Elvis's First Recording

The first recordings by Elvis Presley took place on July 18th, 1953 and was recorded by Sun Records. This is where he sang the songs “My Hapiness” and “That’s When Heartaches Begin”. This is also when his assistant Marion Keisker had asked him who he sounded like and to his quick reply “I don’t sound like anybody”.

It was in 1956 that Elvis had his first major breakthrough when he did his first recordings for RCA in Nashville Tennessee. This is also the recording session that produced “Heartbreak Hotel”. The enormous public reaction to Heartbreak Hotel meant that it would be released as a single in February. By April it had already become a number one hit on the U.S. charts sell well over a million copies.

This is also when Presley received a lot of television coverage and was booked six appearances for the Dorsey Brothers stage show in New York which was carried by the CBS television network.

To cap the year off in 1956 Presley was reported by Billboard to have had more songs in the top 100 then any other artist since chart record keeping began. Also the Wall Street Journal had estimated that Elvis merchandise had topped over $22,000,000 in gross sales. The start of the Elvis era was beginning and his climb to fame had begun. Elvis had become an instant icon.