Popular Music and Society: Sam Phillips : reflections on legends

Intoxication with rock and roll defies explanation. Passion for the often senseless, sophomoric lyrics and the driving, demented rhythms of early rock records is inherent in the psyche. It's not an acquired taste. It's not logically communicated. Bob Seger understands. Mitch Miller didn't. This is particularly true with respect to the startling diversity of Sam Phillips's Sun label output during the 1950s. Cacophony ruled! Well, not really. It's more accurate to note that marginalized musics--blues, R&B, country, and bop--as performed by marginalized artists-Howlin' Wolf, Sleepy John Estes, Malcolm Yelvington, Warren Smith, Sonny Burgess, and Onie Wheeler--were staples for the tiny 706 Union Avenue Studio. What happened in Memphis in the early '50s mattered little to anyone. Beale Street smoldered with sex, saxophones, alcohol, guitars, gambling, and switchblades. Only Sam Phillips, Dewey Phillips (no relation to Sam), and a ragtag crew of wannabe singers realized that wild dreams of celebrity might somehow come true.

Was Sam Phillips a Svengali, a super salesman, or a shaman? Yes, on all counts. Was he foolish, arrogant, driven, egotistical, or inept? Yep! His gift to the ages (to borrow a phrase from a ZZ Top blues hymn) was that he turned muddy water into wine. Listen to Elvis Presley's magnificent rendition of Junior Parker's tune "Mystery Train" for verification of audio transubstantiation. Better yet, pull down a copy of the singles compilation album titled Sun's Gold Hits and revisit "Whole Lotta Shakin'," by Jerry Lee Lewis, "Raunchy," by Bill Justis, "I Walk the Line," by Johnny Cash, and "Lonely Weekends," by Charlie Rich. Wow! Granted, Elvis was the leaping Jaguar emblem on Phillips's rock and roll race car. Elvis is also the $35,000 Achilles' heel of Sam's professional financial management resume. But it's singer/songwriter/guitarist Carl Perkins who was the genuinely tragic gem of Sun's sparkling rock and roll tiara. From "Blue Suede Shoes" to "Movie Magg," from "Boppin' the Blues" to "Honey Don't," Perkins was the epitome of the distinctive Sun sound. What Little Richard did for Speciality and what Chuck Berry did for Chess, what Bill Haley did for Decca and what Elvis Presley (from "Heartbreak Hotel" and beyond) did for RCA was what Perkins did to define Phillips's true studio mastery and big beat aesthetic.

Sam Phillips is important! But he's only one stream in the rushing rock and roll torrent that swept the United States during the '50s. Johnny Otis, Alan Freed, Leonard Chess, Ahmet Ertegun, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Bill Randle, and a wild array of musically gifted malcontents and mischief makers (Bo Diddley, Nervous Norvus, Billy Lee Riley, Larry Williams, Huey Smith and the Clowns, Fats Domino, Frankie Lymon, and Wanda Jackson) ushered in rock and roll. The story of Sun's rise, Elvis's sale, Jerry Lee's demise, and Sam's studio influence has been told and retold by rock's greatest writers (Peter Guralnick, Nick Tosches, Colin Escott, and Craig Morrison) and by a variety of hack journalists as well. Sam remains the quintessential mystery man. He's a crucial cultural bridge between black and white music in Memphis. He's a recording studio whiz kid. He's a catalyst for shifting and amalgamating styles that sparked the rock revolution. But before anointing Sam Phillips "The Father of Rock 'n' Roll" (a Goldmine obituary headline), one must revisit the perceptive texts of Charlie Gillett and Philip Ennis to recall that the triumph and transition of rock was both multidimensional and ongoing. The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Righteous Brothers, John Fogerty, Stray Cats, Tina Turner, Huey Lewis, and other inheritors, transcribers, translators, and transformers weren't schooled simply by Sam's Sun (or sons). They were also influenced by rock and roll's diverse deluge of rhythms produced by James Brown, the Everly Brothers, Dale Hawkins, Don and Dewey, Jackie Wilson, Ronnie Hawkins, Otis Williams, Joe Turner, Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent, the Five Satins, and others.

Death should never invite misrepresentation. Praise for Sam Phillips is legitimate and richly deserved. Admiration for Sun's stable of stars is also clearly warranted. Reflection on the brief period that yielded records that were authentically and joyfully "Red Hot" is always enjoyable. But perspective is valuable. The musical monuments to the man who died on July 30, 2003, have been in place for half a century. They echo over classic radio stations and reverberate through guitar strings each day across America and in many corners of the world. Samuel Cornelius Phillips, born in Florence, Alabama, on January 5, 1923, left a legacy of recordings that startle, stagger, and still defy critical analysis. Rufus Thomas, the Prisonaires, and Little Junior's Blue Flames hardly seem to match Elvis (Scotty and Bill), Jerry Lee, Roy Orbison, and Carl. But for the enigmatic, avuncular, and influential Memphis music maven, it all made sense--in dollars and cents. Sam Phillips was Alan Lomax without scholarship, John Hammond without Columbia Records, Col. Tom Parker without either the greed or the vision, and George Martin without the international connections. A flawed genius. A fool for music. A man who ought to be remembered ... fondly.

B. Lee Cooper

Newman University, USA