John Mellencamp Community

This is a fun read about JM, Elvis, Sun Studios, and Bob Dylan kissing the floor.

http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2010/09/10/outdoors.qp-1943670.sto

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — I went to Memphis to see Elvis Presley and found John Mellencamp as well. Actually, I didn’t see either one of them. Elvis is dead and Mellencamp was probably back home in Bloomington or on the road somewhere.

But I saw where both of them had been and left a reminder of themselves.

The first “sighting” was at Sun Studio.

“That’s where Elvis stood to record and where John Mellencamp said he wanted to stand, too,” said Sun guide Jake Fly, pointing to a well-worn X taped to the floor. “John Mellencamp said he wanted to record on the exact same spot that Elvis did.”

Of course, those two recordings took place more than half a century apart.

For his newest album produced by T Bone Burnett, “No Better Than This,” Mellencamp went back to three historic spots to record live using a 55-year-old Ampex tape recorder and a vintage microphone — Sun Studio, the First African Baptist Church in Savannah, Ga., and Room 414 of the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, where Robert Johnson made his first recordings in 1936.

Sun Studio has changed little through the years. It has the same acoustic ceiling, the original lights and the old floor that so many legends once trod — Jerry Lee Lewis, B.B. King, Rufus Thomas, Howlin’ Wolf, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Roy Orbison, among others. Sam Phillips, the late studio owner, had left X’s of tape on the floor where the band instruments were set up and that’s the way Mellencamp had his arranged.

“It was phenomenal,” Fly said. “You’re walking on hallowed ground when you come in here. . When Bob Dylan walked in here and saw the X where Elvis stood, he got down and kissed the spot.”

Start of Sun

Radio engineer Sam Phillips started the Sun Label in 1952 and shared his tiny office with his secretary Marion Keisker. Legend has it that Keisker is the one who was working when a young Presley plopped down $4 to make his first recording.

On a hot summer day in 1953, a shy Presley stopped by the studio to make a recording of “My Happiness.” Local lore says the recording was intended as a birthday present for his mother. More likely the teen was hoping to be discovered. He was yearning for stardom.

And that’s exactly what he found — more than anyone could ever dream.

So impressed was Keisker that she kept a back-up tape of Presley’s singing. In the studio log, Keisker noted Presley was a “good ballad singer.” The story goes that Keisker pestered Phillips until he gave a listen to the unpolished Presley tape. When 18-year-old Elvis walked into Sun Studio for the first time, he was asked who he sounded like. His reply, “I don’t sound like nobody.”

Listeners agreed. On July 5, 1954, Presley recorded his first single, “That’s All Right,” at Sun Studio in his hometown of Memphis. Sun Studio became known as the birthplace of rock ’n’ roll.

In the small studio, you can peek into the control room and stand behind the same microphone Presley used. Playing in the background on an old Ampex tape deck are bits of songs recorded at Sun. Scuffed instruments are scattered around the room. A guitar with a dollar bill stuffed between the strings is how Cash produced the “chuffing” sound to imitate trains on his recordings.

Ringo Starr has been quoted as saying, “If it hadn’t been for what happened at Sun Studio, there wouldn’t have been a Beatles.”

There also might not have been an Elvis.

At the time, Presley was delivering electrical appliances for Crown Electric. “He probably stopped by here while he was out delivering or maybe after work,” Fly said. “Crown Electric was less than a mile from here so it was easy for Elvis to come by.”

Without Sun Studio, would Presley have made that first recording? Would someone have noticed his talent and given him a chance?

“That’s something we’ll never know,” Fly concluded. “What happened at Sun Studio was history.”

Where they ate

After visiting Sun, I did what Elvis and Mellencamp probably did when they were done recording — headed out for some Memphis cooking. The day before I visited the Arcade, which has been around since 1919. A plaque outside proclaims it the city’s oldest restaurant. An airy two-room eatery, the Arcade has overhead twirling fans, tables clad with boomerang-pattern Formica and booths upholstered in pink and aqua. My Arcade favorite was the Mystery Train sandwich made of goat cheese, artichoke hearts, sun-dried roma tomatoes and pesto aioli.

It’s easy to find the booth where Elvis would slide in to eat his favorite, fried peanut butter and banana sandwich. A little plaque marks the place.

“He liked to sit there because it was close to the back door and he could slip in and out easy,” said owner Harry Zepatos.

After the Sun Studio visit, I stopped off at another Memphis landmark, Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken, and that’s where I had my second Mellencamp encounter. Eating the spicy chicken, I mentioned to the waitress that I was from Bloomington, Indiana. Smiling, she pointed across the table at an old-fashioned reddish orange chair.

“We had somebody else from Bloomington in here,” the waitress said. “That’s where John Mellencamp sat when he came in here to eat.”

So what did the Heartland rocker order? “Fried chicken,” the waitress answered. “That’s what most people eat when they come here.”