The Million Dollar Quartet was a famous moment in the history of Sun Records -- when Elvis dropped by to visit and Sam Phillips had all four of his biggest discoveries in the studio at once. It happened one Tuesday afternoon on December 4, 1956, and the next day Memphis newspapers ran a photo of the other three (Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and newcomer Jerry Lee Lewis) standing over Elvis at the piano. Although Johnny Cash was present for the photo, his contribution to the famous jam session has always been called into question, since during the entirety of the 75 minute recording he is not clearly heard (there is, however, convincing evidence of him singing, at least for a few seconds, using new audio isolation technology). Through looking at his tour schedule at the time, we can see why he may have needed to leave the jam session early. The second half of 1956 was extremely busy for him, and it was only by chance that he was home between tours for a few days in Memphis on that random Tuesday afternoon. It's not well known that, two days before the Million Dollar Quartet session, Johnny Cash had just returned from his first tour to Alberta.
Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two had started a heavy touring schedule since "I Walk the Line" had been released on May 1 -- by July 21 it was number one on the country charts for 6 weeks. That fall, Johnny began touring with other country acts such as Marty Robbins and Johnny Horton -- all three of them were influenced by seeing Elvis perform early on and soon all three began playing a similar type of country music with elements of rockabilly. Marty Robbins performed alongside Elvis at the Overton Park Shell in Memphis for Elvis's first big public concert (July 30, 1954), and within a few months he started covering rockabilly and rock songs (Elvis's "That's All Right", Chuck Berry's "Maybellene", and Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally"), and had written and recorded a handful of his own rockabilly songs. Johnny Cash had seen Elvis perform at the grand opening of a Memphis shopping mall (September 9, 1954), and then formed his own trio modeled after Elvis's band, and by recording at Sun Records, his songs received the same distinctive slapback echo heard on early Elvis songs. Johnny Horton performed alongside Elvis at the Louisiana Hayride (October 16, 1954), and by 1956 he was recording songs with similar instrumentation and beat as early Elvis songs, even having Elvis's bass player Bill Black play on some of his recordings. In late 1956 (November 27-30), all three headed up to Western Canada for a short "rockabilly" tour of the prairie provinces.
The 1956 tour started in Winnipeg, "the gateway to the prairies", on November 27. A review of the concert in the Winnipeg Tribune the next day complains about the influence that Elvis was having on country music with the inclusion of rockabilly elements such as electric guitars and strong rhythm.
The tour continued across the prairies with consecutive concerts in Regina and Edmonton, then to Calgary on November 30.
After the Calgary concert on Friday night, Johnny and the Tennessee Two headed for home, though the rest of the performers on the bill continued to Lacombe the following night for the final show in Alberta (notice that Johnny's photo has been removed from the right side of the ad).
For Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two, the drive back to Memphis would have taken about a day and a half, meaning that after playing the Calgary concert on Friday night they wouldn't have arrived back at their homes until midday on Sunday, December 2, 1956. After being home for about 48 hours, Johnny Cash is at Sun Records on Tuesday for the famous Million Dollar Quartet photo, forever cementing his association with the rockabilly stars at Sun Records. But the reason that Johnny Cash was in Memphis, and had left Alberta earlier than the other performers, was that he had to get home for a few rest days before his next tour -- the very next morning after the Million Dollar Quartet, Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two had to get back in their car and drive to California, another day and a half of driving, to arrive for the first date of their next tour beginning on Thursday, December 6th.
This tour schedule and tight turn around offers an explanation as to why Johnny Cash did not stay to hang out for the entirety of the Million Dollar Quartet recording that afternoon (although Johnny has claimed, somewhat unbelievably, that he was the first to arrive and the last to leave). It's often said that he was doing some Christmas shopping that day, and with only two full days off between tours, there were likely some errands that needed attending to.
Though 1956 was Johnny Cash's first tour to Western Canada, he would return every year of the late 1950's (and sporadically throughout the next four decades). Amazingly, just six months after the Million Dollar Quartet jam session, Johnny Cash returned for the 1957 tour (May 1-11) and brought most of the Million Dollar Quartet with him, but with the female Elvis instead (Wanda Jackson). By the 1958 tour (March 11-14), only rockabilly Carl Perkins was still touring with him. For the 1959 tour (Feb 17-21), Johnny Horton came up with Cash one last time before his untimely death (a photo was captured backstage at Edmonton Gardens at the February 20 concert by photographer Richard Proctor) -- Johnny Horton, one of Johnny's closest music industry friends, would be tragically killed in a car crash on November 5, 1960.
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