Music: The Million Dollar Quartet

I was watching a television documentary on the Million Dollar Quarter last night. The Million Dollar Quartet comprised of four musicians who practically invented rock and roll music in the 1950s. They were Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. All of them were white, born and raised in the American Deep South during the 1930s and 1940s.

The American Deep South was a very different place fifty years ago. Racial discrimination was not only widespread, but legal. The Million Dollar Quartet played a big role in making the US a much more racially tolerant country, by taking old blues music (made by African Americans), speeding it up a little bit and inventing rock and roll. Rock and roll music was invented and made palatable to white kids by these guys. They also made sure that they toured extensively with black musicians. The cross-over appeal of rock music among white kids played a big role in reducing racial discrimination in the U.S – especially in the South.

While Elvis Presley and later Johnny Cash became superstars, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis didn’t. Carl Perkins did not have the luck or looks that Elvis had, though he was much more talented – he played a mean guitar and wrote his own songs. However, Perkins did have a huge influence on the Beatles and Eric Clapton, both of whom covered his songs on their albums. Jerry Lee Lewis’s burgeoning career was cut short by a sex scandal. To learn more about Jerry Lee Lewis, watch the excellent movie “Great Balls of Fire” with Dennis Quaid as Jerry Lee Lewis. Of the Million Dollar Quarter, only Jerry Lee Lewis is still alive and performing; at the age of seventy-four. The other three are dead.

The documentary I watched was narrated by Stan Perkins, son of the late Carl Perkins. Stan Perkins is also a musician. He spoke about the awe he felt when he first met George Harrison of the Beatles. George Harrison told him “The way you feel about me, I feel about your dad – he is my idol”. Both George Harrison and Eric Clapton toured extensively with Carl Perkins when he was alive.

One of the stories that Stan Perkins told was very touching. Carl Perkins died of a stroke in 1998 in the small town of Jackson, Tennessee. He was sixty five years old at the time of his death. George Harrison specially chartered a plane from London, England to make it to Carl Perkins’ funeral. At the end of the funeral oration, Harrison picked up an acoustic guitar and proceeded to sing one of his favourite Carl Perkins songs – “Your True Love”.

What Stan Perkins learned later was that at the time of his father Carl’s death, George Harrison himself was suffering from throat cancer and undergoing radiation therapy. George had not sung in a few years, and was not even sure that his throat would permit him to sing. As George later told Stan; “I wasn’t sure anything was going to come out when I opened my mouth to sing at your father’s funeral”. But George did sing the Carl Perkins song “Your True Love” at his funeral. And as Stan Perkins said on the documentary yesterday; “George nailed the song”.

That is rock and roll. It is a love that transcends time, race, culture and geography. This blog is dedicated to George Harrison - one of the nicest guys who ever picked up a guitar.