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Compare and Contrast what you have learned about music in Memphis and what you will learn in Nashville

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Civil Rights Museum | Virtual Tours | Virtual Tours | History | TN History for Kids

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Alvin York Andrew Jackson Andrew Johnson Anne Dudley Austin Peay Bessie Smith Carl Rowan Casey Jones Clarence Saunders Cordell Hull Cornelia Fort David Crockett David Farragut Edward Crump Elvis Presley Grace Moore Hattie Caraway Ida B. Wells Jack Massey James Davis James K.

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Virtual Tour of the History in Memphis

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Civil Rights Museum | Virtual Tours | Virtual Tours | History | TN History for Kids

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Alvin York Andrew Jackson Andrew Johnson Anne Dudley Austin Peay Bessie Smith Carl Rowan Casey Jones Clarence Saunders Cordell Hull Cornelia Fort David Crockett David Farragut Edward Crump Elvis Presley Grace Moore Hattie Caraway Ida B. Wells Jack Massey James Davis James K.

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Students will compare BB King to Elvis Presley

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Students will make a timeline about B.B. King

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His reign as King of the Blues has been as long as that of any monarch on earth. Yet B.B. King continues to wear his crown well. At age 76, he is still light on his feet, singing and playing the blues with relentless passion. Time has no apparent effect on B.B., other than to make him more popular, more cherished, more relevant than ever. Don't look for him in some kind of semi-retirement; look for him out on the road, playing for people, popping up in a myriad of T.V. commercials, or laying down tracks for his next album. B.B. King is as alive as the music he plays, and a grateful world can't get enough of him.

For more than half a century, Riley B. King - better known as B.B. King - has defined the blues for a worldwide audience. Since he started recording in the 1940s, he has released over fifty albums, many of them classics. He was born September 16, 1925, on a plantation in Itta Bena, Mississippi, near Indianola. In his youth, he played on street corners for dimes, and would sometimes play in as many as four towns a night. In 1947, he hitchhiked to Memphis, TN, to pursue his music career. Memphis was where every important musician of the South gravitated, and which supported a large musical community where every style of African American music could be found. B.B. stayed with his cousin Bukka White, one of the most celebrated blues performers of his time, who schooled B.B. further in the art of the blues.

B.B.'s first big break came in 1948 when he performed on Sonny Boy Williamson's radio program on KWEM out of West Memphis. This led to steady engagements at the Sixteenth Avenue Grill in West Memphis, and later to a ten-minute spot on black-staffed and managed Memphis radio station WDIA. "King's Spot," became so popular, it was expanded and became the "Sepia Swing Club." Soon B.B. needed a catchy radio name. What started out as Beale Street Blues Boy was shortened to Blues Boy King, and eventually B.B. King.

In the mid-1950s, while B.B. was performing at a dance in Twist, Arkansas, a few fans became unruly. Two men got into a fight and knocked over a kerosene stove, setting fire to the hall. B.B. raced outdoors to safety with everyone else, then realized that he left his beloved $30 acoustic guitar inside, so he rushed back inside the burning building to retrieve it, narrowly escaping death. When he later found out that the fight had been over a woman named Lucille, he decided to give the name to his guitar to remind him never to do a crazy thing like fight over a woman. Ever since, each one of B.B.'s trademark Gibson guitars has been called Lucille.

Soon after his number one hit, "Three O'Clock Blues," B.B. began touring nationally. In 1956, B.B. and his band played an astonishing 342 one-night stands. From the chitlin circuit with its small-town cafes, juke joints, and country dance halls to rock palaces, symphony concert halls, universities, resort hotels and amphitheaters, nationally and internationally, B.B. has become the most renowned blues musician of the past 40 years.

Over the years, B.B. has developed one of the world's most identifiable guitar styles. He borrowed from Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone Walker and others, integrating his precise and complex vocal-like string bends and his left hand vibrato, both of which have become indispensable components of rock guitarist's vocabulary. His economy, his every-note-counts phrasing, has been a model for thousands of players, from Eric Clapton and George Harrison to Jeff Beck. B.B. has mixed traditional blues, jazz, swing, mainstream pop and jump into a unique sound. In B.B.'s words, "When I sing, I play in my mind; the minute I stop singing orally, I start to sing by playing Lucille."

In 1968, B.B. played at the Newport Folk Festival and at Bill Graham's Fillmore West on bills with the hottest contemporary rock artists of the day who idolized B.B. and helped to introduce him to a young white audience. In "69, B.B. was chosen by the Rolling Stones to open 18 American concerts for them; Ike and Tina Turner also played on 18 shows.

B.B. was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1984 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. He received NARAS' Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award in 1987, and has received honorary doctorates from Tougaloo(MS) College in 1973; Yale University in 1977; Berklee College of Music in 1982; Rhodes College of Memphis in 1990; Mississippi Valley State University in 2002 and Brown University in 2007. In 1992, he received the National Award of Distinction from the University of Mississippi.

In 1991, B.B. King's Blues Club opened on Beale Street in Memphis, and in 1994, a second club was launched at Universal CityWalk in Los Angeles. A third club in New York City's Times Square opened in June 2000 and most recently two clubs opened at Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut in January 2002. In 1996, the CD-Rom On The Road With B.B. King: An Interactive Autobiography was released to rave reviews. Also in 1996, B.B.'s autobiography, "Blues All Around Me" (written with David Ritz for Avon Books) was published. In a similar vein, Doubleday published "The Arrival of B.B. King" by Charles Sawyer, in 1980.

B.B. continued to tour extensively, averaging over 250 concerts per year around the world. Classics such as "Payin' The Cost To Be The Boss," "The Thrill Is Gone," How Blue Can You Get," "Everyday I Have The Blues," and "Why I Sing The Blues" are concert (and fan) staples. Over the years, the Grammy Award-winner has had two #1 R&B hits, 1951's "Three O'Clock Blues," and 1952's "You Don't Know Me," and four #2 R&B hits, 1953's "Please Love Me," 1954's "You Upset Me Baby," 1960's "Sweet Sixteen, Part I," and 1966's "Don't Answer The Door, Part I." B.B.'s most popular crossover hit, 1970's "The Thrill Is Gone," went to #15 pop.

B.B. passed away in his sleep on May 14th 2015

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His reign as King of the Blues has been as long as that of any monarch on earth. Yet B.B. King continues to wear his crown well. At age 76, he is still light on his feet, singing and playing the blues with relentless passion.

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Students will take what they learned from the website and make a brochure about BB King

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BBKingMuseum - BB King museum official site

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From the cotton fields, street corners and juke joints of the Mississippi Delta came a new kind of music - the blues. Considered by many to be the only truly indigenous American music, this form that has influenced musicians worldwide is deeply rooted in Delta soil.

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Students will apply the informatuin they have learned to this crossword puzzle.

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Sam Phillips and Sun Records - TeachRock

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Students will go on a virtual tour of Graceland and create an acrostic poem using GRACELAND and fill it in with facts they have learned about Graceland or Elvis.

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official web site for elvis presley's graceland

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Graceland Virtual Tours - Elvis Presley's Graceland - Memphis, TN

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Take a 360 tour of Elvis Presley's Graceland.

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Students will take these facts and compare and contrast it to music today.

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Rock and roll exploded out of Memphis in the 1950s with the founding of Sun Records by Sam Phillips.

Rock and roll was a new style of music that mixed blues, hillbilly, and gospel. Elements of the music could be heard in many records during the 1940s and 1950s. A Cleveland, Ohio, disc jockey, Alan Freed, is credited with coming up with the name to describe the music.

But it was a Memphis singer named Elvis Presley whose recordings at Sun Records really put rock and roll at the forefront of popular music.

The largest record companies like Columbia, Capitol, Decca, and Victor concentrated on pop music. They ignored black artists and rhythm and blues (R&B). This opened the door for small independent record companies to step in and start recording these artists.

One of these small independents was Sun Records, established by Sam Phillips in 1950 as the Memphis Recording Studio. Ike Turner's band (later of Ike and Tina Turner fame) recorded a song there in 1951 that many historians consider to be the first rock and roll record, "Rocket 88." It was only a small hit for the studio.

In 1952 Phillips formed his own label named Sun Records. Sun's early artists included black artists like Rufus Thomas, , and Howlin' Wolf.

As white teenagers became interested in rhythm and blues, the independent record companies began to cash in. As they did, the larger recording companies begin to show interest in the new music style.

Many record companies, still thinking that only whites could be commercially successful, hired singers like Tennessean Pat Boone to cover R&B songs. Boone recorded "Ain't That a Shame" by Fats Domino and took it to number one on the pop charts. Boone's version didn't have the authentic blues feel of Domino's, but it sold a lot more records.

Popular lore has it that Phillips looked long and hard for "a white man who could sing like a Negro" to cross over into the mainstream market. In 1953, Phillips got that white man in Elvis Presley.

Elvis hung around the studio until Phillips gave him a chance to sing. Presley recorded his first record for Sun Records, "That's All Right (Mama)", a -cover- of an earlier song by African American artist Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup. The song became a hit.

Phillips realized that the playing of two Sun session musicians, Bill Black and Scotty Moore, played an important role in developing Elvis' rock and roll sounds. He gave them part of the royalties from Elvis's records. After Elvis moved on to another recording company, both men no longer received their royalties from Elvis' songs.

Phillips sold Elvis's contract to RCA Records for $35,000 in 1955. This enabled him to get out of debt and concentrate on new singers.

Johnny Cash lived in Memphis and started stopping by Sun Records to try and meet Sam Phillips. Phillips was never available until Cash ran into him outside the office. Phillips agreed to hear Cash, and ended up recording him.

Sun released Cash's first record in 1955. Cash, unlike Elvis, wrote his own songs. Two of them, "Folsom City Blues" and "I Walk the Line," became huge hits for Sun and Cash. Cash too left Phillips and signed with Columbia Records.

Some music critics said that Cash's songs after Sun Records never sounded quite as good. It was as though it took Phillips' mixing board to produce Cash's music, perhaps "the most original and innovative sound in country music since Hank Williams died."

Sun's biggest hit was Carl Perkins' "Blue Suede Shoes," released in 1955. Perkins said his music was a mixture of blues and honky-tonk. "I just speeded up some of the slow blues licks," he said.

"That's what ...rock and roll was to begin with: a country man's song with a black man's rhythm."- Carl Perkins

Perkins' "Blue Suede Shoes" was the first country music record to reach the R&B charts. But like the singers before him, Perkins also left Sun Records and was signed by Columbia in 1958. The big record companies could offer the singers more exposure and promotions and therefore more money than the smaller independents could. Listen to part of "Blue Suede Shoes"

http://tn4me.org/audio/Blue_Suede_Shoes_edited.mp3

While Perkins did not become as big of a star as Cash and Presley, his music was a great influence on rock and roll singers in the 1960s. The Beatles recorded five of his songs, which meant he earned royalties from their huge sales of records.

Singers Roy Orbison and Jerry Lee Lewis also got their start at Sun Records in the 1950s and then left for major record companies. Lewis scored hits at Sun with "Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On" and "Great Balls of Fire."

As the major record companies started signing black and white R&B and rock singers, the independents began to suffer. Phillips cut his final record in 1968 and sold his catalog of recordings in 1969.

Phillips, who was not a musician, was successful for a time because he had an ability to find talented performers with unique styles, and he developed ways to record them that captured that style and talent.

Perkins said Phillips was "as near a genius as any man I ever met." Phillips would tell the singers to, "'Get in there and pick boys. We'll find a record when we get through,'" Perkins said.

The Sun Records experience was brief, but important. It helped Memphis gain prominence as a music center in the eyes of the world.

Picture Credits:

Photograph of Memphis's Sun Studio in 2007. Sun's original studio was located in the section to the right, underneath the neon sign reading "SUN." The larger section was a soda fountain during the 1950s. Photo by G. Graham Perry III, Tennessee State Museum

Photograph of the front cover of November 1969 Life magazine featuring Johnny Cash, "The Rough-cut King of Country Music." The article said: "His face looks ruined, the lean body whipped out. He sings of bygone days that many of his listeners can't even remember....As the undisputed king of country music, he has won a nationwide following for the type of singing that city folks used to scorn." Tennessee State Museum Collection

In 1956 both Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash dropped by Sun Records in Memphis to visit. Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis were there doing recording sessions. Sam Phillips, owner of Sun, persuaded them to sit down and sing together. He also turned his tape recorder on. The group sang mostly gospel music, but a photograph was taken and later ran under the headline of "Million Dollar Quartet" as all four men either had or would later sell millions of records. This is the cover of an album of the recordings produced in 1981. Tennessee State Museum Collection

A photograph, undated, of Sam Phillips sitting at his recording board at Sun Records in Memphis. Tennessee State Museum Collection

Photograph of Carl Perkins signing autographs in 1956 after he performed at the Overton Park Band Shell in Memphis. The newspaper reported that some 5,000 teenagers had turned out that night for a two hour show featuring Perkins and other rock and roll performers. Elvis Presley even made a surprise appearance. Courtesy of the photographer Robert Williams and The Commercial Appeal.

Photograph of a young Elvis with a duck tail hair style. Part of "Elvis: A 1990 Calendar." Tennessee State Museum Collection

Acknowledgments:

Blue Suede Shoes, By: Carl Lee Perkins. Used by Permission of Wren Music Co. o/b/o Carl Perkins Music, Inc. (BMI). Audio Recording used by Permission of Sun Records

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Rock and roll exploded out of Memphis in the 1950s with the founding of Sun Records by Sam Phillips. Rock and roll was a new style of music that mixed blues, hillbilly, and gospel. Elements of the music could be heard in many records during the 1940s and 1950s.

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Students will create a timeline based on the events in Elvis Presley's life.

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Students will examine the history of the United States since the conclusion of World War II

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Students will examine the history of the United States since the conclusion of World War II

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5.64 Refer to details and  examples about the significance of Tennessee in popular music, including Sun Studios, Stax Records, Elvis Presley, B.B. King, and Memphis Tennessee.