Elvis Coffin

Elvis Coffin

Early October 1948, when Elvis was 13 years old, the family moved to Memphis, Tennessee to escape the law. He father had been supporting the family transporting 'bootlegger' booze across the border. "Dad packed all our belongings in boxes and put them on top of a 1939 Plymouth. We left Tupelo overnight. We were broke, man, broke," Elvis recalled in later years, still much effected by the moonlight flit forced upon them by his father's misdemeanor. The move to Memphis did not improve the family's financial situation as hoped. Gladys Presley resorted to working as a nurse's aid to supplement the family income.

Elvis was enrolled at Hume High School where he was an average student, his best subjects being workshop and English. While in school Elvis befriended the school-bully, the notorious 6'4" red-headed, Red West who was to remain a close friend and confidant and the ringleaders of the infamous Memphis Mafia, Elvis' collected as 24 hour party boys. After graduating from high school Elvis found work with Crown Electric as a truck driver, with the expectation of become an electrician. It was that summer that Elvis decided to make the recording for his mother. During his lunch break in the summer of 1953, a skinny 18-year-old kid parked his truck outside the Memphis Recording Service, one of several do-it-yourself record studios in town. The manageress, Marion Keisker looked at the nervous lad with long hair and sideburns with a guitar slung over his shoulder and asked,

"What kind of singer are you?"
"Awh, I sing all kinds," he replied.
"Who do you sound like?"
"I don't sound like nobody."
"Hillbilly?"
"Yeah, I sing Hillbilly."
"Who do you sound like in hillbilly?"
"I don't sound like nobody. "

With that Elvis Aaron Presley strode into the recording studio and cut two tracks. THAT'S WHEN YOUR HEARTACHES BEGIN and MY HAPPINESS , accompanying himself of guitar, paid the four-dollar fee and left - but was not forgotten. Marion liked what she heard and insisted her partner, Sam Phillips listen to the master tape, he was impressed.
But when he brought his precious gift home, Elvis would later recall, "My daddy said, son you better make up your mind whether you want to be a guitar player or an electrician �cause I never saw a guitar player that was worth a damn..." Where daddy Vernon didn't see a future for Elvis as a singer Sam Phillips did. After hearing Elvis, Phillips urged Elvis back to the studio, and with a two-man band. Bill Black on doghouse base and Scotty Moore on lead guitar backed Elvis� recorded �That�s Alright Mama� and �Blue Moon of Kentucky.� The single made it big - but only in Memphis. It took 2 years, a deal with RCA secured by his manager, Col Tom Parker, and the austere, Heartbreak Hotel to put Elvis-the-Pelvis on the road to stardom. The song reached #1, changed the course of music, and crowned Presley the King of Rock n Roll. The Presley phenomena lasted three decades, up until, Moody Blue his last hit in 1977. At a time when racial segregation was still enforced by law Elvis caused a sensation as a white singer who sounded black, and what was then called 'race' music. Add to this Elvis' flippant attitude towards his critics: "I don't see how a-music can be a bad influence on teenagers, it's only music..." together with a gyrating stage act and you have the ingredients to upset all 'God fearing' adults and have the authorities insisting he be banned.