Sam Phillips Dies at 80

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From Yahoo

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (Reuters) - Rock 'n' roll pioneer Sam Phillips, the Sun Records founder who discovered Elvis Presley and also launched the careers of such stars as Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and B.B. King, died on Wednesday at age 80.

 

 

Phillips died at St. Francis Hospital in Memphis, the Mississippi Delta town where his influential studio still stands as a tourist attraction, according to Rachel Zurka, a spokeswoman for the Memorial Park Funeral Home. No further details were immediately available.

 

 

Widely regarded as one of the most important figures in 20th century popular music, Phillips played a major role in bringing the electric blues of black artists to a wider audience and in pioneering the development of rock 'n' roll.

 

 

With performers such as Presley and Perkins, Phillips fused the best of rhythm and blues with country and western, creating a style known as "rockabilly" and giving birth to a raucous new musical genre that transformed America's recording scene in the 1950s.

 

 

In an era when the Deep South remained racially segregated, Phillips, who was white, crossed the color barrier by opening his studio to black and white musicians alike.

 

 

Born January 5, 1923, in Florence, Alabama, Phillips became involved in radio, and by 1945 he was working as a disc jockey for a Memphis station. Five years later he opened his first studio business, the Memphis Recording Service, where he recorded weddings and other private events to make ends meet.

 

 

He soon became immersed in the Memphis blues scene, recording local R&B artists in a venture that would help change the course of American music. Working with fresh, as-yet little-known talent, Phillips often discouraged the musicians from polishing their sounds and captured the raw energy of their performances.

 

 

Among the artists he produced early recordings for and leased to independently owned labels of others were bluesmen B.B. King and Howlin' Wolf. He also recorded Jackie Brenston's landmark single "Rocket 88," often cited as the prototypic rock 'n' roll record.

 

 

Phillips launched his own eponymous label in 1950 that folded after just one release. But he started a new label two years later called Sun Records, which achieved its first national R&B hit in 1953 with Rufus Thomas' "Bear Cat."

 

 

The following year, reportedly seeking a white singer with a black feel, Phillips struck pay dirt when he recorded Presley's first single, a cover of the blues tune "That's All Right Mama."

 

 

The young native of Tupelo, Mississippi, went on to record four more classic singles at Sun Records before Phillips, in need of capital to expand his label, sold Presley's contract to RCA for $35,000 in 1955. It was at RCA that Elvis later built his career as a superstar.

 

 

Back at Sun, Phillips soon scored his first national pop hit, and million-selling single, with Carl Perkins' "Blue Suede Shoes." For the rest of the decade, Phillips focused on developing his roster of rockabilly talent, though it was at Sun that Cash, who hewed closer to country, developed his distinctive "boom chicka boom" sound. Country singer Charlie Rich also began his career there.

 

 

As the '50s wound to a close, Sun Records began to lose some of its luster. Cash and Perkins moved to Columbia Records in 1958, Lewis remained at Sun but saw his career diverted by scandal in the late '50s, and Roy Orbison finally achieved star status in the early '60s after jumping to Monument Records.

 

 

Sun continued to issue records until the late '60s, but by the middle of the decade its operation slowed, and after 1965 new releases were infrequent. In 1969, Phillips sold the Sun catalog to producer Shelby Singleton.