Elvis, Scotty and Bill would perform on the back of a flatbed truck in front of Katz Drug Store.
Scotty Moore - Lamar Airways Shopping Center
http://scottymoore.net/katz.html
The images are high quality, evocative and thrilling. Here we have local teen-ager Elvis Presley, about to sing to an excited crowd, his debut single, Sun 209, barely two weeks old. It would capture the ear of perhaps every youth in town, both "That's All Right" and "Blue Moon of Kentucky" getting substantial airplay. It sold more than anything Sun's Sam Phillips had put out in ages.
The auction site has nice copies of the negatives and photos. Don't think I can afford the opening bid, though. Regardless, I just noticed for the first time that a truck behind Presley has a TV ad written on its front bumper!
BRAND NEW
Series Starts
Sept. 26
HOPALONG CASSIDY
SPONSORED BY SEALTEST DAIRY PRODUCTS
Every Sunday
WMCT
4:30 PM
Yes, WMCT-TV Channel 5 was really pushing this new series.
Memphis Press-Scimitar - Wednesday, September 15, 1954
Another wonderful addition on the site page is the full story of how Opal came to take these iconic photographs. One of her sons, possibly Ken, notes that he inherited the negatives after her passing. She left us in February 2020.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/207535853/opal-estelle-walker
All the stories and scans are below, another little piece of the puzzle.
As a good friend often says, "There is a story to be told."
LOT #2A:
Elvis Presley Original 1954 Negatives with Copyright
Minimum Bid: $100,000
Description
Barely two months after the release of his first record and less than a month before his first and only appearance on the Grand Ole Opry, 19 year old Elvis Presley, 23 year old Scotty Moore and 27 year old Bill Black were still playing mostly small gigs in and around Memphis.
Elvis, Scotty Moore & Bill Black were hired to perform at the grand opening of a Memphis shopping center on September 9, 1954. The stage was on the back of a flat bed truck.
Opal Walker a striking, confident 21 year old from Memphis was at the concert that night and took 3 photos. She lived in the bustling Russwood Park area about a mile from Sun Records and worked in downtown Memphis.
Her girlfriend knew DJ Dewey Phillips the most popular DJ in town, and they would go visit him at his studio up on the mezzanine lever of the Chisca Hotel on Main Street. In the summer of 1954 not long after Elvis Presley’s first record came out Dewey Phillips mentioned Elvis Presley and where he went to church.
She and her girlfriend went to his church that week, and after the service they met and flirted with him, and she recalled he teased her about her long blond hair.
When she heard about the concert she went early. Elvis arrived in Scotty Moore‘s car with Bill Black. She approached him, re-introduced herself and asked if she could take a few photos and he gladly agreed. In an interview years later with a journalist from Australia she recalled she had him all to herself.
Letter of Authenticity
My mother Opal Walker was born in 1932 in Flatwoods, Perry County, Tennessee near the Buffalo, and Tennessee Rivers and went to high school in Linden the county seat. She moved to Memphis after school around 1952, lived in the Russwood Park area about a mile from Sun Records and worked in the downtown area of Memphis. Her girlfriend knew DJ Dewey Daddy – O - Phillips the most popular DJ in town, and they would go visit him at his studio up on the mezzanine lever at the Chisca Hotel on Main Street. In the summer of 1954 not long after Elvis Presley’s first record came out Dewey Phillips mentioned Elvis Presley and where he went to church. She and her girlfriend went to his church that week, and after the service they met and flirted with him, and she recalled he teased her about her long blond hair.
In September Elvis Presley’s show was announced on Dewey’s radio show so she recalled riding a streetcar to the concert and took her camera a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash. She waited for him, and Elvis arrived with Scotty Moore and Bill Black in Scotty’s Chevrolet. She asked if she could take his photo and he seemed happy to oblige. She took two photos of Elvis and one photo of Elvis with Scotty and Bill.
The camera took 620 film, and the negative is larger than 35mm and about 2.25”x2.25”. My mother and my father got to meet other Memphis musicians such as Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins early on. They were fans of the music. Over the years she held on to the negatives as a special moment and time in her life. She received many requests from major magazines over the years and with the advent of the internet in the early 1990s her attorney advised her, and he filed the © on the three photographs.
My mother passed away recently, and I inherited the (3) negatives and ©. The negatives have been in my family for 68 years.
https://www.gottahaverockandroll.com/Elvis_Presley_Original_1954_Negatives_with_Copyrig-LOT49332.aspx
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