The King

From the Writers Almanac:

It's the birthday of Elvis Presley, born in Tupelo, Mississippi (1935). He learned to play the guitar when he was 12, and his friends said that he could reproduce perfectly almost anything he heard on the radio. After high school, he got a job as a truck driver for the Crown Electric Company, and he began studying to become an electrician. His career as a recording artist only came about because of his love for his mother.

At the time, the Sun Record Company had a special recording studio where anyone could come in and pay a small fee to record personal records for themselves. In the summer of 1953, Elvis scraped together four dollars to record two songs, "My Happiness" and "That's When Your Heartaches Begin," as a present for his mother.

The recording engineer that day liked Elvis's voice, and somehow those recordings made their way into the hands of producer Sam Phillips, and that was the beginning of Presley's career.

We visted Graceland and Sun Studios this summer, and I have to say, it was one of my favorite stops on the McAllistour.