Dewey and Elvis

The Life and Times of a Rock ‘N’ Roll Deejay

Louis Cantor - author

University of Illinois Press

www.press.uillinois.edu

233 pages plus notes

Dewey Phillips was a Memphis disc jockey that is remembered for playing the first Elvis Presley record on the air and interviewing the unsuspecting singer. What most of us don’t know is the extent of Phillips impact on the Memphis music scene and the surrounding area through his celebrated radio show, Red Hot & Blue. Louis Cantor makes a convincing argument that without Dewey, the Elvis phenomenon may never have happened.

Phillips arrived in Memphis in 1942 at the age of sixteen. After majoring in music at college, Phillips started working for Grant’s Department store in the record section. In short order he commandeered the store’s PA system to broadcast his sales pitches to customers in the store and out on the street. Phillips was a natural salesman, selling so many records that management put him on commission in an effort to keep from leaving. What made Phillips unique was his passion for rhythm & blues records by black artists. He hung out in the clubs on Beale Street– a lone white man in a black district in the segregated South. It was there that Dewey learned what was hot, got to know the entertainers and was accepted by an entire community.

Once Phillips decided to try radio, he was a daily visitor to WHBQ, doing his best to sell management on the idea of putting him on the air. Fate intervened on his behalf. Station WDIA had gone to an all-black format in 1949, including deejays. The move allowed the station to capture a significant percentage of the growing affluent African American market. WDIA had ratings as high as 40% of the Memphis market while other stations had 10-12% ratings. Financially troubled WHBQ finally decided to air a show in response. After the initial efforts failed, the decision was made to hire untrained, totally inexperienced Dewey for the program. On October 10, 1949, Phillips was unleashed on the unsuspecting airwaves for the first time.

His style was a manic mix of passion for the music, snake-oil sales pitches and non-stop jiving that was totally unlike any other radio personality. The broadcast studio could barely withstand the nightly assaults as Phillips prowled the booth, assuming different voices for various “characters”, screaming into microphones, banging on whatever was nearby for sound effects. The station finally built a separate studio just for him in an effort to contain the damage. Cantor writes, “He was an island of insanity in an ocean of decorum and restraint.” And the show was a smash hit! Originally a 45 minute program, Red Hot & Blue was soon a three hour show, running from 8-11 p.m. in order to take advantage of the fact that competitor WDIA had to sign off at sundown each day.

Phillips was an immediate hit. Teenagers came to the station and hung out outside the booth. It helped that most people couldn’t tell if Dewey was white or black. Everyone loved the mix of music that he played nightly. To his credit, Dewey kept working hard to stay current on the latest new sounds. He frequented local record distributors, particularly those that supplied the jukebox vendors with records. He studied sales figures to spot a rising hit. When he heard a song the knocked him out, he would play several times in one show, telling listeners to go by the record and “…tell them Phillips sent ya’!”

One person that Dewey got to know was Sam Phillips, the legendary owner of Sun Records. Sam knew that getting Dewey to play a record almost guaranteed that it would be a hit. Soon Phillips would burn an acetate at a session, then run down the street and give the freshly cut platter to Phillips to play on his show. Everyone in the listening range would hear a brand new tune that couldn’t be purchased because the record had been pressed yet! If Dewey liked the record Phillips would go ahead and order a pressing. Unrelated by blood, the two became close as brothers and each contributed greatly to the other’s success.

The relationship led to that fateful evening when Elvis appeared in the studio after Dewy played “That’s All Right “, causing an unprecedented reaction from listeners. Sam Phillips had orders for six thousand copies of the record before he had a chance to press any records. Even Dewey was stunned at the number of calls and telegrams to the station asking to hear the record again and again.

Cantor makes the argument that without Dewey Phillips “priming the pump”, Elvis and Sun Records might never have had the chance to change the world. The author contends that the Red Hot & Blue program exposed a generation of listeners to a wide range of music, educating them to the exciting sounds of black musicians that they would normally not get to hear. Sam Phillips was always looking for the white man who sounded black. He found him in Presley. Dewey Phillips had created a listening audience that was ready for that big discovery.

The book does a fine job of describing the Memphis scene, Dewey’s ascent to the heights of popularity and the too-familiar fall from grace due to drugs and alcohol. It also makes a strong case for Daddy –O-Dewey getting more credit for his part in shaping the future of Rock ’N’ Roll. Dewey and Elvis is a fascinating read well worth your time.

A great companion piece to the book is a CD release on the Memphis Archive label titled Red Hot & Blue. The disc is 59 minutes of actual broadcast material from Dewey’s show from 1952-1964. I got my copy from Amazon and played it repeatedly while reading the book. It gives you the chance to hear Dewy in all of his glory – highly recommended as well!