The Story Behind the Jam Session Dubbed the Million Dollar Quartet

Perhaps no jam session was as iconic as the Million Dollar Quartet.

On December 4, 1956, four of the era’s biggest musicians—Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash—came together by chance for an impromptu jam session at Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee.

It began with Perkins. He had already had a hit almost a year prior with “Blue Suede Shoes”. He was in the studio to record his version of “Matchbox,” an old blues song, along with his brothers Clayton and Jay, plus drummer W.S. Holland. But the group needed a piano player. So, Perkins called one of Sun Records’ newest artists, Jerry Lee Lewis, whose first album had been released just three days prior. He was paid $15 for the session.

Country icon and label mate Johnny Cash was also at Sun Records that day. And he happened to stop by the studio where Perkins and Lewis were recording. So did Elvis Presley, who was home for Christmas and stopped by unannounced to see Sun Records’ owner, Sam Phillips. Presley had recently left Sun Records for RCA Victor and had released his first single with them.

Engineer “Cowboy” Jack Clement decided to roll the tape machine. This led to recordings of the famed session and the 40-some songs the quartet played, mostly gospel, country, and early rock. Decades passed before the recordings were ever released. However, it was likely complicated by the fact that Presley was not with Sun Records at the time. Parts of the session were first released in 1981, followed by additional releases after more songs were discovered.

Although Cash can’t be heard clearly in the surviving recordings, he wrote in his autobiography that he was the furthest away from the microphone and sang in a higher pitch to match Presley.

Phillips knew something special was unfolding early in the session and contacted a local photographer, who captured the now-iconic photo of the group. Local paper The Memphis Press-Scimitar published the photo the next day, with a caption dubbing them “the Million Dollar Quartet.”

The story of the Million Dollar Quartet has also since been adapted into a Broadway musical. It dramatizes the events of the evening but captures the lightning-in-a-bottle moment.