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This April 23, 2010 in celebration of Roy Orbison’s 74th birthday, the Hard Rock Cafe Nashville will host a benefit bash for the wonderful charity Musicians On Call.  Barbara Orbison will be joined by family, friends and fans as musicians including Harold Bradley & Mallary Hope, Rodney Crowell, Chris Rodriguez & Eden’s Edge, Jeffrey Steele, JD Souther, Sweethearts of the Rodeo, plus Surprise Guests perform songs spanning Roy’s 5 decade career. The acclaimed Texan was a pioneer of rock and roll and is one of the very few artists to have been accepted by the world in all forms of popular music. Roy is also one of the exceptional artists to have won Grammys in pop, rock and roll and country categories. His Hits, including Ooby Dooby, Oh Pretty Woman, Only The Lonely, Blue Bayou, Crying, It’s Over, In Dreams, You Got It and Handle with Care (as a Traveling Wilbury with Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne) is woven into the fabric of our global psyche, forever living in our hearts and our minds and capturing the imagination of new fans daily. Funds raised through the event will create a dedicated “Roy Orbison” program at the Bordeaux Long Term Care Facility.

“Great balls of fire! Here’s a hit. A palpable hit.” –
Chris Jones, The Chicago Tribune

This week should really have been designated Johnny Cash week since so much has been happening with the Man In Black. Today (Feb. 26th) would have been Johnny’s 78th birthday. To celebrate, all of his fans are dressed in black. Here in Nashville it looks like the entire city is in mourning, but in fact, we’re all excited and proud. This week Lost Highway Records (some of our favorite people in town) released his final album, American VI: Ain’t No Grave. It was recorded just before he left us to be with his June. We can’t say enough about how good it is. The album is fantastic, go get it. It’s perfect, to say anything less would be a lie.

Apple’s iTunes Store hit a landmark on Wednesday with the download of its 10 billionth song, which happened to be the Sun Records classic, “Guess Things Happen That Way”, by Johnny Cash.

Shelby Singleton, former Chairman of Sun Entertainment, will be honored in the “In Memoriam” segment of the 52nd Grammy Awards, which air live on CBS on January 31st.

This year during Johnny Law’s food drive, he said that if anyone donated 5,000 lbs of food or more he would get a tattoo of their name or company logo on his body. So to help out the families in need during the holidays the owner of big river broadcasting, Jerry Phillips, personally donated 5,000 lbs of food!

It’s hard to imagine a world without Sam Phillips… There would probably be no Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, or Carl Perkins. Sure, some of those artists may have shown up on some other record label, but surely not in the capacity that they did with Sam. Without Sam’s guidance  Howlin’ Wolf may not have ever found his way to Chess Records… Ike Turner may have never recorded the first ever Rock & Roll song…. Elvis might have been nothing more then a truck driver. Without Elvis & Carl Perkins, what would have happened to the Beatles? (They cite Elvis and Perkins as major influences). Certainly, without Sam, there would be no Sun Record Company.

We just found a copy of this very rare album on eBay… if you collect or are just a big Roy Orbison fan, you should check this out!

As many of you have undoubtedly heard, our dear friend, Shelby Singleton passed away on Wednesday October 7th, 2009. Not only was he the Chairman of The Sun Entertainment Corporation, but he was also our brother, father, mentor, and friend. His contributions to American Music were vast, and without his efforts, The Sun Record Company would not be what it is today. Many articles have already been written and can be read elsewhere (links are at the bottom of this post). The following is his obituary, written by his family. This is the story they want to tell.

Blues Collector and longtime Rare Records dealer John Tefteller won a recent eBay auction which featured a previously unknown and potentially one of a kind Blues 45 rpm record produced by the Sun label back in 1953.” I think I stole it,” said Tefteller of the record when the auction ended with his winning bid of $10,323.00.