Sam Phillips

Sam Phillips in London, 14th July 2000

Interview conducted by Harry Carrigan and Paul Downie,
The Elvis Touch, Glasgow

We are fortunate to bring this exclusive interview. With the exception of Elvis, Sam is without doubt the most influential individual of the last 50 years of popular music.

John Lennon said, "Before Elvis there was nothing" to which Dave Marsh, music critic replies, "Before Elvis there was Sam". It is clear that one without the other, music today would be markedly different.

Introduction

Sam Phillips was in London for his recent British visit to promote the new documentary "Sam Phillips - The Man Who Invented Rock'n'Roll". After contacting Mr Sam Phillips' contact at the National Film Theatre, we were given the opportunity to interview Mr Phillips during his stay. He kindly agreed to allow us an initial 30 minutes out of his own time, though this was extended on the day.

Our special thanks go to Maggie Hunt of the NFT, without whom we could not have brought you this exclusive interview. It was Maggie's hard work that got us our interview for which we are very grateful.

What follows is a complete transcript of the interview. No editing has been done to allow Mr Phillips' comments to be read in their entirety, with no secondary opinions reporting what the thought was actually meant. The pre-interview comments that were recorded are also included. Now sit back and read the unedited words from the man who started it all ~ Mr Sam Phillips.

ET = The Elvis Touch

SP = Sam Phillips

Do you mind if we record this interview?

(On the condition you send a tape). As for audio, you know, you never know what's going to happen to it. They make you say things you didn't say. I'm not accusing anybody. I'm glad you're taping it because that way you can prove if you're lying.

Let 's run through these and, please, I don't want to rush you but... uh.

As we said in the fax we sent, we may not have the time to ask them all anyway. When you've got to go, just tell us.

Yeah, but I don't do things that way. I love you all for doing what you do, for Elvis that is. The reception we got here at the National Film Theatre on my, basically, my biography. They said, the people there said it was the first standing ovation they've received when a person walked in and they've had some very distinguished people there. I also just talked to them awhile ago, I don't just recall their names, they said they were just overwhelmed with the reaction they got.

So I give a lot of the credit to Elvis and all the things he stands for. Along with the love, appreciation and understanding that I've put (in) all my life, for the time since I met him. Basically all of the people I worked with I have a certain degree of affection that I won't forget . Even if we had some differences about some matters or other, that didn't matter. These people were people that became a part of my family.

Shall we run. Let 's see, Harry and Paul. We'll go through all this. Can that mike pick it up alright?

It should be OK, it won't be a really good recording. It's very old equipment, but it's all we've got.

Well it looks like it will do (the) job. I wouldn't want to make it difficult to understand when you transcribe it.

Why did you decide to first form Phillips Records and shortly afterwards Memphis Recording Service?

Well let me correct that. Memphis Recording Service was the first thing that was formed. That was formed in January of 1950, and the little Phillips label which was just a little brief venture with Dewey Phillips the disc jockey. I think we had maybe one release. I don't think we'd even two, maybe two. But, that was on a kind of an accommodation to Dewey, my dear friend although we were no kin.

So that once stated. Afterwards that was no longer an interest of mine. I wanted to work with other labels. To do the actual discovery and working with the potentially new people that I thought that I could do something with, and I felt that way for years before I was able to get a little studio and get my equipment sorted.

Basically it would have been just Memphis Recording Services. There would have been no Sun Records had I not got into a situation where I was not comfortable with the two record companies I had worked with. So, basically, in 1953 or the latter part of 1952, I formed Sun Records, but before of course I had what is considered the number one, the first Rock'n'Roll record. I didn't say that, that's what some authorities including Paul Ackermann (editor of Billboard), on Ike Turner and Jackie Brenston. That's what I wanted to do and, also, before that for the Beharry Brothers on RPM and Modern Records. I didn't think I was doing quite right so I didn't want to form a label, because I loved working with talent, I know what I was doing, you know, I just knew I had an idea from childhood about music and as I got a little older. And, I know that times were so difficult at that time because of the race situation that it wouldn't be easy, but anyway my desire was so overwhelming. Inwardly I had to try it anyway.

Was this a family business, ie was any of your family involved in the music/entertainment business? Where did the idea or the inspiration come from to form a record company?

When I couldn't work it out for (the) distribution and everything with the companies Chess and RPM. It was my sole idea, though it looked like it was against everything that I wanted to do, that I was going to have to form my own label. If I was gonna get done what I wanted done. I knew I was so overwhelmed with all the auditions. See I don't slight everything. I work with people, the reason I got so much out of so many people is that they didn't feel slighted when they came in. You know, I'll tape you and listen to you and if I don't hear what I want to hear you're gone. (I didn't work that way). I mean, I knew what they were going through, auditions are tough, especially for people who have never been in a recording studio. So that's what I wanted to do, then I had to cast my lot and say hey, you know what, I'm gonna have to form my own record label and set up my own distribution all over America. I couldn't be just a local label. It's true it was small because I didn't have tons of money like the major labels and even some of the independent labels at that time.

It was one of those things that added to it all. I drove something like 50,000 miles a year, plus all the other things that I did, that wasn't interesting. I'd call on distributors, I had distributors in major cities all over the country to service all the areas that had to get records if we were gonna have a successful label. I couldn't improve anything if I didn't have any of this, then I serviced them and in addition to that I had to keep my mind focussing on something different in the way of talent. I mean, that was my objective. I knew all the good things that were not get ting to the market, that was what I was mainly interested in. Just because the skin was black or something, you know, and that didn't sit so well with me.

From these early pre-Sun days do you have any favourite artists?

The pre-Sun. Are you talking about artists that I recorded?

Yes, that you recorded with Memphis Recording Services.

Well I didn't do a lot, I was trying to stay alive. I did BB King, I did Roscoe Gordon, I did Ike Turner and Jackie Brenston. I did a thing on Raymond Hill who was part of the Ike Turner band, he and Jackie played. Jackie played baritone and he played alto sax. I really didn't do a lot. When I recorded BB King, I worked with BB before Barrows came in (for him), I thought they're gonna do well with this guy, he's a natural born, a natural person who can impart what he feels, especially with his guitar, and of course his vocals. Real blues, not the gut-bucket blues which I love that too, really Lightning Hopkins, that type of thing. It was just that extremely cordinal sounding thing that BB has with his voice that caught my ear right off. So I guess, BB I would say and even Roscoe, I would say even though he never became that big. He had an interesting thing that you couldn't define and I kinda like that.

I feel you've partly answered this question. But, in 1952 you started Sun Records. Was this go gain more control over record releases, or was it to have more control over the music recorded?

When I started Sun it was totally to gain control. What I was going to do or attempt to do with each artist, you know, I mean, I knew that we would have to not only get out of them the best that they had in them, and I knew really what that was gonna take. It was gonna take time, it was gonna take patience, it was gonna take a physiological analysis of each person because they're all so different. In order to maximise their potential talent, to gain control, I knew I had to have that for releasing.

As an example, let 's take it forward a little bit to Elvis. When releasing Elvis's "That's Alright" and "Blue Moon of Kentucky" I had distributors that jumped on it for me eventually and then they would sell and felt that they had worked their market completely, then I would still (be) working other markets that it hadn't caught on.

And, here I could have ruined Elvis's career, I had to tell them I appreciated everything they had done, but if I released another release on Elvis now and I would give them, the towns and everything that it hadn't quite worked.

The distributors were telling me that it looks good, but it's taking us a little while because it's very different and I liked that sound. That it's very different, you know makes it a little tougher to do. You know, change the approach and everything, but I like that. If I had done like maybe a major label, and I don't have anything against major labels, and went on and put out another record to keep the bottom line (money), Elvis would probably never been heard.

We had to be patient but we had to be very constant and persistent. You know I had to tell some of my best distributors, I just can't do it Bill, I can't do it John, I can't do it Harry. You know it's just one of those things, and later on at our market conventions and everything, they were convinced I was totally right. I knew for sure that was the right thing to do. I felt that it definitely was. Because I think Elvis could have been put on the market and say, well it's not gonna get in this market , but it's hit this market .

The next thing you know you would have had another somebody who didn't stand in there and that record would have made it's impact before we released another one. All the distributors had a chance to maximise, and we didn't yank it out and release another one down there. Then they'd say well, how do you expect us to sell this if you've got a new one down in this market.

So there was a lot of actual physiological and analytical things that I had to do that was really out of the ordinary so far as distribution was concerned in order to make a new artist, a new style, a new approach to music, appreciated and commercially feasible.

You would have had to do that with every single artist, as every artist was a new artist for you at that time.

That's right, just about everyone, but if I hadn't have done that with Elvis at the beginning there, there's no question in my mind, and of course I had Little Junior Parker and you know, his Mystery Train and I Love My Baby and then the Prisonaires, you know I had a lot of things that required.... Let me tell you something, the most difficult thing in life and in something as high pressured as the entertainment business, the music business. Because, you're not only dealing with retail and your distributors, you're dealing with jukebox operators, and back then they didn't have like 200 record slots on them, they had like maybe 20 to 25 you know. They had to change them to keep you putting a nickel in, if you can believe, then it got to be a dime and then three for a quarter. So, there was so much more that went on, that had I not done that, no matter what I put in as much as it was so different to the run-of-the-mill things, it would not have happened.

I just had to stick to my guns and sometimes you were so tempted to, it was, the guy says, so look man if you will ship me the new Elvis release, I'll order 3,000 right now, one distributor 5,000, boy you think that wasn't tempting when you were as hungry for money as me. You know, I'm just a little guy, I paid a bill every month and they've got a 10% excise tax the Government did, and you had to send it in if you had the money or not, you had to send the report in or they would put your ass in jail. A lot of the time the distributors would be slow to pay. I mean I had good distributors that were solid, independent, good people. Those are the things I had to take into account and that was a real tough thing for me to do, and then when I got back of the road promoting and promoting on the telephone I was in that studio, but I had to block this other stuff out of my mind, when I go into the studio you're not going to divert my attention. I mean it's there, it's there because that's the whole thing. Yet at the same time, if your distribution and your intercourse with all of the disc jockeys, distributors and even retail outlets, I mean you had to be just damn near perfect and that's not always easy if you're on your own.

When in 1953 Elvis walked into Sun, legend has it that Marion Keisker recorded Elvis, and kept it in the belief that's what you were looking for. Was this the case?

No, that's not true. Marion did so much for me but she had nothing to do with the recording or anything like that, because that wasn't her cup of tea. I wasn't able to hire a full time secretary like Sally became later on. I wouldn't take anything away from her because she helped me part time, as she continued to work at WREC, the station I worked at before I resigned to work full time at the studio, and that was a big decision for me. I didn't want to take anything away from her but actually I made the record for him, and there's another thing - and I don't like to accuse Marion of telling an untruth because she was a wonderful person who did so much, from painting the floors with me, and she was a highly intelligent lady and she was a very sophisticated lady, she saw the point I was making. I mean she loved symphonic music and all these fantastic, there's no bad music. Yet she fell in after awhile, after a year or so, she said you know I just didn't know this existed on this earth, I mean this is how honest she was about it.

So, there is a misunderstanding about that, and she says that she recorded it to the acetate and not on tape, and she didn't know how to run the acetate recorder, she just didn't know how. It had to be something, I don't think she was trying to steal the show, it had to be something that slipped her mind or something, but she, what happened was that, I heard him and I told Elvis and Marion and I went up front after we got through, I came out to the front, Elvis was in the studio and we walked out into the little office that we had, as you come in off the street. And I said, I'm going to a maximum security prison in Nashville and I understand there's a guy over there got a great song and I may find some others, so when I get back I'll give you a call, so that's when I or even Marion wrote down on there, well she says she wrote down "Elvis Presley, how I could get hold of him, good ballad singer". Now she could have very well have done that, but as I recall that I did that, but that probably she did.

A year or so later you put Elvis to work Scotty Moore and Bill Black. What, if anything, did you ask them to try?

I found, the funny thing is the time differential here, which in my book I will definitely strike down, it wasn't a year, it was something like. I got back with Elvis and had him come in shortly thereafter, and I played this very crude tape recording, this song that the Prisonaires had cut, on a little home-type recorder that..... They had a certain amount of time that we could visit. So we cut this song and I brought it back and played it for Elvis, Elvis learned songs just like that. It was excellent but it was then that I made up my mind that this was not going to be the approach, I had to have something with vigour, something that would attract the teenager, and although Elvis could sing a ballad, and it would be easy to cut even though he was totally inexperienced, it would have been easy to cut a ballad in no time, flat. But I had to figure the route in my opinion that we had to go, I knew that Without Love was the title of the song, that wasn't the route, I mean we had another good ballad singer like Perry Como or even Eddie Fisher or Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, but we didn't want that, I mean, I loved that, I love every damn one of those. I admired them and they did a great job of what they did, but they weren't interesting. But anyway, the fact is there is a misunderstanding on that.

And, basically, I called Scotty Moore up. I'd worked with him on Malcomb Gilberton Band or one of them, I don't know who Scotty was working with right there, was it Malcomb or the guy Doug Poindexter, I think it was one. I called Scotty up because I knew Scotty had a lot of patience and talked to him. I said now I've got this young man he doesn't have a band and has never had a band, the only thing he's done is sat in the house or maybe on the porch on occasion and do his thing, but he knows every damn song you've ever heard, as young as he was, I think he was eighteen. Then I called up Elvis and put them together, and I suggested to Scotty, what about Bill Black working with you all. Because he doesn't have a band, he really needs somebody with patience and everything. And, you all know what we call woodshed, that means find a place where you can, at your home or any place, because we couldn't rehearse in my studio because I was auditioning other people. So, it was about roughly a year before I brought him back and even on my biography, it's in there and like Scotty remembers a year, it's really not that, it doesn't matter, but it was more like, I can't even say for sure, I don't think it was six months, it was more like four to six months, maybe five. But you have to keep in mind I was working with distributors, working with other artists, promoting, working on keeping the presses going in Memphis, Philadelphia and Los Angeles, to keep the shipments of records going on the releases that we had. So that sounds like a long time, but it wasn't. And Scotty, I mean Elvis came by quite often to see how things were going and didn't seem at all impatient about trying to force me to record him before I could. Because I knew that once I started with him, that I wanted to make sure that we did not get him in a position of discouragement because Elvis was the type of person that was persistent, but at the same time he always felt like he was imposing upon you, if he didn't deliver for you what you wanted, and it might not be that you knew exactly what you wanted yourself. I'm talking about me.

You see, at the time I was trying to get into the thing that somebody with real versatility in, and Elvis had versatility, and as we would work more and more came out, but we did not know for sure until, I'd say, half a dozen, four to six times that we got together before we really began to decide the total direction.

Legend has it that during one of these sessions, Elvis was going nowhere, then during a break and off-mike, started That's Alright Mama. Is that the way you recall it?

Oh yes that's exactly right. We had gone through, you see you have to keep in mind you have to keep the spirits up, of people that are trying to make it up, because it's so easy to get discouraged, like well I'm gonna lose the only chance I have to make a record or anything, you understand that. And that night I said, well look, I think really we just are just really in a rut. I said let 's come back, I said Scotty you call me or Elvis, and let me know some nights that are available and we'll get back. So Scotty was putting up his guitar and Bill Black had laid his base down alongside the wall, and I just came through the door, looked back and I'd left the door open. Elvis did not take the guitar off his shoulder strap, he didn't take his strap off, and he just started, I mean like Scotty says on my biography, flailing hell out of that guitar, That's Alright Mama, and I came back around. I'd left the mikes on, I heard it from him standing close to the door where he always stood for singing. I heard it coming out of the pots that I had left on through the speakers. I said, this is what we've been looking for, what in the hell Elvis have you been holding out on us for, you know, totally in a tongue in cheek manner. That is exactly how it happened. The minute I heard it, I knew that this was the thing that we had to go with and I just felt like this, hearing just a few bars of it, just playing around. But this was something that we had to make into a master, and we did, and we did that night. Scotty got his guitar out and Bill picked up that ole beat-up bass, and I guarantee you, just a few takes we had That's Alright. Came back a night or two later, I think it was the next night, now realise we're going back almost fifty years.

In my opinion, the B side to Sun 209 - Blue Moon of Kentucky - is the classic Rockabilly-Country-Blues sound and today is still as vibrant as it must have been almost 50 years ago. Why was this the B side?

I was interested what you said about Blue Moon of Kentucky. I loved it too, but we would have made a mistake if we'd gone in with Blue Moon of Kentucky and not That's Alright. Because I was after being able to hopefully get a feel of the black man's music with Elvis, more than the country side of it, even as much as I love bluegrass, and I've always been a fan of Bill Monroe. In fact I was afraid he was gonna whoop our ass, for doing his (song). I mean, you're talking about that song is a masterpiece, so I understand exactly what you're saying, it is not dated and can't be dated. It is something that had I gone on that I think it would have been a mistake, but it did, that record sold a lot of records for a new artist, unknown really and this sort of thing. Blue Moon of Kentucky was part of the reason that it sold, it played a part in That's Alright being as big as it was for us, it sure did.

You don't believe as an A side it would have had the same impact?

I don't believe it would have, and it certainly would not have accomplished my intention, and that was to get the black feel and having a great song. That's Alright may not sound like a good song. Big Boy Crudup had about six years before, I mean that was a hell of a good blues record but of course he did it slower, much slower than Elvis and everything. Boy, don't think I didn't work my fingers to the bone on that record, and I got turned down. But you know, Paul Ackermann, a great great man, he was thirty years music editor for Billboard magazine, which was the gospel then and still is on music. They reviewed their records Monday, and he came in and this record was in the mail to him, one side Blue Moon of Kentucky and the other side That's Alright, and Paul said either this man is crazy or he's a genius. That's what Paul said, and there's nobody in the world that I respected more. Paul was a man at that time, he was in his fifties and I was in my thirties, early thirties, and he said they'd discussed that and that it's the most different thing, he said what can we do, and they reviewed it. And Paul Ackermann was the most unselfish person, he was born and raised a New Yorker but he loved southern music, and he saw then, he told me later, "I saw what you were trying to do to broaden the base of black music". You know there wasn't any radio station on every corner like there is now, you know there was hardly any black music played on the air. I mean it just wasn't. You had to do it there in Memphis and then WDI went on the air in about 1948 and it went on the air as a daytime session only, then Dewey started doing the Red Hot and Blue shows. I tell you, I'm not smart but I don't mind work or didn't mind the work, and I didn't mind understanding what the artists were going through, what the distributors were going through. What I was asking them to do was to try and unsit all of that, had I not and said, well hell it could easily have blown the whole thing wide open. You wouldn't have heard of Sam Phillips and maybe not even of Elvis Presley like I did, I mean to get him moving and to get a style and to get something that was truly different that young people could sink their teeth into. A white man doing what he did was just unbelievable. It still is.

We are still feeling the ripples.

Uh huh, you'd better believe it.

On the production of some of Elvis's Sun material there are some interesting techniques used. Such as Milkcow Blues Boogie. Elvis starts slow, stops, then speeds the song up. Who was responsible for the use of these techniques?

I claim credit for that. He had it and he started off the regular tempo. I said Elvis, we need to see if we can get a feel on the front end of that, and if we can get some little something that we can make appear, and this was a term like I did with Blue Suede Shoes, not "go man go", it had to be "got cat go", it made the difference. And this one, on this was, I forgot the exact thing but we came up with a combination of "and get real gone". I said, man they'll listen to that and then that beat, I knew that beat had it, but then this was young people's things, and get real gone. We didn't think of that as being really hip now, but boy was it hip then. get real gone. He said it perfectly see, like we took two or three cuts, but that cut he's got on there he said it like, look man I've got something to tell you. You know what I mean, just listen to that, get real gone. You couldn't have made it better. It's just one of those things that happened there, I suggested it to Elvis and boy he did it. Now that wasn't easy now as Elvis hadn't done any narration to speak of, I think he'd done a little narrating on a couple of things Bill Kenny of the Inkspots did. It was just the perfect think for the intro to work right.

As the producer on Elvis's recordings did you know what you wanted before you walked into the studio?

Listen, my big job was to, actually I knew the general course that we had to travel if what I had in mind was a legitimate thing that could be done. In that, I didn't go in a lecture people and tell them, hey you this, that or the other. I said, look, we are going to do something different. I don't know and you don't know right now what it is, so we can go. If you've got a song that you've been doing a certain way and everything that you want me to hear, I'll listen. Then we'll analyse it together, but see I am not interested in making just another country record or a pop record or another rhythm and blues, race record as they say. I would love man, a black artist like Lightning Hopkins, people like that. But we are actually trying to explore a whole new field of endeavour that will appeal to young people that don't have the music they can put their hand on and say, that's my music. Because I knew a lot of children weren't permitted to buy black R&B race records, they just weren't allowed in the house. I figured man, if we can get a white musician, that doesn't mean they're gonna like it, the parents, the teachers, but it would be a step in the right direction. It's the way I felt about it, I truly felt that way about it, and that's how it came about.

I have a way, and I've always said this, I'm not smart or anything. I don't pretend to be a genius or any of that jazz, whatever that is. But I know how to get out of people the best they've got in ‘em. It's my job, my duty, I did it. I did it like nobody else, nobody could've done it better. I'm just saying that. I don't give a damn if anybody believes it but the record speaks for itself. I did it, and I did it every time we went in there, we certainly kept an open mind because so many things can be torched, you know lit up from something you wouldn't even suspect at all, so we kept an open mind. No suggestion anybody had was cast aside or (considered) lightly at all, but at the same time I knew what I was looking for, and I was hoping and praying and working my brow sweating and everything else to do what I really felt necessary to do to make the evolution of music broader for everybody, and that's what we did, thank God.

In the studio you got a great, unique sound which was achieved with so few musicians. Did you do a lot of remixing or splicing in those days, as other recording studios were doing?

We only had at 706 Union anything but monoraul, no we, I can't even remember slicing anything, I may have, but I can't remember doing that. I knew how to mike things, I have innately God-given, and my ears are not as good as they used to be, but I have not only ears I have an innate feel for sound. Sound to me says just so much, you know. I'm just one of the better mixers that's ever lived and I know that a lot of people can do a gillion things better than me. I just knew how to get things out of people. I knew how to mike them. I didn't go in and say we've got a standard mike set up. It was just one of those things and I knew with the limited input and the number of mikes that I could use, I had to set the mikes where I would get the certain overtones from that particular studio that I had built. I had to know the reverb characteristics of that studio, and all of that came into play, and hey, like you say in there somewhere we always had a sparse number of people, and yet we, it's just like with Elvis and Bill Black, I said Bill really don't want to use a drum, we may use one later on, though I didn't put a drum with Elvis. What happened was that I just loved that slapped bass that Bill did, and it just gave you a manifestation of assist rhythm that didn't get in the way of Elvis, or Scotty's guitar. Sometimes less is better than more, if you know what you're doing, very frequently it can be.

Mystery Train was one of the last songs Elvis recorded for Sun. You are credited as co-writer on this, and credited with writing the Rufus Thomas classic, Bearcat. Are there any other songs that you wrote?

Well, Mystery Train was Junior Parker and me together, he had the idea and I just thought it was such a fantastic idea, because of trains then if someone got on a train it was like they were gone like maybe forever, it was like a funeral. It's hard to believe that now, but.... and then a woman involved with a man and a train, and a leaving, this thing was just fantastic. We worked on that thing and I didn't put my name on hardly any of the things. Except I worked a deal with Roy Orbison which I didn't write any of the songs he had, but we worked a deal on them in order for me to get the BAI (credit) on it. But, Mystery Train, I was a great contributor to that, but it was Junior Parker's idea. He had it basically in mind but the riff was not quite what I wanted, so we changed a few words and everything. To this day that is the greatest vamped record I have ever heard, and Elvis was so impressive on it, you just hear him on the end go "eeeeee", on the very end of it. He didn't know I was recording it, and he was just having fun, and that was the take. I said we didn't have to record that anymore. He was just having fun on the end of it and that was part of the thing that makes it so outstandingly good, having fun.

Did you ever regret selling Elvis's contract to RCA Victor?

I've been asked that a million times, well a thousand times, so I didn't because it served such a wonderful purpose for me at the time and I needed the money so had. If I'd have known I could have made it without it, I had Blue Suede Shoes in the can, but nobody wanted Carl Perkins for any amount. Actually you've heard this many times. I didn't think they would pay, because I knew what Frankie Laine sold to Columbia (Records) to Mercury (Records) and they paid it so haven't no grudge, not at all.

In December 1956 you managed to record the now legendary $1,000,000 Quartet. Though we now have almost 1½ hours on vinyl. Johnny Cash does not appear. Was it in your recollection if any recording was done while Johnny Cash was present?

Oh yeah, well Johnny he says he remembers singing with the group, and I would not dispute Johnny's words as he's such a truthful guy. But I don't believe that he stayed for the whole time as we were there a long time, really just kicking up our heels. Johnny remembers that he did sing and he says he can hear his voice, he could very well have I just don't remember.

Elvis was exclusively an RCA artist at this time. Was this a clever piece of orchestration or a genuine accident of good fortune?

Oh, it wasn't orchestrated at all. It was a total accident, you know the greatest accident in the world happened right there, where we all started. I mean four fabulous creative people and me and the studio, and even though Elvis had gone to RCA it's just amazing. They loved each other. Let me tell you something, Elvis looked up at Carl and Jerry Lee, he thought Jerry Lee, this was before Jerry Lee was even big, because he was playing on Carl's session that day. He just absolutely, I honestly believe, and this is kind of aside, I believe Elvis had more fun than anybody that day and everybody had bushels of fun, but he just loved sitting there singing hymns and anything that came to mind. It was an accident. Elvis is up there, he remembers it. He'll talk to you about it when you get up there.

You can tell they enjoyed it by the way it sounds, they were all having a good time.

I'll guarantee every one of them would tell you if they were gathered round here, without any fear of contradiction, that that was one of the happiest times in their lives, when they were together there.

What else? Anything?

Well actually we've run out of time, if you've got to go.

You're so kind, and I just wish, em, they haven't come yet. We have a little time.

OK. Who better than yourself, "the father of Rock'n'Roll". How do you classify Rock'n'Roll?

I classify Rock'n'Roll as the universal language. I really do. I think that it has so much in it that is so honest and pure, coming from the genres of rhythm and blues of race records or the blues, coming from an element of good honest country type music that always somehow or other comes forth from true to life stories in the main of live country. It has an honesty about it that those two things have always had but they are fused in a way that did not destroy country in anyway. Everybody thought I was trying to destroy country music when that came out, and the pop people thought well this is junk, and you know we were called everything that wasn't nice in the world, we weren't destroying anything, music, there's never enough of music for me. If you got to attempt to destroy something to build something else, to me that doesn't make a lot of sense.

So, the kinship and honesty, not one time did I ever suggest to an artist, even people on auditions that I never did record. I never asked them in any way to impugn the country or pop or rhythm and blues or low down gut-bucket blues. I said, no, it is something that we grew up with and know, we ought to show more respect for it, believe me. I think that I singularly did more for letting these people know that I was proud to be a part of it.

You keep in mind they knew that I was putting the big bands on, which were fantastic, from the Peabody Skyway and I was mixing those sending it out on the full CBS network, CBS network like NBC at the time they were mammoth, and I was doing that six nights a week Monday through Saturday night, 10.30 to 11 o'clock. I stopped, I had to stop when I resigned, because I had a nervous breakdown. I had to do something. I had to make up my mind to either stay with the radio stations or WREC, I had to work so hard to get up to first class A station like that since I left my hometown. Then I had Knox and Gary (his sons) who were little tots then, and I just had to make up my mind, I had an elderly mother who was widowed.

It was a tough time for me to make that decision but that shows my faith in what I was doing, it wasn't a braggish type of thing, it was my faith. Somehow or other I was going to see that none of those people suffered for what I believed in so truly. If it didn't work that's OK, I would give it a try. If I gave it the best I had and it didn't work then I would be satisfied the rest of my life, I really would have. I believed in this type of thing, black music and gospel music, both white and black southern gospel. I believed so much in it all my life. I would have not been satisfied and yet there would have been not one regret at all if I had failed, if I had not the courage to attempt to do that.

You are all sweet people, and I can't thank you how much. I thank you for being lovely people and loving Elvis and loving Rock'n'Roll.

This is from the Elvis Presley Fan Club in Glasgow.

Thank you very much Paul. I really appreciate this.

Photographs and thanks were exchanged and Mr Phillips said that he would be putting our presentation into his new museum in Memphis, for which they took several photographs of the presentation. So ended our meeting with the person who is, without doubt, the most important person in the direction music has taken in the last 50 years. "THE FATHER OF ROCK'N'ROLL", Mr Sam Phillips.

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