Seventy years ago this month, Elvis Presley put out his second album, and it was a monster.
The record was simply called “Elvis.” RCA released it on October 19, 1956, and it went straight to No. 1. He was barely out of his teens and already sitting on top of the music world.
But one song on that album didn’t come from the world of rock and roll at all.
It came from a little boy standing on a chair.
To understand it, you have to go back to Tupelo, Mississippi, years before anyone knew the name Elvis Presley. He was 10 years old, a shy kid with a big voice. There was a talent contest at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair, the kind of fair with rides and animals and a stage for local acts.
Young Elvis entered.
He was so small that he couldn’t reach the microphone. So he climbed up and stood on a chair, leaned in, and sang a sad old song he loved. The crowd listened to this tiny boy pour his heart out, and he went home with a prize.
That was his first real taste of singing for an audience.
Elvis singing the childhood song on his 1956 album
The recording above is the version he cut for that 1956 album. Listen close and you’ll notice something. The man at the piano isn’t a hired studio player. It’s Elvis himself, sitting at the keys and backing his own voice.
The song is “Old Shep.”
It’s an old country tune made famous by Red Foley, and it tells the story of a boy and his faithful dog growing old together. It’s a real tearjerker, the kind of song that gets you right in the chest. For a ten-year-old to pick that one, and to sing it well enough to win, tells you everything about the feeling Elvis had even as a child.
Years later, with the whole country at his feet, he went back to it.
Think about what that means. Elvis could have filled his second album with nothing but hot rockers and crowd-pleasers. Instead he saved a spot for the humble little song he’d sung on a chair as a boy, and he played the piano on it himself.
That was his way of carrying his childhood with him.
So give “Old Shep” a listen above and picture both versions at once. The tiny boy in Tupelo, standing tall on a chair to reach the mic. And the young star a few years later, sitting alone at a piano, singing the same sad song for millions.
Same heart. Same voice. One of them just happened to have the whole world listening.