Elvis – maybe the world’s most recognizable first name. Or name, period. Last week I wrote: “If not for Memphis, popular music and the world would not be as we know it.” I think it’s safe to say that my statement would hold true if only Elvis came out of Memphis – such was his impact on the world. Of course, that magical night was not just him but the perfect confluence of Elvis, Sam Phillips, Scotty Moore, Bill Black, and Dewey Phillips. It’s hard to fathom the immediacy of making a record at the Memphis Recording Service at 706 Union Avenue and getting it across town to Chisca Hotel on Main Street, which housed the WHBQ-AM studio, and have that record turn, first Memphis, and then the world upside down in just a matter of hours, and days. It could have only been mind-blowing.
My first musical heroes, Al Hirt and Herb Alpert, had me at age three. I was crazy for both. I had the prerequisite toy trumpet to play along. But, by age five, another sound captured my ear, and that sound still has my ear. I don’t know where it came from or why but I found myself in possession of Elvis’ greatest hits on RCA. No jacket, just the record. It doesn’t matter really where it came from, I was gone. From there, I acquired four lps that were mostly filled with the movie songs, and released on the Camden imprint. I still have them in a box somewhere. I was so gone that I started trying to fashion my own jumpsuits – trying to emulate the Recorded at Madison Square Garden cover. The pinnacle of my early Elvis experience culminated in seeing him live at the Cleveland Public Music Hall in 1974 with James Burton on guitar, and that great ‘70s band. Twenty-one years later, I was sitting in a hotel lobby in Memphis having breakfast with James Burton. We were both playing a festival on Mud Island that day. He was with Jerry Lee Lewis – playing side by side with Roland Janes! – and I was there with The Radio Kings. That was a pretty intense moment for me, and what I love about my life in music. Those are the special times.
There has been so much written about Elvis – the history, the impact, the changes on him and everyone around him – that this is far too short to even begin a summation. Plus, there are already great resources available. Peter Guralnick’s Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley and Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley are, to me, the two definitive volumes. I’m really looking forward to digging into his just published The Colonel and the King: Tom Parker, Elvis Presley, and the Partnership that Rocked the World.
It would be hard for me to pick a favorite song or even a favorite time period of songs – the 1950s, pre-Army, the movie songs, or the comeback albums into the 1970s. There are go-to songs for sure from each time period, and I’ll play a lot of them on my radio show, Crooked Road Songs, tomorrow August 16 at 4:00pm ET. If I was forced to pick one album, it would probably be the collection of tracks that are the outtakes, rehearsals, and alternates from the sessions at American Recording Studio that gave us the From Elvis in Memphis album. The disc I have, and I know it’s been officially released, was given to me on tour in The Netherlands well over twenty years ago. It’s probably one of my most listened to records over the past couple of decades. Much like the night that “That’s All Right” changed the world, From Elvis in Memphis and the sessions for it were, once again, the perfect confluence of the parts. Elvis sounds incredibly relaxed. The band is like they were on all the records they made – just about perfect. And, they had a sound. Their sound. Studios and their house bands had a mood, a sound, a groove, a feel distinct to each during this time period. They were tuned-in to something magical. We still treasure, listen to all those iconic records. Especially at American, Stax Records, and Hi Records in Memphis along with the band at Fame Studio in Muscle Shoals. Sure, there was cross-pollination of players with the studios and cities but each studio was unique with sounds and feels of their own. John Prine’s first album was recorded at American with pretty much the same band that played behind Elvis. That Prine record gets a lot of attention for the songs, and rightfully so, but no one ever talks about just how great that record sounds or the beautifully sympathetic playing. It’s always worth listening to but next time listen to the sound.
By the time he died in 1977, it was pretty uncool to like Elvis, and probably before that, too. I didn’t care. There’s a song by Cleveland local hero Michael Stanley that has the lines:
“I’m livin’ the dream
Getting lost on the screen
Doing Presley in front of the mirror”
I was that. I’m still that – minus the attempted jumpsuits and microphone fashioned from a screwdriver. My love of music will never be that innocent again. How could it? But, that burning need for it has never wavered. It’s even stronger now. It has always meant so much to me. It is so much me – who I am. I believe if you’re gone, you’re gone on it. Music allowed Elvis to escape. It’s allowed me to escape, too.
Catch me on the radio dial every Saturday afternoon 4-5pm EST with Crooked Road Songs on WICN 90.5fm locally in Central Massachusetts, and globally at wicn.org. ***Tomorrow, Saturday, August 16, 2025, will be an all Elvis show.*** My playlist from Saturday, August 9, 2025:
Frank Stokes “Downtown Blues”
Jimmie Rodgers “Blue Yodel”
Jimmy Reed “High and Lonesome”
Jimmy Hughes “Steal Away”
Jimmy Cliff “The Harder They Come”
Jimmie Dale Gilmore “Long, Long Time”
Frank Stokes “Take Me Back”
Lightnin’ Hopkins “Take Me Back”
Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie “When the Levee Breaks”
Memphis Minnie and Bumble Bee Slim “New Orleans Stop Time:”
Ma Rainey “Prove It on the Blues”
Blind Willie McTell “Mama, ‘Taint Long Fo’Day”
Anita Suhanin “Midnight Blues”
Kevin Gordon “Catch a Wave”
Jon Byrd “Down at the Well of Wishes”
Will Kimbrough “Sittin’ and Thinkin’”
Shooter Jennings “Rebound”