Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), popularly known by his first name Elvis, was an American singer and actor. He was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and moved to Memphis, Tennessee, with his family at age 13. His music career began there in 1954, recording at Sun Records with producer Sam Phillips, who wanted to bring the sound of African-American music to a wider audience. Presley, on rhythm acoustic guitar, and accompanied by lead guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, was a pioneer of rockabilly, an uptempo, backbeat-driven fusion of country music and rhythm and blues. In 1955, drummer D. J. Fontana joined to complete the lineup of Presley's classic quartet and RCA Victor acquired his contract in a deal arranged by Colonel Tom Parker, who would manage him for more than two decades.
Childhood in Tupelo
Elvis Aaron Presley was born on January 8, 1935, in Tupelo, Mississippi, to Vernon Presley and Gladys Love (née Smith) Presley in a two-room shotgun house that his father built for the occasion. Elvis's identical twin brother, Jesse Garon Presley, was delivered stillborn thirty-five minutes before him. Elvis became close to both parents and formed an especially close bond with his mother. The family attended an Assembly of God church, where he found his initial musical inspiration.
Presley's father Vernon was of Irish, German, Scottish, and English origins, and was a descendant of the Harrison family of Virginia through his mother, Minnie Mae Presley (née Hood). Presley's mother Gladys was Scots-Irish with some French Norman ancestry. She and the rest of the family believed that her great-great-grandmother, Morning Dove White, was Cherokee. This belief was restated by Elvis's granddaughter Riley Keough in 2017. Elaine Dundy, in her biography, supports the belief, as does Northern Ireland-based historian Alister McReynolds, who stated in his 2014 book Kith and Kin: The Continuing Legacy of the Scots-Irish in America that Morning Dove White was a Cherokee princess who married Presley's Ulster Scot ancestor William Mansell. Dundy also alleged that Elvis' great-great grandmother Nancy J. Burdine (married to Abner Tackett) was Jewish. Burdine's family are believed to have migrated to the United States from what is now Lithuania around the time of the American Revolution; it was revealed that the original headstone for Gladys Presley, which was placed on her first grave at Memphis' Forest Hill Cemetery in December 1964 and had been in storage in the Graceland Archives between 1977 and 2018, had not only a cross marking, but also a Star of David marking on it as well. Nate Bloom challenged the claim of a Jewish ancestor after checking records, and a conversation with a woman whose mother was friends with Gladys. More recently genealogical researcher Carrie Zeidman concluded the claim "doesn’t stand up to the research" after not finding any records connecting a Nancy J. Burdine to the Tackett family.
Vernon moved from one odd job to the next, showing little ambition. The family often relied on help from neighbors and government food assistance. In 1938 they lost their home after Vernon was found guilty of altering a check written by his landowner and sometime-employer. He was jailed for eight months while Gladys and Elvis moved in with relatives.
In September 1941, Presley entered first grade at East Tupelo Consolidated, where his teachers regarded him as "average". He was encouraged to enter a singing contest after impressing his schoolteacher with a rendition of Red Foley's country song "Old Shep" during morning prayers. The contest, held at the Mississippi–Alabama Fair and Dairy Show on October 3, 1945, was his first public performance. The ten-year-old Presley stood on a chair to reach the microphone and sang "Old Shep". He recalled placing fifth. A few months later, Presley received his first guitar for his birthday; he had hoped for something else—by different accounts, either a bicycle or a rifle. Over the following year, he received basic guitar lessons from two of his uncles and the new pastor at the family's church. Presley recalled, "I took the guitar, and I watched people, and I learned to play a little bit. But I would never sing in public. I was very shy about it."
In September 1946, Presley entered a new school, Milam, for sixth grade; he was regarded as a loner. The following year, he began bringing his guitar to school on a daily basis. He played and sang during lunchtime and was often teased as a "trashy" kid who played hillbilly music. By then, the family was living in a largely African-American neighborhood. Presley was a devotee of Mississippi Slim's show on the Tupelo radio station WELO. He was described as "crazy about music" by Slim's younger brother, who was one of Presley's classmates and often took him into the station. Slim supplemented Presley's guitar instruction by demonstrating chord techniques. When his protégé was aged 12, Slim scheduled him for two on-air performances. Presley was overcome by stage fright the first time but succeeded in performing the following week.
Teenage life in Memphis In November 1948, the family moved to Memphis, Tennessee. After residing for nearly a year in rooming houses, they were granted a two-bedroom apartment in the public housing complex known as the Lauderdale Courts. Enrolled at L. C. Humes High School, Presley received only a C in music in eighth grade. When his music teacher told him that he had no aptitude for singing, he brought in his guitar the next day and sang a recent hit, "Keep Them Cold Icy Fingers Off Me", to prove otherwise. A classmate later recalled that the teacher "agreed that Elvis was right when he said that she didn't appreciate his kind of singing". He was usually too shy to perform openly and was occasionally bullied by classmates who viewed him as a "mama's boy".
In 1950, Presley began practicing guitar regularly under the tutelage of Lee Denson, a neighbor two and a half years his senior. They and three other boys—including two future rockabilly pioneers, brothers Dorsey and Johnny Burnette—formed a loose musical collective that played frequently around the Courts. That September, Presley began working as an usher at Loew's State Theater. Other jobs followed at Precision Tool, another stint at Loew's, and MARL Metal Products. Presley also helped Jewish neighbors, the Fruchters, by being their shabbos goy.
During his junior year, Presley began to stand out more among his classmates, largely because of his appearance: he grew his sideburns and styled his hair with rose oil and Vaseline. In his free time, he would head down to Beale Street, the heart of Memphis' thriving blues scene, and gaze longingly at the wild, flashy clothes in the windows of Lansky Brothers. By his senior year, he was wearing those clothes. Overcoming his reticence about performing outside the Courts, he competed in Humes' Annual "Minstrel" Show in April 1953. Singing and playing guitar, he opened with "Till I Waltz Again with You", a recent hit for Teresa Brewer. Presley recalled that the performance did much for his reputation: "I wasn't popular in school ... I failed music—only thing I ever failed. And then they entered me in this talent show ... when I came onstage, I heard people kind of rumbling and whispering and so forth, 'cause nobody knew I even sang. It was amazing how popular I became in school after that."
Presley, who received no formal music training and could not read music, studied and played by ear. He also visited record stores that provided jukeboxes and listening booths to customers. He knew all of Hank Snow's songs, and he loved records by other country singers such as Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb, Ted Daffan, Jimmie Rodgers, Jimmie Davis, and Bob Wills. The Southern gospel singer Jake Hess, one of his favorite performers, was a significant influence on his ballad-singing style. Presley was a regular audience member at the monthly All-Night Singings downtown, where many of the white gospel groups that performed reflected the influence of African American spiritual music. He adored the music of black gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
Presley listened to regional radio stations, such as WDIA, that played what were then called "race records": spirituals, blues, and the modern, backbeat-heavy sound of rhythm and blues. Like some of his peers, he may have attended blues venues only on nights designated for exclusively white audiences—a necessity in the segregated South. Many of his future recordings were inspired by local African-American musicians such as Arthur Crudup and Rufus Thomas. B.B. King recalled that he had known Presley before he was popular when they both used to frequent Beale Street. By the time he graduated from high school in June 1953, Presley had already singled out music as his future.
Sam Phillips and Sun Records
In August 1953, Presley checked into the offices of Memphis Recording Service, the company run by Sam Phillips before he started Sun Records. He aimed to pay for a few minutes of studio time to record a two-sided acetate disc: "My Happiness" and "That's When Your Heartaches Begin". He later claimed that he intended the record as a birthday gift for his mother, or that he was merely interested in what he "sounded like", although there was a much cheaper, amateur record-making service at a nearby general store. Biographer Peter Guralnick argued that Presley chose Sun in the hope of being discovered. Asked by receptionist Marion Keisker what kind of singer he was, Presley responded, "I sing all kinds." When she pressed him on who he sounded like, he repeatedly answered, "I don't sound like nobody." After he recorded, Keisker wrote down the young man's name for Phillips, who was out of the office, along with her own commentary: "Good ballad singer. Hold."
In January 1954, Presley cut a second acetate at Sun—"I'll Never Stand in Your Way" and "It Wouldn't Be the Same Without You"—but again nothing came of it. Not long after, he failed an audition for a local vocal quartet, the Songfellows, explaining to his father, "They told me I couldn't sing." Songfellow Jim Hamill later claimed that he was turned down because he did not demonstrate an ear for harmony at the time. In April, Presley began working for the Crown Electric company as a truck driver. His friend Ronnie Smith, after playing a few local gigs with him, suggested he contact Eddie Bond, leader of Smith's professional band, which had an opening for a vocalist. Bond rejected him after a tryout, advising Presley to stick to truck driving "because you're never going to make it as a singer".
Phillips, meanwhile, was always on the lookout for someone who could bring to a broader audience the sound of the black musicians on whom Sun focused. As Keisker reported, "Over and over I remember Sam saying, 'If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars. In June, he acquired a demo recording by Jimmy Sweeney of a ballad, "Without You", that he thought might suit Presley. The teenaged singer came by the studio but was unable to do it justice. Despite this, Phillips asked Presley to sing as many numbers as he knew. He was sufficiently affected by what he heard to invite two local musicians, guitarist Winfield "Scotty" Moore and upright bass player Bill Black, to work something up with Presley for a recording session.