Knox Phillips Sessions: The Unreleased Recordings [LP]

"Get the Killer down on tape right and we'll make millions," growls Jerry Lee Lewis at the beginning of The Knox Phillips Session. Jerry Lee proceeds to slide into an exceptionally sleazy version of Jim Croce's "Big Bad Leroy Brown," which he riddles with references to strippers and Watergate. He calls himself a motherhumper, he calls Nixon a motherhumper, but he doesn't hesitate to sing "shit," he sounds about five sheets to the wind and concludes the whole shambling thing by slurring "I have struck again with a 14-million-selling underground record." That's a pretty good tip-off to what The Knox Phillips Sessions are. Recorded by Knox Phillips, the son of Sun founder Sam, in either the mid- or late '70s -- roughly around the time Killer was concluding or had concluded his contract with Mercury -- it's hard to imagine there were ever commercial considerations for these sessions. They're too loose, Jerry Lee sounds too rough (which is just a kind way of saying he often sounds drunk), h