CHAPTER 5
Once Elvis became a national phenomenon, countless of the great blues musicians of the period came forward to say they knew he would make it: They’d seen him around the Beale Street clubs—the Paradise, and Club Handy, and the Palms Club on Summer Avenue—or sat in with him in long jam sessions. The blues singer Roy Brown said in a 1977 article in Blues Unlimited that Elvis would come see him whenever he played Tupelo. Another story has a teenage Elvis buying wine for Brown’s band at several Memphis clubs.
But while Elvis was certainly a fan of Brown’s, and of Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, Lowell Fulson, and Junior Parker, who cowrote “Mystery Train” with Sam Phillips and first recorded the song, most of those earliest Elvis sightings are likely spurious, for a variety of reasons—Elvis was too shy to approach such performers for jam sessions, most clubs in the area were not integrated, and Elvis, a teetotaler, was underage to be buying alcohol, even for someone else.
A classmate, Fred Fredrick, told the editors of Elvis Up Close that Elvis and other white teenagers got their blues education across the bridge in West Memphis, Arkansas, at the Plantation Inn—where a white clientele listened to R & B—and at Danny’s, where black trumpet player Willie Mitchell led the house band.
“Elvis went to Danny’s because of Willie . . . because of the music. It was different. It wasn’t white hillbilly and it wasn’t the black blues. It was a danceable music deal . . . Those clubs gave Elvis an awful lot of his music.”
It is certainly true, however, that while Elvis was enchanted by the gospel singers at Ellis Auditorium, and at one point had difficulty deciding whether to channel his talent into gospel or secular music, deep down, he also wanted to be a great blues singer himself. When a reporter for the Charlotte Observer asked Elvis in 1956 how he came upon his style, Elvis answered, “The colored folks played it like that in the shanties and in their juke joints, and nobody paid it any mind until I goosed it up . . . down in Tupelo, I used to hear Arthur [“Big Boy”] Crudup [the writer of “That’s All Right (Mama)”] bang his box the way I do now. And I said that if I ever got to the place where I could feel all old Arthur felt, I’d be a music man like nobody ever saw.”
BILLY SMITH: Man, to say what it was like when Elvis first hit in 1954 . . . well, to actually hear “That’s All Right (Mama)” on the radio was unbelievable. Then it was, “Boom, boom, boom!” Things happened quick.
Dewey Phillips was the first disc jockey to play Elvis. And the first to interview him, too. Dewey was a pioneer. He took some of the first steps toward getting white stations to play black music. His station, WHBQ, had broken into the black market a few years before, but they were still playing a lot of white singers, like Dean Martin. The night he had Elvis on, Dewey played “That’s All Right (Mama)” just over and over, like six times. He asked Elvis what high school he went to so people would know he wasn’t black.
I understood why he did that because when I first heard Elvis on the radio, even I thought, “God, that ain’t Elvis. This guy sounds like a Negro.” I was confused because in high school he just did basic singing. Same way when he went to do that record for his mama. “My Happiness” is more like trying to be the Ink Spots. But Elvis just turned loose on “That’s All Right (Mama).” It was just so upbeat and different from what few songs he sang around the family that I thought they were playing the wrong record.
MARTY LACKER: Once you get out of the white gospel, like with Jake Hess and the Imperials, and the Blackwood Brothers, most of the singers Elvis really loved through the years were black—Roy Brown, Jackie Wilson, Brook Benton, Billy Eckstine, Arthur Prysock, the Ink Spots, Roy Hamilton. And he absolutely loved black gospel. You always read that Dean Martin was a big influence and that Elvis sang that kind of music [“That’s Amore”] at the Eagle’s Nest when he was eighteen or so. But I never personally heard Elvis say anything about trying to sound like Dean Martin. It was mostly obscure black guys.
BILLY SMITH: People ask me why Elvis sounded black, and I tell ’em about Shake Rag. And about how he would listen to WDIA, which was the first black radio station. He used to go to Pop Tunes [also known as Poplar Tunes, a record store on Poplar Avenue] a lot in high school, and listen to black singers. Then, who knows what he heard down on Beale Street? Even if he was just down there shopping at Lansky Brothers or having his picture made at the Blue Light Studio. I don’t think anybody really knows, not even Sam Phillips.
It was always strange to me how Elvis and [guitarist] Scotty [Moore] and [bassist] Bill [Black] came up with that sound. There have been so many stories. It wasn’t like Elvis said, “I invented this upbeat music.” It just happened to be in the process then, from blacks and whites. It was what he was looking for—it tore the cover off. He had a long hard battle trying to find the right sound, and when he did, it just broke loose. It released that energy inside him.
But to say, “Elvis invented rock ’n’ roll,” well, he didn’t really. Everybody lays claim to it . . . Bill Haley, and on back to 1951 and Jackie Brenston with “Rocket 88.” Sam Phillips says that was the first rock ’n’ roll record. But you got to hand it to Elvis. You associate rock ’n’ roll with Elvis Presley because he brought it to the forefront. It took a white boy to bring it to a white audience, and that was Elvis.
MARTY LACKER: Who invented rock ’n’ roll? It sort of evolved after World War II, from black people like Wynonie Harris, Fats Domino, and Amos Milburn. But a lot of black people loved Elvis’s music. And then, some black people think he plagiarized all of the old Negro artists.
I got into a heated discussion one time in an interview I did on a radio show in Atlanta. A black guy called in and said Elvis just ripped off all these old black singers. I tried to explain that Elvis admitted he got a lot from them. I said, “There was a time, and I remember it, when it was called ‘race music,’ when parents of white kids and older white people in general did not want black records even sold in white record shops. Didn’t want their kids listening to black music on the radio. Then along came Elvis and changed everything.” We used to listen to Clyde McPhatter and Hank Ballard and the Midnighters here in Memphis, and even back in New York. But most white kids didn’t. If anything, Elvis opened up the doors for black artists.
BILLY SMITH: From all I can gather, Sam Phillips was looking for a certain sound. Everybody knows what he supposedly said before he found Elvis: “If I could only find a white boy who could sing like a Negro, I could make me a million dollars.” Well, Sam was really looking for a white boy who could bring the feel of black music to a white audience.
It was almost like it was destined to happen. Because when they first got the inkling of it, things weren’t going too well, so they took a break. Elvis and them were goofing off. And Elvis started singing “That’s All Right (Mama)” kind of like “Big Boy” Crudup, but real fresh like. And Sam heard what was pretty close to what he’d been looking for. Then, Elvis was doing [Bill Monroe’s bluegrass waltz] “Blue Moon of Kentucky” in almost a quick, rhythmic way, clowning with it. It was more country when he started doing it. Sam recognized he was getting closer to the sound, though, and he added that slapback echo, and said, “That’s what I’m talking about! We’re just about on it, now!” And when Elvis really got it, he said, “Hell, that’s different! That’s a pop song now, nearly about.”
So they just experimented for several weeks. That sound didn’t happen overnight. They worked until they got what they wanted.
MARTY LACKER: I knew Scotty and Bill briefly. Scotty was always very quiet and calm. And Bill was a happy-go-lucky guy. Later on, he got a little abrasive. Of course, Bill always played the old-fashioned stand-up slap bass. Really whacked that thing. He was a ball of energy. He bounced up and down and from side to side, and he was always cracking jokes. Initially, Bill didn’t think Elvis had much talent, by the way. And a lot of people thought the same of Bill.
Scotty I knew better. Scotty worked in a dry cleaner’s for a while. He was a hat specialist. I think he and Bill first met when they joined a band called Doug Poindexter and the Starlite Wranglers. I never heard Scotty say a cross word to anybody. He keeps a fairly low Elvis profile. He was smart enough to know you can’t live on that forever.
Scotty is a talented guitar player—his guitar licks set the mood and put that rockabilly sound together, although I don’t think he influenced Elvis’s style particularly. They just sort of did jam sessions and got the whole thing rocking.
I remember Elvis saying that Sam Phillips was the one who put him with Scotty and Bill, but there’s some confusion about whether Elvis knew Bill before that. I think he just knew Bill’s brother, Johnny. And Bill’s mother, Ruth, lived in Lauderdale Courts when the Presleys were there, and then she moved to Alabama Street when the Presleys lived there. She used to see Elvis occasionally.
BILLY SMITH: They didn’t live on Alabama Street but maybe sixteen months at the most. Then Elvis started traveling, and in late ’54, they found a house on Lamar Street. A real short time later, in about the middle of ’55, they moved from Lamar to Getwell Street.
MARTY LACKER: In July of ’54, right before Elvis’s first record came out, Elvis and his parents signed a one-year contract with Scotty Moore. Scotty was Elvis’s first manager.
BILLY SMITH: At that point, Sam Phillips was a record producer, and he really didn’t have any experience in getting anybody bookings. But Scotty did. He got Elvis local gigs.
LAMAR FIKE: Elvis got to be making $500 a night when Scotty was booking. Scotty’s still got a copy of the contract. Elvis didn’t know shit about business. He just wanted to sing. He didn’t give a damn about anything else.