Phillips was born Dec. 2, 1929, in rural Missouri and attended school in tiny Marionville. His parents couldn’t afford to buy him a musical instrument, but he joined the high school band, playing the school-owned sousaphone. After graduation, Phillips spent nine weeks with the King Brothers Circus Band and one semester at the University of Missouri before being asked to join the Ringling Brothers Barnum Bailey Circus Band.

He left that circus band in 1950 to study at the Juilliard School of Music at the invitation of New York Philharmonic Orchestra tubist William Bell.