How to Play Baby What You Want Me to Do on Guitar Like Elvis

Elvis the Guitar Man …
Was He a Player or a Pretender?

"My daddy had seen a lot of people who played guitars and stuff and didn't work, and so he said: 'You should make up your mind either about beingness an electrician or playing a guitar. I never saw a guitar histrion that was worth a damn.'" — Elvis Presley

The photograph on his commencement tape album in 1956 shows Elvis Presley immersed in a rock 'north' whorl moment—eyes closed, mouth screaming, legs spread apart, and a correct hand, well-nigh in a fist, about to deliver a blow to six defenseless guitar strings. It'south an iconic epitome, with the guitar, the indelible rock musical instrument, at its middle.

Merely is the photo an honest depiction of the young Elvis Presley? The soon to be all-powerful "King of Stone 'n' roll" certainly had the pipes to habiliment the crown, but did he have the ability to handle rock's most central tool? Could Elvis Presley really play the guitar, or was information technology just a prop in his rock 'north' ringlet human activity?

Finding the answers to those questions requires going all the way back to Elvis's eleventh birthday in 1946. Fable has it that he really wanted a wheel for his birthday, only he got a guitar instead. It was a cheaper option for his poverty-stricken parents, and his female parent sold the switch to her son past asking, "Wouldn't you really rather have a guitar to use when you sing?"

Equally a toddler, Elvis began singing in church, and kept it up on other days of the week into his early years in school. Vocally, Elvis had some natural talent that became apparent to his schoolmates in his teen years. Blending the sounds of the country vocalists, white crooners, and black rhythm and dejection artists that he heard on the radio helped him develop the unique song sound that would make him famous.

Immature Elvis did non take a similar natural ability when it came to playing the guitar, though. That first guitar, described by one of his first instructors equally a "petty, itty-bitty, Gene Autry-type guitar," became immature Elvis's abiding companion, physically every bit well as musically. A beginner'southward book introduced him to the concept of chords, but he needed some instruction from real guitar pickers.

Uncle Vester and Gladys's brother Johnny Smith showed the male child a few chords. The Presley family'south new pastor, Frank Smith, furthered Elvis's education. "I went over to his house a time or ii, or he would come to where I was, and I would testify him some runs and unlike chords from what he was learning out of his book."

• Elvis started to learn how to play the guitar correct

Later the Presleys moved to Memphis, Jesse Lee Denson, son of a family unit friend, also gave Elvis some didactics. In Peter Guralnick'due south Elvis biography, Jesse remembered Elvis's commencement guitar.

"He couldn't printing the strings downward on it, they was set so high. And so I let him practice on mine—I had a piddling Martin. I just tried to show him basic chords. I would take his fingers and place them, say, 'You're pressing the wrong strings with the wrong fingers,' trying to straighten him out. He couldn't really complete a song for a long time, couldn't move his fingers and go with the catamenia of the music, but once I straightened him out he started to learn to do information technology correct."

Denson later would meet Elvis sitting on the steps of his family's apartment playing and singing for friends. Frequently his guitar playing couldn't keep upward with his singing. Scotty Moore remembers how Elvis dealt with the trouble. "If he lost his way, he threw up his hands in exasperation and said with a sheepish smiling, 'I forgot the chords.'" Scotty Moore'due south ghostwriter, James Dickerson, added, "When he saw that got a laugh, he started doing it even when he knew the chords. Anything for a laugh. Music was a means to an end. It was attending he really wanted."

Elvis's loftier school classmate Reddish West told Guralnick a story that demonstrated how important Elvis'due south guitar was to him and so.

"One of the projects nosotros had in wood store was to bring an article from habitation that needed to exist repaired … Elvis brought a guitar. And he fooled around with it, sanded it, used some rosin glue and fixed a fissure in it, stained information technology, varnished it, then he took this existent fine steel wool to get all the bubbling out of the lacquer and bring information technology down to a satin finish so it looked actually skillful. So he put the strings back on it and was tuning it only before the period ended."

• Elvis took his guitar to Sun Records

A couple of months subsequently graduation in 1953, Elvis used his key guitar skills to accompany himself recording "My Happiness" and "That's When Your Heartaches Brainstorm" for his mother at Sam Phillips'southward Memphis Recording Studio. It was the voice, not the guitar playing, that the receptionist later recommended to Sam.

That led to Elvis, Scotty Moore, and Pecker Black meeting at Scotty's house on July 4, 1954. Scotty'southward wife Bobbie recalls seeing Elvis coming upwardly the walk. "He had on a white lacy shirt, pink pants with a black stripe downwards the legs, and white cadet shoes. He was carrying a guitar." Neither Scotty nor Beak was impressed with either Elvis'due south singing or playing, merely they later on agreed to try recording something with him at Sam's studio.

The result was the celebrated recording session that launched Elvis's career. Dickerson summarized Scotty's remembrance of the outcome:

"Around midnight they took a break. It was late and they all had to become to work the next day … They had sort of lulled themselves into a post-session stupor when Elvis suddenly jumped up and started playing his guitar. Actually, equally Scotty remembers information technology, he vanquish the hell out the guitar. He started singing a blues song, 'That's All Right, Mama.' … The uptempo tune hit home with Scotty. Fast music was what he liked. For years he had been making up guitar licks for uptempo music, a combination of finger slides and bent-string pauses, just he had found nowhere to put them. It wasn't until Elvis was flailing away at his guitar that he suddenly knew where those licks belonged."

Despite his limited ability, Elvis Presley'due south guitar work was the fundamental component in that start recording. His playing inspired Scotty and Bill to join in. Scotty after noted, "Elvis didn't know all that many chords, only he had a nifty sense of rhythm."

• The Blue Moon Boys Rising

Then The Blue Moon Boys were built-in—Scotty playing lead, Elvis pounding the rhythm, and Bill slapping the bass. Elvis played guitar on all eight of the trio'southward Sun recording sessions in 1954-55. "With only the three of us, we had to make every notation count," Scotty said. That applied non only to the studio but also to the dozens of personal appearances The Blue Moon Boys made over the adjacent year and a half.

Scotty and Beak helped Elvis acquire how to handle his guitar on phase. "They coached him on how to agree his guitar and do all this stuff in front of a mike," explained Bill's wife Evelyn.

Afterwards Elvis started to accumulate a little money in 1954, he splurged and bought himself a new guitar. He got $8 merchandise-in on his old one for a 1942 Martin guitar that cost $175. Guralnick reported, "He had his beginning name spelled out in black metallic letters across the blond woods of the D-18, just every bit he had on his onetime guitar. It came out smartly on a diagonal below the fret lath, and the guitar looked a lot more professional than his other one, but, Elvis joked, he flailed away at it simply the same."

When state singer Bob Luman saw Elvis perform on stage in 1955, he noticed that Presley used his guitar more equally a prop than as a musical instrument:

"This cat came out in scarlet pants and a green coat and a pink shirt and socks, and he had this sneer on his face, and he stood behind the mike for 5 minutes, I'll bet, before he made a motility. And then he hit his guitar a lick, and he bankrupt 2 strings. Hell, I'd been playing ten years, and I hadn't broke a full of two strings. And then there he was, these two strings dangling, and he hadn't washed annihilation except intermission the strings notwithstanding, and these high school girls were screaming and fainting and running up to the phase, and then he started to move his hips existent irksome like he had a affair for his guitar."

June Carter Cash, who toured with Elvis in those early days, also remembered those cleaved guitar strings. "Red (West) and I used to sit down backstage and effort to change those strings because Elvis kept breaking them all the time. We spent all our time stringing that guitar and keeping it in tune."

• Presley'southward guitar work macerated with RCA

When Elvis started recording for RCA in 1956, experienced session guitar players, such as Hilmer J. "Tiny" Timbrell, were added to the mix of musicians in the studio. This resulted in a more professional person sounding instrumental track and freed Elvis to concentrate on his vocals. Still, "Elvis Presley" was officially credited with playing the guitar at almost all of his recording sessions from 1956 through 1958. (Colonel Parker may have insisted on this to go Elvis paid a few extra bucks as a session musician in add-on to what he earned for his vocals.)

One 1950s recording on which Elvis is known to accept played is "(You're And so Square) Infant I Don't Care" for theJailhouse Rocksoundtrack. The story has been told often of how a frustrated Pecker Black threw down his electric bass and stormed out of the studio. Jordanaire Gordon Stoker described what happened side by side:

"Well-nigh artists would have said, 'You choice that bass up and play it, buster, that's your chore,' only not Elvis. You know what Elvis did? Elvis thought it was funny. He picked information technology up and played information technology himself. He just picked up that bass, put his pes up on a chair, and played that vocal all the way through."

Although Elvis didn'tplay guitar on most of his recordings in the fifties, he oftenused his guitar to gear up for recordings. For instance, he used his guitar to piece of work out an system for "Hound Dog" at RCA'due south New York studio on July 2, 1956. Besides, he tin can be heard adding a percussion element by slapping the back of his guitar on the released takes of "Don't Exist Savage" and "All Shook Up."

• Presley's guitar faded away in the sixties

That demand to have a guitar at hand in the studio came upwardly again when Elvis's start post-army recording sessions approached in 1960. When Scotty Moore was at Graceland before long afterward Elvis returned habitation from the ground forces, Elvis complained about how ragged his old J-200 guitar looked. Scotty used his endorsement bargain with Gibson to gild Elvis a new one. In a letter accompanying the order, Scotty instructed, "I would like for you to do some actress inlay work on the front end, zippo too elaborate, something a little different peradventure that he would similar very much. I will leave the design of this to your discretion." The new guitar was shipped to Nashville in time for Elvis'due south session there.

In the 1960s, Elvis was seldom listed equally a guitar session role player in that decade'due south RCA and motion-picture show soundtrack recording sessions. He was credited for the 1960 "Elvis Is Back" and 1961 "Something for Everybody" sessions, but after that there was no Elvis Presley credit as a guitar musician for 25 straight recording sessions from 1961 through 1967.

In a 1965 newspaper article, Elvis fessed up about his guitar playing power:

"People seem to call back I'chiliad married to the guitar but the truth is I'thousand not very good at it. I usually become credited with chirapsia upwards a storm on it, merely usually I accept another and much improve guitar thespian backing me upward when I play it. For me the guitar has just been something to do with my easily and beat fourth dimension with. What I'thousand really studying to play is the drums."

The author of the article ended with the post-obit: "Elvis says he is near abandoning the instrument with which he long has been identified."

• Elvis "flogs" Scotty Moore's guitar

Nonetheless, at that place was one more archetype Presley guitar moment in his career. Elvis asked Scotty Moore to participate in the memorable "sit-down" jam session for Presley's 1968 NBC-Tv special. Dickerson relates Scotty'south story of what happened.

"When they walked out on stage, their guitars were already in place. Scotty had his Gibson 400 Sunburst and Elvis had his Gibson J200, a natural-grain flattop model that Scotty had obtained for him from the manufacturer. They began the testify with some of their early material … During the first couple of songs, Elvis kept glancing at Scotty, who was sitting to his left. Scotty's brightly colored guitar shone in the camera lights. It was bigger than Elvis's guitar, it was meliorate looking, and it sounded better than his guitar. Elvis decided he merely had to accept it."

Likewise on the stage was drummer D. J. Fontana. He continues the story.

"Scotty was playing atomic number 82 for a while and suddenly Elvis wanted to play lead. So he goes over and grabs Scotty'south guitar. I thought, 'What are we going to do here.' Scotty wasn't very happy about that. Elvis was a flogger and I knew Scotty was afraid he'd scar up the guitar. Information technology worked out, but oh boy, he doesn't like anyone to impact that guitar."

Dickerson added the story'due south ending. "Elvis played Scotty's guitar for the remainder of the show… If Scotty was fuming on the inside, he never showed it. He kept going, never missing a beat … Elvis was the star, so he wanted the biggest, flashiest guitar."

So, was the King of Rock 'n' Curlicue a real guitar player, or just a pretender wielding a prop? Either fashion, the perception lives that he was, and they say "perception is reality." For me, it all goes dorsum to what James Dickerson wrote well-nigh the young Elvis Presley strumming his guitar on his forepart porch in Memphis.

"Music was a ways to an end. It was attention he really wanted."

Comment on This Article

Reader Comment: On the Improvement Special, Elvis played "One Nighttime" and "Baby What Yous Desire Me To Practice," both times almost the same way. So I experience Elvis was generally a background type strummer, much like myself. Enough to back up when he was singing. — Den (June 2018)

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"Despite his limited ability, Elvis Presley'south guitar piece of work was the fundamental component in that first recording. His playing inspired Scotty and Pecker to bring together in. Scotty after noted, 'Elvis didn't know all that many chords, just he had a great sense of rhythm.'"