Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 8, 1991 TAG: 9102080209
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By TRACIE FELLERS/ STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The group is the Sun Rhythm Section, six Memphis musicians who are as close to being founding fathers of rock 'n' roll as a modern-day fan can find. But don't you young whippersnappers get the wrong idea . . . these guys are far from relics.
When band members Sonny Burgess, D.J. Fontana, Stan Kesler, Marcus Van Story, Paul Burlison and Smith do a gig, they come to play - with a repertoire that includes early classics like "Red Hot," "That's All Right, Mama," and "Tutti-Frutti."
In the words of The Washington Post: "These men are a vital embodiment of the roots of rock 'n' roll."
The Sun Rhythm Section comes to the Iroquois on Saturday night with a show steeped as much in rowdy good times as tradition. Tickets are $7 in advance, $9 at the door, and Charlottesville guitarist Michael Mulvaney will open for the sextet at 9 p.m.
"We do put on quite a lively show for a bunch of granddaddies," said Smith, the group's piano player, who specializes in a pumping piano rhythm and on-stage antics similar tothose of Jerry Lee Lewis. And yes, Smith is a grandfather - with 10 grandchildren.
"You heard of the New Kids on the Block? Well, we're called the old men on the street," he said with a throaty chuckle.
The band formed about five years ago, when the Country Music Foundation contacted bass player Kesler about putting together a group of Sun Records session musicians.
The sextet made a huge splash at the Smithsonian Institute's Folklife Festival in 1986. Since then, they've taken their show to festivals and clubs across the country and to arenas in Africa, India and the Middle East.
Between them, Smith and his compatriots have lifetimes of experience in playing the hard-driving music that changed the face of American culture. These graying gentleman also can boast of working with some of rock's earliest and brightest stars.
The list of luminaries Smith has recorded and played with starts with the legendary Carl Perkins, whose single "Blue Suede Shoes," was one of the first to simultaneously hit the charts in pop, country, and rhythm and blues categories. "I started playing with Carl Perkins when I was 14 years old," Smith said in a phone interview from his Memphis office.
Smith didn't play on "Blue Suede Shoes" - but it wasn't because Perkins didn't want him to. "My mother wouldn't let me go to Memphis to cut the record with him . . . we were living in Johnson, Tennessee at the time," Smith recalled. "She felt I was too young to be on the road."
But when "Blue Suede" became a smash hit, Smith's mother changed her mind. "She told me if anybody wanted me to go play with them, I could go," Smith said.
Smith moved to Memphis and became staff piano player at Sun, where he recorded with Bill Riley, Warren Smith, Roy Orbison and other early Sun artists.
Sun started as a studio in 1950 by putting early recordings of blues greats like B.B. King and Howlin' Wolf on vinyl. When it became a record label in 1952, Sun moved on to record the initial efforts of Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Perkins and other seminal rock 'n' rollers.
Jerry Lee Lewis was another of Sun's early success stories. His frenzied, wild playing style was dubbed the "Memphis pumping piano sound." The rhythmically aggressive sound had another practitioner at Sun in Smith.
"I didn't know Jerry Lee at the time and he didn't know me, but it was amazing how much we played alike," Smith said. "I think I was 15 and Jerry Lee was probably 18 or 19 years old."
Around 1960, Smith switched over to Stax, another influential Memphis record label. There, he recorded with some of the era's most successful R&B artists: Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and then-teen sensation Carla Thomas.
Smith also was a founding member of the Mar-Keys, a Memphis band, and co-wrote the group's 1961 hit, "Last Night."
The resumes of Smith's Sun Rhythm Section partners are just as impressive.
Fontana was Elvis' drummer for 17 years and played on some of the King's biggest records, including "Heartbreak Hotel" and "Hound Dog." His session work includes recordings with talents from Tommy James to Ringo Starr.
Kesler spent years as a Sun staff musician and songwriter, playing bass and steel guitar in sessions with Orbison, Lewis, Perkins and many others. Kesler wrote five songs for Elvis, including "I Forgot to Remember to Forget," and he produced "Wooly Bully" and "Lil' Red Riding Hood," big hits for '60s group Sam the Sham & the Pharoahs.
Lead guitarist and vocalist Burgess was both a solo artist at Sun and leader of The Pacers, a popular rockabilly band of the '50s.
Burlison, who also plays lead guitar for the group, was a well-known rockabilly guitarist in the '50s and was the third member of Dorsey and Johnny Burnette's Rock 'n' Roll Trio. The trio played local clubs in Memphis and featured Elvis as a guest act before Presley cut his first record.
Van Story, who plays the slap bass, rhythm guitar and harmonica, is the group's senior member at 70. He is credited with creating the "slap bass sound" heard on many early rock records, and worked with Sun artists Warren Smith, Charlie Feathers, the Miller Sisters and others.
Asked about the group's reputation for animated high jinks - including shimmying, shaking and showing off on stage - Smith said: "We're like a bunch of teen-agers up there."
For Smith and his bandmates, performing brings back memories of playing when rock 'n' roll was in its infancy. The music means as much to them now as it did then, he said.
"We knew the music had a big impact, especially when Elvis come along. But we didn't know it was going to be as big as it got," Smith said. "It was surprising to everyone how big it got.
"We certainly didn't have any idea we'd be playing in 30 years."
SUN RHYTHM SECTION: Saturday, 9 p.m., Iroquois Club, 324 Salem Ave. S.W., Roanoke. $9 at the door. 982-8979.
by CNB