It seems like this should be national news — international, even. We’re talking about Elvis Presley, after all. And the 70th anniversary of his first great triumph as a live performer is fast approaching, although anyone who saw it advertised in the paper beforehand might have gotten his name wrong. Promoting the eighth annual Country Music Jamboree scheduled for July 30, 1954, an ad in the Memphis Press-Scimitar read, “In person, the SENSATIONAL radio-recording star, Slim Whitman, with Billy Walker, Ellis Presley and many others … Tonight at Shell, $1.25 reserved.”
Whoever this “Ellis” Presley was, he shared the Overton Park Shell stage with some mighty respected company amongst country music fans. Pretty good for only the second or third public performance of his life.
As it happened, it was more than pretty good: It was earth-shattering. In Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll, Peter Guralnick quotes Presley’s guitarist Scotty Moore as saying, “With those old loose britches that we wore, it made it look like all hell was going on under there. During the instrumental parts he would back off from the mic and be playing and shaking, and the crowd would just go wild, but he thought they were actually making fun of him.” They weren’t. After the show, dozens of teens rushed backstage for autographs from this new singer.
That validation was exactly what the young Presley needed, only 11 days after the release of his first single, “That’s All Right.”
It’s a story that Cole Early knows well, being the content and archives manager of the Overton Park Shell, not to mention curator of the Shell’s excellent Connie Abston Archive & History Exhibition. That short set, Presley’s first live show with just his recording band of Moore and Bill Black, was akin to a big bang of pop music, in stark contrast to Presley’s one earlier attempt to sit in with a band unfamiliar with his style.
“His first public performance ever was in a honky-tonk on Summer Avenue, and he wasn’t received well,” says Early of Presley’s previous experience. “The country music audience there at the club that night just saw this flashy kid wearing pink, and this was like a dive bar, a honky-tonk place.” Then came his appearance at the Country Music Jamboree.
Knowing that the Shell bore witness to one of rock-and-roll’s great moments, Early wanted to celebrate the memory of Elvis’ performance in style. Since the Shell already offers the Backstage Experience tour of the Connie Abston Archive, it was easy to imagine the Shell stage as the culmination of an even greater tour. What Elvis fan could resist seeing various key locations in The King’s ascension, working east from Downtown, then ending up at the very stage on which Elvis first made his mark, with music by a live band?
Done in partnership with Backbeat Tours and the Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum, the whole package, billed as The 70th Anniversary of Live Rock ‘n’ Roll, will be available one day only, on Saturday, July 27th. Early says the tour will “originate Downtown at the Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum. Of course, they have amazing exhibits down there. Then it’s going to do an Elvis-centric tour of Memphis, though not Graceland.” Expect stops at Sun Studio, the Presley’s Lauderdale Courts apartment, Elvis’ high school, the original Lansky Bros. clothing store, and the like. “And then they’ll come here to the Shell for a custom Backstage History Experience tour with mostly the Elvis points, and then at the end, a live re-creation of that first show, right where it happened.”
Finley Watkins & His Blue Moon (of Missouri) Boys will be playing, and Early says they’re a perfect fit. “You know, Elvis was a teenager when he played at the Shell, he was 19,” he says. “So it’s great having Finley, who’s also a teenager. And yes, he will have a Scotty and a Bill with him as well. That will be super exciting because they’ll have an upright bass, like Bill Black played during the original show. The Shell’s acoustics pick up that slap back really well. So we’re really proud that the Shell is the one venue where that can be realistic, in such a way that it couldn’t be in any other room or venue.”
For more details and tickets, see the “special events” at backbeattours.com.
