Long before television executives worried about Elvis Presley’s movements, a 20-year-old Elvis was already showing audiences just how unpredictable he could be.
On March 19, 1955, Elvis performed at Eagles Hall in Houston, Texas, with guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black.
He was still more than a year away from becoming a national superstar.
But the Elvis heard on the surviving recording already sounded fearless.
Before performing Ray Charles’s “I Got a Woman,” Elvis suddenly introduced a completely different title:
“Little darlin’, you broke my heart when you went away, but I’ll break your jaw when you come back.”
Then he asked the audience if they had ever heard that one.
It was not actually the title of a song.
It was Elvis joking with the crowd before immediately launching into “I Got a Woman.” Researchers describing the recording characterize the remark as Elvis delivering the line with his tongue firmly in cheek.
Hear Elvis’s 1955 Eagles Hall Performance
The surviving concert is remarkable for more than the joke.
The set included “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” “Baby Let’s Play House,” “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” “I Got a Woman” and “That’s All Right.”
The entire surviving performance runs for less than 15 minutes.
Yet even through the rough recording, young women can be heard screaming while Elvis tears through songs with the raw energy that was beginning to make him famous across the South.
This was a very different Elvis from the polished star America would soon see on national television.
Roy Orbison, who watched Elvis during this early period, later remembered him as a strange-looking, rebellious young performer who told rough jokes and completely shocked audiences with the way he behaved onstage.
“I Got a Woman” would remain with Elvis for almost his entire career.
He performed it on his first national television appearances in 1956, brought it into his Las Vegas shows after his 1969 comeback and was still singing it during his final concert years.
But that Houston recording captures the song before all of that.
It captures Elvis when he was still playing small venues, testing jokes on audiences and discovering just how much he could get away with once he had a microphone in his hand.
Before America knew Elvis Presley as the King, Texas audiences were already discovering how wild his personality could be onstage.