Sam Phillips

October 11: Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar was released in 1957

Posted on by Hallgeir Olsen

“The first Sun Records artist to release an LP and what a debut it was. An instant pop up country star to go. The song-writing is mature already and they’re delivered with an infectious warmth in the vocal. A compelling listen and full of instant career standards like “I Walk The Line”, “Cry Cry Cry” and “Folsom Prison Blues”.”
– The Jukebox Rebel

Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar! is the debut album by Johnny Cash, released on October 11 (wikipedia says October 14, but other sources says October 11), 1957. The album contained four of his hit singles: “I Walk the Line,” “Cry! Cry! Cry!,” “So Doggone Lonesome,” and “Folsom Prison Blues.” It was re-issued on July 23, 2002 as an expanded edition, under the label Varese Vintage, containing five bonus tracks, three being alternate versions of tracks already present on the original LP.

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July 30: Johnny Cash recorded “Folsom Prison Blues” in 1955

Posted on by Egil Mosbron

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]Folsom Prison looms large in Johnny Cash’s legacy, providing the setting for perhaps his definitive song and the location for his definitive album, At Folsom Prison. The ideal blend of mythmaking and gritty reality, At Folsom Prison is the moment when Cash turned into the towering Man in Black, a haunted troubadour singing songs of crime, conflicted conscience, and jail.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine (allmusic.com)
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Wikipedia:

Single by Johnny Cash
B-side “So Doggone Lonesome“
Released December 15, 1955
April 1968 (re-recording)
Format 7″ single
Recorded July 30, 1955, Sun Studio, Memphis, Tennessee
Genre Rockabilly, country blues, rock and roll
Length 2:50
Label Sun
Songwriter Johnny Cash
Producer Sam Phillips

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January 5: The late great Sam Phillips was born in 1923

Posted on by Hallgeir Olsen
Sam Phillips, the founder of the label Sun Records, poses with Elvis Presley.

Sam Phillips was not just one of the most important producers in rock history. There’s a good argument to be made that he was also one of the most important figures in 20th century American culture.
~Richie Unterberger (allmusic.com)

Please check out the new book:

Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll
Written by Peter Guralnick

COVER Guralnick_SAMPHILLIPS

Rock ‘n’ roll was born in rural Alabama, 1923, in the form of Sam Phillips, the youngest son of a large family living in a remote colony called the Lovelace Community. His father had a gift for farming, which was brought to an end by the Depression. His mother picked guitar and showed the kind of forbearance that allowed her to name her son after the doctor who delivered him drunk and then had to be put to bed himself. And yet from these unprepossessing origins, in 1951 Phillips made what is widely considered to be the first rock ‘n’ roll record, Ike Turner and Jackie Brenston’s ‘Rocket 88’.

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