Record Store Day, which began in 2008 and has been gaining traction ever since, is a worldwide celebrated event honoring independent record shops. “This is a day for the people who make up the world of the record store—the staff, the customers, and the artists—to come together and celebrate the unique culture of a record store and the special role these independently owned stores play in their communities.” (recordstoreday.com)
Tonight is the world premiere of CMT’s newest and highly anticipated music drama, Sun Records! CMT has brought the story of Sun to life! Every sound has a story, and we are very excited to see how all of the Sun legends are interpreted.
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio will play Sun founder Sam Phillips in the upcoming film adaptation for Peter Guralnick’s “Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘N’ Roll.” The rights were acquired by Paramount Pictures. Producers include Jennifer Davisson, DiCaprio, Mick Jagger, Victoria Pearman, Steve Bing, Ian Montone, Rick Yorn and Peter Guralnick.
You may have heard about an upcoming television series to be aired by Country Music Television. In collaboration with Los Angeles based production team, Thinkfactory Media, “Sun Records” is CMT’s most ambitious project to date. As one can imagine, it takes place in Memphis and revolves around Sun Records in the 1950s when the birth of legends like Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ike Turner, BB King and others began.
The Phillips family have begun reviving Memphis International Records. Under the new direction, the plan is to release two to four albums per year. The first of which will be a Charlie Rich tribute album featuring performances by Charlie Rich Jr., Jim Lauderdale, Shooter Jennings, Keith Sykes, Will Kimbrough, the Malpass Brothers, Susan Marshall and more. Read more in the article from The Commercial Appeal.
The highly anticipated Sun Diner is slated to open in late 2016. The first and only 24-hour restaurant in Lower Broadway will serve up modern twists on traditional diner dishes in a vibey atmosphere.
Another Record Store Day has come and gone. Hopefully, many of you were able to make it to your local record shop to find the third installment of limited edition Sun compilation albums. The tracklist was again curated by Record Store Day, and brought to you by ORG Music. The album features the “other” side of Sun, with some of the more obscure tracks from artists like Betty Lavette, The Twiggs and U.S. Apple Corps. It has been well received by the music community, as it became the first Sun Records release to chart on Billboard since the ’80s (#5 Compilation Albums, #12 Vinyl Albums, #37 Independent Albums for the week of May 7, 2016).
March 27, 1952 was the day Sam Phillips started Sun Records in Memphis, TN. Since then, his visionary ear shaped the sound of R&B, Country and Rock ‘n’ Roll. Sam discovered legendary talents Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins and many more.
The highly anticipated TV show, Vinyl, began airing in February. Set in the 1970s, the show follows a New York record company executive as “he hustles to make a career out of the city’s diverse music scene,” (IMDB). Created by Martin Scorsese, Mick Jagger and Terence Winter, the series blurs the line between fact and fiction. It combines the occurrences of real historic people and real music with the narrative of American Century Records, a fictitious label ran by fictitious people.
Sun is excited to announce a partnership with Musicbed, a full service licensing platform. They “provide a highly curated selection of songs to filmmakers for use in media projects.” Those searching through the Musicbed “Vintage” genre will find over 1,100 tracks from the deep Sun catalog, ranging from Johnny Cash to relative unknown artists recorded decades ago in Memphis. Since a large portion of Sun’s complete catalog, over 8,000 tracks, remains unmastered, many of the songs available at Musicbed can not be found elsewhere online.
