THE STRAIGHT DOPE:
Sun Records and the Sun recording studio in Memphis gave the world some of the most memorable music of the last hundred years. Early recordings from Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and many more all originated from this tiny label. Good Rockin' Tonight - The Legacy of Sun Records tells the story of Sun while throwing in a liberal dose of the tunes that made the label fly.

Sun was founded by Sam Phillips, an eclectic fellow who tells much of the story. Letting a man tell his own story is really setting yourself up for a whitewash and for a while it seems like Good Rockin' Tonight will gloss over the bumps in the road. For instance, lip service is paid to Sun's early years recording "race records" as black blues and R&B records were called at the time. Rufus Thomas is even shown growling his way through "Bear Cat." But once Phillips starts talking about Elvis the black musicians that built the sound Phillips co-opted fall off the radar. Elvis' introduction to American music is treated appropriately for the mind-blowing revolution that it was, but Phillips tries to take as much credit - in his own "down home" sort of way - as he possible can.

Later in the program, however, I was happy to hear the voices of the opposition. Thomas returns to indict the white Memphis music scene for steamrolling the black musicians on the way to riches and stardom. He's well aware that those guys never got paid or credited for their work and he's still pissed. And Billy Lee Riley, who recorded the memorable "My Gal is Red Hot" for Sun, is shown several times voicing his extreme bitterness over his notion that Phillips sold him short in favor of Jerry Lee Lewis. It's impossible to know if it was Phillips or the fickleness of the pop world that kept Riley down but there is no doubt that for every grinning sideman who sings the praises of Phillips' music machine there are plenty more like Riley who felt they had their toes stepped on.

Not that Sam Phillips is the devil, even if he seems to be trying to look like him. His innovations in music are considerable and the film discusses them. For one, he allowed the vocals to fall further down in the mix than most pop music at the time, creating an earthy, live sound that is immediately recognizable in songs like "That's All Right" and "Breathless." The sound is described by Phillips as "imperfectly perfect," which just about says it.

The most imperfect part of Good Rockin' Tonight, however, are the segments featuring remakes of Sun's biggest hits by some of today's most lukewarm artists. The most atrocious are Third Eye Blind's reworking of Johnny Cash's "Cry, Cry, Cry," Kid Rock and the Howling Diablos' butchering of "Drinking Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee," and LIVE's utter decimation of Cash's legendary "I Walk the Line." These fall under the category of "so bad they scream past good, through bad again and into the land of 'please kill me now!'" I don't mean to overstate the case (looking over that statement it reminds me too much of an Ain't It Cool News review) but these covers are so bad it's incredible that the filmmakers didn't just snip them and leave them on the cutting room floor before anyone else had to hear them. Veteran popsters like Robert Plant and Jimmy Page at least don't embarrass themselves, although no cover version really adds anything to the song. Paul McCartney's rote reading of "That's All Right" is typically lazy. Most of these artists don't even have anything interesting to say in their interviews. In fact, it's pretty clear that Kid Rock not only doesn't know Sun records from Sun City but he doesn't seem to even know what song he's been asked to cover. Pitiful.

And it's a shame, too, since some of the original guys are still quite vital. Jerry Lee Lewis (who pairs up with Matchbox 20 on "Lonely Weekends") is still a lot of fun, Rufus Thomas still has the soul to work the old material and DJ Fontana's drumming is still tight (plus his "hair" still defies physics.) Good Rockin' Tonight doesn't need vapid modern pop stars. The stars of this story are still the guys who played the tunes the first time around.

VIDEO:
The anamorphic video is essentially broadcast quality. The piece appears to have been shot on film and looks as cinematic as a film consisting primarily of talking heads can.

AUDIO:
The 5.1 audio is quite good. The interviews are clear and the music sounds well-produced. Although it doesn't necessarily reflect the earthy quality of the original Sun recordings, the new music here has a crystal sound. The mix isn't particularly aggressive but the sound is clean. The 2.0 track, however, sounds far less dynamic. It is murkier and, while listenable, can't compete with the 5.1 track.

EXTRAS:
Nothing.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
Good Rockin' Tonight (which was directed by Bruce Sinofsky, a long way from his codirectorial masterpieces Paradise Lost and Brother's Keeper) falls into a strange middle-ground. Original Sun fans will probably have little use for the retoolings of the songs here and lovers of today's pop will probably roll their eyes at the lengthy interviews with the fogeys. By no means great, Good Rockin' Tonight does present a few memorable scenes (particularly those with Riley) and it gives some of the fine musicians responsible for that great sound a chance to be heard. Still, those song updates are ill-advised and the waning star wattage of some of the acts (LIVE, Third Eye Blind) aren't enough to overshadow the weak performances. Another recent film called Standing in the Shadows of Motown similarly sought to pair up recent musicians with the original backup artists to cover the classics. (That one featured such stellar all-stars as Joan Osborne and Bootsy Collins.) Neither film succeeds with this strategy although Good Rockin' Tonight probably has the slight advantage over the condescending Motown for not treating the audience like fools if they aren't already scholars on the subject matter. The best moments in Good Rockin' Tonight are when the film takes its time introducing Sun's original musicians and really give them a chance to speak their minds. That's the film's best purpose.