JULY 5, 1954. THE DAY ROCK AND ROLL WAS BORN. 70 YEARS AGO TODAY
By Rosa García Mora
… “I mopped the floor, did the advertising and even did the building work,” Marion Keisker said of the Memphis Union Avenue establishment she helped find. “We pooled the money and between the two of us we did everything,” Marion explained in an interview, about her role in the day-to-day life and operation of the Sun Records record company. It didn’t bother her that they said she had been Sun’s secretary, but he clarified: “It’s okay, as long as it is said that I was also the office manager, the assistant engineer and the person responsible for all the tasks”…
Although history relegated her to the role of secretary, she was a radio pioneer, a captain in the army, a feminist activist and half of Sun Records.
And she was the one who insisted Sam Phillips call that boy who had stopped by the previous year to record an acetate for his mother… -or perhaps to listen to himself- and “who didn’t look like anyone.” “… An eighteen-year-old young man who worked as a truck driver and wanted to be a singer… but Marion never forgot.
And so, on this day, July 5, 1954, record producer Sam Philips organized a recording session with Elvis, Scotty and Billy. But the session was not progressing, it was not what Sam was looking for and Elvis was scared, repressed…he did not know what was expected of him… He was not aware that he only had to do one thing: “be himself.” .
When they stopped the recording session without any success, Elvis began to play spontaneously, to “be himself“, he began to sing as a diversion, without any pretension, since Sam was not recording them, a song originally written and performed by by American blues singer Arthur Crudup and recorded in 1946. The song was “That’s All Right.”
THE DAY ROCK AND ROLL WAS BORN
Sam couldn’t believe what he was hearing. What are you doing? asked them . “Nothing, the fool,” replied Elvis. And Sam told them: “Well, don’t stop! and he started recording!“
That was what Sam had been looking for all his life!
And so, at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee, at Sun Records… the story goes that that day Rock and Roll was born.
On July 7, two days later, Dewey Phillips played “That’s All Right” on his popular radio show “Red, Hot & Blue.” Upon hearing the news that Dewey was going to play his song, Elvis took refuge in a local movie theater to calm his nerves. I was so scared…
The interest that the song aroused in listeners was so great that, it is said, Dewey played the acetate 14 times and received more than 40 phone calls…
The rest is history…The birth of the myth, the King, the legend…
Thanks Sam, thanks Marion and thanks Dewey. Without you none of this would have been possible…
Here is the link to the first version that Elvis recorded of “That’s All Right“:
Article written and provided by Rosa García Mora. https://www.facebook.com/rosa.garciamora.12
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