When was rock 'n' roll born? Many people say it was with the 1954 release of Elvis Presley's version of "That's All Right," while others contend Elvis and other white performers just stole the music from black singers who had been performing it in their own juke joints for many years. The latter is the contention of the exuberantly performed new musical Memphis, now at the La Jolla Playhouse.

The show, which features a book by Joe DiPietro and a score by Di Pietro and David Bryan, focuses on shiftless, luckless Huey Calhoun (Chad Kimball), who stumbles into a black Beale Street club in the early 1950s and discovers "The Music of My Soul" -- and the love of his life. Soon, Huey, a fictional[...]