Sam Phillips Got a Hole in It"), Charlie Rich, Junior Parker, and Billy Lee Riley recorded for Sun with some success, and others, such as Jerry Lee Lewis, BB King, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, and Carl Perkins, became stars. Phillips's pivotal role in the early days of rock and roll was exemplified by a celebrated jam session on December 4, 1956, with what became known as the Million Dollar Quartet. Jerry Lee Lewis was playing piano for a Carl Perkins recording session at Phillips's studio. When Elvis Presley walked in unexpectedly, Johnny Cash was called into the studio by Phillips, leading to
Recording studio enhanced the sound of the recording. In this period large, acoustically "live" halls were favored, rather than the acoustically "dead" booths and studio rooms that became common after the 1960s. Because of the limits of the recording technology, which did not allow for multitrack recording techniques, studios of the mid-20th century were designed around the concept of grouping musicians (e.g., the rhythm section or a horn section) and singers (e.g., a group of backup singers), rather than separating them, and placing the performers and the microphones strategically to capture the complex acoustic and harmonic interplay that emerged during the performance.