_I recently sat down and called up Jerry Phillips, who answered that afternoon from his home on the Tennessee River in Eastport, Mississippi, about a hundred miles outside of Memphis. “I’ve been working on some music at my house today and just waiting for your call,” he told me in his warm, laid-back drawl.

Jerry’s father was Sam Phillips, the legendary producer and founder of Sun Records who recorded Howlin’ Wolf, B. B. King, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and what many consider the first rock & roll record, “Rocket 88,” also the first song to feature guitar distortion.

From the time he was small, Jerry was his father’s production assistant, doing odd studio jobs alongside his brother Knox. The two stuck around the family business, eventually producing many of the popular Memphis bands of their generation, as well as John Prine’s 1979 rockabilly revival album Pink Cadillac. They also produced Jerry Lee Lewis’s infamous Knox Phillips Sessions, which boasts the wildest and rawest material the Killer ever put to tape.

In 1969, the same year producer Shelby Singleton purchased the Sun label from Sam Phillips, Jerry produced “Frank, This Is It” by Cliff Jackson & Jellean Delk with the Naturals, a tight, high-powered ensemble of local performers and studio guns. Together, they created one of the most thrilling, offbeat singles in the Sun Records catalog. The song is a kind of Mickey & Sylvia–style r&b duet, but with a twist.

It’s a one-sided conversation in which Delk is talk-singing, addressing a man named Frank (Jackson) and telling him in no uncertain terms: “Well, Frank, this is it. I’m through. I mean, like, I’ve had it. Five long, long miserable years… Cry, baby. Go on and cry.” And in response, he does cry, sniffling and wailing to a deep, grooving rhythm track and sharp boogie-woogie piano fills.

To find out more about the musical context that birthed such a song, I asked Jerry to take us through the early days of Sun, his performance and production philosophies, and “Frank”’s bizarre composition and recording history, involving a local preacher, an in-studio rewrite, and the song’s intense, sobbing overdubs.

Harris Wheless: Your father, Sam Phillips, founded and ran Sun Records and Memphis Recording Service. What was it like growing up around Sun?

Jerry Phillips: Well, my dad started in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, as a disc jockey and then he moved to Decatur, Alabama, then to Nashville, and then to Memphis—WREC. He opened the studio in 1950; he wanted to work with Black artists specifically. That’s what he really wanted to do. Because this is 1950, the segregated South, and he really didn’t think Black people were going to get a fair shake. And I was young. I was like two years old. My brother was three years older. But as I got a little older, we did go to the studio a lot, because we wanted to see our father. That’s where our mother would have to take us, to the studio. Because he was either working at WREC or he was working at the studio.

Do you have any particular memories of interactions with Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, or other people your father recorded?

I wasn’t around Elvis a lot in the 1954, “That’s all right, Mama” era. But I do remember [Elvis] bringing that record home and playing it for us and saying, “I think I found what I’ve been looking for.” After Elvis left Sun Records, [he] would come back and visit at night, but he could only come about 11:00, because at that time—say 1957, ’58, I was ten years old at that point—he was so famous he couldn’t be out where people could see him, because he would get mobbed.

And Jerry Lee Lewis, when he came over, he was completely different from Elvis. He was a really confident guy, one of the most confident that was ever on that label. Because he knew he was great and he told everybody he was great. Elvis and Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins and those guys, I think they thought they were good, but I don’t know that they thought they were great. Jerry Lee Lewis thought he was great, and then he was. He wasn’t lying about that.

Sam had a real nice house by this time because he was a real hot record producer. And he was in the middle of building his new studio on Madison, which opened in 1960. There was a piano in the living room, and everybody would gather around. Jerry Lee would play for a while. And then of course Elvis would come and he’d bring a guitar. And there was people like Charles Underwood, who was one of Sam’s engineers. He was a guitar player too. There was a lot of music that went on, and it was just real natural and laid-back and not anything contrived, just playing music for a love of playing music.

Are there any moments from that time that, looking back, had a significant impact on you musically?

I knew I wanted to play guitar and get good-looking girls. [Both laugh] That sounds stupid but it’s the truth. I’m not girl crazy. I’m not trying to say that. I’m just trying to say that, yeah, I wanted to be in the music business, for sure, because I was surrounded by it and witness to the effect it had on not just me but everybody. Elvis and those guys coming to my house, and my dad being in the music business and having the success that he had—there’s no doubt that that had an effect. I mean, this was great stuff, man. Rock & roll music was in the process of changing the world. And I was real close to the fire.

What records recorded at Sun in those early days would you say had the biggest influence on you?

“Blue Suede Shoes” by Carl Perkins was one that I loved. “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and “Great Balls of Fire” and all the Jerry Lee Lewis stuff. And, of course, of the Elvis stuff, the one that became the most influential was “That’s All Right.” The one that got everything started. But there were a lot of other songs in there. He had a song called “Blue Moon”—not “Blue Moon of Kentucky” but “Blue Moon”—which is an old song, which I really like. But it was all a conglomerate of what I thought were really great songs. Billy Riley, Sonny Burgess, people like that. I liked a lot of their stuff too.

You were in a group called the Jesters in the ’60s that recorded for Sun. Was that the first group you played in?

I played with a couple of other groups before that. A group called the Boogaloo Boys, or something to that effect. Those high school bands had some stupid names. A band called the Escapades. But the Jesters was the only band that did any recording of note at the studio. And it was a good band, man. There were some good players in there. Guy named Teddy Paige was a great guitar player. We were young, we were all teenagers. But that Jesters record, “Cadillac Man”—Jim Dickinson was involved in that. He came in and sang on “Cadillac Man” and “My Babe.” We heard it said that that “Cadillac Man” record was the last definitive Sun record that was recorded before [Sam Phillips] sold the label. That was a compliment.

When did you realize you were interested in producing?

My brother and I both grew up in the studio, and our first job was to keep the tape log. We’d be in there with this tape log, a piece of paper, for the session. And if, say, there was a false start on one of the songs, we’d put “false start.” We’d keep this log—like, three is pretty good, or four is a good cut. So when you went back to find the cut, you could go find which songs you said were the best. I got interested in producing early on, doing that.

I don’t know that I knew that what my father was doing was producing. I knew he was recording and engineering, but eventually I figured it out. In those days, a producer was the engineer and the producer. These days, the producer has to have an engineer, and the engineer has to have an assistant. It’s grown into a whole different thing.

What was the first record you ever produced?

“Frank, This Is It” was one of them.

That song is credited to Cliff Jackson and Jellean Delk with the Naturals. What can you tell us about the group who recorded that song?

There was a very popular preacher in Memphis called the Reverend Oris Mays. He had a TV show, and he had discovered Jellean Delk and Cliff Jackson’s band, the Naturals. I think Cliff and Jellean had the idea for the song, and Oris brought them into the studio to work with us. I think they came in with the idea: “Frank, this is it / Five long, miserable years.” I think the song itself was in a form, it just wasn’t the form that we wanted it to be. So all of us put our heads together—me, Teddy, and Oris—and came up with the final product. We finished writing it. Cliff Jackson played drums, Teddy Paige played guitar and piano. I don’t remember who played bass, but there’s a pretty good bass player on that song. Have you listened to it, with all the crying in the background and all that?

Yeah, I have.

Oris Mays originally did the crying, and he did a great job. But I think he just got an epiphany—that he was a real popular preacher, and I don’t think he thought he needed to be crying all the way through this record going, “Oh baby, don’t leave me.” Although I thought he did a great job, it made sense. None of us thought it was a good thing for him. Cliff said he would try to cry on it, and he cried great, but I think the Oris crying maybe had been better than his. But he did a great job on the thing. It’s a very unusual record. I haven’t heard anything like it since, and I’m proud of that.

How many takes did you have to do?

I don’t think we had a whole lot. We cut the drums, the guitar, and the bass, and then Teddy Paige overdubbed those high, tinkling piano parts. I don’t think we took fifty takes on it or anything. I think after two or three we probably had the track and we just needed to do a few overdubs. And then get Cliff to cry on it. That took a little bit of a try, to get the crying right. Because it had to feel right. It had to be dynamic in places and not so dynamic in others.

Do you remember the reaction to “Frank, This Is It” when it came out?

I know Shelby [Singleton, who purchased the label from Sam Phillips] and them liked it and I think it got us a lot of airplay up north, in Boston and New York and places like that. I remember that being an odd thing to me, because it sounded like a Southern record. But from what I understand it kind of took a hold up there. I have no idea how many records were sold or anything like that. I just know that it’s a classic. That’s all I know.

In 1969, your dad sold the Sun label. How did things change for you and for the Memphis music scene after that?

At that time, the major record companies were making it real hard on the independent label owners. They were buying record distributors and pretty much not distributing. I’m not saying this is across the board, but my father was seeing the handwriting on the wall. And so he just saw that for independent labels it was gonna be a tough row to hoe from that point on. And it really was. So I think he got out at the right time, got a lot of money for it, and just kind of relaxed for a while and got heavy off into radio. He bought his first radio station. I think he bought WQLT in 1972. Radio was his first love, anyway.

That time period—’69 through ’79, a ten-year period there—the independents were having to truly try to hang on. Stax Records was there, and there were some other independent, smaller labels around. Stax was the one that had a world-changing effect on music, and then there’s some other labels around that didn’t necessarily have a world-changing effect but they were putting records out and still independent. And I think Stax did alright during the ’70s, but they ended up selling to a big corporation. The majors were squeezing everybody.

Do you have any particular philosophy when it comes to producing?

My philosophy is everybody gets into a room and all play together at the same time. I don’t mean string players, horn players, all that stuff—you can’t do everything at once unless all you’re doing is a rhythm track and a lead vocalist. I’m a big believer in singing it while you’re tracking it, because then the vocalist is part of the band. And the players feel that. I know on [my new solo record For The Universe], my emotions changed as I was singing, and it affects the players. It does.

My dad and I were at a party one night and a band manager came up to my father and said, “Mr. Phillips”—we had been drinking a little bit—“Mr. Phillips, what’s the secret of rock & roll?” And he said, “Well, son,” and he looks him dead in the eyes, “Well, son, you gotta reach way down deep inside yourself and pull it out of your asshole.” And I thought right then, there you go. Now we’re talking, because if you leave anything inside yourself, it don’t need to be left in there. You need to go get it and pull it out. Kind of a crude way to say it, but I think it makes the point.

I guess what I’m saying is: Just go get it. Give me what you got. Don’t sound like anybody else. We’re not trying to copy anybody. We’re not trying to sound like anybody. We’re not trying to do that. We’re just trying to get a record of you. The sound of you.

What was it like producing John Prine?

Man, he was great. He was absolutely fantastic. He didn’t like to start till late. We would go eat at like seven o’clock and then go start at the studio about ten at night. And we wouldn’t quit till daylight.

Is there anything you can tell me about the direction you and your brother might have given him, or whether he came in with particular ideas about the sound he wanted?

On this particular record [Pink Cadillac], he had songs already. And this was the first record, I think, that he had cut with his band, not hired guns, studio players. And so he was ready to go off into a little bit different direction. He had a really great band, fine players. And we just kind of let John go. Of course we gave him some instructions and stuff, but that was kind of our philosophy on producing: Let the artist be the artist. He had good songs, you know. John Prine was a great songwriter. So there really wasn’t any, “Nah, we don’t like that song much.” It was just a matter of picking out the ones we thought we liked the best. But they were all good. He’s as good a songwriter as Bob Dylan. He’s in that bag.

Let’s talk a little bit about your recent debut album, For the Universe. When did you start writing your own material?

I’ve been writing songs for long as I can remember. I wrote back with the Jesters. About ten years ago, I got really serious about writing. I wrote one with Dale Watson and one with James LeBlanc, but me and Jim Whitehead, my co-writer who wrote half the songs on this album, started writing once a week. We’d both been in the music business and were sick of it. So we said, Let’s just write and have a good time. It was really inspirational. We wrote once a week for about two years. And we came up with all these songs, and I’ve still got a lot more that I’m going to record, if it calls for a second album. It’s just a natural thing, if you’re a musician, to write a song. To really buckle down and get to work is a different thing. But we did.

None of those songs would have gotten on [For the Universe] had they not had feel to them. The musicians we picked, we knew that they would be great players for this album. And we just wanted them to give us themselves—their feeling, their thing. And the guys all really liked the songs. It was fresh, new stuff they’d never heard before. Their licks, they’d never played before. They just dug in, man. They played their hearts out. They were on the edge of the limb, about to fall off, when they were playing. Like when I’m singing [“Specify”] and I say, “Take it, John Paul Keith,” he didn’t know what he was going to play. So he had to pull it out of his asshole. He was really, really trying hard to do something great. That’s what I was after.

And I was in there too. Like I said, I sang live, which I think makes a huge difference, when you’re part of the band instead of an accessory after the crime. So I think that’s what it is. It’s just feel. I think the songs are good, to start with, and I think the universe helped me, I really do. I mean, that sounds ridiculous I guess, but I think it was meant to be. Some things you just can’t hold down. You couldn’t hold Elvis Presley down.

Who would you say are your biggest influences in terms of songwriting and performing?

Well, you know, I have a lot of Carl Perkins in me, as far as performance-level stuff goes, or phrasing. On “Number One Girl”—“Listen up a-honey, ’cause you’re still…”—that’s a Jerry Lee type of thing. I guess it was because I’ve been around Jerry Lee Lewis, but I was not trying to sound rockabilly or trying to sound like anybody. I was trying to sound like me, which my dad beat into my head. You don’t want to sound like anybody else. I don’t think I did, but I mean, there’s so many: John Prine was an influence, Bob Dylan was an influence, Kris Kristofferson was an influence. I mean, hell, Jim Dickinson was an influence. Billy Lee Riley was an influence. All those guys writing songs around Sun, everybody that’s ever written a good song.

The other day I was listening to [George Jones’s] “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” and I was thinking, What a great song. Sam always used to say to [Johnny Cash], “John, you met the song and the song’s met you.” George Jones met that song and that song met George Jones, and it was a perfect match. And it was a well-written song. How much deeper can you get than he stopped loving her today ’cause he’s fucking dead?

“Frank, This Is It” is Track 9 on the Memphis Music Issue LP. Click here for full song credits and liner notes.