First Bob Hope, now we've lost the great Sam Phillips. This has been a tough week for pop icons. Keep on rockin', Sam.
Sam Phillips, who discovered Elvis Presley and helped usher in the rock 'n' roll revolution, died Wednesday. He was 80.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 produced Presley's first record, the 1954 single that featured "That's All Right, Mama" and "Blue Moon of Kentucky."
"God only knows that we didn't know it would have the response that it would have," Phillips said in an interview in 1997. "But I always knew that the rebellion of young people, which is as natural as breathing, would be a part of that breakthrough," he said.
via ABC News
A&E prepared a good film about him a few years ago. The description for the video sums it up pretty well:
From a small storefront on Memphis' Union Avenue, he launched a revolution. Driven by his love of the music he heard as a child in Mississippi, he introduced a parade of powerful new voices to the world, among them a gangly kid named Elvis.Posted by Alan at July 31, 2003 12:10 AMSam Phillips was a white man with a deep love for black music and a determination to get good songs heard, no matter who made them. From his legendary Sun Studios flowed a succession of hits by a roster of performers that reads like a who's who of musical legends: Jerry Lee Lewis, BB King, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich, Bobby Bland and Howlin' Wolf.
via A&E