“Elvis: The Sun Sessions” is an essential part of any rock and roll record collection. With all due respect to Ike Turner and some of the early rockers recorded by Sam Phillips, Elvis in the Sun studios is the rock equivalent of cold fusion, the moment everything came together and everything changed forever.
It’s ironic, because Scotty Moore and Bill Black weren’t initially impressed by Elvis and neither was Sam Phillips. Sam was about ready to call it quits—for good—when Elvis began riffing on “That’s All Right Mama;” Moore and Black joined in, and Phillips knew he had stumbled across something completely unique and original in the music world.
Your comments about the illegal alien are spot-on. The money offered by European promoters for concert tours on the continent were jaw-dropping for that era, and there’s no doubt Elvis would have drawn huge crowds. But the illegal alien was afraid his unlawful entry would be discovered when he applied for a passport, so Elvis missed out on millions in potential European earnings.
The purists, like Mark Gold, fail to take into account that Elvis had an extraordinary voice.