Episode 2: Sun Records
Intro – Hey, folks – today we are diving into one of the most legendary recording outfits in history and the man behind it. This was where a slew of genre-defining artists cut their first records and were catapulted into legend. Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and of course the king – Elvis Presley all made early cuts there. Of course, I’m talking about Memphis, Tennessee’s Sun Studios and its outspoken founder, Sam Phillips. I can’t wait to jump into this with you, let’s go!
Sam Phillips
It’s hard to imagine rock music without the influence of Sam Phillips. He was an incredibly innovative, open-minded, and fiercely driven individual who gave us so many of the components we associate with Rock N Roll. When he got burned, his response was not to sue but to innovate. For the first decade of rock n roll, Sam Phillips set the prototype for how it would sound, how it would be marketed, and how it could maintain relevance.
Samuel Cornelius Phillips was born on January 5, 1923, near Florence Alabama. He was the son of Madge and Charles Phillip and the youngest of 8 kids. Sam grew up on a farm, picking cotton alongside his family and black laborers. Later in life, Sam said that the sound of the laborers singing while working left a big impression on him.
His family lost the farm during the great depression, and Sam ended up dropping out of school and working different jobs to help support the family, one of those being as an announcer, DJ and engineer for WLAY radio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The station had an open format of broadcasting both white and black performers. Phillips would move on to WREC in Memphis, Tennessee in 1945.
Founding of Sun Records
In January 1950, Sam opened the Memphis Recording Service, which would later become known as Sun Studios. To keep the business afloat, Sam would record events like funerals and weddings, however the studio was unique in that he let amateur musicians record there, then sell the records to bigger labels. This drew a wide variety of Memphis-based musicians such as B.B. King, Junior Parker and Howling Wolf made their first records there. In 1951, a 19-year-old Ike Turner would lead Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats into Sam’s studio to record what many consider the first rock n’ roll song, ‘Rocket 88’. Sam sold the record to Chess records in Chicago. Because Ike Turner showed such talent for arrangement and had connections to the music scene throughout the Mississippi delta, Sam recruited him as a talent scout and producer. In turn, Turner brought in delta musicians such as Bobby Blue Bland, Little Milton, Roscoe Gordon and the legendary Howlin’ Wolf to cut their first records.
Sam Phillips had found success in licensing recordings to record labels. He was happy to produce the music he loved and push raw talent into the spotlight. However, his relationship with Chess records and other labels began to strain, as they began to send their team to Memphis to produce records, or bring artists to their location to record, as Chess did when they took Little Milton, and then Howlin’ Wolf away to Chicago. Feeling as if he had no other options, in 1952, Sam lunched Sun Record Company. His love of all types of music, but especially the blues, drove him to adopt the ‘open format’ that he had experienced while working in WLAY years before. Sun would go on to release More rock n roll records than any other label from 1952 to 1969.
Recording techniques & Contributions
Sam created a unique sound called slap-Back Echo, which is a delay created by engaging the recording and playback heads of a tape machine at the same time. This became a signature of Sun Record’s sound, particularly on Rockabilly artists such as Carl Perkins.
Phillips also used a technique of balancing the vocal with the rest of the band instead of mixing it more up front. This helped keep focus on the music and gave the songs more drive than traditional vocal-fronted sides.
Discovering Elvis
In 1954, a young trucker stopped in to record a song for his mother’s birthday. Phillip’s collaborator, Marion Keiser had cut the record for Presley, and would play the tape back to Phillips, encouraging him to record this young fella. So Sam is finally convinced and brings in Elvis for a session. He only has an acoustic guitar, so Sam pairs him up with Bill Black on bass and Scotty Moore on guitar. As the session goes on, it ends up being kind of a dud. Sam isn’t impressed. As the session is winding down, Elvis starts to clown around with Bill Black. He starts singing a version of Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s ‘That’s All Right, mama.’ Scotty Moore starts playing along, and then Phillips poked his head into the studio. He tells them to go back and find a place to start, and ends up recording Elvis’ first regional hit, along with an up-tempo version of Bill Monroe’s “Blue Moon of Kentucky.”
The next year, Sam Phillips sold Elvis Presley’s contract to RCA, where he would go on to make Rock N Roll a national sensation. Throughout his RCA career, Elvis imparted what he had learned from Phillips to producers, helping to preserve the ‘Elvis sound’.
Carl Perkins
Carl Perkins heard Elvis’ version of “Blue Moon of Kentucky” in 1954. He was excited that ‘there’s a man in Memphis who understands what we’re trying to do’. He auditioned for Sam in October of ‘54, and his first single on Sun’s ‘Flip records’ was the slow, Hank-Williams inspired “Turn Around” which became a regional hit. In 1955, Carl wrote ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ after seeing a man get angry at his date for scuffing up his shoes. When Elvis left for RCA, Perkins received Sam Phillips’ attention for the rockabilly market. In January of 1956, Blue Suede Shoes was released to massive success. Perkins would become famous for personifying the rockabilly sound, using Phillips’ slap-back echo technique and writing such classics as “Honey Don’t”, “Boppin the Blues”, and “Dixie Fried”. In 1958, Perkins would leave for Columbia records, though he would never attain the amount of success he had experienced with Sun.
Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash was an appliance salesman when he auditioned for Sam Phillips. Cash sang gospel songs almost exclusively. Phillips didn’t have any interest in recording gospel songs, and eventually was able to have Cash record songs in the rockabilly/country style he became known for early in his career. The fist recordings were “Cry Cry Cry” and “Hey Porter.” Johnny Cash would go on to record some of his best-known songs at Sun Studios. “Folsom Prision Blues” and “I Walk the Line” were hits, and Johnny Cash would be the first sun artist to record a full-length LP. Sam Phillips continued to refuse to record Cash’s gospel songs, and in 1958, Johnny Cash left Sun Records for a better deal with Columbia, who would allow him to record the gospel songs he loved so much. Although Phillips was not happy about his #1 artist leaving, Cash had left behind a significant amount of unreleased material, which Sam continued to release and profit from through the mid-60's.
Jerry Lee Lewis
‘The Killer’ Jerry Lee Lewis had cut a demo in 1954 and had auditioned (and been rejected) from the grand ole opry in 1955. He went to audition for Phillips in 1956, but Sam was in Florida. Jack Clement recorded Lewis’ version of “Crazy Arms”, which ended up being popular across the south and southeast. In 1957, Sun released “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and it thrust Jerry Lee Lewis into the spotlight. His percussive, pumping piano style was instantly recognizable, and his stage antics became the stuff of legend and scandal. Whole lotta shakin was followed by “Great Balls of Fire”, “Breathless” and “High School Confidential”. A scandal in 1958 cooled off Lewis’ momentum when it was discovered that he had married his 13-year-old cousin. Although the scandal derailed his string of hits, he kept performing, and would eventually make the transition into country music, though with hits fewer and far between.
Later years
Sam Phillips slowly backed away from recording, and by the mid 60’s, he was very rarely behind the desk. He had moved into other business interests, such as opening other labels such as Phillips, and radio station WHER, which opened in 1955. WHER was the first all-female formatted radio station, with most of the staff and all the announcer positions occupied by women. He would continue to be involved in owning and operating radio stations through his company Big River Radio. Sam also invested in small motel chain which would grow quite a b make him a very wealthy man – the Holiday Inn.
Legacy
Sam Phillips, through sheer self-determination and inventiveness brought new textures to blues and country and helped forge the sound of rock n roll. His fearless openness to recording African American artists and all types of music from R&B to country to rock brought a new sound to the American ear and helped ignite a rock n roll flame that still burns today.
I appreciate you tuning in to listen to a bit of how Sam Phillips changed the music world. Join me next week when we explore the lives of Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper Richardson, and the effect that their untimely deaths would have on a generation. This has been the Musicscope. I’m Mike Grubb.
