Event · 1956-12-04 · Memphis [35.15, -90.05]
The Million Dollar Quartet session (4 December 1956)
On 4 December 1956, Carl Perkins was recording at Sun with Jerry Lee Lewis on piano when Elvis Presley dropped by and Johnny Cash also appeared. The four drifted into an impromptu jam of gospel hymns and old hits while Sam Phillips quietly let the tape run. A newspaper photographer and reporter christened the gathering the Million Dollar Quartet. The afternoon became the single most famous moment in the studio's history.
Evidence2
- Wikidata: Million Dollar QuartetWikidata
www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1935591
accessed 2026-06-04
- MusicBrainz: The Million Dollar QuartetMusicBrainz
musicbrainz.org/artist/b4bfd133-a931-42c7-a41c-0311893dea67
accessed 2026-06-04
Connections1
collaborates with → The Million Dollar Quartet (album)
The impromptu session of 4 December 1956 brought Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash into a single room, and the tape Sam Phillips let run was eventually issued as an album decades later. The release preserves the unguarded gathering that crystallized how closely the studio's stars orbited one another at the height of the Memphis scene.