Over the years, The Kitchen Sisters have zeroed in on Memphis, Tennessee in a big way. The inspiration for that and the inspiration for some of our favorite stories is Knox Phillips.
Davia met Knox in 1997 in Memphis when she was doing casting for Francis Ford Coppola’s film The Rainmaker. She was on the set standing next to a guy. Cool hair, great smile. During the long set up between takes they started talking. About Memphis, about music, about radio. She told him about a new series we were starting to produce for NPR — Lost & Found Sound. Stories about sonic pioneers and people possessed by sound. The guy with the cool hair listens.
“Girl, I think you better come over to the house and meet my parents. My dad, Sam, started the Memphis Recording Service and Sun Records. He recorded Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Howlin’ Wolf.... When he sold Elvis’ contract he and my mother, Becky, used the money to start the first all-girl radio station in the nation, WHER: 1000 Beautiful Watts.”
Nikki was on a plane to Memphis the next day and we drove to the Phillips family house that night. Knox, Sam, Becky and Sam’s girlfriend Sally were all there and the stories started pouring out. We walked in at 7:00 and left after midnight, recording the whole time. Those interviews became the basis of some of the most groundbreaking Kitchen Sisters pieces.
Knox Phillips — producer, promoter of Memphis music, Keeper of his family's legacy, died in April 2020, right at the beginning of the pandemic, and never really got his due. His massive spirit, love and music live on.
Dissident Kitchens
Eleanor Coppola: Notes on a Life
The Romance and Sex Life of the Date
Parsi New Year—First Day of Spring
Buildings Speak: Stories of Pioneering Women Architects hosted by Frances McDormand
Black Chef, White House—African American Chefs in the President's Kitchen
The Mardi Gras Indians—Stories from New Orleans
230 - Architecture, Family Style – Sarah Harkness & Jean Fletcher
229 - The Pancake Years - For Lenny on Christmas Eve
Emily Dickinson's Hidden Kitchen—Black Cake
227 - Lou Reed's Tai Chi
226 - Kimchi Diplomacy—Hidden Kitchens: War & Peace and Food
Architect Anna Wagner Keichline: The Legacy of Invention
224 - Make Coffee Black Again
223 - Losing Lincoln
222 - Filmmaker Wim Wenders—The Entire Caboddle
221 - Lena Richard - America's Unknown Celebrity Chef
220 - Archiving the Underground — Hip Hop at Harvard & Cornell
219 - Edith Warner's Atomic Tea Room
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