Sam Phillips, Born in Florence

Florence likes to call itself the birthplace of the inspiration that became rock and roll, and it has a good case. Samuel Cornelius Phillips was born here on the fifth of January, nineteen twenty-three, and grew up on his family's farm just outside town. As a boy he listened to the singing of Black laborers in the fields, and that sound stayed with him for life.

Phillips went on to Memphis and founded Sun Records and Sun Studio, where he recorded a young Elvis Presley, along with Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and Howlin' Wolf. He is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, and the Alabama Music Hall of Fame. He always said the music started here, in Florence.