When a Memphis DJ first played Elvis Presley’s “That’s All Right,” listeners kept calling to hear it again. By public demand, it aired four times in a row that night, per Graceland.
Presley, then 19, had recorded it at Sun Studio just three days earlier, on July 5, 1954.
That track sits at No. 41 on Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time. The honor belongs to guitarist Scotty Moore, whose solo the 2026 list singles out.
Rolling Stone’s entry also quotes Moore recalling how the now-iconic recording came together.
“Bill [Black] started just slapping the bass,” Moore later recalled. “And it sounded pretty good what they’re doing, so I started just playing some kind of rhythm thing with them, too.”
Jon Dolan, who wrote the entry for the outlet, described it this way:
“It’s a tossed-off good time that changed history.”
How a Studio Break Gave Elvis Presley His First Single
Sun Records owner Sam Phillips paired Presley with Moore and bassist Bill Black, according to Rolling Stone.
For most of the session, nothing clicked. Then Presley started fooling around with Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s blues tune between takes.
Phillips was so taken with the sound that he insisted they record it. Presley later looked back on the session, per Sun Records.
“I never sang like that in my life, until I made that first record,” he said. “I remember that song because I heard Arthur sing it, and I thought I would like to try it. That was it.”
Listeners had flooded the station wanting to know who the new singer was. Presley was pulled out of a movie theater for an on-air interview that night.
One of Dewey’s first questions was where Presley had gone to high school, per MPR News. His answer, Humes, signaled to listeners in the segregated South that the singer was white.
Rolling Stone’s 2011 list of 100 Greatest Guitarists places Moore at No. 29.
Related: 1976 Album, ‘A Pivotal Moment in Heavy Metal,’ Still Rocks 50 Years Later
