Blues, haints and bayous: snippets from the Deep South: A boy and his guitar

We drove into the nondescript town of Tupelo, Mississippi to find that Elvis Presley had been born here deep in the dark of night on the 8th January, 1935, in a tiny shotgun style house built by his father, Vernon. It was here, the shy young boy, thinking he would much prefer a gun, was cajoled instead, into looking at a guitar by his mother and the store-keeper. He strummed it a bit, then agreed it would make a fine present for his birthday.

He was lucky to get anything. The Presley family were chronically poor. Vernon, his dad, had not long ago been in jail for eighteen months for changing the details on a cheque in his favour. The grim grip of the Depression was still being felt in Tupelo. Many there, remembered Elvis carrying his birthday guitar everywhere after that. He would quietly ask anyone who would listen if he might play a song for them. One remembered that he had a fine voice but couldn’t carry a note. Another, a record man in town, told him to come back when his voice improved. He practised. He attended the Assembly of God church every Sunday with his family and listened to the hymns of praise. He frequently walked across the fairground fields to the black share cropper neighbourhood, called Shake Rag, and listened to the voices there. He practised some more. He came second in a fairground singing competition and won a free pass to all rides as his prize. He was ten.

But, deep in another dark night when he was just thirteen, his father Vernon came home and shoved Gladys and Elvis and all the boxes of their family belongings into the back of a 1939 Plymouth. They headed out of town with the lights low. Vernon could not pay his bills. They stopped only when they pulled into a town called Memphis. Not long after, Elvis found his way into a music studio to cut a song as a gift for his beloved mother's birthday. And the rest, as they say, is history.