Fifteen Years on

'Sam Phillips'

FIFTEEN YEARS after his death Elvis Presley is probably having the toughest year of his career. Not Elvis the guy who works down at the chipper or at the local A&P, obviously, but Elvis the social construct and cultural phenomenon. Elvis the quintessential folk hero.

Long dismantled is the myth that the story started when "Elvis was discovered while making a record for his mother's birthday", to quote the comic book version of the take. In fact, the forty-first anniversary of the date Gladys Presley was born had occurred roughly four months before the day the eighteen year old truck driver allegedly first stepped into Sun Studios, slapped down his four dollars and made his first recording: "My Happiness".

Earlier this year, however, another nail was driven into the heart of that particular story when a series of articles in America's National Enquirer made the sensational claim that his
mother, to whom the young Elvis dedicated that demo, may also have been his first lover. The articles also suggested that from the time of his sexual initiation in his early teens, the
ultimate symbol of male sexuality in the 20th century didn't particularly care whether his bedmates were female or male.

But potentially even more damaging to this all-American folk tale is the,claim made by Roy Carr in a recent issue of Vox magazine, that Elvis was not, in fact, discovered by Sam Phillips or his secretary Marion Keisker after dropping in to record "My Happiness" but was a boy who "wanted a career as an entertainer ... (and) did peddle for free his mother's diet pills to Sun recording artists Hilljacks in the hope of being noticed".( Picture of Sam Phillips taken by Joe Jackson )

Apart from the blatant anomaly in the suggestion that Elvis Presley, or anyone else, could "peddle" pills "for free" the accusation, if true, also throws into question the perceived notion that Elvis first used amphetamines to stay awake while doing guard duty in the United States army.

It would also add weight to the belief that Colonel Tom Parker, who suspected Presley was on pills the first time they met, originally had more to hold over his client's head as an element of control than the potentially damaging information that Elvis's father, Vernon, had once served time for changing a payment cheque from $40 to $400.

But the Elvis-as-juvenile-drug-pusher angle, cuts no ice with one of the founding fathers of rock'n'roll, Mr. Sun Records himself, Sam Phillips.

"That story about Elvis peddling pills is just as far out as any story I've ever heard about Sun Records, Joe," he says, speaking at his home in Memphis. "His mother did not take diet pills. Elvis himself took them later in life, but the idea of him taking them at 18 and selling them to musicians at Sun is so ridiculous it really is hard to comment on."

Sam Phillips pauses to catch his breath, clearly winded by this accusation and by the implicit suggestion that the true sound of Sun Records may have been the sound of speed.

"Hell, if that had happened I would tell the truth now but it just did not happen. No, no, no the sound of Sun was not the sound of speed," he says. "I didn't even permit drinking. The only
person to ever drink on my sessions was Howlin' Wolf in those days, during the 1950s. Later on down the road apiece, in the 1960s, I permitted a little drinking. I used to do a little myself. But not during the early days at all. In fact I didn't drink any booze myself at all until I was 32 years old or so, y'know?"

But what of the suggestion that even if Elvis didn't start using pills at home he may have been introduced to them by Dewey Phillips the fateful night the Memphis DJ became the first in the world to play "That's Alright Mama" and to interview a very nervous Elvis Presley? Has Sam Phillips heard the rumour that it was Dewey who handed him a few amphetamines, saying 'these'll help'?( The picture of Elvis and Dewey Phillips was taken in Memphis in 1956, Phillips was the first DJ to play 'That's All Right ( Mama ) on Saturday, 10th. July 1956 this photograph courtesy og Ger Rijff )

"No, I have not," he replies. "But whether I did or not it is absolutely untrue. As a matter of fact Dewey Phillips was not on speed at that time. Dewey got on speed much, much later on. After a couple of automobile accidents and near death. Hell, he didn't know what an amphetamine was, I didn't know what an amphetamine was in those days."

During his last Hot Press interview, in 1989, Sam Phillips claimed that Elvis, when he began singing at Sun Records, "wouldn't even play with anybody, he was so timid and shy". Can he appreciate why many commentators might suggest that Elvis must have used some form of stimulant to transform himself from a boy who clearly felt socially and psychologically inferior to the dionysian performer he soon became on stage?

"Theoretically that may seem to be the case but look at the stories of some of the greatest preachers we had, like George W. Trewatt. He was one of the most shy people in the world, but he said 'I am going to learn to talk in front of people even if it kills me'. And he did learn. A lot of us use different methods to cope with such problems, without resorting to some kind of blinding stimulus like drugs.

"You know, there are things you want to do so bad that even if you are terrified a certain internal mechanisism takes over and gives you the ability to rise above your fears. This is what Elvis had -and it grew stronger and stronger as soon as he hooked into an audience and found that people liked what he did and liked him. I saw that happen Because before he began singing he had felt socially and psychologically inferior to almost everyone on this planet! No doubt later on, when things began to crash in on him, he used pills to help him face it all, to project himself beyond an emotional condition which had changed from a case of being timid and shy to being next to broken by
life."

Sam Phillis accepts the official version of the Elvis Presley story which suggests the singer first took pills while in the army. "I don't have first-hand knowledge of that but I can see him taking amphetamines to stay awake while in the service. But all those accusations about the early days are bull. I worked with Presley for six months before I signed him and then 20 months while he was with Sun and what that guy Carr is saying just did not take
place."
Would Sam be angry at the thought that this revisionist view of the Elvis story suggests he may have signed Presley more as a favour in return for supplying pills to Sun musicians rather than for his potential as a musician?

"Hell, man you can't stop people writing whatever they want to write," he responds. "But no, I am not worried at all about that. If people are going to send their souls to torment for
something that is absolutely incorrect that's their choice. At Sun we were highly unconventional in many ways but I ran the straightest goddamn studio in the business in that sense. We did not need anything other than the high we got from what the hell we were doing. And that's it period. I would not have been in that goddamn studio to get high on some artificial stimuli. I coulda done that somewhere else, I just didn't happen to even drink at the time. I didn't do anything other than smoke cigarettes - and they were Camels!" he says, laughing.

Sam Phillips pauses, then says, sagely. "I always tried to tell the truth in my music. You gotta tell the truth whatever way you can or lies gonna chase after you and trip you 'till you fall. Looking at it all from the other side of those stories it seems like sometimes everybody's trying to make Elvis sound like a goddamn angel.
Elvis Presley was not an angel. He was a living, breathing human being, a guy with as many contradictory impulses in his body and soul as you and I have. But there is one story now doing the rounds about Elvis that I just cannot take."

Pausing again, for longer this time, then sighing deeply Sam Phillips continues.

"You know the story I'm talking about, Joe. The stuff that appeared in the National Enquirer and came from this poor, poor woman, Dee Presley. (Elvis'stepmother). I say 'poor' because I've known Dee since she and Vernon got married in 1960 - and fairly intimately. But for her to misconstrue the pure mother/son relationship Elvis and Gladys had and present it as something physical and sexual is so totally untrue it's a disgrace. How anybody could be that stupid and naive is beyond me. And I must emphasise to you that I am not a fan of Dee Presley. But to so misrepresent the type of love that was there between that boy and his mother is a travesty of his life.

"Especially when you take into consideration the fact that his twin brother died at birth and he was an only child. He had a very sickly mother, her health was extremely bad and they were extremely poor. And their bond in that context was close as could be but there was none of that other bullshit. And it is recognisable bullshit. But at the sametime it does upset me. That's why I'm talking to you. Somebody has to tell the damn truth about these things. And I am. And I don't give a good-goddamn where the chips fall. Even if it happens to be something that I wish weren't true, but turns out to be true the record should be set straight"

Reflecting on the other alleged-'revelations' by Dee Presley in her series of articles for the National Enquirer Sam Phillips suggests that one in particular would have deeply angered Elvis - the suggestion that he liked boys as much as girls. He laughs knowingly before addressing the subject.

"Constitutionally, Elvis Presley did not have good genes because both his mother and father had heart problems and problems with hypertension. But he was a powerfully strong guy and if he was in fair shape I know he could have whipped Joe Louis. So bearing that in mind I'm telling you, Joe, that if a statement like that had been made about Elvis when he was alive he would go around the world and get whoever said that and beat him to death with his fists. This, and the comment about him and his mother would have provoked that response. Elvis
was a beautifully balanced man from the standpoint of his emotions, his musical abilities, his philosophy and it saddens me deeply to hear people throw all this shit at him now that he's
not here to defend himself, just so they can make a quick buck."Such rumours probably have their origins in the fact that one of James Dean's male lovers, Nick Adams, attached himself to Elvis soon after Dean's death."He was in the studio three or four times when Elvis was with Natilie Wood and there was none of that going on at all" Sam
recalls. " And I'm telling you that if Elvis could stand up out of his grave right now he'd say " Joe I was totally responsible for my acts on earth and no one can say that there was anything going on between me and Nick Adams, or me and any man". What the hell are they trying to do to the memory of Elvis Presley? Isn't anybody interested in the truth anymore?"

But, of course, Sam Phillilps has been involved in the music industry long enough to know that setting the record straight in terms of the lies and half-truths that now surround the life and death of Elvis Presley isn't likely to help sell records, books or magazines.

"But you can't go twisting the truth just to try stimulate sales of magazines and books," he says. "That kind of strategy only works in the short term and in relation to Elvis Presley it
betrays everything that was good and inspiring about his life and music. It's the same when it comes to Sun Records. That's why one of these days I'm going to sit down and chronicle every damn bit of it. Not just in relation to Elvis but all the artists I worked with and the record label and my life.

Especially the psychology of it all, which is why I started recording black musicians in the first place, four years before I ever met Elvis Presley."

Now approaching 70 years of age Sam Phillips reflects further on the original impulses that led to the formation of Sun Records in February 1952.

"I was always interested in the psychology of the individual and the place of that individual in society," he says. "That's why I always wanted to be a Criminal Defence Lawyer, not a
Corporate Lawyer or a Prosecuting Attorney. My interests were in what motivated people and, just as importantly, what didn't motivate people. There's no doubt that what I lived through as a child in terms of black versus white, poor versus rich - both black and white - made me take a particular viewpoint on things which, looking back now, I do believe was right. "That was the true source of inspiration for me when it came to seeking a value in things that went beyond simply the ' commercial' value. I'm not saying I was a 'good samaritan' or anything like it, but that was the real impulse that led me to draw out of guys like Elvis, white and black, who didn't have the opportunites I had, a way in which they could find their own form of self-expression. To hell with speed being the 'sound of Sun'. The real sound of Sun was the need these people, and I myself had, to express ourselves. Let's cut the bullshit and look at the core of all this. That's what we're talking about here today."

Cutting from core to demographic crust and casting the net of his reference points across the widest possible field Sam Phillips stresses. . . "You can bank on the fact that the psychology of the individual, as in my birth and Elvis's birth and the race conflict was, absolutely, the defining factor in the story of Sun Records.
It wasn't just a matter of going into a recording studio and trying to make a hit record. Sure we wanted hits, absolutely, to stay in busines, but the whole phenomenon of Sun Records boils right down to a fundamental fact of psychology, sociology and- politics more than music and that's the story I intend to tell."

Phillips goes on to comment on Bono's recent suggestion to John Waters in the Irish Times, that what originally happened in Memphis in 1955 "was one of the most extraordinary moments of the 20th century - where African rhythms,and' European 'melody were married", yet the importance of the event was "completely missed by the intelligentsia".

"I swear to God, Joe, I believe what he is saying to be true. And you wrote years ago about how much spiralled forth from that moment. I know that it did. And I don't say that to fashion a plate for myself. I'm just saying that what you're suggesting is so true. And I do appreciate the in depth, and what seems to me to be
intuitive concept some of you people apply to the Sun story coming from Ireland. Maybe because, as I said to you before, Irish people know all about oppression, just like we do here in the
South."

Focussing on his own childhood during the 1920s Sam Phillips crystalises the true influence of Sun Records, and Elvis, by recalling that at the time hardly anybody played the guitar.

"Everybody used to think 'if I want to play a musical instrument it's got to be a piano and I've got to take lessons'. And if you didn't have the money to do that then you couldn't really
think of seriously playing music. Nowadays practically everybody can pick some kind of musical instrument. And you know the confidence that has brought to people who weren't seen
to be first in the pecking order and maybe weren't the prettiest people in the world. It did give a generation, or more than one generation, a sense of their own importance and identity."

The latter is the single element in the story of Sun Records of which Sam Phillips insists he is most proud.

"Elvis Presley, for example, knew he was being different, wearing long sideburns. He knew even that labelled him as a bit of an outsider. Yet he also thought, 'I can rock a bit so I don't ( Another picture from the great Sun days here with Johnny Cash who today is still a major influence in the world of popular music. have to be a traditionalist in any sense of the word'. He realised that and a generation picked up on that feeling. And to see it all spiral from Elvis and know the seeds came from that little studio in Sun Records surely fills my heart and soul with joy. And a sense of complete self-fulfilment.

"I'm not claiming all the credit. Nor would Elvis. There were many other people involved in the birth of rock'n'roll. But the things that happened in that Sun Studio that still sustain so many people out there must prove that millions felt, and feel, what we felt when we started it all in 1952. And no matter what anybody writes now in an attempt to discredit what we did at Sun Records they can't. It's way too late to turn the tide. Too late to tarnish the music. And, I believe, too late to really tarnish or undo Elvis Presley."

Commenting on the fact that August 16th marks the fifteenth anniversary of Elvis' death Sam Phillips suggests that although the singer died in tragic
circumstances his life should not be described, ultimately, as a tragedy.
"When I see things transpire as they have, even since 1977, and see a growing recognition at the level we're talking about today, for what we did at Sun and the soul-satisfaction it seems to have brought to so many people, I sometimes think it doesn't matter that it took a certain toll on some of us," he reflects. "it all took a toll on Elvis, to a certain degree. It would be an even more glorious story if it didn't. But if it did - so what? He got to do - even if for too short a time
-things that undeniably made him the champion of everything he stood for and represented, in America and around the world. He helped to liberate people. And when you can feel 'man, I have had some influence, somebody has listened and I have been able to get somebody to hear what we all have to say' then that can't, in any way, be described as a tragedy.

"I certainly, in the end, do not look on Elvis Presley's life that way."