Sun Studio Way" and "It Wouldn't Be the Same Without You"—but again nothing came of it. Phillips, meanwhile, was always on the lookout for someone who could bring the sound of the black musicians on whom Sun focused to a broader audience. As Keisker reported, "Over and over I remember Sam saying, 'If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars.'" In June, he acquired a demo recording of a ballad, "Without You", that he thought might suit the teenaged singer. Presley came by the studio, but was unable
Sam Phillips the time the heart of the city's music scene. "I just fell totally in love," he later recalled. Phillips attended the former Coffee High School in Florence. He conducted the school band and had ambitions to be a criminal defense attorney. However, his father was bankrupted by the Great Depression and died in 1941, forcing Phillips to leave high school to look after his mother and aunt. To support the family he worked in a grocery store and then a funeral parlor. In 1942, Sam, 19, met Rebecca "Becky" Burns, 17, his future wife, while they were both working at