Sun Studio (Memphis Recording Service)

Sam Phillips opened the Memphis Recording Service at 706 Union Avenue on 3 January 1950, a single cramped room with a homemade slapback echo. Open to anyone who could pay to cut a record, it caught the raw blues of the surrounding Delta before its Sun label turned that energy into rock 'n' roll. Within a few years the same small room had recorded Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis. It was later designated a National Historic Landmark for its role in the music's birth.