Rock 'n' roll pioneer Phillips dies

Sam Phillips, who discovered Elvis Presley and helped usher in the rock 'n' roll revolution, has died.

Phillips, 80, died at St Francis Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, yesterday, spokeswoman Gwendolyn McClain said.

Phillips founded Sun Records in Memphis in 1952 and helped launch the career of Presley, then a young singer who had moved from Tupelo, Mississippi.

He produced Presley’s first record, the 1954 single that featured That’s All Right, Mama and Blue Moon of Kentucky.

“God only knows that we didn’t know it would have the response that it would have,” Phillips said in an interview in 1997.

“But I always knew that the rebellion of young people, which is as natural as breathing, would be a part of that breakthrough.”

Presley was good with ballads, Phillips recalled, but there was no need to challenge established balladeers such as Perry Como, Frankie Laine and Bing Crosby.

“What there was a need for was a rhythm that had a very pronounced beat, a joyous sound and a quality that young people in particular could identify with,” he said.

By 1956, when Phillips sold Presley’s contract to RCA for $35,000 (€30,000), the rock’n’roll craze had become a cultural phenomenon and a multi-million industry.

“It all came out of that infectious beat and those young people wanting to feel good by listening to some records,” Phillips said.

Phillips began in music as a radio station engineer and later as a disc jockey. He started Sun Records so he could record both rhythm & blues singers and country performers, then called country and western or hillbilly singers.

His plan was to let artists who had no formal training play their music as they felt it, raw and full of life. The Sun motto was: “We Record Anything, Anywhere, Anytime.”

In the early days, before Presley, Phillips worked mostly with black musicians, including BB King and Rufus Thomas.

After the success of Presley on Sun, others who recorded for the label under Phillips included Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Conway Twitty and Charlie Rich.

He got out of the recording business in 1962 and sold Sun Records in 1969 to producer Shelby Singleton of Nashville. The Sun studio on Union Avenue in Memphis still exists as a tourist attraction.

In his later years, Phillips spent much of his time overseeing radio station WLVS in Memphis and others in Alabama. He stayed out of the limelight except for some appearances at Presley-related events after Presley’s death in 1977.

Born Samuel Cornelius Phillips in Florence, Alabama, Phillips worked as an announcer at radio stations in Muscle Shoals and Decatur, Alabama, and Nashville, before settling in Memphis in 1945. Before founding Sun Records, he was a talent scout who recommended artists and recordings to record labels such as Chess and Modern.

His sons, Knox and Jerry, were also record producers.