Seventy years ago, a shy truck driver from Memphis walked into a tiny studio and changed the world by fooling around between failed takes. The kid was Elvis in Sun studio on July 5, 1954, and no one in that room knew they were lighting the fuse for rock and roll.
Producer Sam Phillips was ready to call it a night. Then Elvis started clowning through Arthur Crudup’s “That’s All Right,” excited and full of energy until Phillips saw him and yell start recording.
A few days later, DJ Dewey Phillips spun that rough little record on WHBQ. The phone lines blew up. People begged to hear it again. In that single evening, an unknown kid turned a normal July day into Day One of a new universe.
If rock and roll has ever meant anything to you, do not skip this. This link is the closest you will get to walking into Sun Studio on that July night without a time machine.
70 years ago TODAY! Elvis Presley recorded his first record! “That’s Alright Mamma” – July 5, 1954
This performance shows the fire at the source. Here it is Elvis himself, no movie script, no big dance number, just him and his band ripping through “That’s All Right Mama” like it is 1954 all over again.
Even while sitting, Elvis’s leg is shaking and his strumming is hard and wild. You can see the same attack and rhythm that Blair tries to copy in Step 1.
Elvis Presley – Jailhouse Rock (Music Video)
To really feel how big that July 5 moment was, you have to go back even further, before Memphis, before Sun Records, to Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s 1946 blues original, where the same lyrics live in a slower, sadder, deeper groove.