Music was the only area of Memphis life at the time in which the city’s racial apartheid could be safely surmounted. White figures such as Sam Phillips and Dewey Phillips could act on their enthusiasm for the scorching boogie of Memphis’ black artists and even acquire a certain hip cachet among young white music fans for doing so. The Plantation Inn, a venue across the Mississippi River in West Memphis, Arkansas, was an example of this. Ben Branch and his house orchestra played undiluted r&b for loyal and growing white audiences there.
Sam Phillips had a feeling that this trend was leading to something big. He told his office manager, Marion Keisker, that he’d love to find a white man who could sing with the feeling of a blues shouter.
He was not a rich man. He loved recording and he loved blues. He poured his resources into amassing equipment at the Union Avenue facility. His cash flow was often thin, though. In addition to putting out discs on his Sun label, he offered the public the opportunity to cut demos and novelty special-occasion presents for friends and family under the business name Memphis Recording Service.
One sticky summer day in 1953, Phillips was out of the building and Marion Keisker had her hands full. The lobby was full of people wanting to cut demos. Something about one of them intrigued her. A nervous young man with prominent sideburns fidgeted and waited his turn. She approached him and asked about his music. The eighteen-year-old, a truck driver for the Crown Electric Company named Elvis Presley, told her about his love for gospel music and pop ballads. When he got into the studio, he cut two Ink Spots numbers, “My Happiness” and “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin,” singing and playing guitar. Keisker sensed something special about this lad. She made a note to mention him to Phillips.
