We wanted you to respond to the idea of what was happening in the mid Fifties with rock publicity, people breaking records, banning concerts.

Are you rolling?

Yes.

Well, let me put on my professorial glasses here and just kind of tell you, one of the most difficult things that I've ever encountered was resistance we got to rock and roll. Now, let me point out two things; number one, the young people truly did love it. The parents did not like it. I mean just keep in mind when you were a kid, you had a kiddy record until you were 4, 5 years-old and, and then you had to wait till you was 25 and could go to the Peabody Skyway or some other place to dance and listen to music. As we came along with rock and roll, they accused us of causing white people to love niggers. They accused us of mutilating music by trying to integrate and trying to copy and, and just totally destroy all that was good in music. And so believe me the resistance on this was absolutely incredible. Unless you were there and saw it like I did and I mean it wasn't just spotty it was very widespread. But we kind of knew, now let me, let me, this sounds strange, but we kind of knew that that had to happen. It just really had to happen. So therefore, ah, I'm not sure that it wasn't one of the things that ultimately got enough of attention on the part of enough people to say that anything that can spark such a divergence, and that's putting it mildly, of opinion, ah, because of the race thing. Now I'm not putting anybody up or down on this thing I'm just saying what I know to be the core of this thing and the roots of it. This was one of the most difficult things in the world because I can tell you, you can say all you want to about not wanting to be criticized but there's a certain thing about somebody challenging your beliefs in right and wrong and freedom and fairness and something you just plain enjoy. Don't take that away from me just because of some sociological situation. Don't do that. It's all been done too long. But it was a vital thing. Ministers and I'll tell you what, hypocrisy is just not on my list of things I admire. And if rock and roll is going to send somebody to hell, and I can tell you one thing, the ministers should have been proud of it, say, hey man, we got a lot of people need to bring into our church. But no, they just wanted them to let them play their rock and go on to hell. Now that's the way it was. I know not every preacher was that way but there was, let me tell you something, when you get the preachers, the parents, and you get some highly visible community leaders and you get the radio station owners against a situation, you know that you're rocks could be in the ditch. Now if you are fainthearted you're going to give up in a hurry on a situation like that. We were not fainthearted but we certainly didn't know whether we would win it. We knew in time that something this great could not be kept under a bushel. It could not indefinitely ad infinitim could not be kept under a bushel. So I think one of the most important things of our little get together here, certainly is the fact that you have to say that the spirit of mankind, black and white, and the fervor of music was awfully strong. And it is what did it. It did it. It had the merits and once it was given the opportunity, it showed that it could do it and did…. And I didn't necessarily pick the people that could play the fanciest either but I can guarantee we, we'd get on it before it was over.

We're rolling.

Another important thing in what we did at Sun Records was, we tried to match, we didn't believe in having a studio band, we tried to match musicians with certain artists. And if, if, if anybody knows the history of Sun Records we never used very many musicians on any sessions because we believed that the voice and even on "Raunchy" an instrumental, we didn't use a lot of instruments. But I can tell you one element that you would have never guessed had you walked in and heard Roland Janes playing his guitar and you'd heard J. M. Van Eaton playing the drums but now that is where, if there is any genius to spread around, to me, thank you very much, ah, I would say, that's where I really knew what the hell I was doing. Roland Janes played a certain type of guitar that was just perfect for Jerry Lee Lewis. Jerry Lee had to be the total dominant person. He played piano better than anybody I've ever heard. And, and Roland Janes knew exactly how far to go and not get in Jerry's way. And Van Eaton, man, I mean when Jerry would rush time, Van Eaton would do it with him and, you know, one day we came out together. I mean those are things that people really don't know about. And especially in those early days that just made these things so spontaneous and, and if, if we skipped a little time or we missed a little, beat, even hit a wrong chord sometimes, if the take was there, the feel was there, that was the record is going to be put out. Let me tell you, Roland Janes and J.M. Van Eaton and Jerry Lee Lewis was music to my ears.

Radio remote broadcasts...

Doing radio remotes from the Skyway and fed them to CBS Network every night.

, that ah, this should be a part of the enjoyment of our civilization and it had long since been too late for it, it should have been started too long ago.

Okay Mr. Philips, come on in.

Well hello and welcome to the cradle of rock and roll. You're actually looking at the, ah, studio that was built by me in 1949 and the first day of operation was January the 2nd, 1950. If you'll notice that this room is about 18 feet wide and about 30 feet long. Also it might be well to look at the design of the ceiling that we have if the camera can get up there. It is a little design that I decided to use rather than to use deadening 'cause I was looking for a certain acoustical sound that, ah, that's different. And so what we did in order to break up the sound we made the ceiling, we took down old, an old tin ceiling out of this old building here and then we began to use what we call the V ceiling with, ah, plane old acoustic tile. Then after that we did, ah, each end in order to get the acoustics like we wanted them. And then the main thing I think that happened in this studio was that we made sure that we had control of the sound without deadening the sound so it would have real live type of feel. This is the window of the control room and that's exactly as it was in 1950. The little doors you will notice has anything but acoustic treatment. They just were little cheap doors that we could get put together to get the studio. I, I will remind you that I did most of the carpentry work myself for right here and I did have a little help from some carpenters, know a little bit more driving, about driving nails than I did. But it is actually a design of mine and I'm very proud of it and the sounds that we got out of here were just unbelievably outstanding. Now, that briefly is kind of what, you know, the studio is about. Now when we worked different people, like Elvis Presley, I always worked him right here in this very spot. He would stand here and this way he would have Scotty there, or a little bit to the right of there, and Bill Black right here. He could look around and see me at the control room, control board there. And it was just a perfect set-up. I knew exactly how far because you only had one track tape back in those days and you didn't have four, five, twenty-four tracks. We didn't want them. We got, we got the feel with the one track machine or else we didn't get it and we kept on till we did. They, ah, like as an example with Jerry Lee Lewis, now, oh, oh, incidentally, Little Junior Parker who cut "Mystery Train", his favorite place was to stand here and to look me in the eye. And he is the only guy I've ever had that recorded a record in here that looked through the glass at me all the time he was singing rather than with his band and he had about four pieces with him. So we had different little phenomenons that we thought worked best for each artist. Now, ah, Jerry Lee Lewis liked to work his piano right over here in this corner here which would be the right side as you look out from the control room. And he liked to have it setting i this position where he could see me and see Roland Janes who was always his guitar player on sessions and J.M. Van Eaton who had his drums almost in that exact position that you have up there now. Now, it, it's very important to, to let people know that sound in most cases, - oh, you may accidently get a certain type of sound and be real pleased with it but to get what you want on a regular basis you have, back especially in those days, you didn't have a number of shots at it like a, a lot of tracks and you pick the best track and then mix it together. What you had to do is place that microphone exactly where it should be to get the best acoustical effect. You had to use a certain type of microphone. I have very particular types of microphone, all of them relatively inexpensive except they were expensive to me because I didn't have any money. But I took all of those things that actually were very mediocre so far as professional mikes were concerned and by knowing where to mike the port on a guitar, on a bass, and knowing also the feel of the strings that, ah, the, the different instrument is played. I just had a knack for getting an unusual sound out of these things, right in this studio. Probably the world's most famous studio. And I, I don't need to brag about it, it's, it's a matter of fact. The Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee at 706 Union is no doubt the world's most renowned studio. Now if you'd like we could walk on in to the control room if you want to. And we could kind of just have a little ball in here for a little bit. Now this is where the door I came out of when Elvis Presley was winding up and cutting down on "That's Alright Mama". Now, I'd already told him to get his rear-end on home, he and Scotty and Bill and, been messing with them for four months. I came back in here just like this and I can and I can tell you…

Do the beginning again in a slightly different way.

Well now this is the room where "Rocket 88" took place and we, we had Ike Turner over there on the piano right where that organ is. I don't know whether you know it but he was the guy that we supposed to have the hit on. But his saxophone player, ah, was, you know, just simply a, a great saxophone player and a pretty good vocalist. And they had a great song. Jackie liked to work with his saxophone right here and turn it this a way. Ike had, we used a little spinet piano, just like that one right there, right over there and we had Willie Nelson on the drums, and not the Willie I don't guess that people are thinking about that, but we had a nice little combo here and because the, the amplifier was busted off of the car they were riding up from Clarkesdale, Mississippi and I stuffed paper in the thing and got a sound out of it you won't believe. In fact, I think it's probably the things that they'd, "Rocket 88" supposedly and according to the historians the number one rock and roll record every made. Now then let me show you. We had a record by, by Rufus Thomas and it was an answer record to "Hound Dog" and it was called "Bear Cat", "You're Nothing But A Bear Cat". That was the first big record we had on Sun Records actually. Now before that though "Rocket 88" was on Chess Records and I had leased it to them. And, ah, then we got, ah, after that we had Little Junior Parker come in and he was an unbelievable artist when it came to studio affects. He was probably one of the better type of individuals when it came to recording because you truly enjoyed working with him. And he would be all, moving all over the room. I mean moving all over the room. So Parker was one of my favorites, he was a little rotund type of guy but he had a good feel for what he did. And he liked the live feeling of the acoustics in here it, because it sounded like a little nightclub that he played at in West Memphis, Arkansas. Now, let's see we go, ah, we had the Prisonaires, they came from the maximum security prison in Nashville, Tennessee. And that was something because Governor Frank Clement permitted us to have them come over and they were all long termers. One of them had six 99 year sentences, if you can believe that. And the rest of them were life termers and 99 year sentences. And they came in and it was a, a, a quartet, almost like, very similar to the Ink Spots only they didn't sound like them, they had their own sound. And they did "Just Walking In The Rain" which was later recorded or covered by Johnny Rae.