Critical Rock Theory

Long before ELVIS PRESLEY walked into his studio and changed his life—along with the rotation of the Earth and the direction of the universe—SAM PHILLIPS, the founder of SUN RECORDS, dreamed of finding a white singer who could mimic the sound of Black rhythm and blues. The story’s been told a million times and sounds apocryphal, but it isn’t. Phillips talked openly about it during Presley’s rise to fame (as documented, for example, by Presley’s definitive biographer, PETER GURALNICK).

Phillips’ vision is the microcosm of all rock and roll microcosms. It’s the perfect distillation of Western popular music’s lengthy history of white artists enriching themselves, and helping to build entire industries, by appropriating the sounds of Black ones, as embodied over and over by artists from Elvis and the ROLLING STONES, to the BEASTIE BOYS and EMINEM, to ED SHEERAN, who’s been playing his guitar for the past few days inside a New York courtroom where he stands accused of lifting a song by Black composers. I like Ed Sheeran and I’m not here to declare him actionably guilty. That particular case may or may not have legal merit. I’m here, rather, to declare him part of a very long tradition. And to tell you about BILLY “THE KID” EMERSON, a Black blues, rock and R&B pianist/singer/composer who was signed to Sun Records and who had Sam Phillips’ vision before Sam Phillips did.

“Sam always said if he could find a white singer who sounded Black, he’d make a million dollars,” Emerson told the Tampa Bay Times’ JEFF KLINKENBERG in 2014. “In fact, I TOLD HIM THAT, though he always took credit for it.”

The microcosm is its own microcosm. Time is a flat circle. You might not be sure whether you should believe Emerson, who was 88 when he told that story and 97 when he died last week in Tarpon Springs, Fla., the same city where he was born. But the history of popular music and Emerson’s own wild ride through a century of innovations, covers, appropriations and slights should be all the evidence you need.

Here's a reading list about a man whose most famous song, “RED HOT,” is far better known than he was, whose “WHEN IT RAINS IT POURS” was covered by Elvis, whose “IF LOVIN’ IS BELIEVING” was repurposed by BOB DYLAN, who worked in A&R at CHESS RECORDS side by side with WILLIE DIXON, who played with IKE TURNER and SONNY BOY WILLIAMSON, but who, to quote Klinkenberg, “had forgotten to stand in line when the luck was handed out”:

* Klinkenberg’s wonderful Tampa Bay Times feature, "The Second Coming of Billy the Kid," which Emerson initially wanted no part of. He had long abandoned secular music for a life of gospel and the church and spent a year telling the reporter to leave him and his old rock and roll life alone before agreeing to be interviewed. It chronicles his life story; the many people who wronged him, including Sam Phillips and that dream of his; the many others who benefited from his songs; some what-ifs; his church, and his mixed feelings about the very existence of gospel music, which he, not surprisingly, grew up on.

* Dylan blogger FRED BALS’ forensic essay about Dylan’s history with Emerson’s music and the parallels between his 2020 song “FALSE PROPHET” and Emerson’s Sun Records B-side “IF LOVIN’ IS BELIEVING.”

* Roots guitarist/composer DEKE DICKERSON’s brief account of his 2019 encounter with Emerson, who told him he “died, literally” in 1986 and, in Dickerson’s words, “lay in the morgue for three days with the cadavers until he was discovered, barely breathing.”

* TERENCE MCARDLE’s sympathetic Washington Post obituary.

This man’s story is red hot, and as wild as the contemporaneous rockabilly cover that simultaneously delivered his most well-known song to history and took it away from him. Every other story in today’s newsletter is, comparatively speaking, doodly-squat.

RIP.

Nom Nom Nom

RAUW ALEJANDRO, FEID and BAD BUNNY are the top nominees for PREMIOS TU MÚSICA URBANO, to be awarded in San Juan on June 15... SARA BAREILLES and JOSH GROBAN, stars of two STEPHEN SONDHEIM revivals, are among the nominees for the TONY AWARDS, along with the composers of the country-leaning musical SHUCKED (SHANE MCANALLY and BRANDY CLARK) and the K-pop flop KPOP (HELEN PARK and MAX VERNON). The musical SOME LIKE IT HOT has the most nominations, 13.

Rest in Peace

Editor and columnist IRV LICHTMAN, who spent two decades each at Cashbox and Billboard magazines. An expert in music publishing, he also served on the board of the Songwriters Hall of Fame... JORDAN BLAKE, original singer of the California post-hardcore band A Skylit Drive.