Sam Phillips’ Sun Records
Carl Perkins, our special Rockabilly storyteller, takes great pains and pride in explaining how the magic of a 1950s Sam Phillips session works–how Sam dug out the genius of each of the legendary artists who crossed over the Sun Records threshold! Someone recently said that it wasn’t the gifts of Sam Phillips or Norman Petty that made these studios so successful, but rather the artists like Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, or Jerry Lee Lewis who walked through the studio doors and created musical greatness with their natural talent.
However, Carl Perkins makes the point that without Sam Phillips and Norman Petty setting up a door for these greats to walk through, and without the discipline to “allow these pioneers of Rockabilly to be themselves and deliver all that they had stored up in their soul,” there may have never been this new music called Rockabilly and Rock ‘n Roll – and there may never have existed this staggering list of exceptional musical superstars who changed and influenced the world of music as we know it today.
Excerpt from The Rockabilly Legends DVD Documentary 2-DVD Set.