"Maybe I can lighten their load just a little bit." - Sam Phillips speculating Elvis' motivation to perform, yet it could be interpreted as why Sam wanted to put a microphone in front of people to begin with.

Samuel C. Phillips was born the youngest of eight children to a large farming family in Florence, Alabama on a cold January 5, 1923. It was Prohibition. It was Deep South. It was cotton fields for miles. Model T's and even horse-drawn buggies were still traversing the dirt and gravel roads. Crank-handled victrolas and upright pianos were the household entertainment centers. Western Union Telegrams were the prehistoric daily email. Electricity and automobiles distinguished the standard of living for the classes. Silent movies were must-see and people began a never-ending gathering before the silver screen, at that time with nickle admission price. It was the Roaring 20s celebrated with bubbling bootlegged beer and flirtatious dancing flappers, yet it was the very Eve of a grim, hungering, thirsting, and hope-throttling economic Great Depression. It was really just a space between World Wars.

The Alabama sun rose
and shone upon a child
who heard the tones of homemade blues
and made the people smile
yet sometimes it made them cry
and caused this boy to wonder why

As years went by he heard Jimmie sing
of bars and jails and trains and Texas T
wailing yodels of lovemaking and loneliness
and in his heart, these records planted a seed

Halftime at the Florence High football field
was filled with uniformed marching band
and Sam was there in step, with epelette
playing sousaphone for the populous grandstands

In the era of Clarence Darrow, this young man read up on law
and he felt a need to help the downtrodden, accused and unjust
but his father died in '41, so he quit school to support his family,
and thus an Alabama attorney that never was

Radio signals crackle, radio signals called him to the source
sign-on, mister, you're on the air, and you're on your destined course.

By 1942, Sam was working in one of the most thriving and intelligent of new industries: radio broadcasting. This choice in occupation led him to the love of his life: a beautiful girl named Rebecca Burns who worked with her sister as a weekly radio duet at WLAY in Muscle Shoals in Alabama. By 1945, Sam and Becky Phillips were proud parents of a son they named Knox, and Sam at WLAC in Nashville working as part-time announcer and equipment engineer. Getting a turn down from competing WSM, the Opry station, when Sam submitted his resume, Sam decided to leave Nashville altogther and he moved his family west to a riverside city he had always been fascinated with: the Home of Beale Street...Memphis. He went to work as a combination announcer/producer/chief engineer for a 20 year-old radio station Easy Listening WREC (today Rock 103) which was operating in basement offices at the Hotel Peabody. He hosted "Songs of the West" show daily at 4pm then at night, Sam was in radio parlence, a knob-jockey for a national syndication hook-up with CBS Radio Network. Live big band/waltz music was performed high atop the hotel's regal skyway and broadcast as far as California.

In 1950, after five years of absorbing so much sweet and sugary orchestrated Big Band music as an occupational hazard, Sam wanted a sonic escape; to hear the sounds wafting on the summer winds of his youth, gutbucket blues, three chords and the Truth. With this hi-tech day and age of Ampex and RCA tape recording equipment, Sam anticipated capturing new sounds, wild, raw, untamed and unconventional. And undefined.

Eager to dilligently toil in some capacity in the creation of records, he took his savings and opened a recording studio at an old redbrick radiator shop renting for $75 a month, with a 10 year lease, next door to Miss Taylor's Cafe at 706 Union (at the Marshall intersection) there in Memphis. Sam and WREC's long-time announcer Marion Keisker put acoustic tile on the walls and ceilings and Sam installed used recording equipment. He had business cards pinted up which stated: MEMPHIS RECORDING SERVICE "WE RECORD ANYTHING - ANYWHERE - ANYTIME" For a nominal fee, Sam would go out and about taping and wire-recording weddings, funerals, public speeches, etc, but he mainly wanted his small facility to be a haven for musicians. He openly advertised an invitation for local R&B singers to make tapes in his studio. Each customer could purchase the tape - or better yet, get a record company to purchase the tape for commercial pressing.

By 1951 Sam had commercial deals with two R&B record companies. RPM Records set up a deal with Sam to record their signed artist a fellow Memphian B.B. King and after each session, Sam would ship the tapes to RPM in Los Angeles. Chess Records in Chicago had signed a fellow Memphian with a gravel-voice, Chester "Howlin Wolf" Burnette. Sam recorded him and routinely sent those tapes to Chicago. In February 1951, a satin-jacketed band from Clarksdale, Mississippi drove up thru snow and icy roads on Hwy 61 and booked time in Sam's studio. It was Ike Turner and His Kings of Rhythm. They had no record deal and of course wanted one, so Sam mailed a tape of their lively jam "Rocket 88" (vocals by Jackie Brenston) to Chess in Chicago, hoping the label would buy it and release it. Chess did. Converted to a 45 rpm record, and credited to the name Sam had written on the tape box: JACKIE BRENSTON AND HIS DELTA CATS, "Rocket 88" sold like wildfire and zap!, an R&B #1. (The very first Rock-n-Roll record many claim to this day.)

But Sam Phillips never made much money, barely enough to pay his bills, and he wasn't getting any professional recognition for producing these R&B artists. "Sam who?" Yet the two labels were breathing down his neck to deliver more hits and RPM was mad that they didn't get "Rocket 88." Soon B.B. King moved on and started using an out-of-state studio, as did Howlin' Wolf who moved up to Chicago. On top of that, the elderly radio station owner allegedly expressed an intolerant displeasure about Sam's side-job and minority clientel. After enduring a few insults, Sam quit WREC in '51 and never looked back but the past year did take its toll. Sam was briefly hospitalized for stress and exhaustion in late '51, and when returning home, he was eager to get back to work and press onward and upward. No turning back.

With a hefty investment from his older brother Judd, Sam turned his studio into a bone fide record company, SUN RECORDS, in March 1952. He arranged for a local company, Buster Williams' Plastic Products, to manufacture Sun 78s and 45s on presses in their metal Quonset hut at 1746 Chelsea Avenue. Sun's inaugural release was Jackie Boy & Little Walter - "Blues In My Condition"/"Sellin' My Whiskey" (Sun174.) Intent was to compete with independent labels like RPM and Chess, in a sort of rival's triangle, but Sun was fated for a mission far beyond that scope. Before the decade was over, Sam/Sun discovered and cultivated these pioneering acts - forevermore legends: Rufus Thomas, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, and Charlie Rich. First, in 1953, four Sun singles hit Billboard magazine's R&B charts and became regional (if not nationally-recognized) hits. They are the following: Sun 181: "Bear Cat" by Rufus Thomas (Sun got sued for $25K for copyright infringment by Duke Records, a Texas label that released earlier that same year, Big Mama Thonrton's "Hound Dog.")

Sun 186: "Just Walkin' In The Rain" by The Prisonaires. (The smooth-toned vocal group was actual Tennessee State Penitentiary inmates.) Responding to Sam's request, the Governor allowed them to travel by armed guard to Sun Studio and spent all day to make a two-sided single. Covered by the local newspaper as a noteworthy event, it was reported that Sam kept them there doing take after take for ten hours. Read between the lines and it reveals the subtlety of Sam Phillips' compassion and humanity in that his hard-to-please dissatisfied ear was actually an act. He was doing what he could to allow those five wayward men a rare chance to relax, sing, drink sodas, and enjoy as much time away from prison as possible.

Sun 188: "Tiger Man (King of the Jungle)" by Rufus Thomas. (One of Elvis' personal favorites)

Sun 192: "Mystery Train" by Little Junior Parker and His Blue Flames. (It was co-authored by Sam who recalled the term "mystery train" from WWII slang for trains bringing flag-draped caskets of dead soldiers home from battle.) Local kid Elvis Presley, a known purchaser of a few Sun singles, toted his guitar thru the door in July 1953 to cut a $4 make-your-own demo. Sun receptionist Marion Keisker greeted the lanky, side-burned teenager and never forgot how he mumbled to her that he "don't sound like nobody." It would not be until Saturday afternoon, June 26, 1954 when Sam would actually pay attention to this Presley kid and grant him an official audition.

As we all know it was there at Sun studio two weeks later, on the night of July 5, 1954 when Elvis, electric guitarist Scotty Moore and upright bassist Bill Black assembled at Sam's urging and sparked an unforgettable moment and defining sound in the unexpected taping of "That's All Right (Mama)." Elvis, a minor co-signed by his parents, was signed to Sun Records on Monday, July 26, 1954, one week after his debut single, Sun 209, hit local stores. (It was the thirty-fifth single in Sun*s two years in operation.)

Over the next sixteen months, Sam produced five singles with ELVIS AND SCOTTY AND BILL on the label: 209, 210, 215, 217, 233. The "masterpiece" in Sam's own words was the recording of Elvis' own "Mystery Train" made on Monday, July 11, 1955. By the Summer of '55, Sam was enjoying the fact that "Baby Let's Play House" (Sun 217) was becoming a nationally-recognized Billboard magazine C&W Best Seller. Nearly every Saturday night, Sun was getting promoted nationwide when Elvis performed his material on the syndicated radio show "Lousiana Hayride." By the Summer of '55, Sam had also just welcomed to Sun, a songwriting, guitar-playing Air Force vet leading a trio which Sam took the liberty to entitle JOHNNY CASH AND THE TENNESSEE TWO. Hillbilly acts, Rhythm & Blues acts, and this new merger coined Rockabilly were Sun's main product. It was still deemed an upstart, rough-around-the-edges, and looked down at by the major corporate record companies.

Then something happened which can be considered unexpected as well as inevitable; Elvis became a word-of-mouth-must-see-to-believe touring act throughout the South, as far as Texas to Florida and he started getting eyed if not in the peripheral sense by other labels who were curious about this new guy with the shaky legs and wicked sneer who smacked his guitar until the strings broke with pink-cuffed ringed fist and who belted out hiccupy, raunchy lyrics and provoked sometimes-blatant hard-to-contain sexual energy expressed by the female fans. A real physical phenomenon in the stage lights.

It wasn't the Elvis that Sam worked with in that little room. It was the Elvis out there on the road that was taking the world of the young by storm.

As Autmun leaves fell, Sam was placed between a rock and hard place. At the crossroads of decision, he chose to sell his exclusive four-year Elvis Presley recording contract to New York-based records/electronics giant RCA-Victor. Colonel Parker, Elvis' newly signed advisor and manager-wanna-be, orchestrated the sale after coercing Sam to set a price: $35,000, an unprecedented and ridiculous king's ransom. But historically it was worth every penny. RCA's Opry star Hank Snow, whom Elvis' parents admired and considered as a friend to they and their son, was instrumental in getting RCA to trust signing the Memphis Flash. Sam even sold the rights to the five Elvis Sun singles so they could be immediately repressed in Indianapolis, Indiana on the RCA label and distributed nationwide as well as overseas.

The two-page bill of sale was signed at Sun Studio on November 21, 1955 while Elvis' fifth single Sun 223 was then cracking the Top Ten on Billboard and Cash Box magazines' charts for DJ's Favorites and Country & Western Best-Sellers. "Baby Let's Play House" was already nominated for C&W Record of the Year. Presley was beginning to earn cover mentions on Country Jamboree fan magazines and his advisor was bragging about how he will soon get the kid on nation television.
Even with all that evidence that Elvis was destined to break loose nationwide, Sam couldn't regret what he did. It was best for Elvis. It was best for Sun. He willingly let go of all rights to a burgeoning sales over-achiever like this world had never seen before. That one-lump windfall for Presley's contract allowed Sam to pay off outstanding debts and helped Sun Records to grow. Sam also financed operating requirements and payroll for his own radio station, WHER, at the local Holiday Inn, which powered-up and premiered in October '55.

Most-importantly Sam rejuvenated his record company, paid off his brother's loan and brought him onboard to work full-time as A&R Man. By the start of '56, Sun had a stable of no less than a dozen signed artists, male and female, black and white, and the label was destined for more original talent to grace those grooves. Manufacturing/distribution/promotion was increased a thousand-fold.
Having sacrificed one big name for the sake of many, Sam Phillips was a southern maestro of a solar storm, now spreading the Suns from coast-to-coast. To sell one million copies, you have to press one million copies, thus by March 1956, Sun did achieve its first million-seller: Carl Perkins' "Blue Suede Shoes"/"Honey Don't" (Sun 234) recorded in Dec. '55. Texan Roy Orbison made his Sun debut with #249 in May 1956 and Lousiana-native pianoplayer/vocalist Jerry Lee Lewis made his Sun debut with #259 in December 1956. Lewis and Johnny Cash each topped the charts, and made an immeasurable impact of record buyers of all ages, with original Sun recordings: Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" (Sun 232) and "I Walk The Line" (Sun 241) both in '56. Lewis' "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" (Sun 267) and "Great Balls Of Fire" (Sun 281) both peaked in '57.

New Sun 45s by a wide range of young artists began appearing all over, even in the UK, via the Phillips International subsidiary label, and Sam eventually phased out 78rpms to concentrate on 45s and even 12'' albums. Sun Records continued in business until approximately 1968, ending with Sun 407, "Back in my Arms"/"I'm a Lover" by Load of Mischief. In 1969, at the peak of a radically-changed music business and social counterculture, Sam chose to refrain from the craft and he sold Sun Records, lock, stock & barrel to a Tennessee businessman named Shelby Singleton. Sam was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. He was among the first-ever twelve inductees which included his pompadoured protegee-turned-cultural icon Elvis Presley, and the 1930s Country-Blues music pioneer who Sam grew up listening to, his own childhood inspiration: Jimmie "The Singing Brakeman" Rodgers.

In 1987, Sam was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame. Sam became a patriarch of music legend and of urban legend, he himself a lightning rod for claim/blame for the explosive expansion of Rock and Roll Culture and for the black and white blues/country/pop fusion.
He was not a flawless audio visionary nor a meticulous tape archivist but he was ahead of the curve, and when the mikes were hot, the amps were on, and the tape was rolling across the mastheads, those immortal moments of making great music as well as making history were due to what as he hoped, "the feel was right."

Sam passed away in the solemn company of his family in Memphis on July 30, 2003. It was 49 years to the day when he watched a nervous leg-shaking Elvis tear up a crowd as he performed his debut Sun single at Overton Park in 1954. A day Sam was known to have prefaced Elvis' gig with the backstage encouragement, "They're gonna love you."

Every day since, somebody has never failed to express their love for Elvis Presley, and equally there is a collective love for what Sam Phillips had the gumption to do with his life: make records of gifted and talented persons, no matter their color, station or ambition. Sam did his best to bring out the best possible performance from his artists.

Let not your time go by in silence.
Make a sound, sing a song.
Someone will always be listening.

In Memory of Sam Phillips, 1923 - 2003

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