There' a controversy about Sam - just how interested he really ever was in Elvis - just how much insight he had that Elvis would be famous. Was he just a man who had a small struggling business who rarely turned away income or someone who was a visionary?
A woman named Marion Keister is the key here.
Elvis made his first record at Sun. A vanity recording that he paid a few dollars to record, "My Happiness," which was given to his mother as a gift. At the time he had graduated from Hume high school in Memphis a couple months earlier and was working as a parts driver for a local electric company. He was not yet with the Blue Moon Boys - Bill Black and Scotty Moore, though he may have met them here or there. He was helping support his family and still putting clothes on layaway. He made this record with Marion Keister as the producer. Of course when it came to a vanity recording there wasn't a lot of production considerations. It was basically no budget. Yet, vanity and other no budget recordings today hold the history of Rockabilly and early Rock and Roll. Marion remembered Elvis. She talked him up to Sam Phillips.
Came the day that Sam needed some singers for a project and it was Marion who suggested he call Elvis in. Sam was impressed. One thing lead to another. Marion had a background as a DJ and as a singer herself. She and Elvis would also cross paths in the military.
Sun Records is associated with many people who were in early Rockabilly and early Rock and Roll. Their attraction to the label has much to do with Sun being "it" in Memphis - the location - as well as a building reputation based on who else used the studio. No doubt as some of them succeeded others wanted the luck of the studio to rub off on them. Did Sam Phillips really "Discover" so much talent or did they "Discover" his studio?
I have to back up a bit here and say that a few people claimed to "Discover" me who were onto my road to success after I started to ride it. I always credited the Akron, Ohio photographer who insisted I looked like James Dean, Irving Waitzkin. He took me to the Beacon Journal and had photographer Bill Samaris there take photos of me for that Roto Cover that made all the difference.
Here's the History of Rock site on Sam Phillips.:
Sam Phillips at the Tennessee Encylopedia - Clearly a Son of the State! Link above!
Decide for yourself: With Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and many others on the Sun Label, was Sam Phillips all he's said to be?
