Imagine it's July 30th, 1954.

It's a thick, humid Friday night in Memphis, Tennessee.

The air at Overton Park is heavy, the kind of southern heat that sticks to

your skin, but there's a buzzing energy coming from the 4,000 people packed

into the grass in front of the shell.

They've come to see a local variety show, but there's a name on the

poster that looks a little unfamiliar.

It says Ellis Presley.

Backstage, 19-year-old truck driver is pacing.

He's not wearing the conservative suits of the crooners of the era.

He's draped in head to toe, bright pink, pink pants, a pink shirt,

and a long narrow tie provided by the Lansky brothers on Beal Street.

He's absolutely terrified.

Three weeks ago, he recorded a song called, that's All Right, mama.

It is been playing on the radio, but he's never done this, not like this,

not in front of a crowd this size.

He walks out onto that stage, the wood echoing under his boots.

He looks out at the sea of faces, grips his guitar, and the music starts.

But then something happens.

His legs starts to shake.

He's so nervous.

His knees are knocking together and he begins to jiggle just

to keep from falling over.

Suddenly a sound rises from the front row that hasn't been

heard in American music before.

It's a piercing collective scream from the women in the audience.

Elvis stops.

He goes backstage after his two songs confused.

He asked his manager, did I do something wrong?

Why are they hollering at me?

The answer was simple.

They weren't hollering because he's made a mistake.

They were hollering because they were witnessing the birth of a revolution.

Welcome to Talk With History.

I'm your host Scott here with my wife and historian Jen.

Hello.

On this podcast, we give you insights to our history inspired world travels

YouTube channel journey, and examine history through deeper conversations

with the curious, the explorers, and the history lovers out there.

Alright, Jen, so we are, this is an audio exclusive episode today.

So for our podcast listeners, this is for you now.

Elvis, obviously being us here in Memphis is a very, very

popular topic on our channel.

Seems to always do very well.

So we've been wanting to do some more Elvis history this year.

Yeah, it's the 20 50th birthday of America.

And I, Elvis is popular because I think he's that American Dream story.

We live here in Memphis, so there's a lot of Elvis history here.

A lot of people who know the Elvis history here 'cause he never really

left his hometown after 13 years old.

He moves here 13, but his birthday is the beginning of the year.

His birthday is January 8th, 1935.

And so.

They usually do something at Graceland.

They usually have a birthday cake and a birthday proclamation

and, but it's usually very cold.

Yeah.

It's like it could be snowing and it could be rainy, and it's miserable

and it's early in the morning and.

I never go because of that.

And you get your diehard fans that are out there.

And actually, Lisa Marie, that was one of her last appearances before

she passed, uh, three years ago.

Oh, I didn't know that.

She went to her dad's birthday celebration on January 8th

and she passes January 12th.

Wow.

So it was the last time people really saw her.

So it was very, it's very interesting how close.

Yeah.

And, and I remember when she passed away 'cause we were literally podcasting in

our living room in Norfolk, Virginia.

Yeah.

When we, we were wrapping up an episode.

And either you, you or I,

the news broke,

but the news broke.

Mm-hmm.

And so we ended the episode, we jumped on, we just kind of started a live

stream and just started talking about it and it look, and unfortunately

we were on like our other channel.

Yeah.

Our talk with history audio channel, and it took off, you know, and we had

tens of thousands of people because we were kind of one of the first to jump

on a live stream and talk about it.

It was like a reaction because.

We had, again, I had just seen her at the birthday celebration.

We had lived in Norfolk at that time, but she had just been to the Golden Globes.

Yeah, that's right.

Because Elvis had just been in the, the movie Gold Globes.

The movie.

Yeah, the movie.

So she was just making a public appearance.

So it was just very raw.

Yeah.

That, that feeling.

So, but this year, for his birthday, January 8th, it.

60 degrees.

It was

perfect weather.

It was no rain.

I could get over there very easily.

So I, I took the kids to school, got in the car, drove, parked, and walked up as

they are doing the birthday proclamation.

There might have been maybe a hundred people there.

Yeah.

And I was like, this is fantastic.

Now, no family members had come this year, but they had sent flowers.

So he definitely, you know, he has Priscilla, his ex-wife, but, uh, he has

three granddaughters and, uh, they now own Graceland, but none of them were there.

And so he had a, an old friend Jerry Schilling, he

was there and he was talking.

So, um, I was able to walk over to the grave site.

When no one was there because they were all at the birthday of Proclamation.

Yeah.

So you had, but you basically had it all to yourself.

You walked up and kind of filmed a short little video.

It was amazing because if you know anything about birthday, anything

about Elvis' birthday or the week of his death, August 16th, a lot

of his fan clubs will send Res

Yep.

And very specific res to his birthday and, and so I got to film all of those.

I got to film his site.

I got to film Lisa Marie before somebody came over and said.

No one's allowed to be here.

Yeah.

So I got very lucky.

Yeah.

Well, and, and just so people know, it's not like she, she snuck

up there because every day from, what is it, like seven to eight?

Mm-hmm.

They let, they let the public just walk up to, to his grave site.

Yeah.

So it's open every

day for, for free.

For free.

You can walk up there.

You can't go inside Graceland without a ticket, but you can walk up and

visit his actual grave site where he is buried next to his parents.

Uh, some of his family for, for free every day.

So that's what you walked up there, just kind of assuming that was still the case.

Yeah.

And knowing that, I mean, I, I'm a local.

Yeah,

right.

So I was just gonna go up and, and take some video and then

they said, you can't be here.

Oh.

I was like, that's fine.

So I walk over just as they're singing Happy Birthday.

So I sing Happy Birthday, and then I get to take pictures of the cake.

Now know that the cake is styrofoam.

And they put like, just

a little piece.

Oh, okay.

I couldn't tell from the, uh, from the video

because it's beautiful.

And then they have free cake for everybody That's

cool.

Across the street and everybody can get, have a piece of cake

and celebrate Elvis's birthday.

Yeah.

It, it's one of those things that as a local, it's fun for us to, to go,

to go do, to go to these kind of.

You know, yearly events at Graceland because you get all sorts of interesting

characters out there, hardcore Elvis fans, people who were alive and remember, you

know, hearing the news when you pass.

Yes.

So it's, it's always fun for us to kind of go over there because he's,

El Elvis is one of those rare, just global phenomenon that is known

literally throughout the entire world and has had an impact on probably

every single person on this planet.

So it's always.

It's always a big thing because there, there are people who were very, very

emotional about Elvis and who care deeply about kind of what he left

behind, and so it was cool for us to, to do another video on, on this topic

and I. I respect that.

Yeah.

Right.

So I even in the line, I am one of those people I engage with the, with the public.

Yeah.

Because I'm a historian, so I met these four women in the line.

If they're listening to it, they, I gave 'em all my card, but

they're part of an Elvis Peasley fan club and have been for years.

Yeah.

And they're from all around the world and they've met each other and now

they always get together, the four of them, once a year in Graceland.

Yeah.

And they're, it, it was just amazing to hear their stories, where they were when

they heard Elvis died, what Elvis meant to them, how much they've come to the, the

candlelight vigils for his birth, for the, his passing, his birthday celebrations.

Like they're very much inundated in doing this as a group.

Yeah.

And it, what's very neat to hear from all different, I'm from

Europe, like, it was just amazing.

And so it was great to, to engage with them and then have the birthday cake.

And if you know anything about Elvis Presley as well, uh, he.

Would leave his Christmas decorations up until after his birthday.

Yeah, that was like a, that was a thing.

Everybody said, oh, you gotta leave him up at least until January 8th.

Yes.

So I show you some of the Christmas decorations as well.

Yeah.

'cause he has a great huge nativity set and stuff like that.

So it, it was neat.

I never had gotten to do that before and I never.

Because of the weather.

I wasn't gonna, and I, we've, we've done his death week and we've

done, they call it Elvis week here.

Yeah.

And they're kinda like vigil.

But to do this was super cool.

So it got me thinking about the 250 birthday of America, the nineties, first

birthday of the King of rock and roll.

And it got me thinking to more of firsts of Elvis Presley because Elvis Presley

really was that groundbreaking first in so many ways when it came to music.

And because we're celebrating America two 50.

What else first could we really do, and we've always talked

about doing Overton Park, shell.

Yeah.

We have been in the location when we did Memphis Bell.

It's kind of a central park here in Memphis.

Yeah.

It's like a downtown, like you said.

Like what?

Like what?

New York has their.

Central Park, right?

Mm-hmm.

This is the, the park area in central Memphis?

Yeah.

We have a, a, an art museum there.

The zoo is there and this, this Overton Park shell, which was a, a music venue.

They used to do operas and musicals there, and it was built.

The 1930s during the depression era, it was one of those works

projects administration from president Roosevelt's New Deal.

Yep.

Where they gave jobs to people to protect the culture of America.

Yeah.

Building up the infrastructure as well as some cultural stuff.

But it's now, it's one of the only.

Only depression era.

Bandshell is still active.

Yeah,

so it's super neat.

It think of, um, the Hollywood Bowl.

It looks like a bowl kind of set low and then it kind of

gradually goes up in elevation.

So when the people sit.

The shell is a little bit further down, but the acoustics will reach out at you.

So it's really neat how it's set up because it's really, it, it really

lends itself to hearing good music.

Yeah.

Well, and that's why, and we'll talk about a little bit, there were so

many famous musicians, not just Elvis, that performed there over the years.

Yeah.

So when we went there.

And again, it's Memphis, it's, you have such great access to things.

If you're gonna do like an Elvis Presley kind of tour of Memphis, like we've

done the mausoleum where Elvis was first buried, you can go to where he lived.

You can go to his original house before Gracely, and this Overton Park

shell is just available to you to go walk on the stage and take pictures.

And, and so we were there and we actually met, someone who runs the tour behind it.

We didn't even know there was a tour.

Yeah.

Behind it,

there's like a, there's like a backstage area if you go and watch, we're not

doing a video version of this podcast, but if you go and watch our video

from Overton Park, shell, and I'll, I'll link that in the show notes.

If you look at the Shell itself, and you'll see like in the center of the

Shell as kind of like the backdrop of the narrowest point, is this what looks

like a blue record and it's probably.

Eight, nine feet tall.

Mm-hmm.

Behind that, there's actually a door that goes behind the Overton Park.

Shell think like that's where a green room would be for artists that are performing.

There's a restroom back there and they've kind of turned it into this

little kind of mini backstage tour type thing that you can do, like museum.

It was really cool.

It was really neat.

They had a lot of the flyers.

Yeah.

And the photographs and it, it really told the story of Overton Park shell, so.

Again, this was built in the 1930s named for the Park, Overton Park,

and what happens is they start doing a lot of like concerts.

And so what happens with Elvis Presley is he has just performed.

That's all right, mama At Sun Studio on July 5th, 1954.

Sam Phillips has taken that record over to the local dj, Dewey Phillips, no relation.

And Dewey Phillips plays this record and people start calling.

They say, Hey, play it again.

Play it, play it again.

It's been on repeat for days.

Yes.

And so then they, they go and find Elvis Presley to interview him on

the show because everyone thinks he.

He's African American.

Yeah.

So they make sure he says what high school he goes to.

'cause think this is 1954.

This is still segregation.

Yeah.

So when he says what high school they go to, they're like, this is a white boy.

So it's very interesting.

He's starting to, to do this bridging of culture and.

The, the song is getting played a lot.

And so what is the next concert coming up in Memphis where he can

be a part of the opening acts?

And so three weeks later there's a concert at Overton Park Shell, and the headliner

is this country singer Slim Whitman.

So they put Elvis on the, the mar on the poster.

But they don't even spell his name right?

Yeah, because they don't even know who he is.

They

spell it Ellis, E-L-L-I-S.

Yeah.

So if you can see the original poster, it's really

funny.

Yeah, it's awesome.

I show it in the video.

And so he, if again, if you're a fan of the channel, you know, he

goes to Lansky Brothers, which is a clothing store right on Beal Street.

So Beal Street is the African American Streets location.

If you saw the movie Elvis, it's where he's getting a lot

of this inspiration of sound.

And, uh, so the Dr the clothing is more colorful and he.

Picks out a pink outfit, pink pants, and a pink shirt with a long tie, which

they lend to it in the movie Elvis.

Yes.

They, they do show that, although I don't think they're, it's not the same.

What?

He's wearing it, it's not the same location.

Yeah.

They're, they're not making it look like he's at the Overton Park shell,

but they're doing this moment.

Yeah.

So again, it's, if you know anything about living in the south in the

summer, this is July 30th, Ugh, 8:00 PM

It's so hot.

It's a hot evening.

Right.

Like you said, it's muggy.

At least the sun has gone down.

But people are sitting here and if you look at the shelf,

the shelf sits further down.

So when he gets out on stage, his.

His pelvis or his His

waist.

His waist is eye level.

Yeah.

To these 4,000 people.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And again, he's nervous.

He's never performed in public.

His song is big, so it's the only song he really knows and he starts to shake his

leg with the music and the nervousness.

It's kind of a twofold thing.

Yeah.

He's kind of moving his leg with the music and he's nervous and

he's wearing these big pleated.

Pink pants.

Yeah.

Right.

They're not cuffed at the bottom, and so they shake.

Yeah.

Right.

The fabric is very loose and so it's moving.

Yeah.

The, the movie, if you guys haven't watched the Elvis movie, who

is the director of Baz Luhrman.

Yes.

If you haven't watched the Elvis movie, they do a great job of showing

that scene and how the women just start going crazy for Elvis and

that that really happened.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so, 'cause people had just never.

Seen that before.

Yeah.

And uh, we, we've reviewed that movie too, if you wanna watch that,

because again, you can't live in Memphis without knowing Elvis history.

And so he plays That's all right, mama and Blue Moon of Kentucky.

The two songs he knows people are screaming.

He doesn't really know what that reaction is.

As you would if you've never seen a beatlemania, if you've never seen someone.

He's the beginning of this

thing.

Yeah.

'cause that, that wasn't a thing.

Well, and one thing that, that our, our tour guide Cole mentioned to us was

the, the sound, not only projects from the stage, but it also is gonna kind

of, focus at the people on the stage.

Mm-hmm.

So all these women screaming.

It.

You know, he said that there were musicians that would say,

it sounded like a train when they're up on stage sometimes.

'cause it's so loud.

And so he, it was, he just kind of had this reaction when he got off.

He's like, did I do something wrong?

Yeah.

So he didn't know if it was good or bad.

Yeah.

If they didn't like his music and they were.

It wasn't booze exactly, but he didn't know what that reaction was.

And the manager there said, no, they love it.

Get out there and do it again and again.

He doesn't know any other songs.

Yeah.

So he goes out and does, that's all right, mama and Blue Moon, Kentucky

again now, because he's starting to get this reaction and he's starting to

feel, I think, you know, optimistic.

Yeah.

And probably confident in his performance.

'cause it don't, you have to know this kid.

He's never performed before.

Yeah.

He keeps doing the shake.

He keeps doing the shake.

Yeah.

Right.

He just kind of part makes it as part of his routine now.

Because again, think about Elvis Presley.

He's stumbled into this.

Yeah.

And so this is his first time with showmanship.

Now we think of Elvis Presley at Vegas and how he can really

work an audience and all of them.

Well, this is the beginning of all of that.

Yeah.

It was such a, like a lightning in a bottle type moment.

Right.

You capture this moment and you know, luckily for us, you know, looking back

on it, you know, 50 plus years later, we got to see at least, you know, what the,

uh, some of the printout posters were and hear some of the stories after the fact.

Like there's really no photos.

I think there, there's a couple photos that I put in the video, but I don't

know if they're exactly from that night because he actually performs

again like a week or two later.

Yes.

And so I think that time they actually get some more cameras out there.

And so some of the pictures I show, I think are actually from August 7th.

This was July 30th.

Mm-hmm.

Um, because I think news got around like, hey.

We have something here.

Yes.

No one's expecting this.

Right.

And through the years, Elvis will come back to Overton Park

Shell and perform some more.

Yeah.

And he, again, it gets to the point where he is a huge draw and it's gonna

be too much where he's gonna have to go to other places that have bigger

venues because he's such a huge draw.

But there's a picture of him and Carl Perkins signing each other's autographs.

Right?

Yeah.

Kind

of just like in jest.

In jest.

And so he really is.

Again, appreciates where he comes from and he, he remembers Overton Park

Shell and now it's gonna become a venue for like Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins.

Isaac Hayes, the Allman Brothers gonna perform there.

You have a picture of that in the video?

Yeah.

They have a couple really good pictures.

There's some big names that played there.

Yeah.

Ro Orbison, Lisa Marie will perform there.

Yeah.

Bonnie Rai.

You know, I grew up, my parents love Bonnie Rai.

Exactly.

And so they, the history of Overton Park, shell, they go through again.

Anything else, they're culturally, they get into the sixties.

There's a lot of those kind of rockers black Sabbath and things like that.

It's easy top.

And then they wanna stay away from that kind of lifestyle.

Yeah.

'cause they feel like they're bringing on some of the riffraff.

So they go into like Yacht Rockies.

Easy listening.

Yeah.

Survivor.

Uh, and then that kind of loses steam and so then the shell loses steam.

And there's two times that people try to.

Tear it down.

Basically, they tried to make a, a interstate through there and they tried

to make a theater for the art museum.

And both times it's saved by grassroots movements.

People who are like, no, let's save the shell.

It means so much to American history.

It means so much to our city.

And at one point, it's saved by the Levitt Foundation and from, so from

2005 to 2022, it's named Levitt Shell.

Yeah.

So you might see that.

So that's, that's actually how we first knew it, because we lived

here during that, that initial time.

And so they replaced the Overton Park with Levitt Shell, and

they did like 600 free concerts.

150,000 people came to see those concerts as they really did revitalize it.

Yeah.

But in 2022, they went back to their original name, Overton Park.

Shell.

Now they're celebrating their 90th anniversary.

Yeah, they're gonna be doing free concerts again.

And if you're an Elvis fan, I definitely make it out there.

Do that tour behind, uh, in the back area because it was so neat.

You're standing there in the green room where Elvis Presley stood.

Oh

yeah.

And all these famous musicians.

It's super neat to stand there and to be there and to learn the history of this.

It, it was a great surprise and I was really happy we did it.

Yeah.

One of the things that again, our, our tour guide, we kind of unexpectedly

came upon him and he, he gave us a tour.

Was he mentioned they believe that it's likely that Elvis' father

probably helped build the shell Yes.

In the, in the thirties because it was a WPA project and Elvis'

father actually worked in some of those projects in the Memphis area.

So it's, there was a good chance that his father actually kind of

helped build this, this bandstand.

Yeah.

That launched, that launched his son's, you know, global stardom.

It's just so amazing and it's so amazing to stand on that stage

and kind of move your hips.

Yeah.

And like be like, I'm here where this all happened.

Like it was super neat to do that and to be there.

I had read something.

This Overton Park Show is part of like a music trail you can do through

Tennessee, and they say that more songs and songwriters and music come out of

Tennessee than anywhere else in the world.

Yeah, I believe that.

And that is super neat to be a part of that and to stand there and do that.

So if you get a chance, this is a part of American history, part of Elvis history.

America two 50, that American Dream story, and again, one of the only depression

Arab ban shells that still exists.

So get out there and, and to, and see it and be a part of American history.

It's easy to look back at the night in 1954 and see the legend.

We know now the gold suits, the flashing lights of Vegas, the global icon.

But when you stand on the boards of the Overton Park shell, you realize

that history isn't just about the person, it's about the place.

There's a beautiful, quiet irony in the dust of that stage.

Nearly two decades before Elvis stepped into those pink pants, his

father Vernon was likely out there in the Memphis heat swinging a hammer

or hauling stone as part of the WPA.

Think about that for a second.

The father helps build the foundation during the Great Depression at a time of

struggle and rebuilding for the nation.

Then 18 years later, his son stands on that very foundation and

launches a cultural explosion that would define the American century.

The shell wasn't just a backdrop, it was an instrument.

Its perfect Acoustics carried those first nervous notes of Blue Moon of

Kentucky across the park and straight into the future from the New Deal

laborers who poured the concrete to the rock legends like Johnny Cash and Black

Sabbath, who followed in footsteps.

The stage has always been about the American spirit of starting something new.

Elvis left the building that night, but he left something behind in Memphis that

still vibrates in the air at Overton Park today, it reminds us that sometimes

things you're most nervous about that jiggle in your step or that tremor

in your voice is actually the spark that's going to light up the world.

Thanks for walking through history with us today.

If you enjoyed this trip to Memphis, make sure to head it over to our

YouTube channel, walk With History, to see the shelf for yourself and stand

where the king first shook the world.

We'll talk to you next time.

Thank you.

This has been a Walk with History, production Talk with History is

created and hosted by me, Scott Bennie episode Researched by Jennifer Bennie.

Check out the show notes for links and references mentioned in this episode.

Talk With History is supported by our community at TheHistoryRoadTrip.com

Our eternal thanks.

Go out to our lifetime members to help keep us going.

Thank you to Doug McLiverty, Larry Myers, Patrick Bennie, Gail Cooper,

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Anderson, Susan Soulas, Bruce Lynch,

Dino Garner, Mark Barrett, Don Kennedy and John Simpson.

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