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Elvis Presley · S2 E1
Memphis Recording Service
A nervous truck driver walks into Sam Phillips' studio and pays $3.98 to record two songs for his mother
It's the summer of 1953, and Elvis Presley drives a delivery truck for Crown Electric Company at about forty dollars a week. Every day on his route, he passes a small storefront at 706 Union Avenue with a sign in the window that reads: Memphis Recording Service. Personal Record, $3.98.
"If I Can Dream" (Elvis Presley, '68 Comeback Special, NBC, 1968). Fifteen years after a truck driver first pulled up outside 706 Union Avenue, this is what came out of it. The voice that fills this stage started with a teenager who just wanted to hear what his own singing sounded like on a record.
Crown Electric
After graduating from Humes High in June 1953, Elvis takes a factory job at Precision Tool and then switches to Crown Electric, a small electrical contracting firm where he drives a pickup truck delivering materials to job sites around Memphis. It's honest, steady work, and Vernon and Gladys are relieved their boy has a paycheck. But Elvis has been telling friends and coworkers for months that he's going to be a singer, and everyone who hears him say it thinks he's dreaming.
Sources
Guralnick, Peter. "Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley." Little, Brown, 1994.
“He came in and he was so nervous his hands were shaking. He said he wanted to make a record for his mother's birthday. I said, 'What kind of singer are you?' And he said, 'I sing all kinds.'”
— Marion Keisker
If I Can Dream, Elvis Presley (1968)
Earl Brown wrote this the night Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, and Elvis chose it as the finale of his 1968 NBC Comeback Special over Colonel Parker's objections. Parker wanted a Christmas song. Elvis refused, one of the few times he ever overruled his manager. Listen for how his voice breaks with raw desperation as the song builds, reaching back to the same hunger that made a truck driver walk into a recording studio and bet on himself.
Sources
Guralnick, Peter. "Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley." Little, Brown, 1999.
Jorgensen, Ernst. "Elvis Presley: A Life in Music." St. Martin's Press, 1998.
Memphis Recording Service / Sun Records
706 Union Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee. Sam Phillips opened this storefront in 1950, splitting it into two operations: the Memphis Recording Service during the day, where anyone could pay $3.98 to record a personal acetate disc, and Sun Records by night, where he recorded blues, gospel, and country artists the major labels refused to touch. The building still stands as a museum, and the tile floor Elvis first walked across has been visited by more than a million people.
TAP TO REVEAL: Did Elvis really record that first acetate for his mother?
Good Rockin' Tonight, Elvis Presley (1954)
Elvis' second Sun Records single, originally written by Roy Brown in 1947 and turned into an R&B chart-topper by Wynonie Harris. Sam Phillips picked this as a follow-up to 'That's All Right' because it proved Elvis could handle a full-throttle R&B number with the same loose energy. Scotty Moore's guitar and Bill Black's slapped bass push the tempo to the edge of falling apart. The title says it all: something good was starting at 706 Union Avenue.
Good Rockin' Tonight, Elvis Presley (1954)
"I heard the news, there's good rockin' tonight." Read the lyrics while you listen. Roy Brown wrote this in 1947 as a jump blues party anthem, and Wynonie Harris took it to number one on the R&B chart. Elvis heard the song and did what he always did: took a Black artist's record and ran it through his own filter of gospel, country, and pure nervous energy.
What kind of job was Elvis working when he first walked into the Memphis Recording Service?
Elvis has paid his $3.98, but he hasn't sung a note yet. The woman behind the desk asks him what kind of music he sings, and he picks two songs that nobody in this building expects. Next: a nervous boy records 'My Happiness,' and the woman behind the desk quietly starts a tape machine.
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