Man who discovered Elvis dies

SAM PHILLIPS, who discovered Elvis Presley and helped usher in the rock’n’roll revolution, died yesterday at St Francis’ Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee aged 80.

Phillips founded Sun Records in Memphis in 1952 and produced Presley’s first record, the 1954 single that featured That’s All Right, Mama and Blue Moon of Kentucky.

“God only knows we didn’t know it would have the response it did Phillips declared 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.”

By 1956, when Phillips sold Presley’s contract to RCA for $35,000 rock ‘n’ roll had become a cultural phenomenon and a multi-million dollar industry.

Born Samuel Cornelius Phillips in Florence, Alabama, he 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.

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 Phillips worked mostly with black musicians, including BB King and Rufus Thomas.

After Presley’s success Phillips also recorded Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Conway Twitty and Charlie Rich for the label.

He left the recording business in 1962 and sold Sun Records in 1969.

The Sun studio on Union Avenue in Memphis exists as a tourist attraction.

In his later years, Phillips returned to working in radio . He stayed out of the limelight except for some appearances at Presley-related events after the singer’s death in 1977.