Beech Tree News Network

Long before Spotify, Amazon and all these music streaming services, radio was king.  And the disc jockey was the keeper of the kingdom.  This week, I’ll begin a new series called Jockeying for Position.  In this series, I’ll chronicle some classic disc jockeys from back in the day.  This week, we’ll start with the late Sam Phillips.

Samuel Cornelius Phillips (1923-2003) was an American disc jockey, songwriter and record producer.  He was the founder of Sun Records and Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, where he produced recordings by Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Howlin’ Wolf.  Phillips played a major role in rock and roll ‘s development during the 1950’s, launching the career of Elvis Presley.  In 1969, he sold Sun to Shelby Singleton.  

Phillips was the owner and operator of radio stations in Memphis, Florence, Alabama, and Lake Worth Beach, Florida.  He was also an early investor in the Holliday Inn chain of hotels and an advocate for racial equality, helping to break down racial barriers in the music industry.  

Sam was the youngest of eight children, born on a 200 acre farm near Florence, Alabama to Madge Ella and Charles Tucker Phillips.  His parents owned the farm.  Phillips would later attend the now defunct Coffee High School in Florence.  He conducted the school band and had ambitions to be a criminal defense attorney.  His father went bankrupt by the Great Depression and died in 1941, forcing Phillips to leave high school to look after his mother and aunt.  To support his family, he worked in a grocery store and funeral parlor.  

He met is wife in 1942 when both were working at WLAY radio station in Sheffield, Alabama.  He was an announcer and she, still in high school, had a radio segment with her sister called The Kitchen Sisters, where they played music and sang.  Phillips worked as DJ and radio engineer for the station in the ‘40’s.  Beginning in 1945, he worked for four years as an announcer and sound engineer for radio station WREC in Memphis.

On January 3, 1950, Phillips opened the Memphis Recording Service at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis.  He let amateurs record, which drew such performers as B.B. King, Junior Parker and Howlin’ Wolf, who made their first recordings there.  Phillips then sold the recordings to larger labels.

Phillips recorded what music historian Peter Guralnick considered the first rock and roll record, “Rocket 88” by Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats, a band led by 19-year-old Ike Turner, who also wrote the song.  The recording was released in 1951 by Chess Records in Chicago.  From 1950-54, Phillips recorded music by James Cotton, Rufus Thomas, Rosco Gorson, Little Milton, Bobby Blue Bland, the Prisonaires, and others.

The Memphis Recording Service also served as the studio for Phillips’ own label, Sun Records, which he launched in 1952.  Sun produced more Rock & Roll records than any other label of its time during its 16-year run, producing 226 singles.  Phillips recorded different styles of music but was interested in the blues.  

Phillips and Elvis Presley opened a new form of music.  Phillips said of Presley: “Elvis cut a ballad, which was just excellent.  I could tell you, both Elvis and Roy Orbison could tear a ballad to pieces.  But I said to myself, “You can’t do that, Sam”.  If I had released a ballad, I don’t think you would’ve heard of Elvis Presley”.  

Phillips launched radio station WHER on October 29, 1955.  Each of the young women who auditioned for the station assumed there would only be one female announcer position, as was the case with other stations at that time.  Only a few days before the first broadcast did they learn of the all-female format.  It was the first all-female radio station in the United States, as almost every position at the station was held by a woman.  

As far as Phillips’ accolades: in 1986, Phillips was part of the first group inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and his pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.  He was the first non-performer inducted.  In 1987, he was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame.  He received a Grammy Trustees Award for lifetime achievement in 1991.  In 1998, he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.  In October 2001, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.  In 2012 he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.  

Phillips died of respiratory failure at age 80 at St Francis Hospital in Memphis on July 30, 2003, one day before the original Sun Studio was designated a National Historic Landmark.  I hope you enjoyed the first installment of my disc jockey series.  Check out my first Blendertainment vlog of 2025 here: https://youtu.be/9l2nFvX9xcI?si=jjTbkSS-yCifwV4W