On This Day: Elvis Presley Makes First Professional Recording

According to Rolling Stone magazine, Elvis Presley was a 19-year-old truck driver, barely living above the poverty line, when he entered Sun Studio in July 1954.

Presley’s recording session wasn’t noteworthy until he began to fool around, playing “That’s All Right,” an up-tempo blues song written by Arthur Crudup, Rolling Stone reports. Studio owner Sam Phillips said that’s when he first saw the potential for Elvis’ unique style of music, which fused the sounds of black and white music in a blend of blues, gospel and rockabilly. According to Rolling Stone, Phillips could “hear Presley’s natural sound and vocal authority coming out, an intuitive combustion of field, church and juke joint.”

"That's All Right" was released as a single with a version of Bill Monroe's "Blue Moon of Kentucky" on the flip side, PBS explains. "With a faster tempo, a driving rhythm and shimmering vocals that played out teen melodrama, the record set the stage for rock & roll's arrival."

In 2004, Rolling Stone included the recording session in its "50 moments that changed the history of rock & roll."

Elvis Presley

Presley was born on Jan. 8, 1935, one of twin boys; his twin brother, Jessie Garon, was born dead. Elvis Aaron, the second twin, would be an only child. Elvis received his first guitar in 1946 because his parents couldn’t afford the bicycle he wanted, according to his official Web site, Elvis Presley.

In 1948, his family moved from Tupelo, Miss., to Memphis, Tenn., looking for a better life. The family lived in the poor neighborhoods of north Memphis while young Elvis gained musical experience by playing guitar at church, school and local fairs. After graduating from high school, Elvis worked various jobs and made a few demo recordings at Sun Studio, the first of which he "reportedly gives ... to his mother as a much-belated extra birthday present," his official Web site reports.

Sun Studio

Sun Studio was a small recording studio opened in Memphis, Tenn., by Sam Phillips in 1950. The studio grew as it launched the careers of many legendary black bluesmen with nowhere else to record, such as B.B. King, Howlin Wolf, Bobby Blue Bland, Rufus Thomas and Junior Parker, accordng to Rockabill Hall of Fame. Eventually Sun Studio would record what many consider to be the first rock and roll song, "Rocket 88." Phillips and his studio helped launch the careers of musicians such as Elvis, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Elvis was heavily influenced by many different types of music, most notably blues, gospel and hillbilly. “This informal music education gave him the influences he would need to create some of the very first rock & roll,” according to PBS. 

In June 1954, Sam Phillips introduced Elvis to local musicians Scotty Moore, a guitar player, and Bill Black, a bass player. Their sped-up version of "That's All Right" is "the first of five singles Elvis will release on the Sun label," his official Web site reports.

In 1955, Sun Records sold Presley’s contract to RCA Records for an "unprecedented $35,000," according to Elvis' official Web site. Soon after his 21st birthday, he recorded "Heartbreak Hotel," a chart-topping single that sold more than one million copies. By 1956, Elvis was a superstar.

His success took a personal toll, however, and Presley began a lifelong struggle with drug dependence and weight gain. In 1977, at age 42, he died of a heart attack. To some, his death seemed a "[g]ood career move," Time magazine reported in 2007.

By the end of his short life, Presley had served in the army, starred in 33 movies and sold more than 600 million records, according to the Internet Movie Database. Graceland, his mansion near Memphis, "has become a shrine for millions of followers worldwide," IMDB reports, and "Elvis impersonators and purported sightings have become stock subjects for humorists."

The pop culture icon is known as one of history’s most influential musicians, and is included at No. 4 on Listverse's list.