"Daddy-O" Dewey Phillips (13 May 1926 - 28 September 1968) was one of rock 'n' roll's pioneering disk jockeys, along the lines of Cleveland's Alan Freed. Starting his radio career in 1949 on WHBQ-AM in Memphis, he was the city's leading radio personality for nine years and was the first to simulcast his "Red, Hot & Blue" show on radio and television. Nickname: The Forest City Motto: Progress and Prosperity Official website: www. ... Alan Freed (December 15, 1922 – January 20, 1965) was an American disc-jockey (DJ), who became internationally known for promoting African-American Rhythm and Blues (R&B) music on the radio in the United States and Europe under the name of Rock and Roll. ... Nickname: The River City, The Bluff City Motto: Official website: http://www. ...

Phillips' on-air persona was a speed-crazed hillbilly, with a frantic delivery and entertaining sense of humor. However, he also had a keen ear for music the listening public would enjoy, and he embraced both black and white music, which was abundant in post-World War II Memphis, a booming river city which attracted large numbers of rural blacks and whites (along with their musical traditions). He played a great deal of rhythm and blues, country music, boogie-woogie, and jazz as well as Sun Records artists. In July 1954, he was the first DJ to broadcast the young Elvis Presley's debut record, "That's All Right/Blue Moon Of Kentucky" (Sun 209), and got Presley to reveal his race in an interview by asking which high school the 19-year-old singer attended (knowing that, because of segregation, his audience would readily know what race attended which schools). Rhythm and blues (or R&B) was coined as a musical marketing term introduced in the United States in the late 1940s by Jerry Wexler at Billboard magazine, used to designate upbeat popular music performed by African American artists that combined jazz and blues. ... Country music, also called country and western music or country-western, is an amalgam of popular musical forms developed in the Southern United States, with roots in traditional folk music, Celtic Music, Blues, Gospel music, and Old-time music. ... Boogie woogie has two different meanings: a piano based music style, boogie woogie (music) a dance that imitates the rocknroll of the 50s, boogie woogie (dance) This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Jazz is an original American musical art form originating around the early 1920s in New Orleans, rooted in Western music technique and theory, and is marked by the profound cultural contributions of African Americans. ... Label of the fourth Sun Records Sun Records has been the name for four 20th century record labels. ... Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), also known as The King of Rock n Roll was an American singer, music producer and actor. ... Segregation means separation. ...

Though Phillips was not involved in the payola scandals of the time (as was Freed), he was fired in late 1958 when the station adopted a Top 40 format, phasing out his freeform style. He spent the last decade of his life working at smaller radio stations, seldom lasting long at any. A heavy drinker and longtime drug user (mainly painkillers and amphetamines, which contrbuted to his manic on-air behavior), Phillips died of heart failure at age 42. Amphetamine is a synthetic drug originally developed (and still used) as an appetite suppressant. ...

Reference:

Dewey and Elvis, by Louis Cantor

External links:

• http://www.rockabillyhall.com/DeweyPhillips.html

• http://www.geocities.com/shakin_stacks/deweyphillips.txt

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_The_Phillips_Records

• http://www.press.uillinois.edu/s05/cantor.html

• http://www.eindtijd.com/jongnws12.html

Category: Early 1950's rock and roll music.