Elvis at Overton Park: Inside the historic 1954 concert that launched the King's career

Seventy years ago this month, "Ellis" Presley performed at the Overton Park Shell.

That's what it said in that day's edition of the Memphis Press-Scimitar, the city's daily evening newspaper.

"In person, the SENSATIONAL radio recording star Slim Whitman," blared the advertisement on page 23.

Below a photograph of the country-and-western yodeler with the radiant smile and dashing mustache was this addendum: "With Billy Walker, Ellis Presley and many others."

If, in fact, the 19-year-old singer billed below Texas crooner Billy Walker had been someone named "Ellis" Presley, you wouldn't be reading this story today.

But, of course, the guitar-strummer with the striped tie and shaky leg who took the stage on July 30, 1954, to perform "That's All Right" followed by "Blue Moon of Kentucky" was Elvis Presley, making his first billed public appearance.

Red, Hot & Elvis

Obviously, "Ellis" Presley was not considered to be the evening's main attraction, especially by promoters indifferent even to the correct spelling of his first name.

But as guitarist Scotty Moore told Elvis biographer Peter Guralnick, the crowd of "hillbilly" music fans at the Shell went "wild" for the hometown sensation whose debut Sun single — featuring the two songs he would perform at the Shell — had been introduced to listeners just 23 days earlier by WHBQ radio deejay Dewey Phillips, on his "Red, Hot & Blue" show.

The reaction to the "untried, unproven" performer exceeded the "wildest expectations" of Elvis' friends and family, Guralnick wrote in his 1994 book "Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley." In that way, the Shell performance was a preview of the worldwide response to the man who would conquer radio, the music charts, concert venues and movie screens on his way to becoming known as "The King of Rock 'n' Roll." In another way, Scotty's guitar licks, Bill Black's bass thumps, and Elvis' leg vibrations from that night reverberate today, throughout culture in general and at the Overton Park Shell, in particular, which in recent years has reclaimed its status as a premier venue for live music.

"We're honored to be the place that was his first live performance and that launched his career," said Natalie Wilson, executive director of the Overton Park Shell. "This is a space with an almost 90-year legacy, and we really lean into our history."

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Although established artists sometimes perform beneath the scalloped bandshell (power pop stalwart Matthew Sweet headlines Aug. 31, with Memphis funk veterans The Bar-Kays taking the stage Sept. 28), "we really like to give emerging artists a stage," Wilson said.

The Elvis story features heavily in the museum-style "Connie Abston Archive & History Exhibition" that is a focus of the behind-the-scenes tours that take place at noon, 2 and 5:30 p.m. daily at the Shell, which was built in 1936, as a project of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "New Deal" programs, intended to lift the U.S. out of the Great Depression.

The tours mostly are led by Cole Early, content and archives manager at the Shell, who said that the height of the old stage in 1954 meant that "Elvis was basically shaking his hips at eye level, so everyone screamed. It was completely radical and revolutionary."

The identities of the "many others" alluded to in the Press-Scimitar ad comprise a wonderful roll call of hillbilly names: Tinker, Sonny, Sugarfoot and Curly. More precisely, they are Tinker Fry, Sonny Harvelle, Sugarfoot Collins and comic Curly Harris — "Laffs Galore with Curly Harris" promised a July 25 ad for the show in The Commercial Appeal that touted Whitman as "America's Favorite Folk Artist" and Walker as a "new star," but did not mention Elvis.

Meanwhile, the Press-Scimitar's longtime arts columnist, Edwin Howard, wrote about Elvis in a July 28 story that promoted the show. "Elvis, son of Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Presley, 462 Alabama, is a truck driver for Crown Electric Co.," wrote Howard, while also asserting that Presley's debut single "promises to be the biggest hit that Sun has ever pressed."

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Elvis to Lisa Marie

During the 1954 Shell show (general admission: $1), "Elvis Presley, Scotty and Bill" — to quote the billing as it appears on the labels of the trio's Sun records — performed the "That's All Right/ Blue Moon of Kentucky" single twice. Their second run-through of the songs was an encore, in answer to the rapturous audience applause. The two songs "pretty much exhausted the group's repertoire," Guralnick wrote.

They'd know more songs when they returned to the Shell on Aug. 5, 1955, headlining a dream bill of 22 performers that included Webb Pierce, Wanda Jackson, Charlie Feathers, Red Sovine, Sonny James and "new Memphis singer Johnny Cash" (to quote The Commercial Appeal).

Despite his growing fame, Elvis was billed second to Pierce in the ads (if not in the promotional patter of WMPS disc jockey and talent manager Bob Neal, who organized the Shell's "jamborees"). The newspapers didn't cover the 1954 show, but the Press-Scimitar printed a photo montage the day after the 1955 concert under the headline: "4000 Jam Shell, Hundreds Turned Away — Country Rhythm Fills a City Park."

Elvis returned to the Shell on June 1, 1956, but by this time he was "too big" to perform there, Early said; instead, he showed up to lend moral support and pose for pictures with performers Cash, Roy Orbison, Warren Smith, Eddie Bond and Carl Perkins, described by the Press-Scimitar — in the wake of Perkins' hit, "Blue Suede Shoes" — as "Memphis' second big homegrown singing star of the past year."

Although Elvis' music would have wide appeal (his first RCA single, "Heartbreak Hotel," in 1956, would top the pop and country charts, and hit No. 5 on rhythm-and-blues), Early points out that Elvis' Shell debut was not open to all.

The concert took place a decade before Memphis desegregated its public spaces. In 1954, the property around the Shell was fenced, and Black citizens were generally unwelcome. But just as the venue is important to rock ‘n' roll, it played a role in the history of progress of Memphis, too. In 1960, 13 Black youths were arrested at an Assembly of God youth rally at the Shell that was "for white persons only," according to The Commercial Appeal. That was among the sit-in-style protests in Overton Park that led to "Watson v. City of Memphis," a 1963 Supreme Court ruling that required the city to immediately desegregate all its public parks and recreational facilities.

Before long, the Shell was hosting concerts by white and Black artists alike, including Rufus Thomas, Furry Lewis, the Allman Brothers Band and ZZ Top. A Sept. 21, 2013, show is particularly noteworthy: That night, the performer in the Shell in Overton Park was Elvis' daughter, Lisa Marie Presley.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Elvis in Memphis: Inside the historic 1954 Overton Park Shell concert