Today, Jerry Phillips, the son of Sam Phillips (producer, disc jockey, and founder of the legendary studio and record label Sun Records), released his debut album For The Universe through Omnivore Recordings. For many of us, the stories of Sun Records are legend, but for Jerry, they were his family. As a child, he was surrounded by the stars who made the music that became the foundation of rock & roll; Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins. While we may listen to rock and roll music, Jerry was baptized in it.
For The Universe is a ten track tour-de-force ranging from full-tilt rockers to slow-burning country soul, all rife with chord changes that bring the listener a smile of comfortable familiarity while simultaneously tugging at the heart strings. It was produced by Halley Phillips and Scott Bomar (The Bo-Keys) at the iconic Sam Phillips Recording in Memphis.
Jerry's made plenty of records. With his band the Jesters he recorded "Cadillac Man" for Sun Records, a highlight of the original label's final years. He's also produced, including soul music for Stax as well as one of John Prine's greatest, Pink Cadillac, produced with his brother Knox.
But sometimes it takes a lifetime to get to your own album. With For The Universe, Jerry invites you to sidle up to the bar on the third floor of the Sam Phillips Recording Service, the namesake studio that his father built in the wake of his Sun Records success with Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis. This is the studio that he recently refurbished, keeping Sam's design intact and enhancing the control room's technology, grit and funk. At the bar, he points out where the original Formica still has just one cigarette burn scar on it—Johnny Cash, early 1960s.
The myriad of stars that aligned to create For The Universe have been orbiting the rarified atmosphere of the studio since its doors opened in 1960. The fact that it took 64 years for those stars to fully align is more a testament to Jerry’s own unwavering path than it is being the son of the man who unleashed rock ’n’ roll on the world.
The final piece of the puzzle fell into place when the studio acquired the original Spectra Sonics console from Stax Studio B, which had captured soul classics like Rufus Thomas’ “The Funky Chicken” and much of the Isaac Hayes catalog. “Jerry said, ‘I want to be the first person to record on the Stax console at Phillips.’ I said, ‘I think you should be.’” When it came time for the “shakedown session,” Album co-producer Scott Bomar remembers, “we liked the results and that was the beginning of the record. Jerry’s recording method was a window into what it was probably like recording at Sun — very live, off-the-cuff, and unrehearsed. It all had a real spontaneous feel and spirit.”
As soulful and southern as it is singularly spontaneous, For The Universe, like Jerry Phillips himself, brings to mind a quote from Muscle Shoals country soul songwriter Dan Penn. “Somebody asked Dan one day, ‘How would you describe the Memphis sound?’ And he said, ‘Well, we just don’t let anybody tell us what to do.’ And that’s it!”
Watch the trailer: https://youtu.be/pzFAIgDYw9o
Order For The Universe: www.omnivorerecordings.com/shop/for-the-universe
For The Universe tracklist:
1. Number One Girl
2. Treat Her Like She Was Mine
3. She Let Me Slip Right Through Her Fingers
4. Black Widow Eyes
5. I Like Everything I See
6. That’s All Right
7. Good Side, Bad Side, Side Of Crazy Too
8. 24:6 Not 7
9. New Pair Of Everything
10. Specify
