Thursday, May 14, 2009
Pop Culture Weird Came From Memphis
Posted by Chris Davis on Thu, May 14, 2009 at 11:27 PM
Weird that I missed this. Memphis' multiple inclusions on this list of crazy interviews is usually the sort of thing I catch for Fly on the Wall. Anyway, earlier this year Nerve.com made a list of the 20 weirdest celebrity interviews of all time and Memphis dominated with three completely bizarro chat segments. Two were in the top five, and one was produced locally and conducted by none other that iron weatherman and wrestling commentator Dave Brown. High five!
Sun Records' fuzzy-headed founder Sam Phillips owned the 19th position (could have been much higher up on the list IMO) for his wild-eyed, charmingly uncooperative 1986 turn on Late Night With David Letterman. Phillips, who'd just been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, described Letterman as “lucky” because not many people with buck teeth can make a million dollars.
According to Nerve, “Phillips set the template for the Joaquin Phoenix interview — looking and behaving like a Montana militiaman is the surest way to Dave's heart.”
Just as Phillips' ’50s-era recordings at Sun represent the Big Bang of Rock and Roll, King Jerry Lawler's F-bomb-spotted smackdown of conceptual comedian Andy Kaufman on Letterman's show represents the Big Bang of professional wrestling as a mainstream mega-entertainment. That trash-talking segment only earned a fifth place finish on Nerve's list though.
But you can't keep Jerry Lawler down. He also clawed his way into third place by taking part in a totally dada threeway conversation with Dave Brown, and Batman TV star Adam West. The interview — a promotion for a Memphis car show — found West dressed in his finest Bat-sweatsuit and sluring his Bat-speech. “There's hope for you yet,” says the terry-clothed crusader after scolding the King for calling his fans rednecks.
Lawler, looking and sounding a little like Larry the Cable Guy, wore a Superman costume to the interview.
So maybe this is all old news to those of you who are even geekier than I am. But if you haven't watched all 20 of these videos yet it's still an awesome waste of time.
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I love this footage of SP! and I actually remember seeing it not long after moving to Memphis from the ATL and wondering what the hell I was in for. Robert Gordon hooked me up with a copy years later...
I had the pleasure of talking with Sam Phillips before he passed, and he was just as nutty as seen in the video and was beyond-belief wonderful. I can't say enough about how grateful I am for the experience.
John Floyd, a former and very talented writer for the Flyer, did an oral history of Sun Records. I'm not sure it's still in print, but it is incredibly illuminating on what was going on at Sun.
I too had some brief encounters and that's about how I remember things. Nutty and wonderful. But Sam would usually tell you exactly how he altered history's mighty tide.
Somewhere--and I'm so afraid I've lost it-- there is a photo of Sam in a parade on Beale St. The float was a giant silver rocket that he straddled on a saddle near the base. It was outrageous. Sweetly obscene. And it's how I will always think of Sam Phillips... in all his fertile glory.
That was the Blues Ball Parade, circa 2003. He was riding the "Rocket 88." If anyone still has a photo of that, I would love to see it.
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