Every music fan knows Sam Phillips as the man who gave Elvis Presley his start. Sam founded Sun Records in Memphis and made Elvis’s first records there in 1954 and 1955.
That’s the famous part. This story happens somewhere else entirely: at the Phillips family’s front door, long after most of Memphis had gone to bed.
It comes from Sam’s son, Knox Phillips. Knox grew up in Memphis and later became a record producer and engineer himself, good enough to be named to the Memphis Music Hall of Fame. So he had a front-row seat as a boy, and he never forgot it.
Knox told the Memphis Downtowner that his dad’s house got plenty of visits from musicians. One young singer stood out.
“Elvis came over to our house more than any of the other musicians,” he said.
Here’s Sam Phillips himself talking about Elvis, so you can hear the voice of the man whose home this story takes place in.
Sam Phillips talks about Elvis
Now about those visits. Elvis didn’t drop by at dinnertime.
“Most of the time, he’d come over after midnight, knock on the door,” Knox said. And Elvis usually had company. He’d “maybe have 12 or 15 people with him.”
Knox didn’t say who they were, and there’s no need to guess. The part that matters is the hour and the knock.
So it’s the middle of the night and a crowd is at the door. Plenty of parents would pretend to be asleep and hope they’d go away.
Becky Phillips didn’t. Sam’s wife opened the door and, as Knox remembers it, said, “Sure, come on in, Elvis!”
That was only the start. Becky didn’t keep the famous guest to herself. She went to wake up her sleeping boys, Knox and his brother Jerry.
Her question to them was the same simple one every time, the way Knox tells it: “Boys, Elvis is here. Do you want to get up?”
And the boys’ answer?
“Yep, probably so, Mom!”
Think about it from their side. One minute they’re sound asleep. The next, their mother is standing there telling them Elvis Presley is in the house.
Probably so. Two kids pulled out of bed to hang out with Elvis Presley, and they played it about as cool as two kids could.
Once they were up, the house came alive. Knox said they shot pool and played the pinball machine and talked with Elvis right there at home.
It’s a side of the Phillips family most people never think about, and Becky is right in the middle of it.
For more of Sam looking back on the young man who kept knocking on his door, this conversation with interviewer Stephen K. Peeples from October 1984 is worth your time.
Sam Phillips remembers Elvis in a 1984 interview
Knox didn’t say how many nights like this there were. He just said Elvis came over more than anybody else, and his mom kept opening the door.