NEW YORK (CelebrityAccess) — Music publisher Primary Wave Music announced the acquisition of the catalog of legendary Sun Records, including recordings by artists such as Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins.
Founded in Memphis in 1952 by producer Sam Phillips, Sun Records plaid a key role in bringing music by black recording artists to white audiences, helping to pave the way for the birth of rock & roll.
Sun was also the first label to record a group of artists who stood at the nexus of country music and rockabilly that prefigured rock & roll, such as Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Charlie Rich, and Johnny Cash.
Primary Wave’s acquisition includes the entire Sun Records catalog of about 6,000 recordings, including Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” and “I Walk the Line,” Lewis’s “Great Balls of Fire” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” Carl Perkins’s “Blue Suede Shoes” and the Dixie Cups’ “Chapel of Love.”
The deal does not include recordings by Elvis Presley, which are instead owned by Sony.
“Sun is as iconic a record label as there is,” said Larry Mestel, the founder of Primary Wave. “Its legacy needs to be nurtured.”
The price of the overall deal was not disclosed, but it is estimated at about $30 million, the New York Times reported.
