R.I.P. Sam Phillips
Legendary producer Sam Phillips has died in a Memphis hospital at the age of 80.
Phillips founded Sun Records in the 50's and launched the careers of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis.
Sam recalled for us the first time he met Elvis. "My memory of all these things in general is very good, Paul. I remember first I saw Elvis through the window when I was back in the control room" he told Undercover News. "I was working on a tape that I had cut on BB King. I saw him through the front glass store front window. He had passed there in a little pick-up truck a number of times working for the electric company. He came in and Marion who worked part-time for me brought him back. He wanted to make a personal record. I remember the first day I laid eyes on him, that day was so busy I would not have taken time to have done. At that time I wasn't doing many personal things. I was doing the cuts on BB King and Little Junior Parker and people like that, and Roscoe Gordon and a number of other black artists. Jackie Brenston who was in Ike's band was doing an awful lot of auditioning. I probably would not have taken the time but when she brought him back and I saw Elvis, he was just an unusually decent, wonderful looking young man at that time. I just couldn't say no to him, so I made that little personal record for him for his mother's birthday".
Those person records for his mother were 'Blue Moon of Kentucky' and 'That's Alright Mama' in 1954. When Sam last talked to Undercover, he recalled that session. "I helped Elvis out on this and also 'That's Alright Mama'" he said. "I didn't know he even knew this song. We were going through one of the rehearsals one night (it wasn't what you would call a formal rehearsal). We would come in, this is how I worked with the people, it was more of a relaxed atmosphere. We went through this and we were about through that night because nothing was coming off. He kept his guitar on around his neck and Scotty and Bill Black had put up their instruments. Then Elvis started on "That's Alright Mama". Well I didn't know Elvis knew that song because it had been a hit by Arthur 'Big Boy' Cruddup, a black artist here in the south, 6 or 7 years before that. Man that was what I was looking for all along. All of the auditions that we had done which had been a number before we actually cut 'That's Alright Mama'. This came simply by him playing around with a guitar and I heard this. Then I knew we were absolutely on the right track and that this cat could do it".
Elvis died in 1977 at the age of 42.
No details as to the cause of death have been released so far.
by Paul Cashmere
