Prologue / The Sperm Hits Egg

Ike Turner wasn’t sure about the crazy white man on the other side of the glass. 

He sat on his piano stool, a lit Chesterfield loose between his long fingers, and studied the crazy white man, Sam Phillips, as he flailed around the control room, spooling tape from reel to reel and playing with the soundboard. He’d done a few sessions at Sam’s Memphis Recording Studio, and had always been treated with respect. Sam was paying Ike and his Kings of Rhythm twenty bucks a man, a decent payday for a band used to playing ten hour gigs for tips and beer in juke joints around Clarksville and other small towns in the Mississippi delta. 

Nah, Sam was trustworthy. He had genuine love for the blues and the musicians who brought it to life. He was good white folk. But, damn, sometimes Ike wondered what went through the man’s head.

“I like it. Shit, let’s do it.”

Willie Kizart shrugged and plugged his guitar cord back into his busted amplifier. It had toppled as it was being unloaded from the trunk of Ike’s Oldsmobile, hitting the asphalt and jarring the cone loose. Willie and Ike wadded up newspapers and shoved them into the speaker in an effort to keep it in place, and the resulting sound was distorted and dirty. 

Sam liked it. 

The Kings of Rhythm may have played dirt-floor clubs and chicken-wire roadhouses, but they were, in the way they looked, dressed and sounded, clean as a broke-dick dog. The nasty sound coming out of that amp didn’t sit well with Ike. 

“Sam, we could get another amp and th…”

“Aw, Hell, Ike. Naw, let’s see what happens. Sounds different, like fat fryin’ up in a skillet’”

Ike smiled. Sam had been in the his whiskey, even offered the band a little taste to lubricate the proceedings. Ike politely refused. He never touched the stuff. Ike was a serious man up to serious business, and he’d seen liquor pull many a good man down into the dirt and cover them up breathing. 

“You’re the boss.”

They hadn’t put a note on tape yet, and already the studio was littered with smoldering ashtrays and half-empty Coca-Cola bottles. The smoke hung in the cramped, windowless room as Willie Sims set up his drum kit while the newest King of Rhythm, Raymond Hill, nervously fiddled with the reed on his tenor saxophone. Only seventeen years old, it was Raymond’s first time in a recording studio, and he was disappointed. Memphis Recording was not a glamorous room like those in the magazines, the sleek, high-ceilinged studios that hosted sessions by Sinatra or Duke Ellington. It had scuffed floors and walls covered in egg crates. The ceiling was all mismatched and ill-fitting tiles, dipping in ordered planes, creating two cathedral spaces  over the main room. The window to the control room was a slender pane of glass at the back of the studio, with a creaky, white door the only entry. 

Next to the door stood Jackie Brenston, his saxophone hanging loosely around his neck, almost an afterthought. He’d been Ike’s primary sax man for a while, and he would occasionally step to the front to tackle a lead vocal. Johnny O’Neal,  vocalist, had left weeks before to sign a solo deal with King records, and Ike had told Jackie that he would be singing on the session. The two even worked up a new song for the occasion, a composition loosely based on “Cadillac Boogie”, a jump blues cut by guitarist/bandleader Jimmie Liggins, one of Ike’s heroes.  

“Awright, let’s get some levels”

For the next thirty minutes, the band, individually and together, played and sang snippets of music while Sam fiddled with knobs and faders on his soundboard. Every now and then, he’s step through the white door to adjust a mic, then disappear back into the control room, a mad scientist tinkering with his formula to get just the right blend. Jackie did his double duty, standing on an “X” taped to the floor where he stood to sing, then a jump towards the other microphone to play a sax line with Raymond. 

It was tedious work, and the musicians were getting antsy. They came to play. 

Sam finally got the right mix. He stuck his head out the white door and looked at Ike. 

“Ready?”

Ike nodded.

“Wait for my cue, then run with it.”

Sam closed the door, went over to the soundboard, and flopped down in his rolling desk chair. He checked a few things and looked at the musicians in his studio. He pushed the lever to the tape rolling, waited a few seconds, and pointed his right index finger at Ike. 

A moment’s pause as Ike put his hands on the keyboard, nodded at Willie Sims, and played the pickup notes to “Rocket 88” with Willie’s snare drum riding shotgun.

The motor roared to life.

Willie Kizart kicked in with a galloping bassline on the low strings of his guitar, the fuzzy tone not unlike an engine purr. Willie Sims laid into an rowdy shuffle, riding the top of the guitar even as he punched the downbeat every two bars, his foot hitting the bass drum pedal like he was stomping on the accelerator with every newly shifted gear. Ike punched down the bottom by pounding the bass note keys with his left hands, while his right hand was a flurry of tones hell-bent on keeping up with the two Willies.  

Sam’s face was impassive, but he was impressed. Zero to cruising speed in no time flat. Not many bands could pull that off. He checked levels to make sure he was getting a usable track. 

“YOU WOMEN HAVE HEARD OF JALOPIES
 YOU HEARD THE NOISE THEY MAKE
 WELL LET ME INTRODUCE 
 MY NEW ROCKET 88…”

Sam looked up as Jackie’s voice boomed out of the control room speakers. He wasn’t Ike’s regular singer, and didn’t really have the chops for it. But there was swagger in his vocal that fit. 

“YES, IT’S STRAIGHT, JUST WON’T WAIT
EVERYBODY LIKES MY ROCKET 88
BABY, WE’LL RIDE IN STYLE
MOVIN’ ALL ALONG…”

Raymond played against the vocal melody, snaking around the lyrics, putting some tease to Jackie’s aggression. Jackie finished the verse and put his own sax to his lips, the two horns a rollicking Greek chorus over the band’s disciplined combustion. 

“V-8 MOTOR AND THIS MODERN DESIGN
BLACK CONVERTIBLE TOP AND THE GALS DON’T MIND 
SPORTIN’ WITH ME, RIDIN’ ALL ‘ROUND TOWN FOR JOY…”

Hot damn, Sam thought, there it is. That last line, with that delivery, was pure horndog whistle. Not sure how he did it, but he just turned a song about a car into a   panty dampener. This shit is gonna sell. 

BLOW YO’ HORN, RAYMOND, BLOW…”

Raymond did. He soloed with a wild assurance beyond his years, each note intense and brimming.

By this time, Sam knew he had something different, something potentially redefining. It was a familiar sound, but Ike and his band had recalibrated it. The sonic quality, the feel, the relentless drive. Yeah, this was something else. 
 
“STEP IN MY ROCKET AND DON’T BE LATE
 BABY WE’RE PULLING OUT ABOUT HALF PAST EIGHT
 GOIN’ AROUND THE CORNER AND GET A BEER
 EVERYBODY IN THE CORNER IS GONNA TAKE A LITTLE NIP
 MOVIN’ ON OUT, OOZIN’ AND CRUISIN’ ALONG”

The band begin to cool down, with Willie Kizart dropping the bassline to thicken the final sax riffs with the chords he had yet to play, giving the band a soft spot to land after the riotous three minute adventure. 

To the band, it was no big deal. 

Sam, however, needed a cigarette.