Together at the Sun studio in Memphis on a December day in 1956, as captured by the Memphis Press-Scimitar: From left, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash.
They were young. They were talented. They were hungry. They were four men with their lives — some lofty peaks and some deep valleys — ahead of them. They were musicians, and they were friends.
Put them together in one room, as indeed happened one day in 1956? You've got a million-dollar quartet.
That's the premise of the touring stage show “Million Dollar Quartet,” which features the music and personae of four of the brightest lights of the then-aborning genre of rock and roll: Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley, who all got their start at the Memphis studio Sun Records under the mentorship of Sam Phillips. It’s based on an actual impromptu — but recorded — jam in the Sun studio.
As the story goes, Perkins had come to the studio to work on some tracks, and studio owner Phillips brought in his newest discovery, frenzied pianist Lewis. Presley and Cash — whose stars were on the rise — dropped by, and the four began to harmonize on country, gospel and rockabilly songs as Jerry Lee manned the ivories. (Though in a local newspaper photo from the Memphis Press-Scimitar, it’s Elvis at the keyboard.)
The show’s USA tour — featuring such seminal hit songs as “Hound Dog,” “I Walk the Line,” “Matchbox” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” — makes its way to Rochester for an Oct. 25-30 run at the Rochester Auditorium Theatre. Rochester is only the second city for the current cast.
The concept — a slice of time in the lives of young performers at the outset of their careers, filled with mingled hope, confidence and uncertainty — has resonance for its young cast.
Take Cody Slaughter, a 20-year-old from Harrison, Ark., who’s playing Elvis in the show. He’s performed Elvis professionally throughout his teens, culminating in this show — and, as much as he loves Elvis, he’s looking to a career in the movies.
Slaughter loves the way the show captures a day in the lives of the principals, each of whom has his own story. With Presley’s big hits have come big pressures — “everybody’s pulling on him, pulling at him” — and he’s got something to prove after flopping in Vegas. Cash’s (Derek Keeling) star is also on the rise. Perkins (Lee Ferris) is “stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Slaughter said — a major talent (he’s the guy who wrote “Blue Seude Shoes,” after all) often overshadowed by his more charismatic colleagues. “And Jerry Lee Lewis (Martin Kaye) — he’s just a nut,” says Slaughter. Or, as Kaye puts it, “an atomic bomb waiting to go off.”
Plus, there’s Sam Phillips (Christopher Ryan Grant) himself, wondering how to harness — and maintain — the incredible electricity he’s found among the young stars.
Playing the future King is no novelty to Slaughter: He’s made a career of transforming himself into his musical hero. Elvis Aron Presley has had Slaughter all shook up from practically the cradle.
“I have never, to be honest with you, known a day of my life when I didn’t know who he was — he was always in my life,” Slaughter said. He figures he first started listening to Elvis at around age 4 or 5 and “couldn’t believe how cool he was.”
“The great thing I love about Elvis — he’s a great entertainer, but the human side of Elvis really did it for me. He was very generous with people. He didn’t have to be ... he would buy you a new car or pay off your house. To be the greatest entertainer in the world and be so down to earth was what really touched me.”
(Slaughter’s favorite Elvis song? It’s not one of the usual Sun or RCA hits; it’s Elvis’ rendition of Paul Simon’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”)
Slaughter has been transforming himself into Elvis professionally since age 13, when he entered a contest in Branson, Mo. Over the years, he’s played Elvis in Branson theaters, headlined The Tennessee Shindig, won second place at the Ultimate Elvis Tribute Contest in the King’s hometown of Tupelo in 2010, won the top prize at the Hard Rock Ultimate Elvis Contest, and this year won the Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist Contest.
There are, of course, no lack of Elvises out there, and plenty of them topple far over the line into caricature. The key to avoiding it: Play the person, not the persona.
“To me, if you’re going to play a character, of course you need to know the music — but you need to know the human side,” he said. “You need to get inside Elvis’ head. With everything I know about him, this is how I think he would be.”
Unlike Slaughter, who’s been doing Elvis pretty much all his life, the British actor and singer Martin Kaye was not a lifetime fan of the piano pounder who’d come to be called “the Killer.”
“Coming from England, I hadn’t really grown up with this,” Kaye said. “I had more grown up with Elton John and jazz to a point. I was never really exposed to the style of music that we’re doing.”
Also unlike Slaughter, who’s made a career of Presley so far, Kaye is in the midst of a diverse stage and musical career, with roles in such shows as “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Assassins.” He also is soon to release his second album, with a third in the wings.
“My dad played boogie-woogie piano, and I used to do that all the time,” Kaye said. So when he played cruise ships, he threw himself into the performance: “I used to go wild and climb up on the piano. People used to tell me, ‘You’re wild, you’re like Jerry Lee Lewis.’ And I relate to everything he does as a performer.
“I’ve been reading his biography, which is quite an amazing story,” he added. “It’s hard to believe he is actually a real person.”
Lewis’ internal tensions fascinate Kaye as well: Lewis came from a deep religious background and at times expressed the belief that he was damned for playing “the devil’s music,” but he couldn’t stop.
“You actually see that conflict, in his eyes and in his playing,” Kaye said.
So how does Kaye capture the dervish that was Jerry Lee in his prime?
“It’s just about being so arrogant about it — knowing that you are it, you are the guy, just towering over everybody else,” Kaye said. “Just about being as arrogrant as you can, showing that in your physical presence as well as the playing.”
Like Slaughter, Kaye’s loving the fact that he gets to, essentially, play in a band with Elvis, Cash and Perkins -- that in a way the four actors are jamming together just like the boys did in ‘56.
“I’m just floored that I’m getting paid for this,” he said. “It’s ridiculous.”
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