That's All Right (2:14)

Contrary to popular myth, “That’s All Right” is not the song Elvis recorded for his mother. In truth, Elvis recorded “My Happiness” for his mom much earlier during his first visit to Sun Records, summer or early fall 1953. By the time Elvis recorded “That’s All Right,” Jul. 5 1954, Sam Phillips was calling Elvis, hoping to find a vehicle for the voice that had haunted him off and on over several months. “That’s All Right,” an Arthur “Big Boy” Cruddup song, was a favorite of Elvis’s and wound up recorded on a whim. The irony is that Phillips had turned the tape deck off when Bill Black started smacking the stand-up bass and Elvis danced the moves that eventually made him the center of controversy on live television. Phillips told them to start again, this time with the tape recorder on. In the middel of July of ‘54, Dewey Phillips (no relation to Sam) played the disc dozens of times as calls poured into WHBQ in Memphis. Elvis, meanwhile, was at the Suzore #2 Movie Theater, which is where his parents found him and informed him that his record was a big hit on Dewey’s radio show “Red, Hot, and Blue.” The song reached Number 4 in Memphis but did not chart nationally. Bassplayer Bill Black and guitarist Scotty Moore played along with Elvis, who played his own rhythm guitar.