Elvis's 40 Year Reign (1954-1955)

Meanwhile, Sam Phillips had discovered a song demo entitled, “Without You” and couldn’t identify the singer. He asked his secretary to get a hold of Elvis (who was working around town as a truck driver) to give him a chance to record a version. He came in and recorded in May of 1954, but performed poorly. Nevertheless, Phillips asked him to sing “just whatever you know” and Elvis ran through a few ballads and country tunes. As the impromptu session ended, Elvis asked about coming back, this time with a band, to have a proper audition. Phillips recruited Scotty Moore (guitarist) and Bill Black (bass) and the session was booked for Monday, July 5, 1954.

As he had during all his previous Sun sessions, Elvis performed a safe and simple country tune. This time it was “I Love you Because.”

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And as with everything before, it was perfectly adequate, but no more. After a few takes, Scotty Moore requested a break. With everyone’s guard down, Elvis picked up his rhythm guitar and started fooling around, just trying to get loose after a stiff and stuffy start. Presley started picking at an old rhythm & blues song by Arthur Crudup, named “That’s All Right (Mama).” Today it’s an iconic Elvis song, arguably the iconic Presley song, but listening to the original version reveals just how little he deviated from the source material…

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Elvis started jumping around and acting a fool while singing the song, showing little concern about the pitch of his voice or taking care to strike the correct chords on his guitar. He was just being manic but it was a complete reversal from the straight-laced and professional look he’d shown earlier in the evening. Sam Phillips immediately told Elvis to stop, back up and start over, this time with the recording machine turned on.

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For years Sam Phillips had been trying, unsuccessfully, to market black music to white disc jockeys. He once said, “if I could find a white boy who sang like a black man I’d make a million dollars!” After recording “That’s All Right,” Sam set to work with the trio to find a good B-side. The country ballad “Harbor Lights” was on the schedule to be recorded after “I Love You Because” so they laid down a version that would have been dull even without “That’s All Right” fresh on their minds. The final number they tried that night, “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” was a 1946 mid-tempo ballad by bluegrass singer Bill Monroe.

Elvis worked the song through the same frenetic filter he used with “That’s All Right” and gave Sam Phillips the B-side he was looking for, to complete what he hoped would be Sun’s first major hit record.

“That’s All Right” was sent to Sam’s Memphis friend Dewey Phillips (no relation), who DJ’d “Red Hot and Blue,” the most popular radio show in the mid-south. Dewey played it to instant-success. Callers flooded the WHBQ station, demanding to hear the song over and over, as well as to know who the new singer was. Phillips secured an interview with Elvis and, by shrewdly asking him which high school he attended, was able to tip-off to the listeners whether Presley was white or black (Memphis schools were still segregated by race in those days, and would be for a few more years).

Within a month the trio of Presley, Moore and Black were hitting local clubs, playing to screaming crowds. Elvis’s now-famous gyrations began in those days as the simple shakes of a nervous man. Stage fright would make his legs uneasy and during instrumental interludes in between vocals, Elvis would turn back to his band, shaking uncontrollably, partially out of nervous energy and partially because it was good music (who doesn’t shake…something…to good music?). The shaking naturally caused female audience members to go bananas.

In between steady gigs, Presley returned to Sun to record whatever Phillips could get his hands on, trying desperately to find the next “That’s All Right.” The twenty-year-old standard “Blue Moon” was recorded, more out of obligation than anything (everyone did a cover of that one) as was “Tomorrow Night,” a good tune, but not good enough for an A-side. In September they tried their hands on a tune written by singing cowboy Jimmy Wakely, “I’ll Never Let You Go (Little Darlin’).”

The original number was a simple country tune, but Elvis demonstrated (the first of many) a real gift for interpretation with it. He started the tune slow like a traditional ballad, but then, for the final stretch, changed it into an up-tempo toe-tapper.

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The song was quickly followed up with a couple true “rock and roll” songs, the first since “That’s All Right” entitled “I Don’t Care if the Sun Don’t Shine” and “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” leaving Sam Phillips’ confident Elvis would not be a one-hit-wonder.

Presley had been invited in October to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville but his performance was met with only polite applause and a shrug from Opry manager Jim Denny, who told the young singer “your music isn’t for us.” He recorded another “balled-meets-rocker” in early December, entitled “Milkcow Blues Boogie” which perfected the concept he tried in “I’ll Never Let You Go (Little Darlin’).”

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By the time Christmas came around, Elvis’s style and city-wide fame had been cemented. Nashville wasn’t ready for him, perhaps, but Memphis couldn’t contain him. He signed a deal to perform for the Lousiana Hayride radio show (the Opry’s biggest competitor) and entered 1955 as one of the hottest acts on the show, touring the tri-state area of Louisiana, Arkansas and southeastern Texas.

As summer approached, Elvis’s fame had increased and his name was known from Raleigh, NC to El Paso, TX. His stage shows were a hit and kids were scooping up records as fast as Sun could print them. Sam Phillips released another three singles that year but always had trouble convincing DJ’s to play them. Fans would call and beg to hear him but R&B stations generally wouldn’t play him because there was too much country in his style, and country stations avoided him because he sounded too black.

It was clear Elvis’s sound was a revolution just waiting to be unleashed, but it wouldn’t happen with Sam Phillips’ limited resources.

That Autumn, Elvis’s new manager, “Colonel” Tom Parker, arranged a bidding war between several major record companies. Columbia and Atlantic both offered Elvis a $25,000 contract but Parker held out for a better deal and RCA-Victor provided it. They offered Elvis a staggering $41,000 deal ($35,000 with a $6,000 signing bonus), the largest contract ever handed out to a new star.

RCA took a chance on Presley, who was only twenty years old at the time and not even legally allowed to sign the contract (his father Vernon signed it in his stead). The New York-based company saw potential, if not in Elvis himself then at least in his R&B/Country blend. Like almost everyone else, RCA saw Presley as a fad (only offering him a three-year agreement), but one they expected to ride while he was hot, before he inevitably disappeared into history.

They could not have imagined what the future would bring them.