Memphis Shaken as Rock 'n' Roll Heart Is Stilled
He had been ailing for months, his friends all knew, but Sam Phillips's death on Wednesday still knocked the wind out of Memphis.
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He had set out in 1950 to record the great black musicians of the South: B. B. King, Howlin' Wolf, Joe Hill Louis and others. But when none of them could break into the mass market, said Peter Guralnick, the Elvis biographer and music writer, Mr. Phillips became convinced that "a white artist with a Negro sound and feel" could accomplish his purpose. "It was a secret assault on a racist system -- the realization of a true sense of democracy, something very much against the mores of the time and place they lived," Mr. Guralnick said.