Ike was undoubtedly a musical genius. His historic achievements over a span of more than 50 years -- from Rocket 88 to Ike & Tina to the Grammy on the eve of his death -- prove that. I used to live in Memphis and conducted many interviews on the musical history of the place as part of an oral history project in the early and mid-90s. I never met Ike, but he frequently came up in my interviews with the likes of Sam Phillips and Earl Forest, a Duke/Robey label singer of the Johnny Ace era.

I interviewed one guy, who became a popular blues dj in Memphis, who remembered Ike singing in a gospel quartet as a teenager in the Delta. They would sing at several churches every Sunday, often having to wash and brush the dust from the dirt roads off their clothes before performing.

Ike not only formed the Kings of Rhythm and recorded Rocket 88, he also worked as something of a talent scout for Sam Phillips, responsible for bringing, among others, BB King to Sam's studio to record in the pre-Sun days. Brian's story about the Rocket 88 recording is right -- a fortunate accident. It seems the amp fell off the top of the car on the trip from the Delta to Memphis. I don't know about the writing credits -- it wouldn't surprise me, a lot of that stuff happened in those days -- but Ike apparently also couldn't get his head around the fact that the singer is the star. That was part of his problem with Brenston and, I suspect, later with Tina.

Another person I interviewed was Calvin Newborn. His brother, Phineas, was a phenomenal jazz pianist in the Art Tatum mode. Unfortunately, he suffered from schizophrenia, severely limiting his recording career, and he died around 1990. Still, he'll be listed in any decent jazz encyclopedia. Calvin was a guitar player and also played with many of the jazz greats in New York in the '60s and '70s.

When Ike walked out in a huff, Sam Phillips hired the Newborn family band -- Phineas, Calvin, and their father, Phineas Sr., a drummer and one of the leading Beale Street band leaders in the '40s and '50s (although he spelled it 'Fineas'. The son changed it to the 'Ph' spelling to stop the teasing he took as a kid -- 'Fine ass') -- to tour with Brenston behind the record. Sam used the Newborns a lot for his studio sessions, and Phineas Sr. was a mentor to many aspiring Memphis musicians, including BB -- he sent Calvin with him to the music store to pick out his first guitar -- and Elvis, who used to talk his way in to clubs on Beale to watch the Newborns and others perform.

Elvis was well-known in the black community long before he became famous, and very well-liked at that time because of the respect he showed them. He would acknowledge people he knew when he met them on Main Street, not just Beale Street. He also loved black gospel music, for which Memphis was famous, and would attend the churches where the better choirs sang, and he was an occasional after-church dinner guest in the Newborn home.

Calvin was a very flamboyant on-stage performer and was the model for some of the mannerisms Elvis adopted and which later became iconic. But he had no jealousy or resentment whatsoever about that. He said the Rocket 88 tour, which drew a lot of white fans, had showed him they were going to have to find some white guys to play that kind of music. There was no way they were going to stand for having teenage white girls mobbing black musicians. Calvin was still living and performing in Memphis last I knew, although it's been a few years. He'd be in his mid-70s now.