Carl Perkins found his way to Sam Phillips and the Sun Studio during the summer of 1954 after Perkins heard Elvis's record of "Blue Moon of Kentucky" on the radio. "There's a man in Memphis who understands what we're doing. I need to go see him," said Perkins, who had been playing-and writing-rockabilly before Elvis made his first recordings. Carl Perkins recorded 42 songs for Sun Records from 1954 until 1958 when he signed with Columbia. This album is comprised of all but one of those 42 songs.

When Jeff Lynne was growing up, he listened to music on longwave radio, soaking up all the sounds coming through the big radio in the living room. His 2012 tribute to these days, appropriately called Long Wave, is a far-reaching salute to the glory days of pop in the years before the Beatles. It's too easy to peg this as a standards album, a designation that isn't quite accurate. Lynne may cover many show tunes along with '50s favorites of big-band vocalists but he spends nearly as much time with rock & roll, and not just the operatic pop of his fellow Traveling Wilbury Roy Orbison, either. He cranks through Chuck Berry's "Let It Rock," slides into the silken harmonies of the Everly Brothers on "So Sad," and grooves through Don Covay's "Mercy, Mercy."