A truck driver from Tupelo who walked into a recording studio and split American culture in half.
"When I was a child, I was a dreamer. I read comic books, and I was the hero of the comic book."
Elvis Aaron Presley was born on January 8, 1935, in a two-room house in Tupelo, Mississippi. His identical twin, Jesse Garon, was stillborn. Elvis arrived into the world as a survivor — and as an only child carrying the weight of two lives.
His parents, Vernon and Gladys, were desperately poor. Vernon served time for check fraud when Elvis was three. Gladys worked as a sewing machine operator. They attended the Assembly of God church, where Elvis first heard the music that would define him — gospel, sung with abandon, by people who had nothing else to give.
When he was eleven, he wanted a bicycle for his birthday. His mother convinced him to accept a guitar instead. The bicycle would have cost $55. The guitar was $12.95.
The Presleys moved to Memphis in 1948, searching for a better life. Elvis graduated from Humes High School and took a job driving trucks for Crown Electric. On his lunch breaks, he'd walk past Sun Studio on Union Avenue.
In the summer of 1953, he walked in and paid $3.98 to record two songs as a gift for his mother. The receptionist, Marion Keisker, wrote on the tape box: "Good ballad singer." Producer Sam Phillips heard the tape and filed it away. A year later, he called Elvis back. On July 5, 1954, during a break in a frustrating recording session, Elvis started fooling around with Arthur Crudup's "That's All Right." Phillips stuck his head out of the control room and said, "What are you doing?" Elvis said he didn't know. Phillips said, "Well, back up, try to find a place to start, and do it again."
That recording aired on Memphis radio two nights later. The phone lines lit up. The station played it fourteen times in a row.
I bought elvispresley.life impulsively after getting laid off. I'm an engineer, not a speculator, and I'm sorry for that.
Building this page reminded me of that $12.95 guitar and the truck driver who walked into Sun Studio with $3.98 and changed the world. That's the kind of story that deserves a permanent home on the internet — not scattered across Wikipedia and fan sites, but owned by his family.
I'd like to return elvispresley.life to the Presley family or Elvis Presley Enterprises. No cost, no strings.