First recordings Sun Records 53-55

In August 1953, Presley walked into the offices of Sun Records.   He aimed to pay for a few minutes of studio time to record a two-sided acetate disc: "My Happiness" and "That's When Your Heartaches Begin".    He would later claim he intended the record as a gift for his mother, or was merely interested in what he "sounded like", though there was a much cheaper, amateur record-making service at a nearby general store.    Biographer Peter Guralnick argues that he chose Sun with the hope of being discovered.    Asked by receptionist Marion Keisker what kind of singer he was, Presley responded, "I sing all kinds."    When she pressed him on whom he sounded like, he repeatedly answered, "I don't sound like nobody."    After he recorded, Sun boss Sam Phillips asked Keisker to note down the young man's name, which she did along with her own commentary: "Good ballad singer. Hold."    Presley cut a second acetate a few months later, in January 1954—"I'll Never Stand In Your Way" and "It Wouldn't Be The Same Without You"—but again nothing came of the recording session.

Not long after, he auditioned for a local vocal quartet, the Songfellows: rejected by the group, he explained to his father, "They told me I couldn't sing." Songfellow Jim Hamill later claimed that Elvis was turned down because he did not demonstrate an ear for harmony at the time.    In April, Presley began working for the Crown Electric company as a truck driver.    His friend Ronnie Smith, after playing a few local gigs with him, suggested he contact Eddie Bond, who was leader of Smith's professional band and was looking for a singer. This Presley did, and he was given a tryout session at the Hi Hat club on May 15.    Bond rejected him after the first session, advising Presley to stick to truck driving "because you're never going to make it as a singer."    Phillips, meanwhile, was always on the lookout for someone who could bring the sound of the black musicians on whom Sun focused to a broader audience. As Keisker reported, "Over and over I remember Sam saying, 'If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars'".    When he acquired a demo recording of "Without You" and was unable to identify the vocalist, she reminded him about the teenaged singer.    She called Presley on June 26.    However, Presley was not able to do justice to the song.    Despite this, Phillips asked Presley to sing as many songs as he knew and, impressed enough by what he heard, he invited two local musicians, guitarist Winfield "Scotty" Moore and upright bass player Bill Black, to audition Presley.   Though they were not greatly impressed, they asked him to attend a studio session the following evening.

The session proved almost entirely unfruitful, but late in the evening, as they were about give up and go home, Presley launched into a 1946 blues number, Arthur Crudup's "That's All Right". Moore recalled, "All of a sudden, Elvis just started singing this song, jumping around and acting the fool, and then Bill picked up his bass, and he started acting the fool, too, and I started playing with them.    Sam, I think, had the door to the control booth open ... he stuck his head out and said, 'What are you doing?'    And we said, 'We don't know.' '   Well, back up,' he said, 'try to find a place to start, and do it again.'"    Phillips quickly began taping; this was the sound he had been looking for.    Three days later, popular Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips played "That's All Right" on his Red, Hot, and Blue show.      Listeners began phoning in, eager to find out who the singer was.     The interest was such that Phillips played the record repeatedly during the last two hours of his show. Interviewing Presley on-air, Phillips asked him what high school he attended in order to clarify his color for the many callers who had assumed he was black.    During the next few days the trio recorded a bluegrass number, Bill Monroe's "Blue Moon of Kentucky", again in a distinctive style and employing a jury-rigged echo effect that Sam Phillips dubbed "slapback".    A single was pressed with "That's All Right" on the A side and "Blue Moon of Kentucky" on the flip.

Moore became Presley's official manager on July 12 and, along with Black, began playing regularly with him.    At the Bon Air, a rowdy music club in Memphis, the trio gave brief performances on July 17 and July 24 to promote the Sun single.    On July 30 they made their first paid appearance at the Overton Park Shell, with Slim Whitman headlining.    A combination of his strong response to rhythm and nervousness at playing before a large crowd led Presley to shake his legs as he performed: his wide-cut pants emphasized his movements, causing young women in the audience to start screaming.    Moore recalled, "During the instrumental parts he would back off from the mike and be playing and shaking, and the crowd would just go wild".    Black, a natural showman, whooped and rode his bass, hitting double licks that Presley would later remember as "really a wild sound, like a jungle drum or something".

Soon after the trio's first show, DJ and promoter Bob Neal became their new manager and Moore and Black left their old band, the Starlite Wranglers.    From August through October, the group played frequently at the Eagle's Nest club and returned to Sun Studio for more recording sessions.    Presley's stage presence quickly grew more focused and confident.    According to Moore, "His movement was a natural thing, but he was also very conscious of what got a reaction.    He'd do something one time and then he would expand on it real quick."    Presley made his lone appearance on Nashville's Grand Ole Opry on October 2.    Performing "Blue Moon of Kentucky", he drew only a mild response.    Tillman Franks, talent coordinator for Louisiana Hayride, called Phillips to ask if he could book "that black boy with the funny name."    The show, broadcast out of Shreveport to 190 radio stations in 13 states, took place on October 16.    During Presley's first set, the reaction was muted; before the second began, Franks advised Presley, "Let it all go!"    He and his bandmates did, inspiring shouts and applause from the crowd. House drummer D.J. Fontana brought a new
element to the sound, complementing Presley's movements with accented beats that he had mastered playing in strip clubs.    In November, Presley signed a contract for a year's worth of appearances on the Hayride, every Saturday night.    Between their Shreveport and Memphis gigs, his trio began playing regularly in new locales such as Houston, Texas, and Texarkana, Arkansas.

In early January 1955, Neal signed a formal management deal with Presley.    Neal at the time was establishing a connection with "Colonel" Tom Parker, whom he considered the best promoter in the music business. Parker—Dutch-born, though he claimed to be from West Virginia—had successfully managed top country star Eddy Arnold.    In 1948, he had arranged to acquire an honorary colonel's commission from country singer turned Louisiana governer Jimmie Davis.    He was now managing the new number-one country star, Hank Snow, with whom he was partners in a booking agency.    In late January, Parker booked Presley on the Hank Snow Tour for a stretch the following month. Presley, via his regular Hayride appearances, constant touring, and well-received record releases, was already a substantial regional star, from Tennessee to West Texas.    Phillips, though he clashed personally with Parker, shared Neal's assessment of him as a promoter and felt the need for someone who could bring Presley the sort of national attention that now seemed within reach.    At the same time, he was aware that Sun's limited distribution capacity meant that his own ongoing involvement was threatened by Parker's relationship with the much bigger RCA Victor label.

When Snow's tour reached Odessa, Texas, in February, a nineteen-year-old Roy Orbison saw Presley for the first time: "His energy was incredible, his instinct was just amazing. ... I just didn’t know what to make of it.    There was just no reference point in the culture to compare it."    Presley made his television debut on March 3 on the KSLA-TV broadcast of Louisiana Hayride.    Later that month, he failed an audition for Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, which aired nationally on CBS.    By August, Sun had released ten sides credited to "Elvis Presley, Scotty and Bill"; on the most recently recorded ones, the trio were joined by a drummer. Some of the songs, like "That's All Right", were in what one Memphis journalist described as the "R&B idiom of negro field jazz"; others, like "Blue Moon of Kentucky", were "more in the country field", "but there was a curious blending of the two different musics in both".    This was the blend that came to be known as rockabilly.    At the time, Presley was variously billed and labeled in the media as "The King of Western Bop", "The Hillbilly Cat", and "The Memphis Flash".

Presley renewed Neal's management contract on August 15, 1955, simultaneously appointing Parker as his special adviser on a one-year renewable deal.    The group maintained an extensive touring schedule throughout the second half of the year.    Neal recalled, "it was almost frightening, the reaction that came to Elvis from the teenaged boys.    So many of them, through some sort of jealousy, would practically hate him.    There were occasions in some towns in Texas when we'd have to be sure to have a police guard because somebody'd always try to take a crack at him.    They'd get a gang and try to waylay him or something."    The band had grown: drummer D.J. Fontana, whom the band was familiar with from their many Hayride appearances, joined as a full member.    In mid-October, they played a few shows in support of Bill Haley, whose "Rock Around the Clock" had been a number one hit the previous year.    Presley was thrilled to share a bill with such a major star. Haley observed that Presley had a natural feel for rhythm, and advised him to sing fewer ballads if he wanted to wow the crowds.

Several record companies had shown interest in signing Presley and, by the end of October, three major labels had made offers of up to $25,000.    On November 21, Parker and Phillips negotiated a deal with RCA Victor to acquire Presley's Sun contract for an unprecedented $40,000, $5,000 of which was a bonus for the singer for back royalties owed to him by Sun Records.    Presley, at 20, was still a minor, so his father had to sign the contract.    Parker also cut a deal with Hill and Range Publishing Company to create two separate entities, Elvis Presley Music and Gladys Music, to handle all of Presley's songs and accrued royalties.    The owners of Hill and Range, brothers Julian and Jean Aberbach, agreed to split the publishing and royalties rights of each song equally with Presley. Hill and Range, Presley, or Parker's partners then had to convince unsecured songwriters that it was worthwhile for them to give up one third of their due royalties in exchange for the kudos of having their compositions recorded by Presley.    One result of these dealings was that Presley was given credit as cowriter on several songs where he had no hand in the writing process.    By December, RCA had begun to heavily promote its new singer, and before month's end had reissued many of his Sun recordings.

 

Teenager in Memphis

In November 1948, the family moved to Memphis, Tennessee. After residing for nearly a year in rooming houses, they gained admission to a two-bedroom apartment in the city-run public housing complex known as the Courts.    Presley was enrolled at Humes High School, where he received a C in music in eighth grade.    When his music teacher told him he couldn't sing, he brought his guitar to class the next day and sang a recent hit, "Keep Them Cold Icy Fingers Off Me" in an effort to prove otherwise. Classmate Katie Mae Shook recalled that the teacher "agreed that Elvis was right when he said that she didn't appreciate his kind of singing."    That incident aside, he was generally perceived as too shy to perform openly.    He was occasionally bullied by classmates who viewed him as a "mama's boy".    Sometime in 1950, Presley began practicing guitar regularly in the laundry room under the family apartment.    His tutor was Jesse Lee Denson, a neighbor two-and-a-half years his senior.    They and three other boys—including two future rockabilly pioneers, brothers Dorsey and Johnny Burnette—formed a loose musical collective that played frequently around the Courts.    That September, Presley began ushering at Loew's State Theater to boost the family income, but his mother made him quit as she feared it was affecting his school work.    Other jobs followed during his school years: Precision Tool, Loew's again, MARL Metal Products.

During his junior year, he began to stand out more among his classmates, largely because of his appearance: he grew out his sideburns and styled his hair with rose oil and Vaseline.    On his own time, he would head down to Beale Street, the heart of Memphis's thriving blues scene, and gaze longingly at the wild, flashy clothes in the windows of Lansky Brothers.    By his senior year, he was wearing them.    Overcoming his reticence about performing outside the Courts, he competed in Humes's "Annual Minstrel" show in April 1953.    Singing and playing guitar, he opened with Teresa Brewer's "Till I Waltz Again With You".    The performance seems to have done much for his popularity at school.

Presley, who never received formal music training or learned to read music, studied and played by ear.   He frequented record stores with jukeboxes and listening booths.    He knew all of Hank Snow’s songs and he loved records by other country singers such as Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb, Ted Daffan, Jimmie Rodgers, Jimmie Davis, and Bob Wills.    The Southern Gospel singer Jake Hess, one of Presley's favorite performers, was a significant influence on his
ballad-singing style.    Presley was a regular audience member at the monthly All-Night Singings downtown, where many of the white gospel groups that performed reflected the clear influence of African American spiritual music.    He adored the music of black gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe.    Like some of his peers, he may have attended blues venues—of necessity, in the segregated South, only on nights designated for exclusively white audiences. He certainly listened to the regional radio stations that played "race records": spirituals, blues, and the backbeat-driven music known as rhythm and blues.    Many of his future recordings were inspired by local African American musicians such as Arthur Crudup and Rufus Thomas. B.B. King recalled that he knew Presley before he was popular when they both used to frequent Beale Street.    By the time he graduated high school in June 1953, Presley already
seems to have singled out music as his future.

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Elvis The Early Years

Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, Presley at the age of thirteen moved with his family to Memphis, Tennessee.    He began his career there in 1954 as one of the first performers of rockabilly, an uptempo fusion of country and rhythm and blues with a strong backbeat.   His novel versions of existing songs, mixing "black" and "white" sounds, made him popular—and controversial—as did his uninhibited performances.    With his commercial breakthrough in 1956, he was recognized as the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll.    Presley had a versatile voice and unusually wide success encompassing many genres, including country, pop ballads, gospel, and blues.    In November 1956, he made his film debut in Love Me Tender.

After two years of military service beginning in 1958, Presley returned to the studio and reinforced his popularity by recording some of his most commercially successful material.    He staged few concerts, however, and proceeded to devote most of the 1960s to making unmemorable Hollywood movies and soundtrack albums.    In 1968, after seven years away from the stage, he returned to live performance in a celebrated comeback television special which led to a string of successful tours and concert residencies, notably in Las Vegas.    In 1973, Presley staged the first global live concert via satellite, Aloha from Hawaii, seen by approximately 1.5 billion viewers. It remains the most watched broadcast by an individual entertainer in television history.    Prescription drug abuse severely compromised the singer's health, and he died suddenly in 1977 at the age of 42.

Presley is regarded as one of the most important figures of twentieth-century popular culture.    He is the best-selling solo artist in the history of popular music, with sales of approximately 1 billion units worldwide.    Among many honors, he was nominated for 14 competitive Grammys (winning 3 times) and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36.    He has been inducted into four music halls of fame.

1935–53: Early years, Childhood in Tupelo

 
Presley's birthplace in Tupelo, MississippiElvis Presley was born on January 8, 1935, in Tupelo, Mississippi, to Vernon Elvis and Gladys Love Presley.    In the two-room shotgun house built by his father in readiness for the birth, Jesse Garon Presley, his identical twin brother, was delivered 35 minutes before him, stillborn.    Growing up as an only child, Presley became close to both parents and formed an unusually tight bond with his mother.    The family lived just above the poverty line and attended an Assembly of God church where he found his initial musical inspiration.

Presley's ancestry was primarily a Western European mix—Scots-Irish, with some French Norman; one of Gladys's great-great-grandmothers was Cherokee and, according to family accounts, one of her great-grandmothers was Jewish.    Gladys was regarded as the dominant member of the small family by relatives and friends. Vernon moved from one odd job to the next, evidencing little ambition.    The family often relied on help from neighbors and government food assistance. In 1938, Vernon, along with one of Gladys's brothers and another friend, was jailed for altering a check written by the farmer on whose land he had built the family home and who retained ownership of the property until repayment of a loan.    During Vernon's eight-month incarceration, Gladys lost the house, and she and her son moved in with relatives.

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In September 1941, Presley entered the first grade at East Tupelo Consolidated, where his instructors regarded him as "average".    He was encouraged to enter a singing contest after impressing his schoolteacher with a rendition of Red Foley's country song "Old Shep" during morning prayers.    The contest, held at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show on October 3, 1945, saw the singer's first public performance: dressed as a cowboy, the ten-year-old Presley stood on a chair to reach the microphone and sang "Old Shep".    He recalled placing fifth. A few months later, for his eleventh birthday, Presley received his first guitar.    He had wanted a considerably more expensive bicycle. Over the following year, he received basic guitar lessons from two of his uncles and the new pastor at the family's church.    Presley recalled, "I took the guitar, and I watched people, and I learned to play a little bit. But I would never sing in public. I was very shy about it, you know."

Presley listened regularly to Mississippi Slim’s show on the Tupelo radio station WELO.    Slim's younger brother, a classmate of Presley's, described him as "crazy about music".    Entering a new school, Milam, for sixth grade in September 1946, Presley was regarded as shy and a loner; the following year, he began bringing his guitar in on a daily basis.    He would play and sing during lunchtime, and was often teased as a "trashy" kid who played hillbilly music.    The family was by then living in a largely African American neighborhood; they often had trouble keeping up with the rent, and changed residences frequently. Mississippi Slim supplemented Presley's guitar tuition by demonstrating chord techniques.    When his protégé was 12 years old, he scheduled two on-air performances by the young singer.    Overcome by stage fright the first time, Presley was unable to perform, but succeeded in doing so the following week.

Elvis Aaron Presley

Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977; middle name sometimes written Aron) was an American singer, actor, and musician.

Presley's genuine birth certificate reads "Elvis Aaron Presley" (as written by a doctor). There is also a souvenir birth certificate that reads "Elvis Aron Presley." When Presley did sign his middle name, he used Aron. It reads 'Aron' on his marriage certificate and on his army duffel bag. Aron was apparently the spelling the Presleys used to make it similar to the middle name of Elvis' stillborn twin, Jesse Garon. Elvis later sought to change the name's spelling to the traditional and biblical Aaron. In the process he learned that "official state records had always listed it as Aaron. Therefore, he always was, officially, Elvis Aaron Presley." Knowing Presley's plans for his middle name, Aaron is the spelling his father chose for Elvis' tombstone, and it is the spelling his estate has designated as the official spelling whenever the middle name is used today. His death certificate says "Elvis Aron Presley." This quirk has helped inflame the "Elvis is not dead" conspiracy theories.

In 1954, Presley began his career as one of the first performers of rockabilly, an uptempo fusion of country and rhythm and blues with a strong back beat. His novel versions of existing songs, mixing "black" and "white" sounds, made him popular—and controversial—as did his uninhibited stage and television performances. He recorded songs in the rock and roll genre, with tracks like "Hound Dog" and "Jailhouse Rock" later embodying the style. Presley had a versatile voice and had unusually wide success encompassing other genres, including gospel, blues, ballads and pop. To date, he has been inducted into four music halls of fame.

In the 1960s, Presley made the majority of his 31 movies—most of which were poorly reviewed but financially successful musicals. In 1968, he returned to live music in a television special, and performed across the U.S., notably in Las Vegas. Throughout his career, he set records for concert attendance, television ratings and recordings sales. He is one of the best-selling and most influential artists in the history of music. Health problems, drug dependency and other factors led to his death at age 42.

If you'd like a full size Elvis to decorate your room here they are. I know you've seen the race car drivers in the grocery store advertising beer or chips, well these are sorta like them. They are large posters of Elvis on rigid board that can stand by itself or you can mount on a wall or door. They are quite striking collectables.    Motion activated talking version includes the following quotes: " Well thank you for letting me talk to you.", "Hi, this is Elvis Presley." and "Thank you very much."    There is even a Graceland Standup, not life sized but still pretty big, 45 x 72 in.   
Click     ELVIS STANDUP