Jack White and the First Elvis Recording
This is the story of the wild journey of the one-off Elvis recording — the first he ever recorded — and how it landed in the hands of none other than Jack White.
This is the story of the wild journey of the one-off Elvis recording — the first he ever recorded — and how it landed in the hands of none other than Jack White.
It’s a fascinating one, from the history of the recording itself to its stunning anonymous at auction purchase by White in 2015. But, one of my favorite parts is what came after — you’ll definitely want to stick around for that.
To begin the story, though, we have to go back more than 70 years. It was 1953, and young man in his late teens walked into Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. He had no recording contract. He paid for the session out of his own pocket — well, with borrowed money, and we’ll get to that in a moment.
It was his first time in a studio, and it launched his career as a recording artist.
The session produced exactly ONE acetate record. No other copies were made. Half a century later, this record was purchased for $300,000. That man’s name was Elvis Presley, and this is the wild story of the only copy of his first ever record.
The First Elvis Record
On that day in 1953 — July 18 to be precise — Elvis had a goal in mind. It was to catch the eye of Sun Records owner Sam Phillips. He lacked the confidence to request an audition, so he instead put a plan in motion.
Elvis, who was 18 at the time, would pretend the reason for booking the session was to record a birthday gift for his mother.
How sweet.
With only his guitar in hand and no backing band to accompany him, he chose “My Happiness” — a pop standard at the time — for the A side. For the B, it was “That’s When Your Heartache Begins.”
“He was working for Crown Electric. I’d seen the truck go back and forth outside, and I thought, ‘They sure are doing a hell of a lot of business around here’. But I never saw it stop anywhere. So Elvis had… he had cased the joint a long time before he stopped the truck and got out. And there’s no telling how many days and nights behind that wheel he was figuring out some way to come in and make a record without saying, ‘Mr. Phillips, would you audition me?’ So his mother’s birthday gave him the opportunity to come in and make a little personal record.”
That was Phillips in a Rolling Stone article in 1985.
What stood out to Phillips at the time wasn’t necessarily the music — it was his sideburns.
“There wasn’t anything that striking about Elvis, except his sideburns were down to here [gestures], which I kind of thought, well, you know, ‘That’s pretty cool, man. Ain’t nobody else got them that damn long’. We talked in the studio. And I played the record back for him in the control room on the little crystal turntable and walked up front and told Marion to write down Elvis’ name and number and how we can get ahold of him.”
In a career filled with bad decisions — just look to the hiring of his manager Colonel Tom Parker for one of the most notorious — this $4 session was easily the best business decision he ever made.
» Get Elvis Presley Vinyl Records
The Auction
‘My Happiness’ was never released as a single, but it did convince Phillips to sign him to Sun’s roster. Ultimately, at some point, the one-off acetate record found its way to Elvis’s friend Ed Leek, where it stayed until 2015.
See, it was Leek to gave Elvis the $4 for the recording session, so Elvis felt it proper that Leek get the record. Elvis was just another guy off the street who wanted to have a career in music. As Rolling Stone noted in an article in a 2015 article, he inherited “the disc when Presley – whose family didn’t have a record player – left it behind at his home.”
At some point it was then inherited by Leek’s niece, who put it up for auction (though some reports note it was Leek’s daughter — or maybe it went to Leek’s daughter, then to his niece). Either way, it stayed with the Leek family.
The date was January 8, 2015 — what would have been Elvis’s 80th birthday. Here’s a quote from Rolling Stone:
“The 80th birthday celebration found hundreds of fans flocking to Graceland, Presley’s famed Memphis, Tennessee estate, where they joined the singer’s former wife Priscilla, their daughter, Lisa Marie, and Elvis’ grandchildren. Other listed auction items, all of which were authenticated by the estate, included Presley’s first driver’s license (from 1952), a custom watch bearing a Star of David design, a jacket worn in the 1964 film Viva Las Vegas and an autographed 78 r.p.m. copy of his debut Sun Records single, “That’s All Right.”
Another item, of course, was the Leek family’s one-off acetate of “My Happiness.”
Bidding started at $50,000 and ballooned from there, climbing into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and ultimately selling for $300,000. No name of the buyer was included or disclosed, but the transaction was successful. The buyer didn’t even pick it up in person.
The No Name Buyer
Memphis “has not seen many figures as tireless or experimental as Jack White. Since he first burst onto the scene in 1997 as one-half of The White Stripes, the songwriter has always done things differently. More so than most, White seems dedicated to the inner workings of music production, which is perhaps what led him to form his own record label, Third Man Records.”
That’s from a recent article from Far Out Magazine.
At the time, Billboard was looking to interview Jack White, head of Third Man Records, half of the duo The White Stripes, part of Raconteurs and The Dead Weather, and all around vinyl connoisseur. Editor Joe Levy went to Memphis to meet white but was instead greeted by “a mysterious man with a black suitcase and instructions to hurry to meet White three hours across the state in Nashville.”
Briefcase was locked, and the only key was already in Nashville. Rumor has it, he had to handcuff it to his wrist too — but that’s unsubstantiated.
Levy was given strict instructions: drive to Nashville — a three hour trek across the state of Tennessee. Don’t stop anywhere along the way. And, Levy, make haste.
In Nashville, White had called an all-hands-on-deck meeting. Everyone at the company was there, all curious and unsure what this was about. Levy, too, was a completely clueless. He had no clue what was going on, why he had this locked suitcase, or what the big deal was.
So upon his arrival in Nashville at Third Man Records, Levy handed over the case to White in the Third Man headquarters staff lounge, which of course has a record player in it. White pulled out a key, opened the suitcase and carefully pulled out the record and placed it on the turntable.
Rumor is, he hadn’t even really said anything at the meeting yet.
He played the first side, flipped it over, then played the second.
Then he let everyone in on the secret: this was none other than My Happiness backed with That’s When Your Heartache Begins — the first ever record recorded by Elvis Presley, and the only pressing in existence.
His words were as follows:
“This is the first recording ever made by Elvis Presley. On Record Store Day, Third Man Records will issue this on vinyl.”
Not only had Jack White purchased the only copy of Elvis’s first recording, he secured the rights to reissue it.
» Third Man 7” Reissue of My Happiness
» Third Man 10” Reissue of My Happiness
The No Name Experiment
Remember that Far Out Magazine quote from earlier? Here’s another.
Jack White has “used his musical career as a vehicle for interesting, diverse, and often strange experiments both within his music and its physical publication.
Elvis took a different approach his first recording. Radiohead stepped out of tradition with their 2007 release In Rainbows, giving it away through the first “pay what you want” model, and Jack White 2024 release No Name has also flipped release strategy upside down with secret copies added to purchases in-store at Third Man Records a few weeks back, then a limited pressing released only at record stores.
So far, that strategy has paid off, and it’s led to one of my favorite albums of the year.
All of that aside, if you ever happen to be in Nashville, I strongly recommend reserving a spot for the Third Man Records tour. Pieces of this story were pulled from the tour I took back in June. You can dig into my trip to Nashville, the records I picked up, and more in the video below.
» More Vinyl Records by Jack White