Sam
Phillips ÒI
have never been conventional. I
donÕt know if thatÕs good, but it set me apart in the sense that I had a
certain independence and individuality. And I knew one thing: believe and
trust in what youÕre doing or donÕt do it. I just knew that this was great
music. My greatest contribution, I think, was to open up an area of freedom
within the artist himself, to help him to express what he believed his message to be.Ó -
Sam Phillips, 1978, speaking to Peter Guralnick in his book Lost Highway Sam
Phillips has passed away and anyone who loves rock ÔnÕ roll needs to take a
moment to thank him for everything he has given us. Part of the standard,
skeletal obituary (like this one from AP) reads as such: Phillips
founded Sun Records in Memphis in 1952 and helped launch the career of
Presley, then a young singer who had moved from Tupelo, Miss. He also worked
with B.B. King, Rufus Thomas, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison,
Conway Twitty and Charlie Rich, among others. I
mentioned to a friend on the day of PhillipsÕ passing that he had died, and
he wasnÕt quite sure who he was Ð he had him mixed up with Colonel Tom
Parker. Sad, but maybe things like that happen because people my age and
younger grew up in a world where we have always had rock ÔnÕ roll. Yes, we love it to death, but we take it for granted
that itÕs here; we donÕt remember that there was a time when it did not
exist, and we tend to overlook the original masters Ð Little Richard, Jerry
Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, etc. Ð for the Deep Artists that
followed in the sixties and the ensuing decades. Which leads to the baby
boomer/KQRS conceit that significant rock ÔnÕ roll didnÕt start until the
mid-sixties with the advent of the Beatles and all the Art they spawned. And
thatÕs complete bullshit. If you buy into it, youÕre welcome to Abbey Road
and all those other yawners. Just
wake me when the real rock ÔnÕ roll is back on the turntable. Sam
Phillips wasnÕt simply the man who discovered Elvis. By creating the
rockabilly sound in his Sun Studio, he was one of the essential founding
fathers of rock ÔnÕ roll. As the curatorial director of the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame and Museum, Howard Kramer, said after PhillipsÕ passing:
"He meant everything. Without Sam Phillips, the landscape of
contemporary music would be completely different." I
was at a Finn gathering in north-central North Dakota a few years ago. We
were in my uncleÕs garage for an open mike. Various relatives and neighbors
took turns playing songs. This went on for an hour or two, then suddenly my
mom grabbed my dad and me and hustled us out the door and into the car. Why?
Someone was strumming a guitar and playing ÒThe Doggie In The Window.Ó As we
drove, she explained how she had hated that song as a teen, how rock ÔnÕ roll
came along - into a world in which there was no rock 'n' roll (And God
said "Let there be light" and there was light. - Genesis 1:3); - and the music was exciting, made the dances so
much more fun, made ÒThe Doggie In The WindowÓ sound even more useless.
Nearly fifty years later and she still hated that song with a passion, nearly
fifty years later and she was still so thankful for the birth of rock ÔnÕ
roll. This
scenario had played out in her hometown and those surrounding little towns
ten miles from the Canadian border in the middle of nowhere. Just imagine how
rock ÔnÕ roll exploded across the country, coast-to-coast in small towns and
big cities. Sam Phillips was largely responsible for that; and he and his
discoveries did it all from a little studio down in Memphis, Tennessee. In
the words of Jerry Lee Lewis: ÒSamÕs crazy. Nutty as a fox squirrel. HeÕs
just like me, he ainÕt got no sense. Birds of a feather flock together. It
took all of us to screw up the world. WeÕve done it.Ó Amen,
Killer, amen. And have you heard the news? ThereÕs good rockinÕ tonight. |
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