Sam Phillips of the legendary Sun Records is best known as the man who put his foot in the door of the music industry so that “Rockabilly” could enter. But Sam, by his own definition, was “just a struggling cat down trying to develop new and different artists, get some freedom in music, and tap some of the resources and people that weren’t being tapped”. Born Samuel Cornelius Phillips in Florence, Alabama, 1923, Sam always knew he was destined for great things. The great things he had pictured for himself, however, had nothing at all to do with discovering talent that would eventual shape the entire feel of the music world. Quite the opposite, in fact. He wanted to be a lawyer. Fortunately for Elvis fans like myself, Sam was the son of a cotton farmer. His father did not have the funds to send him to law school. Consequently, a lot of time was spent at home on the farm. That’s when Sam started listening.
What he heard was the blues, in its most pure and stringent form – gleaned as it was from the hard work and tattered hymnals of slaves on a cotton farm. It was on his father’s farm that Sam Phillips first began to imagine what music would be like if the world did not pay attention to the ethnicity of the singer. It was a simple and yet incredibly unconventional idea that would ultimately carry him to success and make his name legendary. Having perhaps the slightest inkling of his genius, or maybe just a passion for the music itself, Sam shrugged off his dead lawyer dreams in favor of broadcasting school. In the 1940s, Sam landed himself a position as a disc jockey at a radio station out of Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The station was called WLAY, and wouldn’t you know, it had an open format – meaning the station spun the hits of both white and black musicians. This reminded him of his time back home on the cotton farm, and he cites WLAY as a big inspiration for what he would later do in Memphis.
On January 3rd, 1950 (actually two days before his birthday), Sam opened a business called “Memphis Recording Services” at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee. I have to wonder if God blessed that day or what, because it certainly was the beginning of something miraculous. Memphis Recording Services allowed amateurs to make their own records for a meager fee of two dollars. The thing about amateurs is, a lot of them don’t even know how good they are. It was in this fashion that Sam stumbled upon artists like B.B. King and Howlin’ Wolf; it was all “accidental”. In ’52, Sam would launch his own label: Sun Records. From there, things really got cracking. The 50s was a volatile time in the music industry by anyone’s account and there were a lot of new sounds just begging for a chance to be heard. Sam Phillips was known to specialize in R&B music, but he actually ended up recording what was considered to be the first Rock ‘n Roll record: “Rocket 88” by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats. That was just the beginning. Sun Records produced more Rock ‘n Roll records than any other record label of its time during its 16 year run, with a total of 226 singles.
Sam had a passion for fresh sounds. He sought after music that made him feel something, not just the type of stuff he knew was doing well on the charts at the moment. Maybe that’s why his ears perked up when a scrawny kid from Tupelo, Mississippi came to see him in the summer of 1954. Elvis Presley sang a cover of Arthur Crudup’s “That’s Alright (Mama)”, and Sam was impressed. He signed Elvis, and though not nationally acclaimed, Elvis gained massive popularity in the South and became the calling card for Sun Records. Soon Sam was signing lots of local talent. Some names you might recognize being Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and Johnny Cash. Unfortunately, regional acclaim could not keep the wolves from Sun Records’ door. By mid ’55, Sam was having trouble paying the bills. He sold Elvis’s recording contract to RCA Records for a total of $35,000.
It seemed that as the 50s faded, so faded the shine of Sun Records. Sam sold the contracts for a lot of his major talents and sent them on their way. In the 1960s, he sold Sun itself. But that was not the end of Sam’s story, it was merely the closing of a chapter. Sam pursued lots of different business ventures throughout his life, including but not limited to opening the first all-female radio station (WHER) and investing in a large portion of the Holiday Inn company before it got off the ground and became the massive hotel chain that it is today. There was no doubt that Sam had an open style and insightful guidance that seemed to allow musicians to search and feel their way to a point to where they would perform beyond Phillips’ and their own expectations. Sam also seemed to have a sense for when the artist was about to reach the point of their best performance.
All his life, Phillips recorded looking for a feel – not technical perfection. Emotion; isn’t that what music is all about? Sam actually told Elvis the worst thing he could go for was perfection. I think that was a great part of Sam Phillips’ genius, and a definite part of his success.
