WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 676 - Peter Guralnick

Episode Date: January 28, 2016

Peter Guralnick’s childhood love affair with the Blues led him on a life-long journey through the history of rock and roll. Peter shows Marc why he is considered one of American music’s preeminent writers and historians, dropping knowledge about some of his most famous subjects, from Sam Cooke to Elvis Presley to Sam Phillips, the man who fundamentally changed music in the United States. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers, what the fuck buddies, what the fucksters, what the fuckeroos, what the fuckerubanzas maybe even. How are you? Hi, Mark Maron here. Welcome to the show. Thank you for joining. I'm happy to be here.

I'm punchy. I'm tired. I shot all day. Maron season four in progress. It's happening. First two episodes were tremendous. Did I already tell you about that? No, I couldn't have.

We just wrapped it on Monday night. Lynn Shelton, who you've heard on this show and seen her many movies, directed the first two. Spectacular. Went great. I think I was in the middle of the middle of the last time i talked to you the stories are good now uh this block we're shooting with the uh incomparable uh bobcat goldthwait back on set with his hats and his interesting clothing choices and his auteur vision and uh we're doing the thing we're doing the show i'm bearded and frazzled, and it's going well.

I think you'll like them. It's fun for me. I think I mentioned this before. The fact that we're in a new area, a reality not like the one that I live necessarily, has freed me up a bit. Having a bit more fun. Hope that's okay. bit having a bit more fun hope that's okay my guest today is the uh honorable peter gorolnik peter gorolnik i don't know if you know who he is but he's one of the great music writers

he's written amazing books about music the one that first blew me away was uh searching for robert johnson he went on to write Last Train to Memphis, The Rise of Elvis Presley, Careless Love, The Unmaking of Elvis Presley. He did Dream Boogie, The Triumph of Sam Cooke, which I read a little bit of. I've read a little bit of all these books, but his newest book is Sam Phillips,

the man who invented rock and roll. And I got to talk to him. Now, I am certainly no music nerd. I know what I know, but I don't know it in detail. And I don't run too deep with some things, a few specific things. Maybe I know some stuff about. It's not a nerd out on one specific artist or many specific artists. But this guy's a historian.

And the people he chooses to talk about are, are pretty fascinating people. This is a massive book on, uh, on Sam Phillips and Sam Phillips, Sun Record Studios. I mean, they were all there, man. This is where it all happened. This is where it all coalesced, uh, black music, country music, uh, mountain music, uh, some gospel music, and it all sort of came together. And that's where Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley and Jerry Lou Lewis and Howlin' Wolf, a lot of them all came out of there. And some country artists that I didn't even know about, Charlie Rich, John Prine did a Sun single back in the day.

Carl Perkins, of course. Out of the vortex of all those different forms of music and personalities comes rock and roll perhaps maybe depending on what you think the first rock and roll song is I believe I discussed that with Peter Koralnik I did go to Sun Records I stood out in front of it unfortunately the time that I

went there when I was younger I don't think I was as into it as I should have been I did go, I went't think I was as into it as I should have been. I did go. I went to Nashville. I went to Memphis. I did go to Graceland. I did go out there. Did not know Elvis met his uncle. I met his uncle Vernon and I bought a Graceland comb that was taken from me by a woman who drove a large Cadillac with leopard skin pattern seat covers. Where does that go? How does that work out?

Well, I went out to Grace Lund and I saw the house. And I was surprised at how relatively humble it was and not too ostentatious. Perhaps it was for the time. There's a room with three TVs, and that was sort of like a, ooh, a room with three TVs. This guy was out of control. I do remember the trophy hut out back.

That was really the most impressive. There was an entire sort of hangar just for gold records and stuff. So that was interesting. uh who's that comic he used to do that great joke god there was what was that guy's name did that great joke of elvis was so great was he buried in his backyard like a gerbil or hamster or something oh if anyone knows who did that joke please tell me that was a good joke one thing is rob schneider but i don't think it was so across the street my memory from grace one was this strip mall where you buy all kinds

of things elvis and vernon presley sat there in front of one of those stores saying he was elvis's uncle and he'd written this book just sitting out there in front of a store on his own selling this book about elvis vernon presley so i bought a book and I bought a comb and I bought some other knickknacks, Elvis knickknacks. That night back in Memphis, well, what had happened was, this is a rock and roll story. It's got nothing to do with rock and roll. It's got nothing to do with Elvis. Maybe it does. But that night I had met some dudes on the roof.

They'd sold me a little blow. So I had a little blow. I had some some dudes on the roof. They'd sold me a little blow. So I had a little blow. I had some Elvis paraphernalia. I had Uncle Vernon's book. I had nothing to do and I was all alone. And I was drinking. So I did a little blow and I went to a club. I asked someone, maybe the concierge at the Peabody,

where could I go to do some clubbing? Because I was on a little blow and ready to go in Memphis, Tennessee. So I went to this place that he recommended. And in my memory, I walk into this large kind of one room club and there was nobody in it. But one crazy looking woman dancing in the middle all by herself. Just dancing, looking crazy. And I don't mean that in a derogatory way just it all looked a little crazy it looked like i just walked into a david lynch situation and i didn't know what else

to do i was drinking i was doing some blow this was the club i was at so i went out and you know started kind of you know not dancing with the lady i waited till she got off the dance floor and i said what's up she goes not much i go you want to do some blow she goes yeah should we do some blow i go you want to hang out or something whatever the equivalent of that was then she goes okay and we go out i say i'm staying at this hotel i don't have a car she goes i have a car we drove we jumped into the large cadillac Eldorado with Weber skin seats. It looked like a pretty well-worn-in car. And we drove back to the Peabody.

We went up to my room. And we did some blow. And nothing happened. But she did, for some reason, go, can I have this Elvis comb? And I go, yeah, I guess. And she took my Elvis comb and some of my change and maybe some matches i think i gave her a lighter and the rest of my cigarettes and then she left so that was not very rock and roll i guess that's the point of that story but nonetheless in terms of elvis presley

it's weird i knew some of his great songs when I was younger, but it took me seeing Rick Danko open for Jerry Garcia at the Orpheum in Boston, do mystery train alone on an acoustic guitar in the most beautiful, intense, almost tripped out fashion. Granted, I was on a little mushrooms, but that was my portal in to everything elvis somehow or another was seeing the late rick danko just lose himself in mystery train anyway that was quite a ramble i hope it tightened up and made some sense or was at least compelling as we enter this conversation with rock journalist Peter Grumman. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats.

But meatballs and mozzarella balls, yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats, get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Calgary is an opportunity-rich city, home to innovators, dreamers, disruptors, and problem solvers. The city's visionaries are turning heads around the globe across all sectors each and every day. They embody Calgary's DNA.

A city that's innovative, inclusive, and creative. And they're helping put Calgary and our innovation ecosystem on the map as a place where people come to solve some of the world's greatest challenges. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a look how at calgary economic development.com i'll nick all right let's focus on rock and roll man all. All right, what's that? Yeah, you know what it is. You've been chasing it your whole life. No, wait. So you're like a real writer guy, Peter Goralnik. I've been seeing your name forever,

and I own several of your books. This one, the new one I got for free, but I read most of Dream Boogie. I've had I Like Going Home, Feel Like Going Home Forever, Searching for Robert Johnson was a nice poetic meditation on the nature and truth of Robert Johnson. The Double Elvis Slammer.

Two major books that ate up how much of your life? A decade at least? Only 11 years. Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love. The quintessential seminal Elvis tomes. Well, you know, whatever. Whatever. What do you know?

But did you set out originally? I mean, I think we went to the same college. I don't do a lot of research. Where'd you go to school? I graduated from Boston University. Yeah, no, I graduated from Boston University, and I even taught at Boston University in the classics department when I was 23, 24, 25. Classics.

Classics. You know, I'm a classic kind of guy. Okay, so let's talk about that for a minute. So what does that mean, classics? Latin and Greek. So you can read Latin and Greek? You know, I taught Greek, but I really was faking it. I majored in Greek. I never was that good at it.

Latin I was quite good at, and I could read pretty well. But I taught a course in the ancient novel where one year it would be in reading Latin of Apuleius or Petronius. Another year it would be in English. But we read stuff like Last Exit to Brooklyn. I introduced Last Exit to Brooklyn. Selby. V, Tristram Shandy, a whole range of things, which I saw as being parallel in various ways to these ancient works.

To the tragedies and to the narratives. Yeah, to the narratives, yeah, to this kind of... The great hermeneutic code where everybody ends kind of shitty or ends kind of good, right? Or ends. Everybody ends. Right, right. So when you were a kid,

you were kind of, what, a language nerd? No, no, not at all. It was an easy thing to major in because in high school I got so much Latin that I could declare a major and take no courses. Right. And then I could take whatever I wanted. But no, all I ever wanted to be

was a writer and a baseball player from the time I was six or seven years old. But a writer, because you did a couple of books out of the gate there that weren't necessarily along the journey that you took, right? No, I've written 10 novels. I mean, I wrote my first one when I was 19. Here comes the truth. No, I didn't set out to write. The only reason, and I published two collections.

Don't break my heart, Peter. You're the guy. Don't tell me that music writing was just something you had to do for money. There was no money. I mean, I would never have done it. If money were the object, this is not what I would have done. But I published two collections of short stories when I was 20 and 21. But I wrote about music.

I wanted to be a writer. But I fell into the blues when I was 15 or 16 how'd that happen? well because that's when I got it too I mean you're older than me right?

how old are you? me? I'm about 15 come on and 15 at heart? 15 at heart I mean the person on the exterior

of the sea is not the real me no I'm 71 alright so I'm 52 but so I guess then you were getting the blues, actually, as it was first sort of popularly introduced to rock fans.

Well, before that, really. Oh, yeah? Yeah, I mean, it was just, a brother of a friend of mine went to the Newport Folk Festival. He comes back with about, you know, with a couple of dozen albums, and they could have been. That they were selling at the Folk Festival?

Yeah, and they could have been... That they were selling at the Folk Festival? Yeah, and they could have been, you know, I just can't think of who would have been, you know, it would be Peter, Paul, and Mary, except that was before Peter, Paul, and Mary, but just all kinds of folk, Joan Baez was before. Sure, a couple of blues guys. And he came back with a couple of blues records. Like what, Skip James?

No, no, he wasn't... Muddy Waters? Well, no, I'd say more like Big Bill Brunzi. Oh, okay. Ronnie McGee and Sonny Terry. Anyway, this friend of mine and I just settled on it, and we heard these blues things, and we just went crazy. And we got, this was like 1959, 1960,

and we just, it became a lifelong search. And it just turned me around. It turned my life around. And it led me to every other kind of music that I listened to. Sure. But what do you think it is, though? You're a Jewish guy? I'm a Jewish guy.

Yeah, me too. And I'm not saying anything. I do talk about that sometimes. But, you know, there's been a few fairly inspired Jewish blues players. And a lot of Jewish kids, like myself, were mildly enlightened when we were younger and gravitated towards blues. Did you ever think about that connection at all? No. Never?

Because I had no Jewish background. I'm Jewish ethnically. I know I'll be on the list when Donald Trump draws it up. But other than that, that's my identity. Yeah, well, I feel kind of the same way. I had a little bit of Jewish background. I mean, I did seek sort of identification through Jewishness at some point. I'm not a religious man, but culturally I'm Jewish. Yeah, no, I didn't have any of that, but I know Ralph Bass, for instance, who was at Chess Records. You know, he made this big connection

between Jews and the blues, and what he heard from the cantors growing up in the temples, it was exactly the same as the blues. And I take that, you know, for his truth, and I don't dispute that, but that was not the case with me. No, it was something like like, I had never heard anything like this before and it presented

a raw slice of reality. It was like Last Exit to Brooklyn in a sense. It was just a whole, introduced a whole element and a sound and an unadorned honesty that just knocked me out. Musically and vocally. Musically and vocally both and I just sat in my room. My mother had gotten this

phonograph record with green stamps from Stop and Shop. And it's one of these little portable things. Everything's built in. With the lid that you close it and open it. And I would sit there in my room first at home, then when I went off to college, just listening to these records and studying them and trying to decipher them. I'd go

to Roxbury and go to these bars and stuff. I couldn't order a drink. I mean, I'd get bloated on ginger ale. So the black neighborhood in Roxbury, go to these bars and stuff, I couldn't order a drink. I'd get bloated on ginger ale. So the black neighborhood in Roxbury, Mattapan, was pretty black at that time too, right? Yeah, the jazz clubs were along Mass Ave. You headed

down to Columbus and there would be battles of the blues and stuff. In the early 60s? Yeah. But the big revelation in my life when it came to that, and I want to answer the question about why I started writing about music, but was when the Soul Show started to come to town. And that was around 64 when WILD, which was the first black station in Boston, opened up. And Early Bird was there.

And he was a DJ? He was a DJ. He ruled Boston. And he moved to Renton, Washington some time ago. And I've stayed in touch with him all my life. Yeah. My second wife came from, her parents were right outside of Renton. Well, for some reason, Early Bird thought the future was in Renton, which didn't turn out to be the case.

That did not turn out to be the case, unless he wanted a job at Boeing at the time. No, I think he had EMP in mind for some reason. And he sort of fronted a couple of shows, but that was about it. So these soul shows, who were those touring actors? What did you go see? The first show I saw was the Summer Show of Stars in 1964. And it was Solomon Burke, Joe Tex, Otis Redding, Sugar Pie DeSanto, The Tams. Oh, man.

One of those Philadelphia greats. Garrett Mims. Garnett Mims. It was incredible. I ran into a girl that I had known before I'd grown up with. She was going out with a low-level mafia guy who had something to do with putting on the shows. She says to me, how would you like to usher the show? And I said, I mean, I jumped at it. I was scared to hell.

But these are all black audiences, I'm assuming. They were all black audiences, yeah. And you were just this little wiry kid who was sitting there taking it in. Yeah, I was sitting there like this. You can picture how crunched up I am. I can picture. I'm going to just project an entire life onto you by who you are right now. Well, then I started ushering the shows.

So free ticket? Free ticket. I might have gotten $10 or $15. I'm not sure. I was the worst usher in history. I mean, because the head usher would say, ushers, ushers, to the balcony. They're breaking in off the fire escape. And everybody would be heading to the balcony.

And I'd be heading to the bathroom or something. Not going to get involved. Or showing people, showing this nice-looking couple, this nice couple to their seats. And having these two hired guys with their arms crossed saying, what are you going to do about it? Oh, I'm going to go get the head usher. I'm going to go find somebody to help. But I'd get backstage, and I'd see Jackie Wilson backstage. There was no connection other than observing,

and Little Richard would be playing piano before the show. Right, you felt the heat and the excitement of show business and these guys who were able to put out that type of sound and that type of music. Well, and it taught me that the blues was a living thing. I mean, I knew the blues was a living thing, but it didn't exist in my life. I'd see Lightning Hopkins was the first blues singer. So you see the sound moving through the generations of music. Well, yeah.

I mean, I didn't make a distinction. I went to see... Oh, okay. So it was just black music in a way. Yeah. And eventually Waylon Jennings. I mean, it led me to Waylon. But for instance, I saw the Staples singers.

It all ends with Waylon. I saw the Staples singers going up against the mighty, mighty clouds of joy. And I thought, man, the mighty clouds of joy are just going to destroy them. And I saw Mavis just command us again with an all-black audience, just pulverize the audience with the power of her voice. And so it was that kind of thing. So this stuff just moved you to the point where you couldn't make sense of it with your brain. And that was exciting.

Yeah, I wasn't looking for brain. Not yet. No, never. I mean, I was writing my novels. I was doing that. Going to the soul shows, seeing the soul shows. Yeah. Then I started seeing Muddy Waters because they were not anywhere near where I was.

Right. And around the same time I'd go to see, I drove all night to New York to see Muddy Waters at Hunter College, drove back to go to work in the morning. Like what, 65? It might have been 64, 65, yeah. He was coming back from the American Folk Blues Festival in Europe. And with a full band.

With a full band and before his automobile accident and when he does Mojo. Who was it? Little Walter? No, it was James Cotton. Okay. And Otis Spann and probably S.P. Leary on drums. I can't remember exactly. And it was incredible. And he hadn't had his automobile accident. So when he does Got My Mojo Working, he does his jitterbug thing on stage. And I think, wow, that's Muddy Waters doing it now. Yeah. But I mean, the whole point was it had to come to life for me. And, you know, in that same time period, within a couple of years, all these blues singers like Skip James and Son House and Mississippi John Herterberg.

Came out of the wild, wherever they were. Yeah, yeah. No, they were rediscovered in various places. Skip James, man. You know, that sound is so haunting and so amazing amazing i you know like i read the it wasn't your book i don't know why you didn't write it but uh uh the debt what is it the devil and skip james was that was that the name by stephen called yeah and uh it it was sort of fascinating to me that so many of these artists sort of just laid dormant for years in a way.

And then kind of like, well, because of a new interest, they were kind of found. Well, they weren't waiting to be found. They weren't, you know, it's like, I forget what Mississippi John Hurt was doing down in Avalon, but it was like herding sheep or something. That isn't quite the way, but it's similar to that. Right. And they weren't expecting it at all, But actually, the first story I ever wrote, I mean, I did not set out to write about music. But I was so compelled by the power of Skip James' music that I think around 65, and so I was 21 then, I sought him out. I represented myself as being from the magazine Blues Unlimited.

And I called up Dick Waterman, who's become a great friend since then, and I said, I'm doing a story for Blues Unlimited. He said, that's funny. They just ran a seven-part series on Skip James. Whoops. But I pursued. I continued. I said, Blues World.

I'm doing it for Blues World. It's a magazine. But, I mean, I had to drag myself out of the car. I remember parking the car in Cambridge. Because you were nervous? I was just so scared, and I had a tape recorder with me. My father said, real reporters don't use tape recorders, because he had been the editor of his college newsroom. Right. Because you were nervous? And Skip was so gracious to me, and I'm asking these stupid questions. And I wasn't writing for publication. I went to interview him because, in my mind, greatness such as this will not pass my way again.

I felt compelled. A year earlier, two years earlier, I had sought out the English author Henry Green. I was in England, and he wrote Caught, Back, Blindness, Living, Loving, Doting, Concluding. Great, great writer. And I wrote to him, and he said, well, come visit me in some fancy neighborhood in London. And I did, and I spent about four hours with him as he drank the afternoon away. And it was just so thrilling, and I did,

and I wrote up everything, and eventually, years later, I wrote a story, an interview, kind of. But really, I had no business at all except for the same reason Skip James. Greatness such as this will not. But what did you want to know from him? What did you think you were going to get?

It wasn't that. I just wanted to be in his presence. I wanted to hear what he had to say. I wanted to, you know, in some way get a glimpse, get an insight into, you know, what it was that, you know, created or represented this genius. And what did you get? What did you find? What did you walk away with?

What were the answers to that question? Well, the answer to that question was there are no answers, which I knew going in. But no, for me, it was just, it was enthralling. And I would say there hasn't been a single, I've never written about anybody or anything that I didn't love. I mean, it might be, let's say Merle Haggard to me is the pinnacle of American vernacular music. One of the many pinnacles, but he's a pinnacle. And still at it. And mean, it might be, let's say Merle Haggard to me is the pinnacle of American vernacular music,

one of the many pinnacles, but he's a pinnacle. And still at it. And still at it. Now, I like Merle, but this is not somebody who is likely to be my best friend. Sure. And he's a difficult guy. That doesn't diminish him at all in my eye. I'm interested in him as a creative. You'd probably hang out for a couple hours until you annoyed him. Well, you know, it's hard to say. I've hung out for him for just a few minutes and annoyed him, and I've hung out for a couple hours until you annoyed him. Well, you know, it's hard to say. I've hung out for him for just a few minutes and annoyed him, and I've hung out for a long time and, you know, hung in there. But, you know, the point is that I knew from the beginning. You could, again, you can imagine my body language.

I'm a person, now I can talk, and there's a number of reasons I could. Then I couldn't. And I'm just like, oh, this little, you know. But, you know, I forced myself. I just, you know, forced myself to. And with Merle, what I wasn't interested in, I wasn't interested in the external. I wasn't interested in the persona that's being put out. I was interested in what was behind that.

And in talking to Merle, for instance, on the enhanced e-book of Lost Highway, where we've got a chapter on Merle, I included something like 21 or 24 minutes of Merle talking about creativity, about songwriting. That was what interested me. That was what I got from Skip James, who talked about when his father got superannuated, he retired from the ministry.

Yeah. I mean, I just dug that. What does superannuated mean? Too old. Oh, okay. I think at this point I may be superannuated. No, no, you're jamming. Well, it's interesting how much of that music came from the church at this point I may be superannuated. You're jamming. It's interesting how much of that music came from the church at some point

and how connected it was to the church. It came from the church and the cotton fields. The two mixed. The Fire Next Time really speaks more than anything about the genius, not of individual people, but of African American culture and the way in which every moment is prized and every moment has to be prized.

And by being thrown back on their own resources, African-Americans created a culture different and some might say superior to the majoritarian culture in which they lived. And that was a very, I don't know if it was an influential book, but it really, it was an exorbitory book that, I mean, to me, it was an exorbitory book that I still assign me it was an exorbitant book that i i still assign that uh to students in the mh which book uh the fire next time no more water the fire next time true words when air spoke we're seeing the fire right now but i yeah but i think like now

that's right but i think now like you know with this new book the man who invented rock and roll sam phillips uh about sun records is like this was a guy that intuitively had his sort of fingers on the pulse of that and was the first guy to really, I think, integrate it in mainstream music, no? No, totally. But, I mean, you've got to understand, he had a vision of what the music was and would be and the force it would have and the changes it would bring about. From the beginning. Long before he opened the studio.

He saw music. Some people say Amor, Winkert, Omnia, Love Conquers All. Well, he said music conquers all. And in fact, he would send music over to stop wars. He believed metaphorically that music had that power. It is magic. It is. It's absolutely magic. But his vision. I mean, this is the reason the title, the subtitle, The Man Who Invented Rock and Roll should be read the way Sam would say it would

be. The man who, quote unquote, invented rock and roll. Why didn't you put that on there? I should have. Or italicize it. Well, I've got Sam arguing against the title and for the title in the prologue. But the point is that the reason that I felt that it was apropos, in a sense, was that he envisioned a music. He envisioned bringing African-American music into the popular marketplace. And he envisioned it conquering, bringing down the walls of segregation.

As I say, before he started recording it, that was his vision. And this is a guy that grew up in the South. He grew up in the South. And he knew, like, you know, he was, I would imagine, relatively rare in his views of how society should be. Relatively rare in his family, who did not like hearing an eight and nine-year-old kid talking about the racial disparities and inequities that existed. I mean, he was working out in the field. His father rented a farm, 323-acre farm, which was really his vision of Eden. He lost the farm when the Depression came and became a signal man on the bridge, but never lost his love of nature. But, you know, Sam, his relatives from Sam's generation spoke.

I mean, Sam would say to me, now listen, I'm talking about an eight and nine-year-old kid. And what came to convince me that he was speaking, espousing those views, was talking to relatives who were not altogether approving. I'm not saying they were prejudiced, but they were not altogether approving of the views that Sam espoused when he was a small child. The rebel kid. Yeah, rebel kid, meek and mild, from a family meek and mild, to quote Merle Haggard. Oh, yeah. So, like, they were probably saying, like double killed uh meek and mild from family meek and mild yes quote merle haggard oh yeah so like they were probably saying like where's this kid getting these ideas and it was intuitive for him he got his ideas from his head he was not interested from the from the time he was born to the time he died he was not interested in social acceptance he said many times he said you know you you may not believe this but i had no personality

as a kid he said i had the personality of a green persimmon. And his brother Judd, he said, was the one with the personality. He was really charismatic. He could draw anyone to him. He never met a stranger. Sam wasn't interested in that. He was elected president of the junior class, which was his last year in high school because his father died.

But he was elected president. He was captain of the band. But he saw it as as the outgrowth of his determination, not of his charm, not of his. And and he wasn't he was not interested in social acceptance. And it was it's interesting because, you know, you see, as he gets older, that he sort of takes on this almost this this personality of a prophetic person, of a person that deserves respect as an elder. Almost a mythological character Sam Phillips is in a way. Well, I met him in 79. He was doing no interviews.

He had done virtually. He thought that I was the first person who had interviewed him outside of Memphis Reporters and the trades. There were two or three others which he had conveniently put aside. And did he ever, like, he maintained this sort of, the rights, like, he managed himself well. He was not, did he lose everything and screw everything up at some point? Well, I mean, he had a terrible struggle starting out. Right, no, but I mean, ultimately. No, ultimately, from his perspective, there was no more record.

There was no more opportunity for the independent record label or distributor. And that's why he really left the music business in 1960. But he held on. And by the end of the decade, all the independent labels, virtually all of them, were gone. But he held on to song publishing, and he continued in radio, which was his first love. And he saw those as the two viable ways to make a living as an independent business man. Music publishing and radio. Yes.

Well, yeah, that was right at the time. Music publishing still. Yeah, and the family still owns the publishing. And no, he was a very canny person in that way. It wasn't his first priority. But his first priority was to put food on the table for his family, which included his deaf-mute Aunt Emma in Florence, his widowed mother until she died in 1952 or 1951, and his wife and two kids. And he was determined, whatever happened, he was not

going to leave them hungry. But he started on radio. Started on radio. Started on radio. Understood the power. Yeah, saw it as a vehicle for communication. And, in fact, when WSM changed their transmitter in 61, Sam bought the transmitter. And to this day, the family is paying rental on it because he believed it was such an historic thing. It had reached so many people out in the rurals. It had brought so much, including the Grand Ole Opry,

but not limited to the Grand Ole Opry, to people all over the country who otherwise would never have the opportunity to hear or know these things. And so he bought it. He tried over the years to give it to the Smithsonian, to the Country Music Hall of Fame. The license? No, the transmitter.

The actual transmitter. But it's too big. Nobody would take a Country Music Hall of Fame. The license? No, the transmitter. The actual transmitter. But it's too big. Nobody would take a Country Music Hall of Fame. No one will take it. They can't put it in a lot of something? He couldn't find any takers, and I've announced it many places, looking for somebody who might come up and, you know.

So in a sense, that Sam Phillips, ideologically, really laid down some of the foundation for what became, you know, the point of view of music in the 60s, the point of the idea that music was some sort of bonding force of all people. Yeah, an integrating force that broke down categories, not just racial, but all categories. And he was, you know, an unabashed liberal all his life,

a label which few people claim anymore. Yeah, and did he get flack throughout his career from people because you know you think it's very easy to think that you know outside of like uh the or the earlier acts but you know those guys the original crew uh you know perkins lewis presley the the guys the the the hit makers who you were were white acts you know there is some sort of idea that that maybe there was a rednecky kind of uh feel to it well i don you know, there is some sort of idea that maybe there was a redneck-y kind of feel to it. Well, I don't know that there was a redneck-y feel to it.

Well, yeah, I mean, it went back, it varied. For instance, Elvis, you know, as Sam saw him, was the most unprejudiced person he had ever met. And Elvis, as Sam saw it, fully embraced Sam's ideal of breaking, you know, breaking up. Those were conversations that were had. No, they were not conversations but he said elvis was not the kind of person who would articulate that and the big thing also about sam was what he got most of all were insults from the people in the industry and he was not inclined

to insults for hanging around with those people you know black people black people yeah yeah for for uh you know corrupting the youth this is from people in the music industry and and nashville most The black people. Sam had very few close friends. Paul Ackerman, Dewey Phillips, his brother-in-law, Jimmy Connolly, but Kemmons Wilson, who started Holiday Inn. But Paul Ackerman wrote an editorial denouncing the Nashville establishment, the country music establishment, saying we're not going to be dictated to here. Paul Ackerman was the editor of Billboard. We're not going to be dictated to here. We're going to record what sells, and this is undemocratic, and this is like registering Muslims. And this is like, you know, this is wrong. This is against the tenets of democracy.

So they were fighting a civil rights struggle because of the sort of categorization of the music. Because at that point, what you're telling me that most of this, you know, quote unquote, black music was being played by these white performers. This wasn't the issue. The issue was that the records that Sam Phillips was putting out were cutting into country music sales. But they had to draw a line. What was the reason? They couldn't say that. In terms of the Nashville establishment country music, the line was money.

They were losing money. And they would say that. Yes. They didn't slander him. They slandered him as somebody who was violating the classic tenets of, you know. Country music. Country music, yeah. And so you could say it had raised.

But the point was Sam encountered direct and angry responses, you know, calling him, you know, a lover of people that he shouldn't be loving. Right. So let's talk about those, you know the the first recordings in the black artist because i'm a big howlin wolf fan and i don't think this is where the soul of man ever dies how could you not be if you know yeah i got a picture of him right there i love that picture it's right over the desk there of him on the floor doing his thing yeah in his in his uh in his older days yeah yeah yeah so wait you know where does sam you how once he's playing once he's doing radio where does he start coming in contact with the-

He doesn't. He doesn't. It's just, why did he come to Memphis? He came to Memphis because at 16, he insisted that his classmates were driving to Dallas for a revival meeting. He insists that they go by Beale Street on the drive from Florence to Dallas. I don't think there was anybody else in the car who wanted to go to Beale Street. the drive from Florence to Dallas. I don't think there was anybody else in the car who wanted to go to Beale Street.

When they're on Beale Street, he says, you know, that his, and this is, you know, probably less than what it actually was, he says that his friends from high school were amused by the antics or whatever. Because Beale Street was an outdoor area. I've been there. And there's a lot of music there, a lot of bars. Well, it was Black America's Main Street. Okay. It was all black and every type.

I mean, at that time, what you see now is like a movie set. Yeah, I know. What existed then were doctors. The urban renewed it. Exactly. What do you call it? Urban destruction. Yeah, yeah.

So he's 16 years old. He goes down to Beale Street, and he says, this was the most inspiring thing I've ever seen. Yeah, yeah. Your mind is blown by a culture and a way of life that is outside of you and by a sound that can't be denied. Well, he said, it really wasn't the music. He said, I saw a vision of freedom there because every single person, the young hipsters, the old guys, the people who had saved up for months to come in from the country, every single person was there because they wanted to be there. They felt a sense of belonging. And I wish that everybody in America could have that, could see that vision of freedom. But so at 16, he decides, I'm going to live in Memphis someday, and the reason he took the job at WREC in Memphis was not because he was at LIC in Nashville, which was a much bigger station, but because at the age of, he moved to Memphis when he was 22,

because he had to be in Memphis. But let me ask you something. How much of this, you know, in your encounters with him, which I imagine were a lot, I mean, how much, because he seemed like a guy that at some point became very aware of the mythology around him. And he seems like an earnest guy. But did you feel that as you talked to him that there was some myth building of this? No, no. I mean, the building, he saw himself in the late, after I first met him in 79, he changed quite a bit. I was telling you he never had done an interview before in his mind with an external source. He was just probably defending himself in the past.

He didn't want to look back. He just thought looking back was he wanted to look ahead. And he was back in his first love radio, and he had lots to do every day. But he was much more soft-spoken when I first met him. He created a public persona as he went out and started doing this. But the persona didn't have to do with a revisionist view of himself. Almost everything that he said can be found in his correspondence back in 50 and 51, in his public utterances, in his championing when Elvis made it.

And all of a sudden, Sam, where he came from, is national, he's an RCA. People ask him about what he does and he says, well, man, you should have heard Howlin' Wolf. You should have heard Walter Horton. You should have heard. He always put them in the front, you know. Yeah. And that wasn't revisionism. What he saw himself as from the time I met him, he created a persona to teach the teachings, to preach the preachings.

Not to glorify himself, but to preach the sermon of freedom. Yeah, freedom. Yeah. And how did him and Wolf come together? This is 1951. He had opened the studio in 1950. It's about a year and a half after he opened it. Who was he recording right out of the gate?

Out of the gate, he had a rough time because he didn't have outreach. He didn't have any way of reaching the black community. Beale Street is right behind the Hotel Peabody where the radio station was. The Ducks, I've seen the Ducks. Yeah, the Ducks, they were old even then. Yeah. I stayed there one night.

I did that journey. Yeah, but Beale Street is like another world even though it's just one street over. And he went on to Beale. I mean, he was on Beale Street. He another world, even though it's just one street over. And he went on to Beale. I mean, he was on Beale Street. He bought records for the radio station. But basically, these are two different worlds. So he's playing what I guess they would call, what was it?

He was playing black music on his radio station. No, no, no, not at all. No, Dewey Phillips, who was another one of his closest friends, had the Red Hot and Blue show on WHBQ. Dewey Phillips was playing black music, and that's what tied them together. And he saw Dewey as a brother, and he supported Dewey when Dewey fell on hard times to the end of his life in 1968 and then supported his wife afterwards. But he, no, he's on a high-class station in REC in the Hotel Peabody.

He opens a studio on January 2nd, 1950 on Union Avenue. How does he get these great black artists of the South for whom he's opened the studio? He makes that statement contemporaneously. This is, you know, to record some of the great black performers who have no other place to go. Did he see himself as sort of like Alan Lomax? No, no, no, no, no. He wasn't there to catalog? No, he saw himself totally as Sam Phillips and as somebody whose emphasis was on sound,

whose emphasis was on creating a sound that reflected a reality that was even more real than the reality around you. So it was like Ernest Hemingway, creating dialogue. Yeah, and also unheard at the time. Unheard, totally unheard. I mean, and he believed that once it was heard by a mainstream audience, they would be won over and there would be no turning around. But the first way he started to get African-American performers to come in was a guy named Joe Hill Lewis.

It was a one-man band who played on Beale Street, just wandered in one day early on. Yeah. And he said, what are you doing here? And Sam explained, they were building the studio. And Joe Hill Lewis, who seems to have been quite a, I never met him,

but he was quite a charming guy. He says, you know, that's just what Memphis needs, a recording studio. And he went out and he brought in people like Walter Horton

and Jack Kelly, some of the earliest people who came in and the word spread in the community and people would come out to see this little white guy who they didn't know

what the hell he was doing. But he was recording people. But Wolf, how did he get to Wolf? A friend of his, a guy he knew was engineering over at KWEM in West Memphis, which had a very weak signal at that time, called him up. And somewhat disparagingly, I would say, you know, there's somebody on the station here who has a noon show selling farm implements and advertising his appearances.

You know, he plays the kind of music that you like, which to this guy was... So Sam tuned in. Yeah. And he said it was a terrible signal, and it was all this crackle and pop. But he said through it all, he heard somebody. He heard a voice, and it led him to say,

you know, this is it. This is what I'm looking for. This is where the soul of man never dies. Then he calls up... But that was just Wolf on acoustic guitar, right? No, he had his band. He did already? Willie on acoustic guitar, right? No, he had his band. He did already? Willie Johnson on guitar

and a great, great guitarist. Everybody should go out and add to their Willie Johnson collection immediately. Pre-Hubert. Way pre-Hubert.

Hubert saw Wolf on a gig in Parkins, Arkansas, I think Parkins, Arkansas, and was standing at the window and Wolf invited him in. He was about 15

or 16 years old at the time. Yeah. So Sam gets in touch with Wolf at the window, and Wolf invited him in. He was about, say, 15 or 16 years old at the time. Yeah. So Sam gets in touch with Wolf at the station, invites him to come by the studio, and doesn't want to put any pressure. It's not a recording session. It's a meet and greet.

But Wolf comes in with this Willie Johnson, Willie Steele, sets up, and Sam says, you know, make yourself comfortable. And Sam is in the control room doing, you know, busying himself. Yeah, yeah. And he said, all of a sudden, it's just, he snaps too. It's just like a sound that is so powerful.

I mean, it's like he never heard anything before this. I'm getting excited. And he comes out into the floor. Yeah. And he gets there, and he says, for one of the few times in my life, or maybe I said for one of the few times in his life, he had no idea what to do.

He didn't have a, he had no, and he fools around with the mic placement, trying to act like he's in charge, but he just, he's just doing it. He's just so overwhelmed by the music, and that was the setup for his recording Wolf. Oh, I can't, it must have been just electric, man. No, it was incredible. I mean, the thing about, Sam never saw Wolf perform. I sent him a video, a videotape of that Alan Lomax thing, Devil Got My Woman, which has Wolf performing in this faux juke joint in Newport at the Folk Festival. But he had no interest in seeing him perform because he said,

I had the greatest show on Earth in my studio, just watching Wolf sitting in a chair and watching the devastation come over him as he sang a song, watching his total absorption. Sam said, I'll carry that with me to the day I die. He's a big man, too. Yeah, he was about 6'3", maybe. At that point, he was probably weighed about 235, 240 pounds. So wait, at Newport, they built a fake juke joint?

Yeah, Alan Lomax made this little movie. You have a drunken Son House, as Wolf is singing. Wolf knew Son House from way back, and he's waving his arms and talking. Son House is pre-Wolf. Pre-Wolf. And Wolf is saying, you know, sit down, old man. Don't embarrass yourself. I mean, that's paraphrasing.

What was that weird? I had a copy of that video. It was a show done in Germany. Do you know what I'm talking about? That's the American Folk Blues Festival, I'm sure. But they set up all those environments. Yeah, yeah, they had like... Like porches and stuff. Yes, exactly.

It was kind of disturbing, but like J.B. Lenoir was on there. Yeah, yeah. And I think John Lee Hooker, I saw. It was a pretty amazing thing. Yeah, and I remember they... No, Wolf was the most powerful performer I've ever seen. Where'd you see him?

I shouldn't say that. Solomon Burke and Wolf. I'm not going to... Where'd you see Wolf? I saw Wolf, I just saw him so many times. I saw him in Chicago. I saw him in Boston. I saw him at Club 47. That was probably the first time I saw him at Newport. He just... I mean, I would go... I saw him in Vermont. I would go over and go anywhere to see Wolf, and I would give up... I have a fair... I'm not a collector in any way, I know, but I bought a lot of records to listen to them. And let's say I have 7,000 records, I'd give every one of them up just for the opportunity to see Wolf one more time.

Oh, that's. It was just, it just, you know, but Sam. It was a different time zone with Wolf, man. I mean, you know, like even when you listen to him, like the stuff that doesn't necessarily, you know, the sort of rolling blues that doesn't necessarily have a chorus or a turn. Like, you know, where, you, where he just moved through that rhythm. Yeah. And that rhythm was completely his own, and the vocal power of it all, and the way it was mixed, and nothing sounds like him.

Well, and his harmonica, too. I mean, you know, but, you know, Wolf was just boom. I mean, the first time I saw him, I think, was at Club 47, which was in a cellar. And so they had these posts to hold up the roof. And Wolf got up against the post and he said, at this point, he's about 300 pounds. 300 pounds. Oh, really?

300 pounds of heavenly joy, as he said. And he's banging away on the post, you know, emphasized the thing. And I said, oh, my God, it's Samson and Delilah. You know, if I had my way, I'd tear this building down. I thought the roof was going to come down on our heads. Oh, that song, dude. But no, I just never, ever got tired. But the point is with Sam, of all the people he recorded,

Wolf was the first he would bring up from Sam's point of view, and from my point of view, too. Wolf was the most profound artist that he ever recorded. Now, you know, Elvis might be the most charismatic. Jerry Lee Lewis was the most purely talented. I mean, he had a superlative for everyone. He loved them all. Johnny Cash, he had enormous. But Wolf was the most profound, along with Charlie Rich, which is really interesting because these are two almost opposites in terms of musical style. That's weird because when I come to Charlie Rich and my knowledge of country music is limited.

Well, so was Charlie's. They'd put him in country music, and that was the worst thing that ever happened to him, although it was the thing that made him a star. But, yeah, but I think my memory of him, and even after reading, like I read some Tasha's stuff, too. You two are the guys that I think have showed me some things in terms of your writing. Now, we have different styles. Yes, you do, of life and of writing. How would you distinguish a style? Well, it seems like you are a historian as well as a guy who wants to understand.

Well, Nick is a very good historian. He just has a more emphatic style. I didn't mean to interject here. Also, he's gunning for the darkness. Well, Nick's theme is there is no there there and every book says there is no there there. Yeah.

And my theme, although I tend to believe that probably Nick is right, my theme is I'm looking for the light. So you're not going to say that Nick is, by saying there's no there there,

that is a dark place. It is a dark place. I mean, I think Nick would tell you that he's... No, I've a dark place it is a dark I mean I think Nick would tell you that he's no I've interviewed him I've talked to him I would say I think he would

he would admit to and proclaim the title of nihilist yeah yeah oh yeah no and Dino I mean what how could you top Dino

as far as don't you love that fucking book oh it's unbelievable now wait you can say fucking on your show sure because I had lots of things that I tiptoed around there

and you never said say it say it say it what the name of the show is what the fuck well that lots of things that I tiptoed around there and you never said say it, say it, say it. The name of the show is What the Fuck. Well, I know that but you only see it as WTF. I didn't know.

Well, let's say so Charlie Rich by the time I I don't even have a Charlie Rich record and now you're making me feel like I should because I have a lot of country

and by the time I'm a kid Charlie Rich has big hits. Yeah, Behind Closed Doors The Most Beautiful Girl hits on which he didn't play piano and which didn't suit his style, but which sold millions of copies. But he was an original Sun artist? He was an original, yeah, he was on Phillips, which was a subsidiary.

But remember, what did stardom lead to for Charlie Rich? It led to him burning the card that announced John Denver as Entertainer of the Year at the nationally telecast country music. Snapped, huh? It was his only exit from the life, the nationally telecast Country Music. Snapped, huh? He was his only exit from the life, his only exit from the world. I mean, you know,

people wanted to say, well, it's because he was stoned, it's because he was drunk, it's because he was this. It really, he needed an escape. He was done. Yeah, not done with music. I mean, I made an album with him

just before his death called Pictures and Paintings in which he cut some of the songs he'd been carrying around with him just before his death called Pictures and Paintings, in which he cut some of the songs he'd been carrying around with him all these years, originals, standards like I Can't Get Started, which he played two or three times a night every week at these. I don't even know this Charlie Rich, and I really feel like I need to know this Charlie Rich. Well, listen to, I don't know if you have the two-CD set. That you sang? Yeah, I got it.

Yeah, and listen to Who Will the two CD set. That you sent? Yeah, I got it. Yeah. And listen to Who Will the Next Fool Be. So that comes out in collusion, is that the word I want, with the book, that you can get the soundtrack of the book, so to speak? Yeah, no, no, it's definitely... And you should listen to that

as you're reading the book? I don't know that. You should do what you want. No, but I think I've done that. But usually if I'm reading a book about one person, I'll inundate myself. Like your book about Sam Cooke turned me on to all his gospel stuff.

And that shit changed my life. Yeah, it's incredible. And when you go live at the Shrine, that 55 concert, you hear Sam Cooke. You would never hear before, not even live at the Harlem Square. You know who else loves Sam Cooke? Who I just had in here was Herb Alpert. Oh, well, he worked hear Sam Cooke, you would never hear before, not even live at the Harlem Square. You know who else loved Sam Cooke? Who I just had in here was Herb Alpert. Oh, well, he worked with Sam Cooke. Yeah, I know.

Very early on. He and Lou Adler worked together at Keene, and they have the co-write, or I should say Sam has the co-write on Wonderful World. Right. And really it was a song they'd written as this little ditzy high school thing. Yeah. And Sam saw it as something else. I love those beautiful moments where magic is, you know, the alchemy happens.

And I think that's really what you're talking about with Sam, with Phillips in this book, is that that alchemy that he somehow managed, you know, by dealing with these artists is really the beginning of rock and roll. And it's not that long ago. No, no. And I mean, you think about how elvis started and you think about this did he do rocket 88 too yeah you're right before wolf right and and why do you talk about taking what you're given i mean he's got a song by jimmy to bury where a telephone

goes off in the middle and he says you think i was gonna you know change that for some for some track without that that great sound in telephone no yeah he says you know and so uh and you know he's he says you know we were sitting there and dump trucks were walking by down in Florence. And he says, look at that. That's where it's happening. Ain't that where it's happening? You know, and he just, so he embraced with Rocket 88 what happens. Ike Turner shows up with his group, the Kings of Rhythm, who were renamed Jackie Brinson and his Delta Cats by Sam, much to Ike Turner's high dudgeon.

Yeah. Because Sam gave Jackie Brinson the vocal. He liked Jackie Brinson's vocals better than Ike, which did not... Sit well with Ike. Right. Ike did all right, kind of. Oh, he did all right.

And he and Sam ended up good friends. I mean, that was one of the artists that Sam was closest to in his last years. But the point was, they show up at the studio, which they drive by three times because it's a storefront and it looks like a barbershop to me. And on their way up from Clarksdale, they get stopped several times for the crime of

driving while black. Really? An old story. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They also have a flat tire, and when they take the tire out of the trunk, because tires were still in trunks in those days, they drop the amplifier, the guitar amp. And when they get to the studio, they find that the tube is shattered and that there's a buzz in the thing. And they just, they're crestfallen because there isn't time to get another amp.

And they just figure they've blown their big opportunity. And Sam listens to it and he says, no. He says, that's original. Now, that's different. That's going to give you an original sound on the record. And he gets some paper from Ms. Taylor taylor's next the restaurant next door stuff's that uh you know in the amp and you can hear that buzz all the way through and that to sam it wasn't that he would have planned it that way but he was fully prepared to take advantage in

you know it's like jack carol like spontaneous prosody well sure it's organic and it's it's authentic by virtue of the fact that you can see it as a problem or you can see it as a gift. Yeah. And that, like, you know, like he was intuitive enough to know, like, it doesn't sound bad. Yeah. And he's got some power. No, he thought it sounded great. Of course.

He thought it sounded great. It sounded different. He blew up, the last session he produced was two songs on John Prine on an album that, Pink Cadillac, that his sons Knox and Jerry were producing. Mm-hmm. a pink Cadillac that his sons Knox and Jerry were producing. And one of them was Saigon, and Sam blew up the guitarist's amp in the echo chamber because he wanted to create the sound of flying fragments of metal flying through the air.

Did he get it? He got it. And John Prine was so proud of that album that for the first and only time in his life, first and last time, he took the album out, once it had been mastered, out to Elera Asylum,

you know, in California, and presented it to them in a listening session, and they just looked at him with a worried look, and they said, well,

John, that's okay, but you're going to have to go back and re-record this whole thing. You know, there's a buzz going through that thing, so it was back to, this is like 29 years later,

after Rocket 88, Sam created the, you know, the distortion, and John Prine was so, but 88, Sam created the, you know, the distortion. And John Prine was so. But see, like to me, the whole thing's fascinating. So like, you know, Rocket 88 for some people is the first rock and roll song. I mean, categorically, some historians believe that.

Do you believe that? No, I don't think it was the first of any. Come on, Peter. Come on. Give me three songs. Nothing comes from nothing. Okay. Frank Stokes, Downtown Blues, 1927.

The driving rhythm of that might as well be the first rock and roll song. Okay. Big Maceo's, some of Big Maceo's kind of boogie-woogie numbers just... Okay, so what differentiates it? Then why does somebody decide rock and roll is here? Is that just a branding thing? Yeah. Okay.

I mean, the point is, it was Paul Ackerman, probably, who was the first one, and who was Sam's great champion and Sam's great friend, a guy with a PhD in English literature, maybe just a master's. His specialty was on George Herbert and, I think, the 17th century poets, English poets. No, it couldn't be from a greater difference of background for Sam. And a very scholarly area that guy who edited Billboard. And I think he saluted

Rocket 88, his first rock and roll song after rock and roll had to hit. Oh, so it's a retro thing. So it had to be retro because there was no rock and roll at the time. But Sam had this vision

of rock and roll. He didn't know how it was going to turn out exactly. He didn't know what, but he knew it was going to be the music that rock and roll turned into, a music that could reach

a mass audience. He believed that Rocket 88, which sold 100,000 copies almost entirely in the black market, was a huge sale. He believed it was going to cross over and was quoted in the paper saying that. He told me, and probably other people too, that Howlin' Wolf could have been as big as Elvis Presley with white kids as well as with black. Now, don't ask me how that could have been. I don't know how it could have been. I don't share that.

I didn't, as much as I share Sam's admiration and veneration for Wolf, but that's what he believed. When you listen to some of the driving rhythm numbers

that he does on Wolf, he saw that as reaching an audience, the audience that rocked the whole world. Well, it's weird because it actually had to go to England

and then come back before it actually became this. Well, the blues, but he wasn't thinking of it as the blues. No, I get it's weird because it actually had to go to England and then come back before it actually became well the blues but he wasn't thinking of it as a blues no I get it

that was the basis but the point was he saw it as becoming the mainstream music getting the mainstream

doing what Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis but in the aftermath part of his vision was when he realized he could never break that

race barrier with his artists, with Little Junior Parker, who could be seen as the birth of rockabilly. When you listen to Love My Baby, why didn't this thing make it? It was because Little Junior Parker was black. But it has every element. And he realized at this point, as he was going bankrupt, he realized the only way I can reach that mass audience, that white audience,

is if I can put a white face, find a white man with a Negro sound, but much more important, a Negro feel. And that that was when the audience would, once they responded to the music, then the drawers would open wide. And that essentially is the story of rock and roll. of a few of these white artists, Elvis first primarily, then all these great black artists like Ray Charles, Fat Stomino, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, they came through those doors at 100 miles an hour and they became not race stars, not R&B stars, they became pop stars. And who went into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for the first time? Right. But most of those guys still had a little bit of a chip on their shoulder about their treatment and the...

Well, as they should. I mean, we live in America. Yeah, I know. I get what you're saying. And how do you spell America? How do you spell it? Well, I'm not going into spelling. I leave it to the listener.

So, like, let's talk a little bit about the you know in the time you know we have here is is there's so much to talk about and and obviously i i guess i'm you know i i'm looking for that that poetic magic that happened in in you know you're so thorough and i don't think you miss it but you know i want to know you know that moment where like in my mind you know at sun records you know all these guys were, they knew each other. That Wolf was hanging out with Elvis. Not so much,

but Wolf and Little Junior Parker especially were inspirations to Elvis, among many others. But they never crossed paths? There was never a sort of thank you or show me a lick? Well, Elvis openly endorsed artists like Bobby Bland, like Little Junior Parker, appeared in the papers, picture appeared in the paper, then went down to the DIA Goodwill Review, just like I went to the Summer Shower of Stars, you know, the only white and an all-black audience. Came out on stage, you know, put his arm around B.B. King and spoke in white newspapers, in the mainstream newspapers, of how great this music was

and how great these people were. So, sure, there was a crossover, but not in the sense that they collaborated in the studio. Why didn't they? They weren't there at the same time. It was years later? It wasn't years later. It was a year later, let's say. That's it.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was... And Sam was... You've got to remember, it was a one-man operation. Why did Johnny Cash leave Son? He left it as much as anything, because he was jealous of the attention that Sam was giving to Jerry Lee Lewis, who was the hot hand at that moment. If you're one person operating a business in which you're selling millions of records, it's pretty easy to spread yourself too thin, and Sam was not going to do that. What was the year span of when all this sort of happened? I mean, how many years, like from what to what was the... Well, Sam opened

up in January of 50. By 1960, he had pretty much extricated himself from the business. He no longer saw the future in many different ways. But you wanted a definitive statement about what? I'm missing your... No, just that moment where you can track. If we're not going to go, there's no there there. I mean, there was a moment, and I imagine it was the first Elvis hit, that all of it came together and Sam was able to realize his vision. No, I think he realized his vision with Wolf. I think that Wolf was the living reification,

the living visualization of everything that he ever wanted in music. And had he been able to cross Wolf over in the way that he, this was 51. So it was out of his hands. He thought that Wolf was the guy

and that, you know, what the culture did with it was out of his hands but in terms of the sound Right, in terms of his own personal thing but if you want to say where did Sam turn,

see, you said, is it I think a marketing term or something? What's rock and roll? Listen to That's Alright. What is it that makes that rock and roll? It isn't. You could call it folk music.

Sure. It's just a pure kind of music. And putting the name rock and roll on it was the way to sell that music. But if you're looking for what turned Sam's label around, it was the success of Blue Suede Shoes, which he was able to not only record. Elvis' or Perkins? Perkins. No, Elvis just covered it and actually asked permission to cover it. But made it a hit again, right? of Blue Suede Shoes, which he was able to not only record. Elvis' or Perkins? Perkins. No, Elvis just covered it and actually asked permission

to cover it. But made it a hit again, right? Not really, no. It was on an EP. I mean, the point is everything Elvis put out was a hit. But no,

Carl Perkins, Sam put out Carl Perkins' Blue Suede Shoes at almost exactly the same time that RCA put out Elvis' first single on RCA Heartbreak Hotel, which Sam called a morbid mess. I don't agree, but I – and the public – What was his reasoning?

It was nihilistic, both in sound and in message. So I don't know. But if Nick had spoken to him about it, he might have had a different view. I didn't mean to drag Nick into this. We've got light and darkness here, the rock critics. But the point was that the two of them, Blue Suede Shoes, started going up the charts and had made it to the top of the charts of the R&B country and pop, which had never happened before. And Heartbreak Hotel did the same thing within weeks.

RCA had lost faith in Elvis because of the explosive success of Kyle Perkins, but with the success of Kyle Perkins. But Elvis was at Sun first. I mean, what was it? But Elvis was a regional star on Sun. I know, but what was the relationship between Sam? I mean, how many songs did Sam do with Elvis before he lost Elvis? He put out five singles, and there were probably another.

Was that acrimonious? No, no, not at all. When I say he was going broke, he was on the verge of bankruptcy when he sold Elvis' contract. He had been on the verge of bankruptcy ever since he started the label. You know, the worst thing that can happen, if not to a small business, certainly to a small label at that time, is a hit. And Elvis wanted to go, and he needed the money, so it worked out. It wasn't really to do with Elvis. It was more to do with what he needed. Elvis wanted to go and he needed the money so it worked out. It wasn't really to do with Elvis.

It was more to do with what he needed. Elvis wanted to go because of Colonel Parker. But that was neither here nor there. The real thing was Sam not only would not

have survived in business, he would have lost the, well, he just would have lost the business altogether. Not the business, but his dream. Yeah. And so with the $35,000

that he got for Elvis' contract and with the $5,000 that he got or that Elvis got as a payout for the royalties due, which Sam kept scrupulous track of, but he didn't have the money to pay. And that was what, with that $35,000 that he got, he was able to reconstitute the company. He was able to promote and put everything he had behind Blue Suede Shoes. He was able to promote and put everything he had behind Blue Suede Shoes. And RCA called shortly after when Blue Suede Shoes hit the charts. Steve Schultz at RCA called and said, have we signed the wrong guy in terms of thinking of Elvis? So, no, I mean, people would say to him, did you ever regret? Or some people will say that's the worst business decision in history, which doesn't even rival Lisa Marie selling Graceland for $100 million. But the point is that, no, Sam, it was a great business decision, and Sam never had any regrets at all because it led to everything else he did. Right.

So with that, from there, from Blue Suede Shoes, you get to the Jerry Lee Lewis hits, right? Yeah. I mean, Johnny Cash. I Walked the Line. Yeah, you had Johnny Cash, and you had all these other artists coming in from the beginning, throughout the year of 56, all coming in because they had been so inspired, actually, by Elvis' music. I mean, many of them saw Elvis perform, the originality. But I like what you said about it, that it could be folk music,

because the thing that keeps pounding through my brain in terms of what we're talking about, your experience at the beginning with the records you had and, you know, and talking about Sam Phillips and the belief that, you know, there's some sort of alchemy, there's some sort of wild card that could happen

that is raw and real. That, you know, because like against Delta 88, you've got Rock Around the Clock, which is an overproduced, almost a big band album. Yeah, it was really Western swing. Right. And Sam didn't disregard it, but he felt like album. Yeah, it was really Western swing. Right.

And Sam didn't disregard it, but he felt like there's nothing fresh. There's nothing new in it. But raw, raw. I mean, you know, you got people like Elvis, and you got people like Howlin' Wolf, and you got people like Jerry Lee Lewis who couldn't help but be painfully alive and in the present with their music. Hey, look, there's a Dionysian spirit. That's right.

And that was what Sam was, look, when Carl Perkins would record something. Yeah. And, you know, and. He was a little tight. Well, Sam would say, this is, you know, that's great. That's it. You get the feel. And Carl Perkins would say, I mean, I'll just shorten this.

But Carl would say, but Mr. Phillips, there's a mistake there. I could fix it. Let's do another. And Sam says, no, you've got the feel. And Carl would say, but I made a bad mistake there. Yeah. Or I made a mistake there. And Sam would say, that's all right, Carl.

That's where we are here at Sun. We're just one big inspired mistake. But it's sort of funny because even looking at someone like Johnny Cash, in comparison to whatever Johnny's problem was with Jerry Lee Lewis in terms of his success, the difference between them, their songs and their style, is that Johnny was also painfully raw. It just was at a different tone. And totally original. I mean, Sam saw him in some ways as analogous to Howlin' Wolf.

Johnny Cash is nobody he admired more than Johnny Cash, both for his singing, which was, you know, unrepeated, I mean, nobody, inimitable, and for his writing. But the other thing about Johnny Cash is he comes in with two musicians who can barely play, particularly Luther Perkins, a guitarist, and every take they took, because they didn't do splicing, every take they took would be interrupted because Luther Perkins couldn't make the notes. He could play one note at a time, and he was painfully shy. And at one point, Johnny Cash says, let's do it with another guitarist. And Sam says, no, this is your sound.

This is what makes it different. This is what gives it distinction. And it was not the fact that Luther Perkins was incompetent. I mean, he was trying so hard, and he got there eventually. But the fact that this gave them an original sound. Because he's putting all he's got into the simple notes that he knows. That's exactly, which is the whole point of anything creative. I mean, that's what I try to do. However simple-minded I may be, I try to put everything I've got into every word I write. Well, that's the beauty of rock music, and I guess, you know, there's something that comes

directly, you know, from the blues, and even, you and even the music that comes from Africa previous to the blues is that it is a simplicity just completely fueled by passion and focus and feeling. Yeah, and yet for Sam, because there were no genres, he could go out and see Charlie Rich, one of the few artists that he would go out, he might go out two or three times a night to see him play on Madison Avenue. And Charlie's playing jazz, which was Charlie's first love. And to Sam, it was the passion with which he played, even though it was not the genre which he would have chosen. And so, I mean, I feel like you can find it, you can find it anywhere, you know, you can find it.

And different people have different tastes. I mean, as Solomon said, different strokes for different folks. But those soul guys, the soul singers, like, you know, like the Sam Cooke thing, is that, you know, what we're talking about, what we're talking about feeling, really, and about a unique voice that, you know, because if you listen to the gospel stuff, I mean, he had a rawness as well, but he had an incredible

sort of unique sense of melody. And of control. But you'll hear it one of the few times you'll hear on record someplace where he's just going all out and throwing away that control and that was the underpinning for a great many of the very controlled pop recordings he made. Right, because

ultimately he became a fairly controlled singer and a controlled pop artist. Yeah, yeah. And not, like, it was the opposite of menace, you know, where you get most of the, you know,

the Sun guys were menacing, in a way, in a good way. Yeah. Well, I mean, you listen to Sonny Burgess, I mean,

you listen to the end of Red Headed Woman, which is like a train wreck, and again, Sonny, who's still performing today, I think he's 82 or 83, and he's one of the nicest guys again, Sonny, who's still performing today, I think he's 82 or 83, and he's one of the nicest guys in the world, and he's still rocking. But Sonny just

begged Sam to let them redo it. You know, it featured perhaps the only rockabilly trumpet in history, Sonny's group. But he begged Sam to let them re-record, and Sam said, no, that had the feel. There's no reason to re-record it. It doesn't matter what the mistakes were. It doesn't matter whether the telephone's ringing. That had the feel. But so you, you know, what I'm starting to see, you know, even from the, did you ever listen to those sped up Robert Johnson records? The ones where there's a claim that. There's a claim.

I've never, I've talked to people and I've never known anybody. Did you listen to them? Well, I don't know what they're talking about exactly. I mean, it's... Well, that they were recorded at slightly the wrong speed. Well, that the reissues were put out at a slightly higher speed, which raised Rock Johnson's voice and created an intensity. I've never seen anything to substantiate that, but I don't know.

It's weird to listen to them, though. To listen to them slow down. Yeah, yeah. Well, it was a variable so the point was phonographs were variable speed and there was no uh true pitch as far as speed went right i mean i know it's been sort of discredited but it is sort of fascinating to listen to it well well it is and and it uh and in some ways you know it could give you a sense of maybe what listening to robert johnson on different days could be but the sort of the thing that you're chasing and i think the thing that is of maybe what listening to Robert Johnson on different days could be.

But the sort of the thing that you're chasing, and I think the thing that is not the defining rock and roll is rock and roll, but this sort of this kernel of, we'll call it light, through this music that inspired you early on, that runs through all of it. It does. It absolutely does. And it took me, that's why I say, it took me to Waylon Jennings. And the reason I say Waylon Jennings is because I, after Feel Like Going Home came out in 71, I wrote at the end of it.

And unless you have a first edition, you won't see it phrased in quite this way. Yeah. But I wrote that. I got a paperback. I was going to say my farewell to my brief. And I was going to go back just to appreciating the music. I was going to discard the notebook in my hand, which is in my, it's not in my hand right now, it's in my pocket. Yeah.

And I went back and for two years I didn't write about music because I went and wrote another novel because I felt like I was doing this out of love and I wanted to retain

the purity of it. Right. I didn't realize then what you mentioned before, I was also in love with the show business aspect of it and I didn't want to admit that. Really?

So this is the first time you admitted that? No, I admitted it back in 1973. Not since. But I'm willing to affirm it on the air. But no, I mean, a guy named Jim Miller, who edited the Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll,

became the music editor of the real paper. And he said, why don't you write about Waylon Jennings? And I hadn't listened to much. And this was when Funky Tonk Heroes came out. And I listened to that and about 10 other albums. And I went to see him for a week uh at the performance center i think in cambridge and it was like i realized this is the blues it's a completely different format it's a completely different approach it's different changes but the rawness of it just the direct impact of it and the fact that it's just coming from his gut. Sam would always refer to gut-bucket blues.

And I mean, so I wasn't trying to change it into blues, but it had the same appeal. And that's what really, I knew country music. I mean, I'd listened to some country music. I'd listened to Hank Williams. I'd listened to Jimmy Rogers. But that just totally blew me away. No kidding, Waylon.

Waylon. It's beautiful. Well, the thing is that that sort of blew my mind and sort of got me going. Like, I like to play blues. Like, I play blues, but I don't listen to it as much as I like to play it. I'm a big Peter Green fan, right? I can't shut up about Peter Green.

I love Peter Green. Yeah, yeah. But what got me, like, I spent a couple of years just trying to sort of decode Captain Beefheart. Right. And it's all fucking wolf, man. It is. It's all wolf. Like, the first two, it's all wolf. No, it's all fucking wolf man it is it's all wolf like the first two it's all wolf no it's

totally wolf and i mean i and i appreciated that but i think there's an abstraction there of course i didn't quite get but you know who wrote about peter green was elvis costello in his new book i know i just talked to elvis costello well that that peter green inspired him to play guitar and you just see him schlepping around yeah you know kind of this heavy spirit man so when you listen to do you listen to current music? Is that part of your bag? Yeah, I listen to a pretty wide variety of music. I mean, I'm influenced by Jake and Nina, my daughter.

Sure. So I listen to J.D. McPherson. Yeah, McPherson. I think he's great. Yeah. That makes sense for you. I listen to Dennis Brennan, who's a great singer-songwriter from Boston. I listen to Colin Linden, who has a great singer-songwriter from Boston. I listen to Colin Linden,

who has a great new album out called Rich in Love. There's another guy named Kevin Gordon, who's out of Nashville, who is just the most astonishing storyteller. He does kind of a drone blues that isn't a blues. He was at the Iowa Writers Workshop and gave it all up to become...

He was at the high level there. His stuff is just amazing. His new album is incredible. I'm totally, you know, there's a saying, first we must kill all the lawyers. Well, it should be amended to first we must kill all the intellectual property lawyers.

Because there's no such thing as... It has to evolve. Yeah, there's no such thing as originality. I mean, it's good that you people endorse Bob Dylan's music and they say, well, he's like a magpie. But basically, there isn't a single thing that anybody has ever appreciated or listened to that doesn't come from something else. Well, the thing that got me about sort of understanding Dylan at different points, but certainly early Dylan, after reading his book and then seeing Ramblin' Jack's Daughter's Doc on Ramblin' Jack.

Wasn't that great? It's great. Ramblin' Jack's Daughter's Doc on Ramblin' Jack. Oh, wasn't that great? It's great, but there had to be a couple years where Ramblin' Jack was like, oh, fucking Dylan took my shtick. You know, like there was like, you know, he was sort of, Dylan was sort of a sponge and a cipher

and a self-inventor over these different eras. But at the beginning, the charm and the wit was definitely Ramblin' Jack. Well, yeah, and I wonder if Ramblin' Jack, I mean, Solomon always said bile will consume you, and I don't see Ramblin' Jack as a bilious kind of person, but maybe you're right. Solomon Burke said bile will consume you?

Yeah, this was his advice to both himself and me. Don't let bile consume you. That's true, right? Well, think of certain pop stars who have books out now who have spent the last 40 years worrying about the injustice that was done to them when they were 21. Yeah. I know I talked to John Fogerty. I wasn't mentioning any names.

He seems to have gotten back at least half of the publishing rights. He seems okay. He married a nice woman and kind of got him in line, and he seems pretty emotional about it. He was a nice woman and kind of got him in line, and he seems pretty emotional about it. It's sad about the relationship with his family and his band, but he seems like he got back what was rightfully his. I'm just saying we could do a whole show on all the ways in which I felt, I feel I was done wrong. They were all minuscule ways. You should start writing the blues, Peter. But that isn't what the blues is about in a way.

I know. The blues, in a sense, is uplifting. It's transcending. No, you're absolutely right. The characterize it as sad music. It's not nihilistic. It's an anecdote. It's an antidote to sadness and to struggle. But you know,

it was like, for me, the blues, they were poets like William Carlos Williams. I mean, so much depends on that. And it's just, to me, it's just what it is. No, I get it. But I think that what Nick was... I'm not arguing with is. No, I get it. But I think that what Nick was... I'm not arguing with that. No, no, no, no.

But I think that ultimately, you know, Nick is looking for the heart of that Dionysian thing. And that, you know, his assumption is that, you know, it comes from malcontent. It comes from darkness. And it is a fight against darkness. But it is not moving towards the light. No, no, it isn't. And I don't have any quarrel. I mean, he has a not moving towards the light. No, no, it isn't. And I don't have any quarrel. I mean, he has a great love for the music, but I mean, you could read Hellfire by Nick,

which is a great book. But read in my Sam Phillips book about Jerry Lee, it's a completely different person. I'm not claiming that I'm right, but I'm just saying it's a different perspective. It's a different angle of perspective. And what is your take on Jerry Lee in the light? He's a genius. He's brilliant. angle of perspective. And what is your take on Jerry Lee in the light? He's a genius. He's brilliant. He's insightful.

He's aware of everything around him except what would benefit Jerry Lee. Man's got to have his hobbies. So he's his own worst enemy. He is. But in terms of the music, there has been no greater. his own worst enemy. He is, but in terms of the music,

there has been no greater, and in terms of, you talk to Jerry Lee about life in general. Yeah. If he doesn't, you know, pull a gun on you or throw you out of the house.

I mean, he's always been very nice to me since I met him in 1970. I'm not claiming any great intimacy, but we've, but the point is that he has his moods.

Yeah. But you talk to him about, I don't, maybe don't talk to him about world events, but the world around him. And he's very, very insightful. He's very aware.

He's very, in a way that I think nobody has ever given him credit for. And his music doesn't stem from just a purely wild Dionysian impulse. It stems from perception. It stems from inspiration. And it stems from just, it's what I tried to write about Elvis. I mean, everybody just saw him as a pawn in the winds. And I wrote about him as a conscious creative artist because he had a drive. He may not have been able to define what he was going for, but he knew what he wanted.

Yeah. Well, thanks for doing the work you do. This book, Sam Phillips, A Man Who Invented Rock and Roll, I know we could talk a long time, and I feel a little out of my league in talking about this stuff. But I think we did all right. Yeah, I'll tell you what. We should go back and we should overdub all the motherfuckers I left out. I mean, I was being polite.

Next time, Peter. You know, if you told me, welcome to what the fuck, I would have been right with you. Well, I'm sorry I didn't make it clear that you could let out all the motherfuckers you needed to. Yeah, no, and I had a lot bottled up. Thanks, Peter. Thank you. I love deep music nerds. I want to thank the people who work on the music for this show.

Check them all out. DJ Copley at WebPuppy45 on Twitter. Paul Buck on Facebook at PaulBuckMusic. And John Montagna, who did our theme music. He's at JohnMon.com J-O-N-M-O-N dot com.

Go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs. Get some JustCoffee.co up. Get the WTF when theycom for all you WTFpod needs. Get some JustCoffee.coop. Get the WTF one. They give me a little. Somebody was defying me to play some clean guitar. Huh. Thank you. Boomer lives! on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode

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