Elvis Presley’s “That’s All Right” played simultaneously on radio stations around the world Monday to mark the 50th anniversary of the rock ’n roll icon’s first professional record.
Scotty Moore, Presley’s first guitarist, hit a button on a control board at Sun Studio to begin the satellite broadcast to 1,200 to 1,500 stations.
Outside the small studio where Presley cut the record on July 5, 1954, a street party was under way, with bands performing on a sound stage at Sun’s front door. More than 2,000 participants turned out by early afternoon.
“That’s All Right” now enjoys a prominent place in the history of American music, but it wasn’t an immediate hit.
“A lot of people think it was an overnight success, but we paid our dues for two years on the road in Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Texas before RCA picked us up,” Moore said.
Music historians regard the recording of “That’s All Right” as a milestone in American pop culture.
“Elvis would be the first to say he didn’t create rock ’n’ roll. Rock ’n’ roll came from an evolutionary process going back probably to the 1940s,” said Kevin Kane, director of the Memphis tourism bureau.
“But there was a defining moment that took place on July 5th, and we just figured this is as good a time as any to celebrate it.”
Isaac Hayes, who recorded for Memphis’ Stax Records in the 1960s and 1970s, and singer Justin Timberlake, a Memphis native, joined Moore for the ceremony.
“He brought a lot of cultures together,” Hayes said of Presley. “He brought a lot of music together.”
But while Elvis may be universally known as the King of Rock ’n’ Roll, some consider it a stretch to anoint him the creator of a genre that mixed blues, R&B, country and even a bit of swing — musical styles that were around long before Elvis.
“There was a birth way before — where did Elvis get it from?” asked rocker Lenny Kravitz.
“The thing we think of as rock ’n’ roll is Elvis,” said rock historian Marc Kirkeby. “But there were records that would be thought of as rock ’n’ roll before that and they were done by black artists.”
And not just blacks — or even artists — are credited with starting rock ’n’ roll. Just two years ago, there were commemorations of the 50th anniversary of rock ’n’ roll pegged to disc jockey Alan Freed’s Moondog Coronation Ball in Cleveland. Some rock historians have claimed the March 21, 1952, show as the first rock concert — the main reason the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was located there.
Other historians point to “Rocket ’88,” the 1951 hit written by Ike Turner, as the first rock record because of its distorted electric guitar sound. Still others claim Bill Haley’s 1954 hits “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock” and “Shake, Rattle and Roll” (the latter a remake of a Big Joe Turner version) helped birth the rock explosion.
And of course, there are those who say that the blues and swing recordings of black artists from years earlier were rock tunes.
Contentious claims“That’s like one of those things that’s so contested. I always thought it was when Big Joe Turner did ‘Shake, Rattle and Roll,”’ said guitarist Vernon Reid, formerly of the rock group Living Colour. “Everyone makes a claim and it’s contentious.”
Probably only die-hard Elvis fans or music historians are familiar with “That’s All Right,” a cover of a blues number by Arthur Crudup. Released in 1954 by the famed Sun Records, then a local blues label in Memphis owned by a relatively unknown Sam Phillips, it was not a national success, but caused a sensation when played on local radio.
Presley’s upbeat version, mixing in a bit of country twang, gave the song a different sound. It created a buzz for Presley that eventually caught the attention of RCA Records, which bought out Elvis’ contract a year later. Presley wouldn’t get his first pop No. 1 single until 1956 with “Heartbreak Hotel.”
When pressed, even folks in Memphis won’t go as far as to say “That’s All Right” was the definitive date rock was created.
“I think if you look at the annals of history, people look at that date as something that had a dramatic effect on rock ’n’ roll,” said Kevin Kane, president and CEO of the Memphis convention and visitors bureau.
Even during a tour of Sun Studio, still the tiny structure it was in 1954, the tour guide points to “Rocket 88” — also recorded there before Phillips started Sun Records — as the first rock record.
Sitting in the small gift shop and cafe that serves as a greeting point for visitors — many of them Elvis faithful on their way to Graceland — John Schorr, Sun Studio’s owner, acknowledges that.
“I don’t think anyone is calling this the very first rock ’n’ roll song ever made, but it is the first time rock ’n’ roll went global and exploded on the world scene,” says Schorr, who purchased Sun more than a decade ago (it remains a recording studio).
“Everyone refers to it as kind of the opening shot of the big bang of rock ’n’ roll that occurred in rock ’n’ roll, which the other ones hadn’t done yet.”
White teens embracing black music
Others also suggest that more so than the music, “That’s All Right” was perhaps the first time that American teens — more specifically, white teens — started embracing a new style of edgy, sexy black music as their own.
“The rock ’n’ roll explosion really starts when white kids were becoming immersed in black music,” said Kirkeby. “Elvis was the catalyst for that, you have to give him that credit.”
Soul legend Isaac Hayes puts it more bluntly.
“You’ve got to think about it at a time when black music was looked down upon by whites. People like Elvis got lambasted for singing that kind of music,” he said. “It took a white guy to break it. Blacks couldn’t break it.”
More than 1,000 stations around the globe are scheduled to play “That’s All Right” at the same time on that date, and Memphis talent such as Justin Timberlake and Hayes are expected to perform during a concert. Throughout the year, there have been dozens of promotional tie-ins celebrating “That’s All Right” as the start of rock ’n’ roll, from Rolling Stone magazine covers to DVD and CD releases.
The “50 Years of Rock ’n’ Roll” in Memphis was Kane’s brainchild. Besides its blues heritage, the city’s rich musical history includes the Stax soul music label (home to Otis Redding, Hayes, The Staples Singers and others) as well as Sun (which started the careers of Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison, just to name a few), among other contributions.
Though it’s been touting itself as the birthplace of rock for years, it wasn’t until two years ago that Memphis thought it should put together a worldwide anniversary campaign to draw attention to Memphis as a music center.
“We feel the more exposure that we can generate for Memphis for events through various things that we do, and tying it to our musical legacy can only help encourage people who are motivated by music that Memphis is a place you really want to visit,” Kane said.
Elvis as the starting point
Rolling Stone has also agreed that Presley’s debut song marks the birth of rock. But Joe Levy, a deputy managing editor of the magazine, says it wasn’t jumping on the Memphis bandwagon.
“We’ve been talking for several years about when to mark the anniversary of rock ’n’ roll, and in the end it seemed pretty natural,” Levy said.
“As a mass phenomenon that changed American culture, Elvis Presley is a legitimate starting point for the beginning of rock ’n’ roll. That’s where the music became a phenomenon, and the phenomenon grew into a culture that would change the culture and the rest of the world.”
Reid, who is black, says that’s partly because white culture made that determination.
“Elvis was crowned the ‘King of Rock ’n’ Roll’ not by black people. That’s really what it comes down to — who had the power to make the definitions stick?” he asks. “The 300-pound gorilla in the room is that this is when white people started paying attention to it.”
Still, Kirkeby says Presley — who never claimed to have invented the genre — transformed not only black music, but white music as well.
“The seeds were present well before Elvis, but the thing we call rock ’n’ roll was an explosion of black culture meeting white culture that was embodied in him.”
Kravitz says the true creators of rock will likely never get their due.
“The guys who invented rock ’n’ roll, we probably don’t even know who they are,” he said. “We can talk about all the Bo Diddleys and the Fats Dominos and all the great guys and Chuck Berrys who were the pioneers, but I’m sure there were a bunch of guys sitting on porches somewhere in the backwoods — we don’t even know who they are.”