An 18-year-old Elvis Presley had a keen interest in music. In Memphis, he embraced both blues and country influences, had ambitions to join a gospel group, and was particularly keen to join The Blackwood Brothers.
On July 18, 1953, Elvis entered the Memphis Recording Service at the Sun Studio, now commonly known as Sun Records, on the pretext of making a record for his mother’s birthday. Commentators suggest that Elvis wanted to hear himself or be discovered. Marion Keisker, the receptionist that day, asked Elvis what kind of singer he was. “I sing all kinds”, was Elvis’s response. When she asked who he sounded like, he famously responded with “I don’t sound like nobody.”
He recorded “My Happiness” and “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin” and left the studio with a two-sided acetate. After completing the short session, Sam Phillips, the studio owner, asked Marion to note his name. As she did, Marion added the note “Good ballad singer.”
Sam Phillips was known for recording Black artists, including B. B. King, Rufus Thomas, and Howlin’ Wolf. His dream was to find a white singer who had the Black sound and the Black feel, and associates often quoted Sam as saying that if he could do that, he could make a billion dollars.
In May 1954, Sam acquired a demo of a song called “Without You”, which he was interested in recording, but could not trace the vocalist. Marion reminded him of Elvis, and Sam asked Marion to call Elvis. The session that followed did not produce a satisfactory result, but Sam did ask Elvis to run through other material that he knew. At this point, Sam put him in touch with guitarist Winfield “Scotty” Moore and bassist Bill Black, asking the three of them to produce something that he could record.
They went back to Sun on July 5, 1954. It was a long, sweltering day, and nothing sounded right. The group and Sam were about to give up, as it was late at night by then. Elvis started picking out the blues number by Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, “That’s All Right”, by himself, just toying with the song during a break before deciding whether to go home. Scotty and Bill noticed what Elvis was doing and started backing him up, randomly creating a rhythm, and just fooling around. Sam had left the control room door open and interrupted them by asking what they were doing. They did not know, so Sam told them, “Well, back up, try and find a place to start and do it again.”
In the next few minutes, history was made. Sam realised he had found what he was looking for. Within days, the recording was played on Dewey Phillips’ “Red Hot and Blue” radio show. Listeners called in wanting to know who the singer was, and the song was played repeatedly. Sam got the trio back in the studio, and they recorded “Blue Moon of Kentucky”; now, Sam had a single that could be released.
Word spread quickly around the south and before long Elvis was performing live, getting regular slots on the “Louisiana Hayride” radio programme and even the “Grand Ole Opry”, although the latter was a little too conservative to appreciate the raw Elvis, with his fusion of black rhythm ‘n’ blues and country music.
