The Influence of Sam Phillips on Country and Blues Music

Sam Phillips may well have been the single most important record producer of the 1950s. He started out as a DJ, but moved sideways into recording bands for radio sessions. The world seemed to be full of talented idiosyncratic people who were making music like nothing else he had heard. And so he started Memphis Recording Services with the help of his mistress Marion Kysker,. Both kept their jobs at the radio station while starting the business and they tried to get the business on a sound financial footing by recording things like weddings and funerals.