Lux Interior, Bryan Gregory, Nick Knox & Poison Ivy during The Cramps sessions with Alex Chilton in Ardent studios in Memphis, as captured by Pat Rainer in 1977.
Their acquaintance led them down to Memphis and Sam Phillips’ Sun Studio, the mythical place where Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis had made rock ‘n’ roll history, and to the production of their legendary debut releases, the Gravest Hits EP & the Songs the Lord Taught Us LP.
(pastemagazine.com): “…The Cramps shared Chilton’s musical taste, reveling in underappreciated rockabilly obscurities it takes a musical connoisseur to discover… By the end of the year, Chilton would call the Cramps “the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world…In October, he brought them down to Memphis to produce their first singles (…) As music engineer Richard Rosebrough recalls: “I’ve seen the strangest people walk in and out of the front door of Phillips. When [the Cramps] walked in, I was just sitting in the lobby, and Bryan [Gregory] comes in, dressed in black from head to toe, bleach blond hair over half his face, and he’s wearing this holster strapped to his leg with a real long pistol in it. He walked in the front door, walked right past the desk, on back into the studio. The holster was just, squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak. He had bought this brand new leather holster to put this gun in. Brand new leather squeaks. You’ve got to oil it, work with it, settle it in. I thought, ‘What a scene, what a display…’
According to photographer Pat Rainer:
“I was hanging out, shooting photos. I enjoyed watching Alex being the producer. The Cramps being in Memphis, in the South at that time… I’ve heard people say the way they looked they stopped traffic. But Memphis in the 70s…it was already a weird, wild place, so I think they actually fit in pretty good. They seemed normal. But live and in performance the Cramps were anything but normal. They were really fun.”
(via & via)