On Monday, July 19, 1954, hot off the presses at Buster Williams' Plastic
Products plant on Chelsea Ave. in Memphis, came the release of Elvis Presley's
first record. It was Sun record number 209 -"That's All Right" backed with "Blue
Moon of Kentucky". Producer/Sun Records owner Sam Phillips already had 6,000
local orders. Peter Guralnick in his book "Last Train To Memphis" said, "Ed Leek,
a Humes classmate who was premed at Memphis State, described going down to the
plant and watching the first records come off the press with Elvis, who was 'like
a little kid at Christmas.'"
Scotty Moore and Bill Black were the musicians who backed Elvis and they were
members of a band called the Starlite Wranglers. They regularly
played on weekends at the Bon Air club on Summer Avenue in east Memphis. The Bon
Air was a bit rowdy and the clientele were hard drinking lovers of hillbilly
music. Elvis neither looked the part nor sounded like anything they were used
to. Elvis and the boys played their two songs at the Bon Air a couple of
weekends that July. However, that didn't last long. The Wranglers didn't take to
Scotty and Bill's involvement with Elvis' act, not only because his music wasn't
like their own, but because this act didn't include them. Scotty and Bill soon
left the Wranglers. By August 1954 and continuing through October, Elvis and the
boys were a regular part of the weekend entertainment at a club on Lamar and
Winchester called The Eagle's Nest.
The Eagle's Nest was a part of the Clearpool Entertainment complex that included
a large swimming pool, ballroom, and restaurant owned by the Joe and Doris
Pieraccini family who also owned the Rainbow Lake amusement complex down the
street, where Elvis' beloved Rainbow Roller Skating Rink was located. Memphis
country music dee-jay "Sleepy Eyed" John Lepley and his band, fronted by Jack
Clement, played the main sets of western swing with Elvis, Scotty and Bill as
the intermission act. It was said that the young people hanging out at the pool
would rush in to hear Elvis and then go back outside when the main act came back
on. Often in the audience would be Elvis' parents Vernon and Gladys, Gladys'
sister Clettes and her husband Vester (Vernon's brother), as well as Elvis'
bosses from Crown Electric James and Gladys Tipler. All were proud of Elvis and
his newfound success.