History of the Great Plantation Inn...

Some pieces of history lost in time...bringing back the music and the legacy of the great, old Plantation Inn!

THE PLANTATION INN (1943 - 1965)

Jim Dickinson: Where Memphis Music Comes From

Newborn came from a musical family: his father, Phineas Newborn, Sr., was a blues musician and his younger brother, Calvin, a jazz guitarist. Phineas studied piano as well as trumpet, and tenor and baritone saxophone.

Before moving on to work with Lionel Hampton, Charles Mingus, and others, Newborn first played in an R&B band led by his father on drums, with his brother Calvin on guitar, Tuff Green on bass, Ben Branch and future Hi Records star Willie Mitchell. The group was the house band at the now famous Plantation Inn Club in West Memphis, Arkansas, from 1947 to 1951, and recorded as B. B. King's band on his first recordings in 1949, as well as the Sun Records sessions in 1950.[1] They left West Memphis in 1951 to tour with Jackie Brenston as the "Delta Cats" in support of the record "Rocket 88", recorded by Sam Phillips and considered by many to be the first ever rock & roll record (it was the first Billboard No. 1 record for Chess Records).[2]

In 1949, King began recording under contract with Los Angeles-based RPM Records. Many of his early recordings were produced by Sam Phillips who later founded Sun Records. ”My very first recordings [in 1949] were for a company out of Nashville called Bullet, the Bullet Record Transcription company,” King recalls. “I had horns that very first session. I had Phineas Newborn on piano; his father played drums, and his brother, Calvin, played guitar with me. I had Tuff Green on bass, Ben Branch, on tenor sax, his brother, Thomas Branch, on trumpet, and a lady trombone player. The Newborn family were the house band at the famous Plantation Inn in West Memphis.”

Each of these renowned Stax horn players holds a very special and illustrious place in the history of Stax Records. Wayne Jackson was an original member of the Royal Spades, a high school group that eventually morphed into the Mar-Keys at Stax. Floyd Newman was working with other soon-to-Stax icon Isaac Hayes in his own band at West Memphis’ famous Plantation Inn, while simultaneously attending Rust College in Holly Springs, Mississippi and working studio sessions as a member of the Mar-Keys. Both played on that band’s smash hit “Last Night” on Satellite Records before the company changed its nameto Stax.