70 Years Ago Today Someone Walked Into Sun Records and Made History

by Robert Wilkinson

And the world shook, rattled, and rolled!

On July 5, 1954, a 19 year old truck driver walked into the Sun Records Studio in Memphis to record some tunes. From wiki:

During an uneventful recording session at Sun Studios on the evening of July 5, 1954, Elvis Presley, Scotty Moore (guitar) and Bill Black (string bass) were taking a break between recordings when Presley started fooling around with an up-tempo version of Arthur Crudup's song "That's All Right, Mama." Black began joining in on his upright bass, and soon they were joined by Moore on guitar. Producer Sam Phillips, taken aback by this sudden upbeat atmosphere, asked the three of them to start again so he could record it.

Black's bass and guitars from Presley and Moore provided the instrumentation. The recording contains no drums or additional instruments. The song was produced in the style of a "live" recording (all parts performed at once and recorded on a single track). The following evening the trio recorded "Blue Moon of Kentucky" in a similar style, and it was selected as the B-side to "That's All Right".

The recording session was Presley's fifth visit to the Sun Studio. His first two visits, the summer of 1953 and January 1954, had been private recordings, followed by two more visits in the summer of 1954.

Upon finishing the recording session, according to Scotty Moore, Bill Black remarked, "Damn. Get that on the radio and they'll run us out of town."

Sam Phillips gave the record to some local DJs, and on July 7 it hit the airwaves. It was officially released on July 19, 1954 with “Blue Moon of Kentucky” on the “B” side. The rest is history!

For your enjoyment, the original Sun Records studio recording by Elvis, Scotty, and Bill of “That’s All Right Mama”

Here’s the B side, complete with primitive studio effects! “Blue Moon of Kentucky”

Here they are at the Louisiana Hayride radio show a few weeks later, giving us a live performance of “That’s All Right Mama” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky”

And the world shook, rattled, and rolled!

For our first encore, here’s the original 1946 recording by the composer, Arthur “Big Boy” Cruddup. “That’s All Right”

For our second encore, Paul, George, and Ringo in a spontaneous jam performing “Blue Moon of Kentucky”

© Copyright 2024 Robert Wilkinson