Elvis at 80

In marking Elvis Presley’s 80^th birthday today my thoughts drifted back to the initial spark that he ignited in a small Memphis recording studio sixty years ago, which jump-started his career and also kindled the rock ‘n’ roll revolution.  In the first week of July, 1954, Elvis, Scotty Moore, and Bill Black assembled for the first time in Sam Phillips’ small Sun Records studio.  Their goal was to cut at least a couple of decent tracks for the combo’s first single.  It was a truly magical moment, the likes of which may never be seen again.  I tried to capture it in words seventeen years ago and I offer an excerpt from that effort today as my birthday card and thank-you note to the King.

“From the date of his first recording session at Sam Phillips' Sun studio, Elvis rapidly evolved from a somewhat unsure balladeer to a music dynamo who changed popular music more than any individual performer ever had, or ever would again.  It is fortunate that many of his earliest recordings have survived, for through them his meteoric rise can be witnessed again and again.  But for that to happen, listeners must mentally place themselves in the mainstream pop music world that existed in 1954 America.  Only then can the revolutionary nature of what happened at Sun Records be appreciated.  Seemingly mild by today's rock standards, most of these recordings still sound fresh and exciting, although some listeners may consider them mere curiosities from a seemingly quaint period, before anyone had even imagined heavy metal, synthesizers, samples, or outdoor stadium rock shows.  Placed in the context of their time, however, they are anything but quaint or unexciting. 

“It is interesting that, up until he spontaneously burst into ‘That's All Right', Elvis had seemed determined to confine his public and recorded efforts strictly to ballads, and may well have regarded himself as primarily a crooner.  His most prominent idol was Dean Martin, who sang in a relaxed, carefree style that Elvis admired and emulated.  He adopted Martin's sliding vocal swoops, and his demo of ‘My Happiness’ might even be viewed as an early, poor imitation of Martin.

"‘That's All Right’ was spontaneous, not planned, beginning during a break from recording.  Elvis knew Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup's original recording well, and in fact changed it very little, retaining the same tempo, even including the ‘Dee, dee, dee-dee’ chorus, but altering a few lyrics and investing it with a touch of country flavor.  But once Sam Phillips heard it and encouraged the group to keep moving in that direction, Elvis and the others rapidly shed whatever inhibitions they may have had.  There is even a noticeable increase in the free-spirited nature of Elvis' performance when the final version of the song is compared to a surviving earlier take. 

“Again, it may be hard to believe or understand the risk associated with doing such music at that time, but it was very clear to Elvis, Scotty, Bill, and Sam.  Moore later recollected that his initial reaction upon hearing the recording was, ‘Well, that's fine, but good God, they'll run us out of town!’  Elvis may have entered the studio convinced that he wasn't supposed to sing that way, with genuine inner feelings rather than the contrived style that went into contemporary popular ballads, and which went down well with mid-1950s middle America.  Left to his own instincts, however, it burst from him spontaneously, which was the sort of thing that Sam Phillips had been hoping for, and which he quickly encouraged.

“‘Blue Moon of Kentucky’ was even more revisionist and revolutionary.  An early take shows a startling leap in development from Bill Monroe's original bluegrass waltz to a faster, livelier country shuffle, sufficiently new to prompt a gratified Sam Phillips to exclaim, ‘Hell, that's fine.  That's different.  That's a pop song now, nearly about.’  How much more revealing to then hear the final version, which takes the song far beyond that level into an up-tempo arrangement that neither Bill Monroe, nor anyone else, could have foreseen.  Punctuated by the percussive effect of Bill Black's slap bass, and paced by Elvis' urgent vocal, matched by Scotty Moore's guitar, this was truly something new, and its freshness is still there today.

“In these relatively few hours at Sun Records, something monumental and irreversible had happened to popular music, and forever altered it.  Within a few years, the artists and styles that dominated the pop charts would be replaced almost entirely and forever by rock and roll music.  The sounds that emanated from Sam Phillips' tiny studio would resonate across the Atlantic too, where they transfixed four Liverpool youngsters, who would rescue and reinvent the music in their own image a decade later. 

“Whether or not this really was the rock and roll genesis, Elvis would soon come to personify rock and roll on a national and international level, having made it acceptable to a broad audience, despite considerable public outcry against him.  Elvis combined his broad musical influences into a new style and gave it his own unique vocal brand.  His was a mature, masculine, suggestive, often threatening voice, not the thin tenor of other, safer "teen idols" of the 1950s, such as Eddie Fisher.   Before Elvis, there may not have been ‘nothing,’ as John Lennon once suggested, but there was certainly nothing like this.”

Excerpted from “Elvis and the Rock & Roll Genesis” by Allen J. Wiener; Discoveries (July 1997).

Channeling Elvis: How Television Saved the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll by Allen J. Wiener is available in paperback and Kindle e-book editions from:

Amazon.com in the U.S. at this link:  http://tinyurl.com/mhyaouz; 
In U.K. (paperback): http://tinyurl.com/kyolbnm; (Kindle): http://tinyurl.com/qdbk9cb