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.
220 - Archiving the Underground — Hip Hop at Harvard & Cornell
219 - Edith Warner's Atomic Tea Room
218 - Remembering "The Day After Trinity - J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb"
217 - International Congress of Youth Voices—Youth on Fire
216 - Amaza Lee Meredith, African American Architect: Love & Home
215—Prince and the Technician
214 - The Passion of Chris Strachwitz 1931-2023 —Arhoolie Records
213 - Ada Louise Huxtable, Architecture Critic: The Art We Must Live With
212 - Tony Schwartz Centennial- 30,000 Recordings Later
211 - House/Full of Black Women
210-Ray Eames—Industrial Designer & Artist: Beauty in the Everyday
209 - Black Reconstruction in America - W.E.B. Du Bois' 1935 Groundbreaking / Myth-Busting Book
208 - Never a Man Spake Like This Man: The Black Preacher As Performing Artist
207 - The Golden Arches in Black America
206 - Curtis "Wall Street" Carroll - The Stock Market Wizard of San Quentin is Released!
205-Silent Echoes: Sound Artist Bill Fontana —The Bells of Notre Dame
204 - Library of Congress Acquires Kitchen Sisters' Audio Collection - KQED Forum Interview
203 - A San Quentin Wedding
202 — Harvesting Wild Rice—White Earth Ojibwe Land Recovery Project
201- From Nashville to Nairobi: A History of Country Western Music in Kenya
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Criminal
Ear Hustle
Song Exploder
The Truth
the memory palace