On July5, ElvisPresley recorded a song that would change music history before anyone knew his name. Three days later, on July 8, a single radio spin in Memphis would ignite Elvis Mania.
🎬 SIGN UP for Parade’s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox 🎬
When DJ Dewey Phillips played “That’s All Right” on WHBQ’s Red, Hot & Blue segment, the frenzy was born, with that broadcast now widely seen as the moment rock and roll entered the mainstream.
Bettmann / Getty Images
At the time, Presley was a 19-year-old truck driver who had been trying to break into the music business for about a year, according to Songfacts. One summer day, he pulled into Sun Records Studio and recorded “That’s All Right,” the debut single that launched his career and ultimately helped earn him the title of the King of Rock and Roll.
Covering an obscure blues song from the 1940s, Presley and session players Bill Black and Scotty Moore, also known as The Blue Moon Boys, were riffing on the Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup original when the studio’s owner, Sam Phillips, heard it and insisted they record it for real.
“All of a sudden, Elvis started singing this song, jumping around and acting the fool, and then Bill picked up his bass, and he started acting the fool, too, and I started playing with them,” Moore recalled, via Far Out. “Sam, I think, had the door to the control booth open … he stuck his head out and said, ‘What are you doing?’ And we said, ‘We don’t know.’ ‘Well, back up,’ he said, ‘try to find a place to start, and do it again.’”
Related: 1964 Dance Number That Upstaged ‘The King’ Ranked Among Greatest Rock ’n’ Roll Movie Moments
After shopping “That’s All Right” around to several radio stations, DJ Dewey at WHBQ scooped it up and sparked a movement. A disc jockey infamous for spinning a diverse mix of tunes, he was flooded with calls from listeners after the debut, begging him to play the song again. By the time the day was done, he reportedly spun the track more than a dozen times.
Weeks later, on July 19, Sun Records released the song as a single with “Blue Moon of Kentucky.” Following the radio debut, “That’s All Right” became a sensation around Memphis, paving the way for national success and setting the stage for the pioneering rockabilly sound that launched Presley’s career.
“I said if I ever got to the place where I could feel all old Arthur felt, I’d be a music man like nobody ever saw,” Presley once told Rolling Stone, via Songfacts.
At the end of the month, on July 30, the song became the first Presley performed in concert. Opening for Slim Whitman in Memphis, he rocked through “That’s All Right,” “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” and “I’ll Never Let You Go (Little Darlin’).”
When the song was released, it arrived in a chart era that didn’t yet include the Billboard Hot 100, so the impact of “That’s All Right” wasn’t immediately captured in the national rankings. Decades later, however, its legacy only grew.
In fact, the 50-year re-release topped the Billboard Singles Sales chart in 2004 and peaked at No. 3 on the U.K.’s Official Singles Chart.
More than seven decades later, Presley’s radio debut is still cited as the spark that transformed Elvis Presley from an unknown teenager into a defining figure in rock and roll’s future.
Related: 1966 Smash Hit, Finished in a Taxi on the Way to a Disco, Became a Cross-Generational Anthem
