NONFICTION - April 21, 1991

GOOD ROCKIN’ TONIGHT: Sun Records and the Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll by Colin Escott with Martin Hawkins (St. Martin’s: $19.95; 233 pp.). “Unadulterated life”--that’s what Sam Phillips was after when he opened the Memphis recording studio in 1950 that would lead to Sun Records and a place in rock history. Phillips would “discover”--how the musicians hated that word!--Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and others, but authors Escott and Hawkins wisely give as much room to the rockabilly and country artists who failed to make it as to those who did. That approach is true to Phillips’ own, for he too believed that raw, heartfelt talent is more interesting than the overproduced, commercial sound sought (then as now) by larger record labels. Elvis appears in this book, of course, but it’s the little-known details that make “Good Rockin’ Tonight” fun--the all-inmate group called the Prisonaires, the mentally disturbed pianist who would suddenly start playing Chopin in the middle of a stage show, Carl Perkins’ writing of “Blue Suede Shoes.” He spelled it, with perfect logic, swaed.