Episode 3 - Sam Phillips - The Room Where Genres Collided

The question: where did regional American styles collide on tape? After the tools (Les
Paul, Fender & Fullerton), the room
Sam Phillips before Sun: an Alabama farm childhood full of unsorted music, Beale Street at
sixteen, a radio engineer's ears
The Memphis Recording Service at 706 Union Avenue: an 18-by-33-foot tiled room tuned
by hand-claps, a used mono console, "We record anything, anywhere, anytime"
The blues years: B.B. King, leasing masters to RPM and Chess, and "Rocket 88" — the
broken amp, the "Delta Cats" who were really Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm, and why "first
rock and roll record" is a debatable claim
Howlin' Wolf, "Moanin' at Midnight," and the artist Phillips lost to Chicago
Sun Records as a blues label first: Rufus Thomas, "Bear Cat," and the lawsuit that nearly
sank it
The famous "white man with the Negro sound" quote — secondhand, variously worded,
disavowed by Phillips — handled with its caveats
Elvis: Marion Keisker's note, the July 1954 session, "That's All Right" backed with "Blue
Moon of Kentucky," Dewey Phillips and the high-school question, slapback echo, and the
sale to RCA
After Elvis: Carl Perkins ("Blue Suede Shoes"), Johnny Cash ("Folsom Prison Blues"),
Jerry Lee Lewis ("Great Balls of Fire" and the taped argument about the devil), Roy
Orbison, the Million Dollar Quartet
The cost: Rufus Thomas on being left behind, and Phillips's own defense