Sam Phillips an impromptu session featuring the four musicians. Phillips challenged the four to achieve gold record sales, offering a free Cadillac to the first, which Carl Perkins won. The contest is commemorated in a song by the Drive-By Truckers. By the mid-1960s, Phillips rarely recorded. He built a satellite studio and opened radio stations, but the studio declined, and he sold Sun Records to Shelby Singleton in 1969. In 1977 Sam's sons, Knox and Jerry, were working with John Prine at the Phillips Recording Studio when Sam Phillips joined them to oversee recordings that were eventually included on the album "Pink
Sam Phillips (musician) the name "Sam" professionally in 1988 when she left Myrrh Records and signed with Virgin Records in order to distance herself from her prior persona. With "The Indescribable Wow" Philips moved into mainstream music. The album featured the orchestrations of Van Dyke Parks. "Cruel Inventions" was released in 1991, and included a guest performance by Elvis Costello. 1994's "Martinis and Bikinis" was widely praised by music critics and was nominated for a Grammy Award; her second nomination (the first was as Leslie Phillips). In 1995, Phillips made her film acting debut as the mute terrorist Katya in the Bruce Willis