Sam Phillips

As the founder of Sun Records and the man who discovered Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash, Sam Phillips was arguably the most important non-musician in early rock 'n' roll. Raised on a farm in Florence, Alabama, Phillips got his first taste of the blues when he snuck off to visit Beale Street on a family trip through Memphis in 1939. He aimed to be a lawyer before the Great Depression struck; instead he took various odd jobs including as a radio announcer in Sheffield. He later worked at WLAY in Muscle Shoals, where he was an engineer as well as a DJ, and was given free rein to play blues artists; he later moved onto another radio gig in Memphis. In January 1950 he opened his first studio, the Memphis Recording Service, at 706 Union Avenue. At first he produced recordings which were licensed to other labels; among them was the 1951 single "Rocket 88" that was credited to Jackie Breston but performed by Ike Turner's band. It was licensed to Chess and is considered by many to be the first rock 'n' roll record. The studio became home to Phillips' own Sun label, which launched with "Drivin' Slow" by Johnny London in 1952. Lightning struck in 1953 when a young truck driver named Elvis Presley entered the studio to make a record for his mother. Though Phillips wasn't present, his assistant Marion Keisker played him the tape. Still not overly impressed, Phiollips granted Presley a session; when they recorded "That's Alright Mama" he knew that he had something that could sell. The famous quote that he'd found "a white man who could sing like a black man" was apocryphal; Phillips disparaged it in a New York Times interview as "an injustice to the whites and the blacks." However he recognized that Presley had a unique sound and wide potential appeal; this was borne out by the five singles he released on Sun-all wildly influential records that didn't make the pop charts due to Sun's lack of promotional muscle. Sun continued to record blues and country records, but much of its energy now went to the new rockabilly sound. Phillips brought some world-class talent to the label including Carl Perkins (whose "Blue Suede Shoes" was Sun's first true pop hit), Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash; his chief engineer Jack Clement added Jerry Lee Lewis to the roster. All the records were distinguished by Phillips' trademark sound, created by the studio's natural acoustics and his judicious use of echo. Phillis also created a moment of history when Presley, Perkins, Lewis and Cash were photographed together as the "Million Dollar Quartet" though this too was somewhat apocryphal, as Cash was not part of the informal recording session. By 1960 Sun had lost most of its stars to major labels; only Lewis stuck around into the '60s. Phillips found new hitmakers in Carl Mann ("Mona Lisa") and Charlie Rich, but Sun recorded prolifically without much success. Phillips sold the label in 1969 and largely left music, though he joined his two sons to produce two tracks for John Prine's Pink Cadillac album in 1979. Phillips founded the Memphis radio station WHER in 1955, the first station by be run almost entirely by women, and was an early investor in Holiday Inn motels.