TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Today, we continue our archive series - R&B, rockabilly and early rock 'n' roll. We start today's show with Sam Phillips, the founder of Sun Records. That's the Memphis-based label that launched the careers of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash. We'll hear an interview with Cash in the second half of the show.
Before Phillips started his own record label, he produced the first records of bluesmen B.B. King and Howlin' Wolf. As Peter Guralnick, the author of a biography of Sam Phillips and a two-volume biography of Elvis, has said, quote, "Phillips has left a remarkable legacy, both of Black blues and the wide adaptation of it, which became rock 'n' roll. He has written one of the most astonishing chapters in the history of American popular music, and for this, we can only be grateful," unquote. Sam Phillips sold Sun Records in 1969. He died in 2003. I spoke with him in 1997. We started with one of the first records he produced in his Memphis studio. It's one of the very early rock 'n' roll records, recorded in 1951. This is "Rocket 88," featuring singer Jackie Brenston, with Ike Turner at the piano.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROCKET 88")
JACKIE BRENSTON: (Singing) You women have heard of jalopies. You've heard the noise they make. But let me introduce my new Rocket 88. Yes, it's great, just won't wait. Everybody likes my Rocket 88. Baby, we'll ride in style, moving all along.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
GROSS: Part of your genius has been finding musicians who brought together Black music and country music, creating rock 'n' roll and rockabilly. I'm wondering how you were exposed to Black music as a white man growing up in the segregated South.
SAM PHILLIPS: My interest in Black music started at a very early age. I worked with Black people in the fields. My daddy was a farmer, and he grew cotton. And of course, cotton had to be picked and hoed. My father, incidentally, did not own the farm. He was a tenant farmer. And he, in turn, would bring other people onto the farm to help him. So we were able to be together an awful lot with Black people because of the closeness of the type of work that we had to do on the farms.
GROSS: You started your producing career recording blues musicians and leasing the records to companies like RPM, Modern and Chess Records. You recorded Howlin' Wolf, Walter Horton, Bobby Bland, Little Junior Parker, B.B. King, the very start of their careers. I'm wondering what it was like for you as a white man in the South in the late '40s and early '50s to be recording Black musicians. Was it ever difficult to have rapport? I'm wondering if they saw you as the man because you were recording them and because you were white.
PHILLIPS: It was a type of thing that I think most Black people had some doubt as to what, quote-unquote, "we were up to" early on because, in many instances, Black people were taken advantage of. And maybe when they thought something was for free or for a certain price, it didn't turn out that way. I knew that the Black people that I was going to record, most of which had never seen even microphones, let alone a little studio, that the psychology that would be employed by me to have them feel comfortable and to do the thing that they felt they wanted to do in the way of music, rather than to try to please or do the type of thing that a white man might want to do, have them do.
Because I was not looking for Duke Ellington or Count Basie or Nat King Cole or any of the outstanding Black jazz and pop musicians. The people that I was recording were people that had, to a great extent, the feel for the things they had experienced and they loved. And the way they spoke was, to the people, through their music.
GROSS: One of the great blues musicians that you discovered and first recorded was Howlin' Wolf. I want to play the recording that you produced of him doing "Moanin' At Midnight" in 1951. And this was something that you did for Chess Records. I think it made it to No. 10 on the R&B charts. Tell us about your first encounter with Howlin' Wolf.
PHILLIPS: The Wolf, as I've said so many times, is one of my favorite artists. He was so individual in the things that he did. He had, No. 1, a voice that was so distinctive that there is - nobody could mistake it for anybody else. That intrigued me. It was so absolutely untrained in so many ways, but at the same time, it was so honest that it was just - it brought about a certain passion just by listening to him.
And there was one thing about the Wolf that you never had to worry about. When he opened his mouth in a recording studio - and he would talk real low when he was talking to you. And he was a big man, about 6'4 and weighed probably 225, 230 pounds and nothing but muscle. But when he talked to you, you could barely hear him. When he sang to you, you hardly needed a microphone or an amplifier.
GROSS: (Laughter).
PHILLIPS: But more than that, his ability to get lost in a song for two or three minutes or how long the song was, was certainly as good as anybody I ever recorded. And when I say get lost in a song, I simply do mean that. And I think that is a good, unsophisticated term of saying that we all try to get lost in what we were doing, and I think that was part of our success.
GROSS: Well, let me play this 1951 Howlin' Wolf record that you produced, "Moanin' At Midnight."
PHILLIPS: I'm anxious to hear that, one of my favorite records.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MOANIN' AT MIDNIGHT")
HOWLIN' WOLF: (Singing) Well, somebody calling me, calling me on my telephone. Well, somebody calling over my telephone. Well, keep on calling. Tell them I'm not at home.
GROSS: That's Howlin' Wolf, a recording produced in 1951 by my guest, Sam Phillips. Sam Phillips, you started Sun Records, your studio in Memphis after recording for independent companies, other people's independent companies, like Chess Records. Why did you want to start your own studio? Did you have a vision of what you wanted to do in your own studio?
PHILLIPS: I actually never wanted to actually form a label as such, like Sun Records. I wanted to be strictly on the creative end of it because I believed so strongly in what I believed in. And I wanted to prove to myself, one way or the other, that what I had felt apparently for an awfully long time was either something that was worthwhile or that the public, if it had the chance, would tell us that, you know, you're on the wrong track. But after dealing with RPM and Modern Records and Chess, I guess I was disappointed in the way that I thought business was done. And I don't like to speak disparagingly of people because these were - these people were my friends. But I had some difficulty and - you know, working with them from a standpoint of what I felt was fair and equitable in the things that we had agreed on.
GROSS: We're listening to the 1997 interview I recorded with Sam Phillips, the founder of Sun Records. We'll hear more of the interview after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF WES MONTGOMERY'S "FOUR ON SIX")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my 1997 interview with Sam Phillips, the founder of Sun Records, the label that launched the careers of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich and Roy Orbison.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
GROSS: When Elvis first auditioned for you, I know that he sang in styles of his favorite performers from - you know, white and Black, from Lonnie Johnson to Dean Martin. What did you do to try to get a sense from Elvis of who Elvis really was, of what his kind of own voice was?
PHILLIPS: Well, Elvis, being as young as he was and, of course, I'm - gosh, I'm 12 years and 3 days older than Elvis. When he was 19, I guess I was 31 or whatever. But I can tell you, the only time that we possibly had what you might say a difference of opinion in what we were doing is that I really did not want to do some of the, quote-unquote, "more poppish" things that Elvis truly did like. Because Elvis - let's face it - had an absolute beautiful voice from the beginning. Trained or not, it was beautiful.
But at the same time, he also had a certain intrigue about his voice, and I knew that, and I knew that we needed to feel our way around between great gutbucket blues and country. I really, truly thought that. So I think Elvis, if he'd have had his way - and he absolutely gave us no problem at all on it - maybe he wouldn't have put a country-type thing on the backside of each R&B record that we put out on him.
GROSS: Do you have a favorite of the Elvis "Sun Sessions" that I could play now?
PHILLIPS: I really do.
GROSS: Good.
PHILLIPS: And I've kidded about it a lot - of course, I wrote the song. I really didn't. It was the song "Mystery Train" that little Junior Parker really basically wrote it, and we did it by him on Sun, and we did it in an entirely different tempo and approach. And he had the idea for the song and came in, and it wasn't quite like we thought it should be. And so I worked with him a little bit because I really did love the idea of the song. So when we decided to do it on Elvis, it is something that I think that we did so entirely different. Although little Junior Parker's record was Elvis' favorite of the two, I have to say that both of them were my favorites. Till this day, I'd have to say, "Mystery Train," it ranks way up there.
GROSS: Why don't we hear it? Since you produced Junior Parker's version of "Mystery Train" too, why don't we hear both the Junior Parker and the Elvis version back to back?
PHILLIPS: We're in for a treat.
GROSS: (Laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MYSTERY TRAIN")
JUNIOR PARKER: All aboard.
(Singing) Train I ride, 16 coaches long. Train I ride, 16 coaches long. Well, that long black train carry my baby from home.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MYSTERY TRAIN")
ELVIS PRESLEY: (Singing) Train, train, coming round, round the bend. Train, train, coming round the bend. Well, it took my baby, but it never will again. No, not again. Train, train...
GROSS: That's Junior Parker and Elvis Presley, both of their versions of "Mystery Train," both versions produced by my guest Sam Phillips, the founder of Sun Records.
You gave up recording in about 1963. You gave up producing records. Why did you stop?
PHILLIPS: I saw the handwriting on the wall when you would do what you did, had to do, and your distributors had to work with you. And then the major labels would come along and offer contracts that we couldn't even think about - guarantees, because we were still very, very limited on funds. So it was no use in me being a farm club, so to speak, for the major league club, and that's exactly what it came to be. So I decided I was not going to work because I was offered a job with RCA by Steve Schulz to go to RCA at the time I sold Elvis' contract. And I did not go because, No. 1, I knew I would not be of any value to RCA because I had to do whatever I did - be it right or wrong, I had to do it in the way that I felt was necessary to prove what I had set out to prove. I knew that that wasn't necessarily going to work well with a big company. It would be absolutely no percentage. It'd be only frustration. I would accomplish absolutely nothing.
GROSS: You must have - or I would imagine that you must have really missed recording people when you stopped and missed discovering people.
PHILLIPS: I'll always miss it. I sure will. There is nothing on the face of God's Earth that gives us more solace in more different areas and more different ways than music. And you better believe that if I could stay around here another 74 years and I could start all over again and have my way with a major company or - I would be recording people because there's nothing - there is nothing in this world that is more rewarding, whether you got a dollar out of it or not...
GROSS: (Laughter).
PHILLIPS: ...Than working with, I mean, absolutely untried, unproven talent and seeing it come to the forefront and entertain, I mean, even the hardest-eared control man in the world behind that glass.
GROSS: Did you ever wish that you were the performer and you weren't behind the glass in the control room, but you were in front of the microphone?
PHILLIPS: Never.
GROSS: In front of the crowd?
PHILLIPS: Never, never, never. And that's a good question. That's probably one of the better ones, Terry, because I was never, ever jealous. I was a pretty good musician. I've always said I wasn't worth a damn, but my bandmaster and everything at Coffee High School said I was good. I directed a band in the summer and this sort of thing. But no, that did not enter my mind. Oh, no, listen. I had the good job. I had the good job.
GROSS: (Laughter).
PHILLIPS: The boys out there on the floor, they had the tough job. They had to worry about one instrument. I had to worry about three maybe, you know (laughter)?
GROSS: I think you just answered one of my questions. You said you played tuba when you were younger. You had said at one place that your favorite composer was John Philip Sousa. Now, I mean, I love...
PHILLIPS: That's right.
GROSS: ...Marching band music. I love band music and marches and stuff. But I was really shocked to hear that from you, the man who discovered Elvis Presley - John Philip Sousa (laughter).
PHILLIPS: Hey. You've been reading my record or something, girl. Let me tell you something about John Philip Sousa. What martial music is, is what I call stiff music. This man absolutely got more melody chords. I'm not talking about necessarily harmony chords because - let's face it - martial music is not made up just for a nice big blend of harmony. But you listen to this guy and the way that he handled it. He is a - this guy is a master at crafting music that if you can make people want to listen to it and if you can make somebody want to listen to a good martial piece of music like "The Washington Post March" or "Semper Fidelis" and enjoy it, I mean, I want to tell you, you are a master musician. He is the best.
GROSS: (Laughter).
PHILLIPS: He is the best at what he did. There's no - there's not a good second. You can't name one. And, of course, the Boston Pops has always been one of my favorites. That Fiedler was so crazy. I loved him, man. He was scared of nothing. Absolutely scared of nothing. The criticism, he didn't give a damn. Give him a drink before he went out on stage...
GROSS: (Laughter).
PHILLIPS: ...or half a pint, and you can forget it, honey. You were going to have fun with music. I mean, you know, you - don't get me...
GROSS: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
PHILLIPS: Really, don't get me started on his music.
GROSS: No, no, no. Wait, wait, wait, wait. You mentioned, you know, that he'd have a little drink - my understanding is that you wouldn't let your musicians (laughter) have a drink in the studio, with the exception of Howlin' Wolf.
PHILLIPS: That is right.
GROSS: (Laughter).
PHILLIPS: Damn you, woman. I swear to God. Do you have my jail record up there, too?
GROSS: (Laughter).
PHILLIPS: But honestly, that's a fact. And the Wolf, I looked at him, as big as he was, and then a half of a pint of Thunderbird wine, and actually that half pint was half gone already. And I said, do you know, there can't be too much harm done if I permit him to break the rules around here. And besides that, if he stepped on me, I might be no more.
GROSS: (Laughter) Now, what about other people? Why wouldn't you let them drink? 'Cause after all, you wanted them to be as relaxed and as natural and uninhibited as they could.
PHILLIPS: I don't really know. I really honestly don't know, Terry. I - there was just something. I wanted them to really get high on what we were attempting to do. And the one thing that I can tell you unequivocally again is that we did get high on our music, even the cuts that we didn't feel that we had it on. We got high on it. And I want to tell you, there is no high in this world better than when you cut something that you didn't believe that you could do. You maybe said to yourself, I know I can do it, but you really didn't believe you could do it, and you do it. Now, you tell me something that would be more potentially high. Now, that's high-octane stuff, so far as I'm concerned.
GROSS: Sam Phillips founded Sun Records. Our interview was recorded in 1997. He died in 2003. One of the people whose careers he launched was Johnny Cash. We'll hear my 1997 interview with Cash after a break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HEY PORTER")
JOHNNY CASH: (Singing) Hey, porter. Hey, porter. Would you tell me the time? How much longer will it be till we cross that Mason-Dixon Line? At daylight, would you tell that engineer to slow it down? Or better still, just stop the train 'cause I want to look around. Hey, porter. Hey, porter. What time did you say? Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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