Tag Archives: Sun Studios

July 19: Elvis Presley – “That’s All Right” 1954

elvis presley that's all right single

In 2004, Elvis Presley’s “That’s All Right Mama” and Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” both celebrated their 50th anniversaries. Rolling Stone Magazine felt that Presley’s song was the first rock and roll recording. At the time Presley recorded the song, Big Joe Turner’s “Shake, Rattle & Roll”, later covered by Haley, was already at the top of the Billboard R&B charts. The Guardian felt that while there were rock’n’roll records before Presley’s, his recording was the moment when all the strands came together in “perfect embodiment”. (wikipedia)

“A lot of people seem to think I started this business, but rock ‘n’ roll was here a long time before I came along. Nobody can sing that kind of music like colored people. Let’s face it; I can’t sing it like Fats Domino can. I know that. But I always liked that kind of music.”
~Elvis Presley

elvis presley that's all right single2

 

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December 20: Pat Hare birthday

pate hare

If highly distorted guitar played with a ton of aggression and just barely suppressed violence is your idea of great blues, then Pat Hare’s your man.
~Cub Koda (allmusic.com)

….Auburn “Pat” Hare, the most aggressive picker to work at Phillips’ studio [Sun Studions that is]. Together, Hare and James Cotton produced one of the truly great blues recordings, “Cotton Crop Blues.”
~From the book: “Good Rockin’ Tonight: Sun Records and the Birth of Rock ‘N’ Roll

James Cotton (Pat Hare on guitar) – Cotton Crop Blues (May 1954):

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