Million Dollar Quartet

Anyone in the vicinity of Broadway these days will know the significance of Tuesday, Dec. 4, 1956. That was the day four young rock ’n’ roll hotshots got together in the Memphis recording studio where they got their start. In a high-voltage musical, Million Dollar Quartet, at the Nederlander Theatre, rock historian Colin Escott and Floyd Mutrux (American Hot Wax) wrote a tale of what might have happened that night. The book may be skimpy, but the meat of the show is prime energy.

That night begins as Sam Phillips (Hunter Foster), producer of Sun Records, arranges for four ambitious young hopefuls to drop into the studio — Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash. He says he wants to record Carl Perkins’ new take on an old blues tune, “Matchbox.”

Perkins arrives with his backup, brothers Clayton and Jay Perkins and drummer W. S. Holland. Phillips called in a cocky young buck, 19-year-old Jerry Lee Lewis, full of fire and attitude, ready to heat things up on piano.  Played by Levi Kreis, Lewis is the exclamation point in the quartet, the exuberant and nimble piano man who later called himself “Killer.”

Elvis Presley comes in with a good-looking redhead, Dyanne, on his arm.  Eddie Clendening echoes the soft Elvis voice and demeanor, modest about his quicksilver success yet evidencing a shadow of confidence. He says he is only there for a visit but Carl Perkins has his back up. Elvis had “stolen” a song that Perkins had recently recorded, “Blue Suede Shoes.” Elvis had sung it on The Ed Sullivan Show and made it his own mega-hit. Openly resentful toward Elvis, Robert Britton Lyons’s Carl Perkins is vigorous and effective on his guitarist.

Country singer Johnny Cash is played by Lance Guest who resembles Cash in his younger days. He comes to tell Phillips that he has signed with a larger label.

Directed by Eric Schaeffer, Hunter Foster proves an affable and deft narrator as Sam Phillips, but this show is all about the music.  The singer/instrumentalists are presented simply, each stepping up to the mic to let the good times roll. They are young, ambitious and imbued with the sounds of rhythm and blues with tunes like "I Walk the Line," "Long Tall Sally," "Great Balls of Fire," "Folsom Prison Blues" and more. Phillips, as the story goes, has left the tapes running and what he caught is some signature early ’50s rock ’n’ roll sounding like a million bucks.

As for Dyanne played by Elizabeth Stanley, her part is questionable but she has great presence. She knocks out those chords with "I Hear You Knocking" and shatters the thermometer with “Fever.”

The curtain call is a spectacle, so hold off your exit. Four sequined jackets drop down from the rafters and the boys start jamming with "Hound Dog," "Ghost Riders in the Sky" and "See You Later Alligator." There’s a "Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On" here. Yes, it’s basically a revue, even a jukebox musical, but who cares? Million Dollar Quartet rocks!

(Pictured: Levi Kreis, Robert Britton Lyons, Corey Kaiser, Eddie Clendening, Lance Guest. Photo by Joan Marcus)

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Cabaret Scenes
April 16, 2010
www.cabaretscenes.org