Phillips:
OK, that's good. Well, after I actually felt, and I,
believe me, I didn't tell too many people about what I had in mind, because
I didn't know whether I'd be able to pull it off, when I wanted to open up
my recording studio. Now keep in mind you've got two very young kids and a
wife and a mother and ah, a deaf mute aunt and you are having to look out
for all of their... their ah, affairs and things necessary to keep them
going. And I just found it difficult to move in to the area of trying to put
in a recording studio, knowing I didn't have enough money to buy the
equipment that I wanted. And ah, number two, I... I didn't know whether I
could pay the rent. So I went all over town looking for some vacant
storefront or anything I could get in. I knew it wouldn't take me a hell of
a lot of room because I just knew what I could do acoustically. I mean I
always felt comfortable dealing with acoustics. Even though I wasn't all
that experienced at that time. But anyway, I opened up at 706 Union. I found
this little storefront building and I guess it's about 18 x, at that time,
18 x 35 feet or something like that. And we... we started to do some
programs called um, ah, "Buck Turner and his Buckaroos," which was to try to
keep the doors open. I also was recording ah, weddings and funerals and
anything we could record and conventions at the Peabody, just to keep the
doors open to... to do. I wasn't ashamed of what I was doing. I just didn't
want everybody to know what in the hell I was going to try to do here.
Because I knew I was going to get me some black folks in that studio one way
or the other. And so I did. I... BB King, the Harry Boys had come to town,
and ah, wanted me to... this is before I had Sun Records now. And they
wanted me to, ah, I had sent them a tape on BB King, an audition tape, and
they wanted me and Roscoe Gordon, and so they called me and wanted me to
come in town and I recorded it. And ah, the next thing you know they were
gone with the tape, one of them took an airplane that night they was so
pleased with what they got. Now ah, and... and BB King of course is history.
And certainly I don't claim all of the credit for BB King or any of it
really. But I decided after recording "Rocket 88" for Leonard Chess, Chess
Records out of Chicago, that to me this was a... a gut bucket type of thing
that wasn't quite gut bucket, but was gut bucket because we made it gut
bucket because necessity made it... made us have to make it gut bucket
because the damn amplifier fell off the... ah, the car coming up from
Clarksdale, Mississippi, busted the ah, speaker. So I stuffed newspaper in
it and we got a sound that really made it sound... sound gutty. And to me
that was Ike Turner and Jackie Brinston. Jackie did the vocals and he played
the ah, tenor sax on it. And that was just ah, an incredible record. I mean,
I mean to me, not because they said it was later on, but it was an
incredible record, ah, that I heard when we recorded that. Then I said, you
know, there's got to be a way to keep the doors open here long enough for me
to prove either that I'm right, or I'm wrong about what I can do with these
people that have never been in a recording studio, most of which probably
would never get to go because they didn't have the money to get to Memphis
hardly, from Clarksdale and these different towns around in Arkansas and
Mississippi. And so ah, I just stuck by it, um, I... I hate to say this but
I did get a lot of criticism for recording black people. I mean a lot of it
was a friendly type of thing, but you know, I didn't give one holy damn
about that. That didn't bother me at all, because ah, ah, there was nothing
wrong with me doing the Peabody Bands at night and coming out there and...
and forgetting the charts and ah, playing from the skull, you know, and from
the heart and from the belly and from the soul. And that was such a release
for me. I just simply absolutely loved it. But at the same time, I knew that
"these people were truly just -- let's face it now -- amateurs." They'd had
no professional experience in... in this sort of thing. There wasn't that
many places for them to even play in these little night clubs, but there was
some around. So I knew, my thing was that black folks when they came to
visit with white folks, some how or another they had in their mind, let's
don't miss this opportunity, let's don't blow this one. Let's play something
like Duke Ellington or... or this -- how about Nat King Cole or... and
listen, who in the world was better than Nat King Cole. But one Nat King
Cole is all you're going to get, I'm sorry. One Duke Ellington is about all
-- or one Count Basie is about all you're going to get. And I wasn't
interested in that. Anyway, they were doing that pretty good elsewhere. But
I knew that the things that I had heard from childhood, and I knew what was
in and around the environs of this area, that if I could get them in there
and have them be themselves and turn off the idea that they're playing music
for any white man sitting behind the glass, we might have some fun. And if
we had some fun we might cut some records that might interest some people in
saying, you know, I never thought about that. That is pretty interesting,
isn't it. Yeah. We didn't think we was going to be a flash in a pan or set
the world on fire with the first record. In fact, it was... I mean they...
the base was so narrow for rhythm and blues records or race records as they
were know as then, that ah, gosh, anybody that went into that business and
had little independent labels and independent distributors and starving to
death that thought they were going to get rich and all of that, they went in
for the wrong purposes. That was never on my mind. I knew I had to make
enough money, by golly to ah, to keep the doors open. But anyway, when I
recorded ah, Jackie, I mean it really did get a lot of attention, because
now it broadened almost immediately the base of which young white males and
females began to get even more interested in rhythm and blues or black
music. So that was very interesting to me. And if you'll recall ah, there
was long about that time, had been for some time a car called an Oldsmobile,
Rocket 88, and didn't we all want one of those. Black and white. And so
it... it struck a... a fancy there, but more than anything else, I don't
think the subject matter of the song itself was anything like as great as
that sound that we got that was so absolutely honest, period. Exclamation
point. After that um, I decided that it might be best for me to try to start
a record label, because... I didn't want to. Gosh I had my hands full there
with what I was trying to do. No money. If you looked at a banker, I mean
that banker would want to have you put in the mental institution in Boliver,
Tennessee, I mean if you wanted to float a $5 loan. You into music? What
kind of music business? The music business, forget it. I mean you know.
Well, that's understandable... you know. So we had to survive and wanted to
survive. And that is some more of the elements of, that we talked about
earlier that made this... the creative juices and desire flow from me to the
people that came in there. And you know what I did? I made sure every artist
that came in that studio from Roscoe Gordon, BB King, to Howling Wolf later
on, little Junior Parker and Mr. Train, "Love My Baby," to the Prisonaires,
with "Just Walking in the Rain." Do you know, wait a minute -- without the
inspiration and the ability to communicate that certain element of
"acceptable psychology," and the freedom of spirit and you couldn't put on
-- you can't fool sensitive people, especially black folks, you can't fool
them. And I knew that. I was born and raised with them. So there is nobody
on the face of God's earth, don't tell me you're cutting that thing off --
have you done it? Damn.
I think basically the ah,
thing that I wanted to do most for music, blues music, rhythm and blues,
race music, spiritual gospel, black gospel, white quartet, southern gospel,
I guess in the flow of all of that, I must have been unconsciously but
consciously looking for a way to broaden the base of acceptance of music by
white folks by black artists. And ah, the elements of the music that made up
country, southern country music, southern country blues all the way from the
days of Jimmy Rodgers, the old singing brakeman, right on down to where we
got to where we were talking about the idea of good blues singers like
Lightning Hopkins, how could you stage "how could you stage" these people on
an acceptable basis until we started eating away at the resistance by
society of these things that were so -- being done so beautifully, and so
uniquely. And so I guess, and I know, I don't guess anything about it, I
know, and I was accused of deserting black artists when I found Elvis
Presley. That is a bunch of BS. No uncertain terms about it. I had always
thought at that particular time in history and that's exactly what it is and
was, that if I could find a white southern boy or girl for that matter, but
I mean let's... let's don't make it doubly hard or triply hard or, you know
at that particular stage, we just might be able to do at least a few of the
things that I knew it would take a long time to do, and had taken a long
time. OK, Elvis Presley heard "Mr. Train" and of course, he heard a lot of
these rhythm and blues records, man, some of the great ones, I mean some
great ones, and he loved them. He loved Hank Snow and ah, what was that damn
thing Hank did that was so good. Ah, I mean "Big Eight Wheeler moving down
the line at inilin..." "Moving On," "Moving On," I mean he... he loved that.
He loved Dean Martin. Music, you know. Music. That should say something.
Hell they was... here was Elvis Presley, a Hume's High School Cat. He loved
Dean Martin. I mean he literally loved the way Dean Martin sang. He loved
the way Clyde McFadder of the Drifters. I mean he said, that man... he said
that man is in orbit all the time, he is so good. He said, you know, I'd
give anything in the world if I could sing like Clyde McFadder. Ah, he
liked... I mean he... what I'm saying is, Elvis Presley had that same type
of feel of look what we are missing by some socio-BS out there as you don't
listen to this because this is segregation, this is segregation, I mean it
was... it was hey, it's... you look back on it, it's hilarious. But it
wasn't then. So anyway, with Elvis and what he had felt and seen, and his
diversity of mind and spirit and the things he heard in "music," I can just
tell you right now I knew when he walked in the door baby, of course I made
his record for him, his little personal record that people have heard a lot
about, and all of that. And it -- but I said, uh-oh, hey, hey, hey, if
anybody can do this, I believe this is the person that can do it. And as
totally affected as he was by the studio, Elvis had never been in the
studio. Elvis had never made a personal appearance except Humes High School.
But I knew that that's where I could have... and after I found out what this
guy could do, I put Scotty Moore and Bill Black with him, and even though we
didn't get anything for six months, four to six months, after we called
Woodshed and going on to Scotty's house or any damn place they could go to
to rehearse or not rehearse, but I mean, you know, I mean kick it around,
woodshed. So we finally hit it, and you know how we hit it, when they came
back in after about the upteenth time, and we were not going to just put a
-- I could have cut a pretty record, "pretty," on Elvis Presley from, well,
just that's when your heartaches began. I mean if you can outdo Bill Kenney,
I mean that ain't too damn bad is it, you know? Well, but... you know, Elvis
didn't want that. I didn't want that. It is almost ironic, even with a
background so similar for Elvis and me to an unbelievable extent, feel the
necessity to kick walls down and everything else and sing, pick and sing and
do -- make some noise that satisfied the soul. And don't over endow it with
a bunch of people in the studio, sing it. Get a little rhythm going. That's
what it's all about, and that's what I knew it was all about. And so there's
no question in my mind that this was another thing that through him hearing
what we were doing at 706 Union, Memphis Recording Service, Sun Records,
later on, that it brought him to the feeling that if I can just get up
enough courage, and that's when he wouldn't -- I mean this guy would not
come in the studio and ask me to audition him for nothing. Now people don't
believe that. That is a fact. And we absolutely wanted people to come in and
audition. And but he finally made up this who shot John story about making a
record for his mother. I think he did but her birthday done passed a long
time before that. But anyway, he came to the studio. Let me tell you
something, gentlemen, and ladies, the spiritual amalgamation of Elvis
Presley, Sam Philips, at that particular time and with those particular...
particular elements that flowed one to another is what changed the history
of music. I don't give a damn about any credit. Who cares about that. We got
it done. It takes nothing away from all the people. All I want to do -- when
they're accusing me of saying, wait, you've got a white boy singing and you
deserted all your black artists? You know what I told them, I says, none of
your business in the first place. The second place is there are people
making black records as good or better than the ones I've made, you know.
And making them real good.