I'LL ALWAYS BE YOURS - BOBBY DENTON on JUDD RECORDS

Bobby Denton recorded "I'll Always Be Yours" on the Judd label. The label was owned by Jud Phillips, the brother of Sam Phillips.

(201) RCS DISCOGRAPHY THE SUN RECORD LABEL and SAM PHILLIPS

Using the RCS Discography site that we just bragged so much about, let's take a a look at the SUN record Label. As we know, so very many artists who made it big made their first recordings at this Memphis recording studio. If you've read our recent posting about the earliest video of Elvis ever made (also posted below) you may see that he was there backstage somewhere with a group that included Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins, who were an original Sun recording artist too, as was Charlie Rich, Billy Lee Riley, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and many others.

Click on the Title Above to get to the exact page for the Sun label's RCS Discography...

Below Edwards and Callahan give their Sun Records Story...

BSNPUBS - EDWARDS AND CALLAHAM - THE SUN RECORD LABEL  link

(86) CHARLIE RICH'S LONELY WEEKENDS 1960 STYLE

I met Charlie Rich in Memphis when I was there awaiting Elvis' return from the U.S. Army. DJ Dewey Phillips, who had given Elvis his start when he broke his first record, recorded on Sun Records, "That's All Right Mama," introduced me to Charlie. He was touring locally, and sleeping in the booth of the restaurant he was playing in, so he could save on motel rooms and send money home to his family then.

Charlie recorded on Sun Records, just as Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and a few other artists who had made it to greater fame did. His song "Lonely Weekends," which came out in 1960, became like a signature song for him. By 1960 Sam Phillips' label was Phillips International. Charlie sounded a bit like Elvis on this song, and Elvis loved the song. So did I. One day I would record the song myself.


Here's a little Documentary with singer-songwriter Charlie Rich speaking too about his music career and Sun.

Charlie Rich on RCS Discography : http://rcs-discography.com/rcs/artist.php?key=rich1000

Charlie continued his musical career as a performer having a couple hits in the seventies and winning a Grammy. Linking to his official site above!

Here's a little Documentary with singer-songwriter Charlie Rich speaking too about his music career and Sun.



UPDATE 2011 Here is a Youtube historical music video of the song Lonely Weekends! (I also recorded this song years later!)

(64) SAM PHILLIPS and SUN RECORDS : WHO DISCOVERED WHO?

When Colonel Parker bought Elvis' contract with Sam Phillips for his local Memphis label at Sun Records, he then sold Elvis to RCA for much more. Of all the artists who recorded at Sun, Elvis Presley emerged to be the most musically impactful of them all.

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.:

HISTORY OF ROCK - 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?

TENNESSEE ENCYLOPEDIA

Links updated March 2014

(63) DAD TRIES TO GET COLONEL PARKER TO BE MY MANAGER

Dad had become my greatest fan, but what I needed at a time when I was shy of managers was a great new manager.

Dad thought that Elvis' Colonel Tom Parker would make the best manager for me - for anyone in the business. To this day I don't know how he got the address, but one day Elvis Presley admitted to me that he knew dad had approached Parker to be my manager. Dad got a letter back that I'll paraphrase by saying, "I only have one act, that's Elvis Presley!"

Parker got Elvis Presley a $35,000 recording contract with RCA Victor in the mid-1950s when Sam Phillips of Sun Records in Memphis decided to sell it. Maybe Sam lived to regret it, maybe not. Parker made his whole life revolve around Elvis.

Elvis himself told me that he thought that if Parker hadn't been his manager "The Hollywood Sharks" would have gotten him... Elvis thought that way, at least at this moment in time. But he wouldn't feel that way forever.

Colonel Parker has had a lot said about him. He turns out to be a controversial man, not only for his tactics for managing Elvis Presley but also because he took a higher than standard percentage for what he did for him. Parker and his assistants not only booked Elvis, they marketed him, took care of every detail of his performances and tours. But after Elvis died there would be law suits back and forth between the Colonel, RCA, and the Elvis Presley estate.

And I think Parker taking on just one act like this was an incredible act of faith.

ROCKABILLY HALL OF FAME - COLONEL TOM PARKER link above!

(49) SCOTTY MOORE : "THE GUITAR THAT CHANGED THE WORLD"

Scotty Moore had worked as studio musician at Sun Records, owned by Sam Phillips, in Memphis, Tennessee. Scotty had a band called the Starlight Wranglers, and Bill Black was their bass player. In the summer 1954 Scotty and Bill auditioned Elvis Presley (not the other way around!) and they agreed that they would try a few recording sessions with him, to see if there would be a chemistry between them. The result was a demo called "That's All Right Mama" that become Elvis' debut record, as played by DJ Dewey Phillips, on his Red Hot and Blue show on WHBQ, Memphis.

Scotty and Bill and Elvis formed The Blue Moon Boys, added drummer D.J. Fontana, became the Hillbilly Cat and The Blue Moon Boys, and toured for a couple years with Scotty as the manager, but Colonel Parker never took them on when he took on Elvis.

Scotty is one of the most admired guitarists in the world, and he has long been called "The Guitar That Changed The World" due to his influence on early rock and roll. Among the guitar legends who credit Scotty as an inspiration is the Rolling Stone's Keith Richards.

Let's let these links tell Scotty's story.

Scotty Moore Inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame :

http://www.rockhall.com/inductee/scotty-moore

Scotty Moore and drummer D.J. Fontana at the Rockabilly Hall of Fame :

http://www.rockabillyhall.com/Scotty&DJ1.html

and alsoScotty Moore's official Web site! Link above!

(26) CLIFF GLEAVES, ANITA WOOD, and SUN RECORDS

That night that Elvis and his guys burst into the Wink Martindale's dance party show, Elvis drove us to Graceland in his new stretch limo. Riding next to Elvis as he drove was his girlfriend Anita Wood. Gladys Presley, Elvis' mother, thought Anita was the perfect girlfriend for him. She ran her own radio show, (Anita Wood was one of the early women in radio broadcasting), and she had recorded songs herself. Perhaps more than all that, Anita Wood was all for Elvis' success. She was familiar with the music business and touring, and she knew the lifestyle he lead. Anita Wood, as a recording artist, was known as one of the "Memphis Belles."

Cliff Gleaves, a once hotter than hot hep cat disc jockey, who had given it up to travel with Elvis - by Elvis' invitation, kept clicking his fingers. He kept saying "We have James Dean in the car with us!" The guys put me through the James Dean poses and I was glad to oblige.

Cliff Gleaves and Anita Wood had something in common with Elvis in that they had both recorded on Sun, the small label that Sam Phillips had in Memphis, where local talent paid for vanity recordings and small budget records were recorded. Most of these recordings were not hits in terms of the way we think of hits now, but small labels did provide local and regional music, and the special flavor of music emerging in Memphis, with local musicians and local talent, is preserved in Sun recordings. Anita recorded a song called "I'll Wait Forever," at Sun and as things turned out, she didn't exactly wait for Elvis, but she did date him for years.

ROCKIN COUNTRY STYLE DISCOGRAPHY - CLIFF CLEAVES link -click title!


Anita Wood's songs are included on Sun Recordscompilation disks.

http://koti.mbnet.fi/wdd/sun.htm

New Link! SUN RECORDS DISCOGRAPHY includes Anita

NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO of her hit "I'll Wait Forever"

UPDATE April 2012 A New Music Video!