, “Million Dollar Quartet” explodes in the sounds of the era – in full glorious rock ‘n’ roll, not the watered-down, Broadway-crooned approximation by which some rock ‘n’ roll is rendered in musicals.
It helps, too, that the cast of Tyler Hunter as Elvis, James Barry as Carl Perkins, John Countryman as Jerry Lee Lewis and Scott Moreau as Johnny Cash all play their instruments as well as convincingly sing, backed only by drummer Patrick Morrow and standup bassist Corey Kaiser (who often play during the spoken interludes between songs).
It’s fitting, too, that a show so emblematic of the 1950s gets a showcase at the center’s Eisenhower Theater, named after the presiding President at the time.
It serves as a big homecoming party for director Eric D. Shaeffer, artistic director and co-founder of Arlington’s Signature Theatre, for whom this is his biggest commercial hit.
But as great a musical showcase it might be, it’s also lousy history.
The actual one-time combination of the four resulted in a relaxed, ad-libbed studio session in which they traded favorite gospel songs, often stopping tunes after a verse or so and jumping to something else. Elvis, returning home after his move to RCA and its big recording contact, dominated nearly every song. Lewis and Perkins harmonized; Cash could barely be heard.
They sang old county as well as gospel nuggets, which may be a surprise to those who thought they were concocting the devil’s music of rock ‘n’ roll the whole time. They did take several stabs at Chuck Berry’s “Brown Eyed Handsome Man” because they all admired its nimble lyrics they were trying to get right. The only Elvis song they actually did was “Don’t Be Cruel,” but only so Elvis could demonstrate how he saw a guy in Vegas do it (who turned out to be Jackie Wilson).
Anyway none of that happens in the musical version. Just three of the 40 odd songs they ran through that afternoon actually makes the show.
After all, would more general musical audiences sit through anything but the hits?
So “Million Dollar Quartet” is chock full of them, from an opening “Blue Suede Shoes” to “Matchbox” (the song Perkins was recording the day of the session, with young Lewis in as session pianist); Cash doing “Folsom Prison Blues” and “I Walk the Line”; Elvis shaking to “That’s All Right” and, eventually, “Hound Dog”; Jerry Lee pounding out “Great Balls of Fire” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.”
It’s not just the music that’s changed, and the way they perform them — full band concert performances — but the very sound of the music is different too, favoring the amped-up sonic rockabilly of the 70s revival of Robert Gordon and Link Wray than the actual Sun sound, which is lighter, tastier, country twang especially in the case of Perkins, whose stage stand-in Barry was zinging big electric solos better suited for 70s FM rock radio. More dynamic for a big theater production, no doubt, but not accurate at all.
More than that, a number of made up story lines are added in order to give the musical some semblance of story. Studio owner Sam Phillips is considering a move to RCA in New York and a deadline for a decision is looming: will this be his last night in the studio? It’s time to sign up Johnny Cash to a new contract, will he take Sun to the next level after the departure of Presley? Will Perkins slug this brash young pianist Lewis who gets under his skin?
It’s all pretty unnecessary and slippery factually (and the musical’s co-writer Colin Escott should know better — he wrote the liner notes for the U.S. release of the session in 1990).
To activate these story lines, the actors are forced to take artificial approaches to their characters as well, such that the pranking Jerry Lee and angry Perkins come off as characters in “The Beatles” cartoon show did – broad caricatures that had nothing to do with the real people.
That same way, Tyler Hunter, who honed his Elvis in “Legends in Concert” shows in Atlantic City and Hawaii, can’t break out of the impersonator’s mask here. He’s got the voice moves and looks (though of a slightly older era King) but we get no sense of an actual person beneath the cool sportscoat.
The real Presley did show up at the set with a girlfriend, Merilyn Evans, who is turned into a more generic Dyanne here, but as portrayed by Kelly Lamont emerges as more of an actual person than the Mount Rushmore of rock stars. She’s a welcome female presence among the room of guys, and even gets to sing a couple of songs, “Fever” and “I Hear You Knocking,” that adds both sex appeal and variety to the show.
Barry is strong as Perkins because his musicality is; John Countryman is nimble on the piano as Lewis, but physically is kind of a stretch.
And Scott Moreau may look more like Johnny Carson than Johnny Cash, but his deep voice is convincing as the country star, whose songs tended to get the best reaction from the opening night Kennedy Center audience, clapping on the off-beats and trying to keep up. (And making one think: Why aren’t there as many Johnny Cash impersonators on the road as there are for Elvis?).
Vince Nappo’s Sam Phillips mostly just runs in and out of the control room, fueled by dreams and disappointments (he looks nothing like the actual Phillips, either, but nobody notices).
The whole “million dollar quartet” conceit came when Phillips, knowing a good P.R. moment when he saw it, called a local writer and photographer and it captured the moment in the paper the next day.
But in the show, it’s Phillips — not a newspaper guy — who snaps the iconic picture of the four behind the piano, the only existing photographic evidence of their grouping, which is reassembled on stage as a kind of religious tableau that gets audible reaction from the audience.
That moment also serves as the climax of the show, such that when they all return for an extended encore, they can all do a signature song as if from Rock N’ Roll Heaven, freed from the shackles of historical representation. Then they’re really having fun.
“Million Dollar Quartet” runs at the Kennedy Center through Oct. 6.