But it’s rare that something can match your imagination to its fullest extent, and that happened with this book.”ĭivided into multiple sections - including a pair of label histories by Escott, documenting Phillips' ownership of the company and its later purchase by Nashville music entrepreneur Shelby Singleton - Guralnick takes on the task of exploring Sun through 70 different recordings.Īdding to that experience is a foreword by Jerry Lee Lewis, and contributions from Sam Phillips’ sons, Jerry Phillips, and the late Knox Phillips. “When you do a project like this where you don’t totally control it, you only hope it may come out a certain way - and it may or may not. “Karyn worked and worked and would not give up or say no or quit until she had found the right images, got the design that matched the subject,” says Guralnick. Guralnick credits the book’s editor, Karyn Gerhard, with pulling together the project’s various strands. Remembering The Killer: Jerry Lee Lewis: Fans, peers pay last respects at Mississippi funeral home Memphis music history: Inside look: How Sun Studio's music and magic have carried on for almost 70 years “Although we didn’t collaborate directly, just being able to help shape it jointly was wonderful.” “It was a great pleasure to work with Colin after knowing him all these years and drawing on so much of his work, and having so much respect for him,” says Guralnick, who also co-curated a massive Phillips retrospective at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville in 2015. “The Birth of Rock 'n' Roll: The Illustrated Story of Sun Records & the 70 Recordings that Changed the World” (Weldon Owen/Insight Editions) features the work of music history heavyweights Peter Guralnick and Colin Escott exploring Sun’s legacy, a foreword by recently departed Sun star Jerry Lee Lewis, an afterward by Phillips’ son Jerry Phillips, and more than 250 pages of fascinating stories, photos and ephemera.īetween them, Guralnick and Escott have documented Sun’s story authoritatively and entertainingly over the years: Escott with his 1991 label history, “Good Rockin' Tonight: Sun Records and the Birth of Rock 'n' Roll,” and Guralnick with his 2015 biography, “Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock 'n' Roll.” But this marks the first proper collaboration between the two esteemed music historians. Now, a new coffee table book looks back on Phillips’ achievement as part of Sun’s 70th anniversary.

The song would be the modest starting point in a remarkable odyssey for Phillips and his label, which would go onto launch the careers of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and Carl Perkins among others, as well as shape the history of rock 'n' roll and alter global culture forever.

In March of 1952, Sam Phillips put out the first release on Sun Records: “Drivin' Slow,” an instrumental by teenage saxophonist Johnny London. View Gallery: Sun Studio through the Years

Peter guralnick sam phillips