TeachRock

1. Play Clip 1, Soundbreaking – What Does a Producer Do? Have your students watch the clip and take notes on the possible roles played by producers. Ask your students:
   • Based on what you just heard, what do you think a producer does?
   • In what ways do you think a producer might be important to an artist who is recording an album? (Encourage your students to consider the value of an outside perspective.)
   • Can you think of anyone in your life that plays a role similar to that of a “producer”? How might you benefit from that person’s assistance? (Students may name a friend, teacher, counselor, coach, parent, etc. This person could help them edit a paper, improve an athletic or music ability, gain perspective on an issue, etc.)

1. Play Clip 2, Soundbreaking – Sam Phillips and Sun Records. Ask your students:
   • How do the speakers characterize Phillips’ role at Sun Records? What were his goals?
   • How might an artist exemplify the “individualism in the extreme” that Phillips was reportedly seeking? Can you think of any modern artists that might represent “individualism in the extreme”? Why does that matter?
   • Why do you think Phillips stressed his intentions to get “black folks” into his studio?
2. Distribute Handout 1: Sam Phillips. Have students read the paragraphs out loud. Then look at the map and population data on the second page of the handout. Ask your students:
   • What do you notice about the population of Memphis in each decade of the census data shown here?
   • Is there anything you see on this map that might have made Memphis an obvious choice or an easy place to relocate to? (Students may notice that Memphis is encircled by highways; from this zoomed-out perspective, it looks as if “all roads lead to Memphis.”)
3. Inform students that according to 1950 census data, the population of Memphis was 37% “non-white” (the only census categories at the time were “white” and “non-white”) and the majority of that 37% percent was African-American. Much of the transplanted population had arrived in Memphis from rural areas in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Texas. Explain to your students that both Sam Phillips and many of the black musicians he recorded in the 1950s came to Memphis from rural farming communities in the surrounding states.
4. Break your students into small groups for the Galley Walk of the Rural and Urban South circa 1950 activiy. Distribute Handout 2: Gallery Walk Discussion Questions. Have each group name a “scribe” who will record their answers to the questions as they take the Gallery Walk. After students have visited the Gallery Walk Stations 1 – Attire, 2 – Labor, 3 – Food & 4 – Socialization with their groups, discuss each station and the following questions as a class. Ask your students:
   • What do you think it was about the “urban” that attracted so many young people, both white and black? (Students may suggest from the photos that opportunity, fun, urban sophistication, the availability of goods, places to stay, and, for blacks in particular, areas that had black-owned businesses were all attractive.)
   • Thinking about the “urban” images you saw in the Gallery Walk, why do you think Marty Stuart characterized the 1950s Memphis as a “black cat’s town”? (Explain to your students that Memphis, compared to other Southern cities, was uncharacteristically open to African-American owned businesses throughout the early 20th century. Beale Street was a hub of African-American life with stores, restaurants, nightlife, recording studios, etc, and Blacks were welcome to walk through the front door. African-Americans were able to express themselves openly on Beale Street.)
5. Elvis, like Sam Phillips, moved to Memphis and was drawn to black life there at a time when the reach of segregation extended even to the Billboard record sales charts. The “Rhythm & Blues” chart represented “black” music separate from the main “Top Singles” charts. There are no songs from 1954 that appear in the top spots of both charts. Now Play Clip 3, Soundbreaking – Sam Phillips, Elvis Presley and ‘Crossover’ Success and ask your students:
   • What is it that Phillips was so sure Elvis “could do” as an artist? What was Phillips hoping Elvis would accomplish? (Students may suggest that Phillips heard that Elvis was able to channel the sound and energy of “black” Rhythm and Blues music. He hoped that he could record Elvis and bring the sound of Black music to White listeners.)
   • Thinking back to what we’ve learned about the role of a “producer” in this lesson, how did Phillips “produce” Elvis? (Students may recall the idea of “guidance” from a producer; Phillips heard him goofing around with a song by African-American blues musician Arthur Crudup and shifted the focus of the recording session, encouraging Presley to record “That’s All Right” instead of the other material they had planned to record.)
   • Why do you think we hear “That’s All Right” referred to as a “magic moment” and that through the recording of the song Phillips “freed the soul” of Elvis Presley? (The song represents a first step in the coming together of black and white music styles in the mainstream U.S. music market. Elvis was also familiar with and drawn to the African-American music of Memphis but had not thought, or been bold enough, to attempt to perform it. Phillips encouraged Elvis to embrace the sounds he loved rather than perform in a manner he thought was expected of him.)
   • Based on what you know about Sam Phillips, why was he an ideal producer for the young Elvis Presley?

Instruct your students to recall the images of people they saw in the Gallery Walk and ask:

• In what ways could the recording sessions which produced “That’s All Right” represent Memphis and urbanization in the South at this time? (Students may notice that the song is a product of cultural convergence. Phillips and Presley lived in close proximity to African Americans, loved and respected black music, and rejected the idea that segregation applied to music.)
• In what ways did Sam Phillips use his position as a music producer to produce a cultural connection that extends far beyond a song? (It might be valuable to share author Peter Guralnick’s feelings about Phillips here: “His vision from the very beginning was that music, and specifically African-American music, could conquer all of the prejudice, all of the race prejudice, the class prejudice, the divisions, the categories into which music — like everything else in American life — was divided.”)
• In what ways might Sam Phillips’ decisions as a producer have had a positive impact on American race politics?

Sam Phillips was a proponent of integration and racial equality in the American South at a time when such a position was unpopular or even dangerous. Moreover, he acted on his beliefs, not just recording and producing black artists, but advocating on behalf of their work. Phillips came from a low-income family, lost his father when he was a teenager, and had to support his mother and siblings. Despite the challenges, Phillips finally succeeded. In many ways, Phillips’ life and career represent what many have called the “American Dream.”

Yet, however hard Phillips had to work, he had one constant benefit, especially in the American South during segregation: he was white. Imagine Phillips in a similar position as a young man, but as an African-American young man. Have your students recall the images displayed during the Gallery Walk, the discussions of music and race throughout the lesson and consider the following questions:

• Phillips took out bank loans to open his recording studio. Do you think a 27-year old African-American in Memphis have been approved for a business loan in 1950? How would a young African-American have gathered or saved the money necessary to open a studio?
• Before opening a studio, Phillips learned about music technology by working at a radio station. Do you think a young black man in 1945 would have had this opportunity? (It would have been less likely, though it did happen at times.)
• Presley used Arthur Crudup’s song and elements of African-American performance style to reach a large White audience, what do you think Crudup could have done to reach the same audience? Do you think it would have been possible? (Perhaps, but there were many obstacles. For instance, because Elvis sounded so “black” on record, in one early interview he was asked what high school he attended as a way to establish that he was white.)