I met Elvis Presley on a hot July night in 1954. I was morning man at WHBQ Radio in the Chisca Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. I did the morning show called "Clockwatchers." At night from 9:00 to midnight, we had a wild DJ on the air who played black music for white kids in those days. They called it race music, rhythm and blues music. He had 65 to 70 percent of the audience.
Now, even though I worked mornings, I happened to be there this particular night showing some of my hometown buddies around the radio station. I heard this commotion coming out of the studio where Dewey Phillips was doing his show called "Red, Hot and Blue." I excused myself from my friends, and I walked into the studio. I discovered that Sam Phillips, founder of Sun Records, had walked in with an acetate — not a finished record — but an acetate of a recording he had made just two hours earlier by a truck driver for Crown Electric Company whose name was Elvis Presley.
He wanted [DJ] Dewey Phillips to test it on the air to see if he had anything. Dewey Phillips played it. The switchboard lit up. It was called "That's All Right Mama." It turned out to be his first hit. He played it seven times in a row. I was the one delegated by Sam Phillips to call Elvis' parents, who lived in low rent housing out in east Memphis called Lauderdale Courts. They were very poor. I got on the phone, and I called the Presley residence and Gladys, Mrs. Presley, answered the phone. |
