Mr. Phillips found old Johnny Cash and he was high
High before he ever took those pills and he's still too proud to die
Mr. Phillips never said anything behind nobody's back
Like "Dammit Elvis, don't he know, he ain't no Johnny Cash"
If Mr. Phillips was the only man that Jerry Lee still would call sir
Then I guess Mr. Phillips did all of Y'all about as good as you deserve
He did just what he said he was gonna do and the money came in sacks
New contracts and Carl Perkins' Cadillac
-- "Carl Perkins' Cadillac," Drive-By Truckers
Memphis was a song on the radio and they wanted some. They came to Sun Records to see Mr. Sam Phillips, and their wide eyes met his wild ones, their pleas fell on his cocked ear. They were young and dirt-poor and were not averse to a better life through song. It beat chopping cotton or driving a truck or whatever else they’d done to turn their dimes to dollars.
So out of Arkansas came Johnny Cash, sounding like doom looked. He had a voice of deep, swaggering sadness and wanted to sing gospel, but it was train tracks and prison bars instead. Jerry Lee Lewis, all piss and high test, strode up from Louisiana with a piano on his back, keys aflame just to show all those guitar players it didn’t have to be wood to burn. There were others from elsewhere ...
-- from "The Long Gone Daddies"
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