428 PART 4 | SINCE WORLD WAR II
was set up at the Sun studio. Toward the end of the session, “this song popped into
my mind that I had heard years ago,” Elvis later recalled, “and I started kidding
around with it.” The song was “That’s All Right,” a rhythm and blues number by
Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, a Mississippi-born bluesman. Surprised that Presley
even knew a song by Big Boy Crudup, Sam Phillips was struck even more with the
originality, freshness, and exuberance of the performance.
Artistic breakthroughs of such consequence are rare, and eyewitness
accounts of them even rarer. This story pinpoints the moment when an artist
who would soon number his fans in the millions fi rst glimpsed his realm of per-
sonal expression. But it was through musical collaboration that started out with
innocent clowning that Presley was able to enter that realm—a process captured
on tape by Sam Phillips.
The musical process behind “That’s All Right” involved the work of people
in many roles: Big Boy Crudup’s song, Elvis Presley’s singing, Scotty Moore and
Bill Black’s accompaniment, and, not least, Sam Phillips’s recording of the result.
In fact, rock and roll itself was grounded in recording. It became popular not so
much through live performances as through records played on the radio. That
the makers of rock and roll embraced technology from the start is dramatized by
Presley’s Memphis audition; Sam Phillips was interested not only in how Presley
sang but also in how he sounded on tape.K Elvis Presley (1935–
1977), singing in Memphis
in 1956 to a crowd of
ecstatic young listeners.172028_17_412-439_r3_sd.indd 428 23/01/13 10:58 AM