Cecil Scaife

Biography

Cecil Scaife was an American American actor and record executive. He attended the University of Arkansas, and did his graduate study at Texas Christian University. Soon after graduation, he was off to Broadway. He started his career in the music business working at KFFA Radio in Arkansas. His work at Hi Records in Memphis won him the attention of Sam Phillips. After meeting Sam Phillips in the fall of 1958, he was hired as the first National Sales and Promotion Manager for Sun Records in Memphis. Phillips asked Scaife to manage WLIZ, his “all-girls” radio station (for which all the DJs were women) in Palm Beach, but the job did not last long. In 1961, Scaife moved to Nashville to help Sam Phillips create a studio in Nashville. In 1962, he founded the gospel label Songs of Faith. Within a few years, he had sold the label so that he could work at Columbia Records as an account executive. In April 1972, Scaife left Columbia to seek his own fortune. In 1974, he founded the independent record label Music Incorporated and bought back Songs of Faith from Bill Beasley. He worked in the Nashville music industry until his retirement in 1998.