He never says it but you have to wonder why Jerry Phillips, son of Sun Records founder Sam Phillips, waited almost seven decades to record under his own name after his dad sold Elvis Presley’s contract to RCA Records in 1956.
It was worth the wait.
For The Universe is an infectious collection of 10 songs Jerry wrote or co-wrote. It was recorded in his dad’s Phillips Recording Service in Memphis and co-produced by Scott Bomar and Jerry’s daughter Halley. Each of the songs, that run from uptempo ballads to flat out rockers, stands on its own while honoring the man who combined country and blues and invented rock and roll – the sound that would change the trajectory of popular music for the next 70 years.
For The Universe was recorded mostly live in the recently refurbished namesake studio, Sam Phillips Recording Service in Memphis, built by Jerry’s dad in the wake of his Sun Records success. If there is a consistent theme, it’s the age-old obsession with love in the face of obstacles to overcome. She let me slip right through her fingers, but she held me in the palm of her hand,” sings a man who pays homage to his father while never copying the label’s original hitmakers Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison and The King of Rock and Roll himself, Elvis Presley.
The studio acquired the original Spectra Sonics console from Stax Studio B, which had captured soul classics like Rufus Thomas’ “The Funky Chicken” and much of the Isaac Hayes catalog. Jerry said, “I want to be the first person to record on the Stax console at Phillips.” Bomar remembers, “We liked the results and that was the beginning of the record. Jerry’s recording method was a window into what it was probably like recording at Sun — very live, off-the-cuff, and unrehearsed. It all had a real spontaneous feel and spirit.”
It wasn’t always easy for Jerry functioning in the shadow of his father’s fame. “Back in my younger days in my teens and 20s I was running from that shadow. I went to work from Stax Records. That’s when they had a new franchise and I went to work for ABC. I was in the Army. I was kind of rebellious. I never wanted to be told what to do. I was just like him. (Chuckle) Nobody told me what to do, and he didn’t either.
“Now that I’m older, it’s a total blessing. It really is. We put this record out, my solo record. I don’t feel pressure like I would have if this was 25 or 30 years ago. I just wanted to do this record, and it was just time to do it. It’s a blessing and a curse. I’m coming into my own like we were talking about. I think people respect me for the Phillips family flag I’ve been carrying, and independent spirit. Just don’t do things everyone else has done. Do something different or don’t do anything at all.”
For me as a music journalist I like that For The Universe is not a Jerry Lee Lewis or Elvis Presley copycat. “I wrote this with a couple of other songwriters, and it’s really just a combination of my influences, you know. I wasn’t trying to sound like anybody or trying to be like anybody or trying to imitate anybody. I think if you listen to the album, you will hear some Jerry Lee Lewis elements that I had.”
Seeing Sam Phillips through his son’s eyes offers a fascinating glimpse into how his father’s life experiences led to his work in blending blues and country at a time when deep south segregation made such efforts an anomaly.
“It was a very segregated south in the 1950s. Sam was working exclusively with black people. He wasn’t the most popular guy you’ve ever seen. He was raised on a cotton farm in Alabama. He was a tenant farmer and actually picked cotton alongside black sharecroppers. He told me he was no better and no worse. He said the way black people picked cotton was different than the way white people picked cotton. They had a rhythm about them. And they also sang a lot. He heard that as a young man. It was feel.”
The black field workers would shout and sing field hollers while they worked. “Dad saw that they had a different kind of (view) of the world. He couldn’t go to college. He quit school in the 10th grade. He got his love of the blues from people who weren’t given a chance.”
When Sam Phillips opened his studio in Memphis both black and white artists would walk in off the streets wanting to record. “If he liked what he heard, he’d cut a record on ’em; a white man interested in recording black artists. I think for a while there, the black artists would come in there and say, ‘Oh, where’s the hook? There’s a hook somewhere. He’s gonna sell it and not pay us anything.’ In the beginning I think that’s what they thought because that’s what the white men did.”
Even though Jerry was a young child when his dad sold Elvis to RCA Records in the mid ’50s, Elvis continued to hang with Sam long after he left the label. “He was one of the nicest guys I ever met in my life. He would come over to our house. Elvis really wouldn’t come out in the daytime. He would get mobbed.
“So, he would call my dad around 10 o’clock at night sometime and say, ‘Hey, is it ok if we come over?’ My dad said, ‘Yeah, come on over.’ Sometimes five, sometimes 10 people would come over. It was always good with the girls there. (Chuckle) Ann Margaret, you know. We’d watch movies with Elvis all night long. Everyone fell in love with him, (but) I don’t think honestly, Don, if you go back to the early release stuff – I don’t think anybody but Sam Phillips would have signed Elvis Presley.”
Sam Phillips was a visionary who was color blind enough to see the value of melding black and white into living color. “He was absolutely fantastic,” concludes his son. “He really was. He was a very driven individual and he taught me and my brother Knox, who passed a few years ago, about independence of spirits and not going down the path of being beaten down. Don’t compare yourself to anybody else, and all that stuff. He had so many influences on my brother and me just about the way he approached things.
“I know he didn’t record Carl Perkins until after Elvis. Then, of course, there was Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, and Charlie Rich as a piano player. So, things really started taking off with him. He was on the road like 70,000 miles a year with Carl when there were no interstates promoting records. So, we didn’t get to see him a whole lot.
“Most of the time if we wanted to see him, my brother had to take me into the studio where he was. That’s where he spent most of his time. He was working a great deal. He started in radio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Then he went to Decatur, Alabama. Then he went to Memphis radio. He wanted to open up a studio. He opened the studio. He’d go to work at 7 o’clock in the morning at the radio station, get off at 5 and come into work at the studio. Sometimes he was working 20 hours a day.
“My dad was weird in a lot of different ways. When I got my first tattoo, he said, ‘Well, if you want to be a real freak why don’t you cut your arm off?’ He didn’t like tattoos at all. He didn’t have any. He would tell me, ‘Jerry, you’re not 100% wrong.’ That’s a very diplomatic way of telling me. He was a very diplomatic individual, and nobody could get under his hat.”
For The Universe is Jerry Phillips’ move to be a solo artist recording under his own name. Most of his life he’s been working in music on a regional level. “My brother and I in 1979 produced the John Prine Pink Cadillac album. Then, I worked on Jerry Lee Lewis’ album my brother basically produced. It was released by Time Life Sessions when Jerry was not (signed) to anybody. He came, and we just basically let him do what he wanted to do.
“I think it’s called The Knox Phillips Sessions. I’ve done a lot of work with a lot of local people. Doing the thing that’s different all the time is the quickest way to success. A lot of stuff I was doing was at Stax, but it wasn’t for the Stax label. It was for the Enterprise label. I haven’t had success on the larger scale of things, but I’ve worked in the studio all my life. I had a band called The Jesters and the Escapades. Just had a lot going on.”
There’s no question Jerry Phillips has his daddy’s genes. “It’s all about feel. The blues, the feeling. I don’t mean sad; there’s a feeling there. I don’t care if it’s country. That’s what he always said, ‘Feel and don’t overproduce.'”
