Sam Phillips Fame, and in 2012 he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Memphis Music Hall of Fame. Phillips died of respiratory failure at St. Francis Hospital in Memphis, on July 30, 2003, only one day before the original Sun Studio was designated a National Historic Landmark, and just over a month before the death of former Sun Records recording star Johnny Cash, on September 12, 2003. Phillips is interred in the Memorial Park Cemetery in Memphis. Sam Phillips Samuel Cornelius Phillips (January 5, 1923 – July 30, 2003) was an American record producer who played an important role in
Sun Studio Rosco Gordon recorded there in the early 1950s. Rock and roll, country music, and rockabilly artists, including Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Charlie Feathers, Ray Harris, Warren Smith, Charlie Rich, and Jerry Lee Lewis, recorded there throughout the mid-to-late 1950s until the studio outgrew its Union Avenue location. Sam Phillips opened the larger Sam C. Phillips Recording Studio, better known as Phillips Recording, in 1959 to replace the older facility. Since Phillips had invested in the Holiday Inn Hotel chain earlier, he also recorded artists starting in 1963 on the label Holiday Inn Records for Kemmons Wilson.