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An Elvis Presley demo disc
An Elvis Presley demo disc
On this Day: Elvis Presley Makes First Professional Recording
July 05, 2008 12:10 AM
by
findingDulcinea Staff
On July 5, 1954, truck driver Elvis Presley visited Sun Studio in Memphis, Tenn. The recording session launched Presley’s music career and is seen by many as the birthday of rock and roll.
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The session took place in the famous Sun Studio in Memphis, Tenn., where Elvis was accompanied by guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black. 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.
Studio owner Sam Phillips said that’s when he first saw the potential for Elvis’s unique style of music, which fused the sounds of black and white music in a blend of blues, gospel and rockabilly.
Presley received his first guitar on his 11th birthday because his parents couldn’t afford the bicycle he wanted. He gained musical experience by playing guitar at church, school and local fairs. Before the studio session, Elvis was a truck driver living barely above the poverty level with his mother and father in a two-room house in Memphis.
After the session, Elvis’s career took off.
In 1955, Sun Records sold Presley’s contract to RCA Records for an unprecedented $35,000. Soon after his 21st birthday, Elvis recorded Heartbreak Hotel, a chart-topping single that sold more than 1 million copies. By 1956, Elvis was a superstar.
His success took a personal toll, and Presley began a life-long struggle with drug dependence and weight gain. In 1977, at age 42, he died of a heart attack.
By the end of his short life, Presley had served in the army, starred in 33 movies, and sold more than 1 billion records. The pop-culture icon is known as one of history’s most influential musicians.
Studio owner Sam Phillips said that’s when he first saw the potential for Elvis’s unique style of music, which fused the sounds of black and white music in a blend of blues, gospel and rockabilly.
Presley received his first guitar on his 11th birthday because his parents couldn’t afford the bicycle he wanted. He gained musical experience by playing guitar at church, school and local fairs. Before the studio session, Elvis was a truck driver living barely above the poverty level with his mother and father in a two-room house in Memphis.
After the session, Elvis’s career took off.
In 1955, Sun Records sold Presley’s contract to RCA Records for an unprecedented $35,000. Soon after his 21st birthday, Elvis recorded Heartbreak Hotel, a chart-topping single that sold more than 1 million copies. By 1956, Elvis was a superstar.
His success took a personal toll, and Presley began a life-long struggle with drug dependence and weight gain. In 1977, at age 42, he died of a heart attack.
By the end of his short life, Presley had served in the army, starred in 33 movies, and sold more than 1 billion records. The pop-culture icon is known as one of history’s most influential musicians.
Headline Links: Elvis Presley at the Sun Studio in 1954
A June 2004 Rolling Stone magazine article highlights 50 moments that changed the history of rock & roll. As a 19-year-old truck driver, Elvis Presley was living barely above the poverty line when he entered Sun Studio in July 1954. Recording studio owner Sam Phillips recruited guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black to play with Elvis. Nothing special happened during the first few hours of the session but, during a break, Elvis “started messing around with an up-tempo blues, ‘That’s All Right,’ written and first cut in 1947 by the black singer-guitarist Arthur Crudup.” Phillips suddenly saw Elvis’s potential. He could “hear Presley’s natural sound and vocal authority coming out, an intuitive combustion of field, church and juke joint.”
Source: Rolling Stone
Key Players: Elvis Presley, Sun Studio
Elvis Presley
Elvis.com recaps the singer’s life and career: “In 1954, he began his singing career with the legendary Sun Records label in Memphis. In late 1955, his recording contract was sold to RCA Victor. By 1956, he was an international sensation. With a sound and style that uniquely combined his diverse musical influences and blurred and challenged the social and racial barriers of the time, he ushered in a whole new era of American music and popular culture.”
Source: Elvis.com
Sun Studio
Sun Studio was a small recording studio operated in Memphis Tennessee from 1950-1960. Sam Phillips started the studio in 1950, after a decade-long struggle against poverty. The small studio grew as it launched the careers of many legendary black bluesmen with nowhere else to record, such as BB King, Howlin Wolf, Bobby Blue Bland, Rufus Thomas and Junior Parker. Eventually Sun Studio would record the first rock & roll song, Rocket 88, written by Jackie Brenston and the Delta Cats. Phillips and his studio helped artists like Elvis, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis become rock & roll legends.
Source: RockaBillyHall.com
Background: Elvis’s ‘fusion’ sound
Elvis was heavily influenced by many different types of music. The most notable genres that affected Elvis were blues, gospel, and rockabilly. “This informal music education gave him the influences he would need to create some of the very first rock & roll.” Elvis is most noted for his ability to fuse together black and white music to create a classic rock & roll sound.
Source: PBS
Later Developments: Elvis’ death and his legacy, Elvis in film
Elvis’s untimely death helped establish him as a Rock and Roll legend. Time magazine published an article in August 2007 examining Elvis’s life and the effect that his death had on his legacy: “At a Hollywood party on Aug. 16, 1977, word reached the celebrity revelers that the 42-year-old Elvis Presley had just died at his Graceland home in Memphis. Amid the murmurs of shock, one industry type noted, ‘Good career move.’ Rarely has sarcasm been so prophetic. The dead Elvis—if he did die; some of the faithful still think he's in seclusion, holding out for a second coming—quickly became more valuable as a memory than he ever was as a singer or movie star or Vegas action figure or living proof of the marketability of youthful rebellion.”
Source: Time
An article in British paper The Independent, titled “What if Elvis had never been born,” looks at the impact that Elvis had on rock and roll, examining the music scene before and after Elvis’s arrival and looking at major changes Elvis made to the genre.
Source: BNet.com (The Independent)
“In 1955, Elvis was cast in his first acting role in a supporting part in Love Me Tender (1956), the first of 33 movies he starred in. Critics blasted most of his films, but they did very well at the box-office earning upwards of $150 million total. Elvis’s military service in the late 1950s and the ‘British invasion’ of the 1960s reduced his concerts, though not his movie/recording income. Through the 1960s, Elvis settled in Hollywood where he starred in over 20 movies, acting alongside some of the most well known character actors in Hollywood.”
Source: IMDB
Related Topics: Top 15 most influential musicians
The List Universe offers its take on the 15 musicians who have most greatly influenced rock and roll. Elvis is listed at No. 4, with the Beatles reigning as No. 1. Elvis is noted for having a “versatile voice and unusually wide success encompassing other genres, including gospel, blues, ballads and pop. To date, he is the only performer to have been inducted into four music Halls of Fame.”
Source: List Universe
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