Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock’n’Roll

Helen Hood Scheer, a CIFF “Someone to Watch” for 2008, is the associate producer of this insightful documentary on the life of kingmaker Sam Phillips. In SAM PHILLIPS: THE MAN WHO INVENTED ROCK'N'ROLL, director Morgan Neville explores the man behind the myth of Memphis's legendary music label, Sun Records. Billy Bob Thornton narrates as we start with Phillips' gig as a DJ in 1940s Alabama, a move on to groundbreaking radio station that programmed music by both white and black musicians, and travel through his heyday in the 50s. Started in 1952, Sun was largely a blues label until Phillips' discovery of Elvis Presley and rock & roll two years later. As a talent scout, record producer, and record company owner, Phillips' stable of singers eventually included Jerry Lee Lewis, B.B. King, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and Charlie Rich. Though he sold Sun in 1969, his “Sun Sound” became the foundation for rockabilly; and though he tended to embellish his own myth in his later years, he is fondly remembered here by those who knew him. Part of the first group to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, Sam Phillips' talent for nurturing unknown musicians contributed to America's modern cultural revolution. –B.B.