With the launch of the Million Dollar Quartet at Old National Centre this coming week, the music of those four legendary performers that haunted Sam Phillips’ Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee in the fifties is back in mind.  Recently, longtime WTTS favorite Chris Isaak recorded and released his own salute to the music of Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis called Beyond the Sun.  What makes the album even more interesting is that he did part of the tracking in the same room where the original songs were laid down, over five decades after the fact.

It’s a testament to the vision of Sam Phillips, not just as an A&R man and label boss, but as a technical guy – when you hear a certain kind of reverb, you instantly think “Sun Records” on hearing it.  That effect was so distinctive that, according to Elvis scholar Ernst Mikael Jorgenson, when Elvis made the jump to RCA Records in 1956, the engineers for the label were so stymied by how Phillips got his slapback echo for his singles that they couldn’t reproduce it, and during the recording of “Heartbreak Hotel” were reduced to putting a microphone in an empty hallway to get a weak approximation of it.

Sam Phillips may no longer be with us, nor many of the genius talents that helped birth rock and roll with him, but the music continues with a little help from Chris Isaak.  Todd Berryman will feature Beyond the Sun this week on OverEasy, this Sunday from 7 to 11am AND pm, on 92.3 WTTS.      

Chris Isaak and Jerry Lee Lewis cover a song from The Wizard of Oz

Lyle Lovett has a new album coming out early next year, but to tide us over (Christmas tidings, get it?), he’s released a new EP exclusively online called Songs for the Season.  Only two of the three pieces will appear on the new album, so you’ll probably want to grab the EP online while you can.  We’re featuring the tracks from this EP, and a selection of songs from the WTTS Collector’s Edition Volume 17, this week on OverEasy, Sundays from 7 to 11am AND pm, on 92.3 WTTS. 

Find out more about what’s going on with Lyle Lovett at lylelovett.com. 

Lyle performing “North Dakota” on Live by Request 

Well, it ain’t Rumours, Mark II - and thank goodness.

Norah Jones had broken up with longtime boyfriend (and band member) Lee Alexander way back in 2007, but it apparently doesn’t mean the end of their creative partnership.  In one of those interesting Catch-22s that seem to come up once in a while, the music that brought them back together is country music, the music of heartbreak.  Jones and Alexander, along with singer/songwriter Richard Julian, Jim Campilongo and Dan Rieser, return with the second album credited to the Little Willies, For the Good Times, in January 2012.  More here. 

Call it the “Thanksgiving Leftovers” Edition of OverEasy, as we spin songs from the second part of last week’s feature album – and the surprises are not over, not by a long shot.

To recap:  one of Neil Young’s charity ventures has been raising funds and awareness for the Bridge School, a school cofounded by Young and wife Pegi.  Almost every year since 1986 (barring 1987), Young has pulled together high-profile musical talent to support the Bridge School, and now a generous selection of performances from over the years has been compiled for the release of The Bridge School Concerts:  25th Anniversary Edition. 

This week, we’ll feature songs from the second half of the collection, including OverEasy favorites like Norah Jones covering a song from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke covering a Neil Young song, and a jaw-dropping Tony Bennett performance that shows that Tony, much like Neil, is in no danger of fading away.

It’s a selection from a quarter century of concerts supporting the Bridge School, on OverEasy, with Todd Berryman, 7 to 11am AND pm, on 92.3 WTTS.

More about the album and DVD here.