11 Facts About Sun Studio

Sun Studio is perhaps most famous for its role in the early years of Elvis Presley's career.

In 1987, the original building housing the Sun Records label and Memphis Recording Service was reopened, by Gary Hardy as "Sun Studio, " a recording label and tourist attraction that has attracted many notable artists, such as U2, Def Leppard, Bonnie Raitt, and Ringo Starr.

Sun Studio held an open door policy, allowing anybody to walk in and, for a small fee, record their own record.

The Sun Studio tour lends credence to the latter, with the tour guide saying the amplifier was stuffed with wads of newspaper.

Sun Studio would later claim he intended the record as a gift for his mother, or was merely interested in what he "sounded like", though there was a much cheaper, amateur record-making service at a nearby general store.

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Sun Studio was sufficiently affected by what he heard to invite two local musicians, guitarist Winfield "Scotty" Moore and upright bass player Bill Black, to work something up with Presley for a recording session.

Radio stations and record stores all over the South were eager to play them, and as Presley's profile grew over the next year, Phillips realized Sun Studio was not large enough to break him throughout the United States.

Sun Studio was, at the time, the biggest name in show business, having hit the top of the singles charts five times, and topping the album charts twice in the preceding 12-month period.

Sun Studio became known as a place that nurtured talent and then encouraged it to expand with bigger labels.

Sun Studio opened several radio stations, beginning in the late 1950s, and Sun lost its reputation as an innovative recording studio.

Sun Studio have announced that PBS affiliate stations will be showing a 30-minute series of Sun Studio Sessions starting in January 2010.