Sam Phillips the first investors in Holiday Inn, a motel chain that was about to expand to a nationwide franchise; he became involved with the chain shortly after selling Elvis Presley's contract to RCA, for $35,000, which he multiplied many times over the years with Holiday Inn. He also created two subsidiary recording labels, Phillips International Records and Holiday Inn Records. He owned the Sun Studio Café in Memphis. One location was in the Mall of Memphis. Phillips and his family founded Big River Broadcasting Corporation, which owns and operates several radio stations in the Florence, Alabama, area, including WQLT-FM, WSBM, and
Pal Recording Studio Episodes" (1996), and "Cucamonga" (1998). Paul Buff engineered the original demo recording of "Pipeline" by The Chantays and "Wipe Out" by The Surfaris using his unique custom built recording machine, which recorded 5 tracks on 1/2 inch recording tape. Buff went on to invent the Kepex, an acronym for KEyable Program EXpander (the opposite of an audio compressor). Paul Buff's Alison Research studio products became common on pop recordings (Alan Parsons would use a Kepexed drum sound to create the 'heartbeat' heard on Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon".) Other notable musicians/bands that recorded at Pal Recording Studio: