Elvis Presley returns to the big screen this Friday in EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert. Directed by Baz Luhrmann, the 2025 documentary follows his 2022 biopic, Elvis. It presents previously unseen footage from the concert films Elvis: That's the Way It Is and Elvis on Tour, together with audio of Presley telling his life story.

No moment was more vital to that story than the night Presley first teamed up with guitarist Scotty Moore to make his hit recordings for Sun Records in Memphis. As Moore told Guitar Player in our August 1974 issue, he was a session musician for Sun at the time.

“I was born in West Tennessee — Humboldt. My father and two brothers all played, so that's where my first interest came from,” he said. “I didn’t pursue it very much until I got into the service and formed a couple of bands.

“When I came out in ’52, I went to Memphis to work for my brother, who had a cleaning plant. And in my spare time I formed a band and met Sam Phillips [of Sun Records], and began getting into recording a bit.”

Dubbed the Starlight Wranglers, Moore’s band brought a country element to Sun’s stable.

“Sam had been into rhythm and blues before that, and with the band that I'd put together we started working on some country product. Bill Black was the bass player. The singer’s name was Doug Poindexter. We put one record out and were playing some of the clubs around Memphis.

“Then along came Elvis.”

It was July 5, 1954. Presley had been in Sun twice before, in August 1953 and January 1954, and cut two sides at each session. Nothing had come of those demos or of a third session at which Presley attempted a ballad called “Without You.” Nevertheless, Phillips was impressed enough to suggest Moore try working out a number or two with him.

“At the time, the music business was at a very low ebb, and we were all looking for something that would sell,” Moore told us. “Sam had me get hold of Elvis, and so Elvis came over to my house one Sunday afternoon. We sat around and played, and Elvis sang a little bit of everything — pop, country, R&B.

“So after that I called Sam and said, ‘Well, the guy sings good. He doesn't really knock me out, you know, but…’

“So Sam says, ‘Let's go into the studio and see what he sounds like on tape.’

“So that's what happened, and the first record came out of that first session.”

That debut disc was “That’s All Right,” a rhythm-and-blues tune written and recorded by Arthur Crudup in 1946. With Presley on acoustic guitar, Moore on electric and Bill Black on standup bass, the three men whipped up a steady rockabilly rhythm that provided a sturdy foundation for Presley’s loose and energetic vocal style.

Moore couldn’t recall what guitar he played on the recording, other than it was a Fender.

“It was a Telecaster, a Broadcaster, a Lancaster — it was one of those ’casters, I do know that,” he said.

He played it through a custom-built EchoSonic amp made by Ray Butts, the man who invented the Filter’Tron pickup.

“Chet Atkins had one, I can't think who had the second, and I had the third one built,” Moore explained. “It had a tape, more like a slap-back effect — not the Echoplex we know of now with a repeater. But it just gave a little boost to the sound. It was awful good if you missed a note. It wouldn't come out so bad.”

“That’s All Right” gave Presley the boost he needed, but it was initially only a regional hit.

“The first one wasn't a nationwide thing. It was more in the Southwest: Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas,” Moore said. “We started doing some shows, and it was rough, it was wild. It wasn't an overnight success, by any means. But even in those early days the crowds were just as ecstatic as now, but not as large.

“Then we went to the [Shreveport] Louisiana Hayride and worked with the other acts that were on it. And then we did the first show with Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, and with that, coupled with the first record we did on RCA, ‘Heartbreak Hotel,’ it was just like an atomic bomb going off.

“Nobody even had time to think after that. A phenomenon, really! And even being as close to it as I was, it's still hard for me to realize it. I think I'm still getting shock waves out of it.”

Their subsequent recordings for Sun came together as group efforts.

“It was a combination of everybody. We'd stop and say, ‘Let's see if this’ll work.’ But for the most part, once we'd get a rhythm pattern going that felt good with the way Elvis wanted to sing it, we'd work everything else in around that.

“The rhythm was the primary thing. Any lead work was really secondary at that point.”

Moore recalled Presley as “just an everyday guy — young and wild.”

“He only played rhythm guitar, what I call self-accompaniment.”

Presley’s main guitars in those early years included three acoustics: a 1942 Martin D-18, a 1955 Martin D-28 with a custom leather cover featuring his name, and a 1956 Gibson J-200 that he used frequently onstage in 1957.

“He played a little piano, too,” Moore noted. “He didn't consider himself a guitar player as such, but his playing did add to the group, because he played rhythm and more or less tied things together from the rhythm standpoint.

“But singing was always his first concern.”

Moore stayed with Presley full-time until the singer entered the Army in ’58, then resumed when Presley returned in 1959. They remained together through Presley’s televised ’68 Comeback Special.

“At that time he was going to Vegas for the first time and wanted myself, D.J. [Fontana, drummer] and the Jordanaires to go with him. But it was going to be a six-week bit, and you know what it means to be out of town that long — it's like starting over.”

One of the best scenes in the brilliant 2007 rock biopic sendup, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, involves the titular character happening upon the titular song.

In the midst of a fruitless recording session, Cox begins playing his original tune, Walk Hard. When his band protests, saying they don't know the song, he says, dramatically, “you just follow me.” From there comes a montage of Cox's meteoric rise to fame.

The scene is a perfect parody of similar ones found in then-recent Ray Charles and Johnny Cash biopics, but it's also based on the near-mythical session that produced Elvis Presley's first hit, a cover of Arthur Crudup's That's All Right.

Speaking to Guitar Player in 2009, Elvis's original six-string sideman, Scotty Moore, detailed the session, which began inauspiciously.

He and bassist Bill Black were both members of a larger, six-piece country band, Doug Poindexter’s Starlite Wranglers, which had made a record for Sam Phillips' Sun Records label in 1954.

Acting on a tip from his secretary, Phillips set up an initial, informal jam session with Presley, Moore, and Black, which went well enough that the trio soon set up a more formal recording session at Phillips' Sun Studio.

“We went in there about six at night, and worked on stuff until at least 9:00 or 9:30,” Moore recalled to GP. “Sam got some stuff he could use, but everything was slow – pop ballads.

“Bill was sitting down on his bass, and I had already laid the guitar down in the case. We were getting ready to call it off, because, you know, we had to work the next day. The door to the control room was open about half way, and Elvis just started beating the snot out of his guitar – acting the fool and singing – and Bill grabbed his bass and started playing along with him.

“Sam poked his head out of the door – this was before mixing consoles had a talkback button – and he said, ‘What are you guys doing? That sounds pretty good – why don’t you keep doing it.’

“So,” he continued, “I got my guitar, ran through it a couple of times, and that was it. That was the beginning of, how do you say it – all hell breaking loose!”

Viewed with 21st century hindsight, the two radical gold-finished guitars released by Gibson in 1952 appear about as rock and roll as they come. In fact, that term was barely in use when the Les Paul and ES-295 arrived that year, and neither was conceived with rock in mind, even though both would help define its look and sound.

The March 1951 single Rocket 88 by Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats (a front for Ike Turner and His Kings of Rhythm) is often cited as the first rock and roll song, but the genre didn’t fully hit its stride until Elvis Presley’s That’s All Right hit the airwaves in July ’54.

And when it hit the stage, Scotty Moore was right alongside him, churning out those signature riffs on his gold Gibson ES-295. It might not have been the birth of rock as such, but for many, that sound, that look and those riffs are seen as the birth of rockabilly, at least.

The ES-295 was essentially a hot-rodded ES-175, souped up with some input from Les Paul himself. When it debuted in 1949, the ES-175 was Gibson’s first archtop guitar constructed with top, back and sides made from laminated maple in a bid to cut down on feedback in a guitar that was primarily intended to be amplified, rather than used acoustically.

It had a single P-90 pickup in the neck position and a sunburst finish (natural was available later), and it retailed at $175, hence the model name.

The ES-295 hit the streets in May 1952 retailing at – you guessed it – $295, with
two P-90s, an all-gold paint job and a fancy new wrapover-trapeze tailpiece suggested by Les Paul himself.

The gold finish, actually achieved with metallic bronze flakes suspended in the lacquer, is best known for its appearance on the Les Paul goldtop that arrived in March ’52, which retained this look until a sunburst finish arrived on the model in ’58.

On the ES-295, however, the gold finish covered the entire guitar (other than the fingerboard, headstock and binding, of course), something done on relatively fewer Les Pauls. It was a color the guitar star had suggested himself to present a sense of luxury in his signature model, although Les Paul has also told of having asked Gibson to make an ES-175 with a gold finish in late ’51 as a gift for an injured war veteran.

All that glitters

The unusual combination wrapover bridge with trapeze “tail” was also a Les Paul invention, and infamous for having been used incorrectly on the Les Paul Model for its first year or so of production.

From its release until mid- or late ’53, Gibson manufactured the Les Paul with a neck angle that was too shallow to accommodate the strings being wrapped over the bar of this bridge, so they were wrapped under it instead. The result made standard right-hand playing techniques tricky and unfamiliar, and palm muting was particularly difficult. 

The ES-295, on the other hand, marks the first instance in which this piece of hardware was used correctly, as the traditionally steeper archtop neck angle was maintained.

As a result, the wrapover-trapeze combo came into its own, providing a means of mounting a sharper-sounding and longer-sustaining bridge on a hollow-body archtop guitar. This component would also be used on the thinline ES-225 model of 1955, but it disappeared from Gibson’s parts drawer after the ES-295 went out of production in 1959.

With more ring and bite from its metal bridge bar, and a tighter, brighter tone available from the second P-90 in the bridge position, the ES-295 was primed for the grind and sizzle that came to define the sound of rock and roll guitar. Even so, relatively few notable originators of the genre in the ’50s used one, with so many other options hitting the market, and solidbodies, in particular, making inroads in the new style of music. 

Scotty Moore had already swapped his ES-295’s Les Paul–designed hardware for an adjustable Gretsch Melita Synchro-Sonic and Gibson-style trapeze tailpiece by the time he was gigging it heavily with Elvis. He then traded the entire instrument for an upmarket Gibson L5-CESN in the summer of ’55.

This was arguably a move backward on the horses-for-courses spectrum as it relates to guitars suitable for rock and roll, but Moore made several classic recordings on the new archtop, nevertheless. 

Rock before rock

Notable guitarists who gravitated to the ES-295 in later years likely did so partly because it just looked so damn cool, with its all-gold paint, complementary cream plastics, split-parallelogram inlays and gold floral pickguard motif.

What’s more, original examples were actually pretty affordable on the vintage guitar market, unfashionable as they were for players other than rockabillies. And, of course, some just dug their alternative retro look.

Danny Gatton, who could make anything with strings sound phenomenal, often played an ES-295 with added Bigsby vibrato when he wasn’t playing a Telecaster. 

Geordie Walker of Killing Joke played an ES-295, very much against type, although its jazz-box build certainly didn’t tamp down the band’s power. Johnny Marr played one in the original promo video for the Smiths’ The Boy With the Thorn in His Side, although he was rarely seen with one otherwise.

Regardless, one look at the example shown here is enough to induce gear lust in electric guitarists who like their rock and roll with a touch of class.

Essential ingredients

• Fully hollow archtop body
• Laminated maple top, back and sides
• Mahogany neck with bound rosewood fretboard, 24.75-inch scale
• Split-parallelogram inlays
• Combined wrapover bridge and trapeze tailpiece
• Dual P-90 pickups

As a singer and guitarist, Sister Rosetta Tharpe did more than anyone to forge a connection between gospel and popular music. With her impassioned voice and twanging double-stop licks, she imbued her religious tunes with elements of jazz, blues, and a joyful hard-driving rhythm.

In doing so, she inspired artists like Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Chuck Berry, and helped give birth to rock and roll, soul, and electric blues.

Gospel origins

Born on March 20, 1915, in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, Tharpe began playing guitar at the age of four. She traveled with her mother, an evangelist in the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), and they eventually settled in Chicago, where Tharpe was exposed to blues and jazz. She began performing at the Roberts Temple COGIC, where she became the star attraction at age six.

New York City, and defying convention

After a failed marriage to a preacher named Tommy Tharpe (some accounts say Thorpe). Tharpe moved to New York City and landed a gig at the Cotton Club, where she sang risqué songs, displeasing her many churchgoing fans. 

Rock Me 

In 1938, she signed with Decca Records, which saw novelty in a gospel singer who sang racy tunes. Her first hit was Rock Me, a hymn she sang as a straight love song. Tharpe followed it up with the raunchy hit I Want a Tall Skinny Papa, scandalizing the church further. The controversy convinced her to focus on gospel songs, which she delivered in her own upbeat way.

Tharpe's gear

By age 25, Tharpe was a pop star, having established herself as a stylistically distinctive singer and guitarist in a male-dominated industry. She played several guitars over the years, including a 1929 Gibson L-5, 1931 National Triolian, Gretsch G117 Double Anniversary, and a Gibson Les Paul goldtop with P90s. In the ’60s, she adopted a white 1961 Gibson SG/Les Paul Custom.

Shaping the future of the blues

In 1964, Tharpe joined Muddy Waters and other blues artists on the American Folk Blues Festival that toured Europe, where she undoubtedly influenced future electric blues guitarists. A film clip exists of her performing a thrilling rendition of Didn’t It Rain on a train station platform in Manchester, England. 

A career cut sadly short

Tharpe’s career was curtailed by a stroke in 1970, and one of her legs had to be amputated due to diabetes. She succumbed to another stroke on October 9, 1973, in Philadelphia. Though Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s contributions to popular music went unrecognized in her lifetime, she is rightly celebrated today as the Godmother of Rock and Roll.

Elvis Presley, of course, needs no introduction. But somewhat less well-known are the musicians who created the sonic environments over which Elvis did, you know, his Elvis thing.

Perhaps the most well-regarded of these is guitarist James Burton, who lent sizzling, formative electric guitar work to not only Elvis, but to other rockabilly icons like Ricky Nelson. Indeed, when inducting Burton into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001, Keith Richards famously said, “I never bought a Ricky Nelson record, I bought a James Burton record.” 

In a 2006 interview with Guitar Player, Burton reflected on his time with Elvis, and revealed the origins of the famous “Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building” announcement.

As Burton – who, at 84, still performs to this day – tells it, Presley held his bandmates in high regard, and embraced their instrumental arrangements of his wide-ranging repertoire. 

“He was real considerate, and he had a lot of respect for all the musicians,” Burton recalled. “The TCB band [short for “Taking Care of Business,” which Presley had named it] was a powerhouse, and Elvis just loved the way we took his stuff and went into another dimension with it.”

Burton served as Presley's live guitarist for eight years, until the latter's death in 1977. As one would expect, the man's got a few stories.

Burton, for instance, was on hand when the legendary “Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building” announcement was used for the first time.

“Elvis would come out on the weekends, and we’d go to Texas or someplace and do a show with him,” Burton told GP. “That’s how I met Horace Logan [program director for the Louisiana Hayride] – the guy who invented the saying, ‘Elvis has left the building.’

“The way that happened was Elvis was performing one night and the place was going nuts, and, at the end, he just left the stage and got in the car and drove away. Of course, the crowd was thinking he’d come back out, so Frank Page, one of the other MCs on the Hayride, told Horace that he needed to go out and tell the people something because they were getting pretty rowdy. 

“So, Horace walked out to the mic, and the only thing that came to his mind was to say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building.’”

“The first guitar that Leo Fender tried to lay on me was a Stratocaster,” James Burton says with a chuckle. At 83 years, he’s fit and well, with memories like very few other musicians. “I said, ‘No, man, I’m not gonna take it!’ The Stratocaster’s for younger kids. They like the whammy bar and all.”

So no Strats in the Burton collection, then? “Well, it just depends on what you prefer,” he reasons. “Some people like a fretboard that’s flat, but I like a little bit of roundness to it, so for me, there’s only one guitar to talk about: the Fender Telecaster. You know, Leo Fender was a wonderful guy. I met him many years ago, even before I went to work with Ricky Nelson. Leo assured me that whatever I wanted, it would be no problem: he’d take care of it. And he did.”

Indeed, as far back as 1961, Burton was tearing up that slightly rounded fretboard on Ricky Nelson’s “Hello, Mary Lou” with a solo that left young listeners speechless. (One of those kids was the rocking knight of the realm, Sir Brian May, who regularly cites Burton as an influence.) Check out that solo below if you don’t know it already: it leaps from the speakers at 1:04 with a flurry of string bends and sassy popped notes, sounding nothing like its 62 years of age.

Born in 1939 in Dubberly, Louisiana, Burton was a self-taught guitar prodigy who played on the Louisiana Hayride radio show in Shreveport as a teenager. Soon after, he moved to Los Angeles, where he began his career with Nelson and recorded numerous sessions. One of them was Dale Hawkins’ 1957 hit “Susie Q,” a tune Burton co-wrote and which was timed perfectly to assist with the birth of rock and roll.

He swiftly became an in-demand guitarist, songwriter and bandleader. As a young, hotshot guitarist, Burton recorded with Glen Campbell, Judy Collins, the Beach Boys, Harry Nilsson, Nancy Sinatra, Buffalo Springfield, Townes Van Zandt and a litany of other 1960s greats before he joined Elvis Presley in 1968 as leader of the TCB (Taking Care of Business) Band. Hot as a pistol after that year’s televised comeback special, Elvis, the King was dominating Las Vegas with an extravagant live residency.

Burton’s profile went stratospheric after Elvis began to include the command “Play it, James!” in each show, just before the guitarist ripped a spectacular solo – with no overdrive, and played with a pick-plus-fingers hybrid technique – from his custom Pink Paisley Telecaster. He remained at Elvis’s side for the remainder of the singer’s tragically curtailed career, although he took time out to play in Emmylou Harris’s backing group and on sessions for Johnny Cash, John Phillips, Michael Nesmith, Joni Mitchell, Merle Haggard, Gram Parsons, Tina Turner, Kenny Rogers, Delaney & Bonnie, Phil Everly, Rodney Crowell and many others. After Elvis’s death in 1977, Burton worked with John Denver, collaborating with the country singer until 1994, three years before Denver himself perished at a relatively young age.

In his middle career, Burton recorded and toured with Rosanne Cash, Elvis Costello (“a wonderful guy; very smart, with good ideas”), J.J. Cale, Gillian Welch, Marshall Crenshaw and others, and notably appeared in the 1988 special Roy Orbison and Friends: A Black and White Night. In the new century he has played with Matt Lucas, Jim Lauderdale, Drake Milligan and Brad Paisley, and he appeared alongside Eric Clapton on Jerry Lee Lewis’s album Mean Old Man, in 2010.

In recognition of Burton’s phenomenal career, Fender has long offered two signature Telecasters: a Candy Apple Red Tele based on the 1953 original and a Pink Paisley counterpart inspired by the 1969 Elvis model. The latter was redesigned in 2006 with three blade pickups, a no-load tone control and an updated switching system. A new model is on the way in 2023, with new pickups that are still being finalized as we speak.

“I’m real excited about the new Telecaster,” Burton says. “We did a lot of research into the new pickups, and the ones we settled on are really good. I guess I’ve had thousands of guitars over the years, but the old ones are still my favorites. I don’t know if you could get those tones nowadays. I guess if you had the right guitar and the right player, you might be able to do that.”

In 2005 Burton launched the James Burton Foundation (jamesburtonfoundation.org), a charitable group whose aims are to support music education for those in need through guitar donations and music instruction to schools, hospitals and community service organizations. “The Foundation is doing really good,” he says. “We’ve been able to present guitars to young kids and to veterans, and people are real excited about it. I like to be able to present guitars to the young kids and keep our music program going. You can’t do too much.”

The annual James Burton International Guitar Festival, held in Shreveport, supports the Foundation, and at the 2009 event, he was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. Two years earlier he had been inducted into the Musicians’ Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, as a member of the pioneering Wrecking Crew group of session musicians.

Guitar Player spoke to Burton in May 2023 as he was about to jump on a plane to the U.K. for a show at the London Palladium, where he was supported onstage by two of his biggest fans: Brian May and Van Morrison. Considering all he’s done over his career, we imagine it’s a tricky task for Burton to pick out just five songs that define his legacy – although he somehow manages to do just that. “I can’t count how many songs I’m on, but it’s been over 500 albums, so the song titles must be in the thousands,” he says. “Still, you know, it’s never-ending. Your best song is always yet to come.”

1. “Susie Q” by Dale Hawkins from 'Oh! Suzy-Q' (1958)

“I wrote this song when I was a young boy. I played this little guitar lick and there it was, just a little instrumental thing. I was working with a blues singer, Dale Hawkins, and Dale wrote a few lyrics to it. I think he had a girlfriend he called Susie Q. “We did the recording at a radio station, KWKH in Shreveport [in 1957. The single was released that year and the album in 1958]. I’m not even sure if we had drums in there. There was just one mic in the room. I played through a little Gretsch amp that I didn’t keep very long. That was what I used before I got my Fender amp.

“I used the original guitar that my mother and father bought me: a red Telecaster. It’s been on millions of records and it’s a great guitar. I’d say it’s my favorite guitar out of all the ones I’ve owned. It’s still playing fine, too. It’s all original: it’s never needed a fret dress or anything. “Someone asked me one time, if I wanted to sell my Telecaster, what would I sell it for. I said, ‘Well, it would be in the millions.’ The guy reached in his pocket and said, ‘How many?’ I said, ‘Not today!’” [laughs]

2. “Hello Mary Lou” by Ricky Nelson from 'Rick is 21' (1961)

“My buddy Gene Pitney wrote this song. I used the same red Telecaster on the recording. I remember how good the solo was. [laughs] You know, Ricky’s dad, Ozzie, was a big-band leader, and sometimes he’d come to the recording sessions. I played this solo and he said to me, ‘I had a saxophone player who played a lot like that,’ just joking with me.

“It would have been done on the first or second take: Ricky might have done more takes for his vocals than that, but I never did more than two. You know, writing a good guitar solo is really about being smart. It’s like traveling cross-country: be careful what you step on! [laughs] And remember: Being a great musician is sometimes about what you don’t play. Leave space, and have an idea about what you’re going to do next.”

3. “Fools Rush In” by Ricky Nelson (1963 single) and Elvis Presley from 'Elvis Now' (1972)

“Remember the old [1940 Mercer & Rube-penned] standard, ‘Fools Rush In’? I did two versions in whole different styles: one with Ricky and another with Elvis. Ricky’s was a little laid-back; Elvis had more excitement in his version. I walked into the room playing the song, and Elvis started humming it, and he told the engineer to turn the machine on and to record it. Just like that.

“Elvis liked to do two takes, and that was it. He’d usually get it in one take, but sometimes the musicians would need another take to fall in together, because everything was recorded live from the floor back then. Elvis was a prankster and liked to joke around, so I had him practice a lot and work up the songs before he came in the studio, because I was the bandleader. The musicians had to do what I’d tell them to do. But I still believe that the best bandleader is the one who stands there and keeps his mouth shut and doesn’t do anything. You gotta look at it this way: the singers key-off of the musicians. We have to be good musicians to do what we do.

“Elvis famously would call out for me to play this solo live. He just started saying, ‘Play it, James!’ during his shows for some reason. And then everybody else that I worked with started saying it!”

4. “Polk Salad Annie” by Elvis Presley from 'On Stage' (1970)

“I did a version of this song for a movie, Ford Vs. Ferrari [2019]. It really shows you the way I play, and my style of playing: bluesy, with a little rock and roll. Give me a Fender Twin and let me plug it in. I don’t need anything else. I don’t really like effects. I never use them unless something happens to be required. I don’t use overdrive, but sometimes I like an amp with a little breakup that’ll give you that raspy, raw sound.

“The main thing is just to be able to hear your guitar, whether that’s from your amp or if you have monitors. It depends on the setup, but when you’re standing in front of monitors, you have to be sure you’re getting the sound you’re looking for.”

5. “Steamroller Blues” by Elvis Presley from 'Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite' (1973)

“This is a good one: Elvis always liked this song. James Taylor wrote it. I couldn’t believe that when someone told me. I thought it was by Elmore James or somebody.

“I played this with my Paisley Telecaster when we did the Aloha From Hawaii by Satellite show, and you can see Elvis really enjoyed it. When it comes to soloing, you gotta go for it and put your hot lick on it. You gotta ad-lib a little bit, too; you don’t wanna read the paper too close. I’m self-taught. God told me that’s the best way. He was my teacher. It’s important to know the song, but it’s more important to be able to play by ear, because you’re able to do more in the music field. If you sit and look at a piece of paper to play, you have to depend on that. But when you play by ear, man, you can just walk out there and do it.

“And if you want to play hybrid picking, like I do, well – go home and practice. Make sure you got the right fingers.”

***The following appeared in the May 2019 issue of Guitar Player***

"There's something about rockabilly riffs that makes them different from other kinds of riffs, Brian Setzer says. 

“When I hear a rock riff, I hear something that’s very tied to the drums. There’s a funky aspect to the way it works. But a great rockabilly riff operates on so many levels. I hear blues, country and jazz. I hear big bands and horn melodies. There’s a lot of colors going on. I guess that’s why I’ve found rockabilly so appealing. It’s a limitless art form.”

Some artists are tourists of multiple genres, but Setzer is more like an explorer, going deep into subcategories such as roots-rock, bluegrass, doo-wop, jump blues and hillbilly jazz.

With uncanny prescience, he kickstarted the ’90s neo-swing revival when he formed his eponymous Orchestra in 1994, much as he did a decade earlier when he rebooted the Sun Studio sound of the 1950s with his group the Stray Cats.

Shaking off a first impression is darn near impossible, and to the millions of music fans who first heard him hot-dogging solos with the Stray Cats on early ’80s hits like “Rock This Town,” “Stray Cat Strut” and “Runaway Boys,” Setzer will always be associated with rockabilly.

And he’s cool with that.

“Rockabilly is so near and dear to my heart,” the guitarist says. “There’s just something exciting about it, and it never goes out of style. You can always add your own wrinkle to it and take it somewhere else.”

Setzer formed the Stray Cats with fellow Long Islanders and rockabilly enthusiasts Lee Rocker (upright bassist) and Slim Jim Phantom (snare and kick specialist) in 1979. Sporting greaser duds, colorful tattoos and mile-high pompadours, the band invaded stages at New York City punk clubs like CBGB and Max’s Kansas City – and they went down a smash.

“The funny thing was, we weren’t really different from the punk bands,” Setzer says. “The rockabilly music from the ’50s was basically the punk music of its day. It was essentially I-IV-V blues progressions, with some killer musicians playing it. So I wrote songs in the rockabilly style, but it sounded just as fresh as what everybody else was doing.”

Even so, the band couldn’t get a record deal in the States, and it wasn’t until they relocated to England in 1980 – where they found fans like the Rolling Stones and a sympathetic producer in ex-Rockpile guitarist Dave Edmunds – that they signed with Arista and scored a series of chart hits.

Two years later, EMI in the States took note and compiled the Stray Cats’ first two U.K. albums (Stray Cats and Gonna Ball) as Built for Speed.

With MTV a fixture in living rooms across the nation, the band’s videos were seen 24/7, and Built for Speed became the surprise hit of 1982, selling more than a million copies.

But the Stray Cats quickly flamed out. Their Built for Speed follow-up, 1983’s Rant N’ Rave with the Stray Cats, produced a Top 10 hit with “(She’s) Sexy + 17” but only went Gold, and a year later the group, mired by internal squabbles, packed it in.

Setzer puts the band’s breakup down to the predictable “too much, too soon” syndrome, but he also admits that his outsized ego was the root of the group’s demise. “It was pride and stubbornness,” he says. “When you’re young and full of yourself, you start to think, I don’t need those other guys. Plus, there was a musical aspect to it – I wanted to try something a little different. So I did that.

“But after a while, you kind of grow up. You realize just how silly you were, and you think, Well, maybe we could get back together.”

As it happens, Setzer wasn’t thinking about getting back into the studio with the band when he started writing the batch of songs that eventually became 2019’s comeback album, 40.

As he explains, “I was just messing around with an old Fender Reverb unit, and I just loved the twangy sound of it. I began writing these songs that were like spaghetti westerns – which is really surf-guitar music when you get down to it.

“But then I got on the phone with Jim, and he mentioned that our 40-year anniversary was coming up. I was like, ‘Holy cow, you’re right!’ So that planted the seed. 40 is a big number. You gotta honor it.”

What was the first rockabilly record that made you go, “What is that?”

That’s easy: “Be-Bop-A-Lula,” by Gene Vincent. I was 16 or 17, and I went to Max’s Kansas City. The jukebox was playing new wave and all the current stuff, but suddenly that song came on, and I was like, Wow… What is that? I went over to read what it was. That sound and that guitar solo just jumped out at me. I’ll never forget it.

There wasn’t anything like that around at the time. There was Robert Gordon, whom I found out about. But at the time, it was all new wave and punk – the Dead Boys, the Cramps… That kind of thing.

Cliff Gallup’s guitar on “Be-Bop-A-Lula” just knocked me out. It was so different. The sound of that guitar just went right through me.

At the time, you were also a jazz fan, and what I’ve always liked about your playing is the way you mix jazz chords and soloing with rockabilly. Did that just happen naturally?

Well, see, I didn’t have musical blinders on. On Thursday night, I’d go to the Village Vanguard and see the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. On Friday night, I’d go see a punk band. I liked it all, and that’s what came out of me with chords and riffs.

I had a certain style and played with a thumbpick and flatwound strings. It wasn’t conscious. There was nothing premeditated to it.

When did you get your first Gretsch?

I was 17 years old and found it in this local paper, The Byline Press. It said, “Gretsch guitar, 100 bucks.” I called the guy up and asked, “Is it like Eddie Cochran’s?” He was like, “Who?”

So I went to his house, and there was the guitar, the 1959 orange 6120. It was exactly what I was looking for. He was going to refinish it and make it natural. He had all of the electronics for it in a shoe box. I gave him 100 bucks, took the guitar and the shoe box, and off I went. It was destiny.

What kinds of guitars were you playing before the Gretsch?

Prior to the Grestch, it was a Japanese guitar that my dad got for me at a pawnshop on Canal Street. I had to bug him for it because my parents didn’t have extra money to spend. They were just blue-collar folk.

And then I think I moved up to a solidbody Harmony. Having the right guitar made all the difference. Some people could get a good sound on the Harmony, but I couldn’t figure it out. Although I did have better luck when somebody told me about Slinky strings. Before that, I was using these heavy-gauge strings. You could use those things for bridge cables. Slinky strings were a revelation to me, and, of course, so was the Gretsch.

Did it take a while for you to figure out the right amp to pair it with, the Fender Bassman?

The Bassman was another destiny thing. I thought it was just a really cool-looking amp. I was into my image and wanted to look cool. I saw these blonde amps and just thought, I need one of those. I didn’t even know how great they sounded.

I answered another ad, this one from a jazz bass player in Weehawken. So I bought the amp, and there it was: “Wow, that’s the combination!”

Did having the right combination of guitar and amp change how you played or wrote?

It puts you in the right frame of mind, and you feel better about what you’re doing because you love the sound you’re getting. I’m not saying you can’t write a good rockabilly song with a Les Paul through a Marshall or some other non-rockabilly setup, but because the whole writing thing is so elusive, it just helps to have the right tools.

Like on [40]: I couldn’t have written it without a Fender Reverb unit. That thing really inspired me to get going.

The Stray Cats formed in 1979, the same year that Queen had a surprise hit with their own take on rockabilly, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” What did you think of that song? Did it bother you at all?

Oh, no, I wasn’t bothered by that in the least. I thought it was fantastic! I thought it was great. Brian May really stepped outside his signature sound on that one. What a great solo he played, you know? I thought the whole thing was terrific.

After leaving the Stray Cats, your first solo album, The Knife Feels Like Justice, explored more of a roots-rock/Americana sound similar to what Springsteen and John Mellencamp were doing.

Yeah, that’s right. I really wanted to explore that area. I changed my guitar tones and wrote some different songs, played different guitars through different amps. That album was transitionary for me. There were some really good songs on it.

If that album had been a big hit, would you have stayed with that sound?

That’s hard to say. I don’t know. It was a Top 10 album, but it didn’t cross over enough, I guess. I’m not embarrassed by it. I just had to see if I could do it, you know? If you wear Levi’s your whole life, you want to try on something new. So I did that. I tried it, and then when I was done I wanted to try something else.

Over the years, you’ve reunited periodically with the Stray Cats, but you’ve also toured with another outfit, the Rockabilly Riot Band, and you’ve turned your Orchestra into a big live attraction. Is there any kind of plan to it all?

A plan? No way! [laughs] I really just do what I want. That’s the level I live on. Let’s say I do something that’s not as popular as the other things. If I can’t get through that month, I sell a guitar, or I get rid of a motorcycle. And then, for some reason, it always comes back. I’ll do something that does really well.

I’ve always done what I’ve wanted, and it’s worked out. I never had to slog through some tour I hated or anything like that.

Have you incorporated the Fender Reverb unit into your live set-up?

As far as the live rig goes, every time I try to vary what I’m using, it never seems to go over. That Bassman has to be there – it’s just the right sound – and I use the Roland Space Echo.

The Fender Reverb Unit doesn’t work so well live. You put that thing on certain stages, and if there’s a slightest bounce, it’s gonna go off. And man, let me tell you, that’s like an explosion! [laughs] So live, I use the reverb in the Space Echo. It’s not as good as the Fender, but it’s more convenient.

You’ve released several lines of signature Gretsch guitars. What did you use on 40?

Well, I can’t stray too much from that ’59 Gretsch. I love that sound. I’ve got a green sparkle Hot Rod that I used on quite a few tracks.

It’s thin sounding, which I like. People always say it’s too thin, but to me, thin sounding is good because it cuts through everything.

I also used a ’56 White Penguin. That could be the first time a White Penguin has ever been recorded.

So I used those guitars and a few different amps. A lot of the reverb you hear is from an old Fender Deluxe [Reverb.] I don’t use that on “Desperado” – on that I used a Supro. But I still go back to my ’63 Bassman. That’s the ticket for me. There was just something about those things. The one I have is pretty much like the amp I bought at 17. You get a stock Bassman that hasn’t had its transformers replaced, and you’re good to go.

If a young player wanted to study rockabilly, who would you direct him to?

Besides yourself, that is. Oh, there are a few cool guys. As far as modern players go, there’s Jim Heath from Reverend Horton Heat. He puts a real punk spin on rockabilly.

And there’s a Canadian gent, Paul Pigat, from Cousin Harley. He’s really great. And Darrel Higham, he’s a U.K. guy – another good one!

Those are probably the best modern rockabilly players out there. They each bring their own style to it. But I have to go back to the original guys: Scotty Moore and Cliff Gallup. They’re my favorites.

Is there anything about your playing style you wish you could improve?

Hmm… That’s a good question. If anything, I think I could leave some more holes. It’s not like we’re patching a roof, you know? I could leave a little more space sometimes. When I hear some of my older playing, I like it, but sometimes I think I overplayed.

So I could probably slow down a bit, play a little less. But you know how it is. You get onstage and you’re all excited, and you just wanna keep playing. But I’m getting there. I’m getting more seasoned. [laughs]

Order Brian Setzer's latest solo album, Gotta Have the Rumble, here.

Every morning, I get a croissant at the bakery a few doors down from where I live. It’s a nice way to start the day. With a 7 a.m. opening, some mornings I wait for the croissants to come out of the oven, and on these mornings the wait is filled with small talk.

One of the bakers is a huge guy, kind of a John Candy type. One morning, I asked what his name was.

He told me, “My name is Elvis.”

I was strangely uncomfortable with his answer and started talking. I told him I dated a woman whose ex was named Elvis.

There is also Elvis Costello (whose real name is Declan McManus), and there was an NFL quarterback named Elvis Grbac.

He looked at me curiously.

I wondered if I was making too big a deal out of his name? Or maybe I just knew more Elvises then he did?

Well, kind readers, there are a bunch of Elvis Presleys. There’s rockabilly Elvis, Memphis Elvis, bad movie Elvis, leather-clad comeback Elvis, narco agent Elvis (partnered with Richard Nixon) and rhinestone-jumpsuit bloated Vegas Elvis, to name a few.

Personally, my favorite Elvis is found on Elvis Presley: The Sun Sessions, where a pre-Army, pre-Colonel Tom Parker Elvis is young, uncorrupted and adopting long hair and sideburns to get a “truck driver” look.

Cool.

On these recordings he curates his favorite songs, colorblind to the racial source during an era where racism was a blatant part of everyday life.

Elvis sang the songs he loved, with bassist Bill Black and guitarist Scotty Moore as the supporting cast. Both sidemen were playing a style that placed them in uncharted musical territory.

Reportedly, Bill Black didn’t care for the music of Elvis Presley, and Scotty Moore said he was navigating the unfamiliar musical terrain by combining the styles of Les Paul and Chet Atkins.

By doing so, Scotty, on his Gibson ES-295, inadvertently created an iconic rockabilly electric guitar style. All of this is evident on Elvis Presley: The Sun Sessions, a compilation of tracks recorded at Sun Studios from 1954 to 1956 and released on RCA in 1976.

This LP is filled with classic recordings such as “That’s All Right (Mama),” “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” “Baby Let’s Play House,” “Mystery Train” and other fantastic performances that formed the DNA of rock and rockabilly.

The impromptu nature of these recordings gives them a time capsule feel, where one hears the excitement of discovery among the players.

On some cuts, the songs don’t end – they just suddenly stop.

“Blue Moon” is redefined from Bill Monroe’s melodic appreciation of life to Elvis’s urgent declaration of experiencing now.

My personal favorite track, “I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone,” was the first song I learned to play in this style, and the triadic solo is something I still incorporate to this day.

This LP is an encyclopedic source for how to play rockabilly guitar, and Elvis’s driving acoustic guitar playing can’t be underestimated. I can’t imagine “That’s All Right (Mama)” without his driving, somewhat off-beat rhythm playing.

Do I further need to describe tracks we hear almost everyday, at the supermarket and in-between innings at baseball games? Probably not, but if you’re looking for a great rock and roll record with monumental performances, one can’t go wrong with The Sun Sessions.

Sure, there have been a lot of Elvis Presleys. They run the gamut from terrific to off-putting, but regardless of where I’ve stood, I always return to The Sun Sessions.

This is a great LP that I’ve embraced as a source of inspiration, style and brilliance. 

But I wouldn’t want my name to be Elvis.

Jim Campilongo has 14 critically acclaimed instrumental records available on vinyl, CD and digital download here.

If anyone deserves the title of “Hardest Working Guitarist in Show Business,” it’s James Burton, who celebrates his 83rd birthday this month.

Since the 1950s, Burton has worked with so many famous artists at pivotal times in their careers that his twangy double-stops and snappy runs are preserved for eternity in many of the most popular tunes from the latter half of the 20th century.

Here, the great man himself tells us about working with music legends such as Elvis Presley, Emmylou Harris, Glen Campbell and Tom Jones…

Your improvisational approach is quite apparent on the Elvis at Stax recordings from 1973. Did you already know a lot of the cover songs that Elvis pulled out for those sessions?

Actually, I didn’t know any of them. A lot of the songs we recorded for those sessions I heard for the first time there. But we had great musicians and a pretty good singer.

Elvis always worked real close with the musicians, and we would rehearse the songs a couple of times to see how it felt for him.

As far as the parts I played, they just kind of came to me. When you play by ear there’s a lot of things you hear, sometimes all at once, and being able to separate them is another trick.

You go back to the song and playing for the artist, and making it as perfect as you can.

The way Elvis liked to work was that he would listen to a record and sort of copy some of the things that caught his ear and he thought he could enjoy working with.

He had a certain way of singing other people’s songs, and he could even make them sound better sometimes.

It was enjoyable doing those sessions, and I think it was an important part of history for Elvis, and also a big deal for Stax at the time.

A couple of years later, you started working with Emmylou Harris. How did that come about?

The way that happened was a good friend of mine named Gram Parsons – who I met when I played on the Byrds’ record – called me one day and said he was working on getting an album project going so we could go in the studio and record.

Then Merle Haggard called me to ask if I knew this guy Gram Parsons, and if he was an okay country singer. And I said, “Yeah, I know him and he’s a fine singer.”

So anyway, a couple of weeks go by and I never heard back from Merle, but Gram called me to say that his project had come together with Warner Brothers, and he asked me to get some guys to record with.

So we got [pianist] Glen Hardin and [bassist] Emory Gordy, and a bunch of other guys, and we went in the studio and recorded two albums with Gram, and that’s where I met Emmylou.

When Gram unfortunately passed away, his manager Ed Tigner took Emmylou and made the same deal with Warner. So we did an album with her, and she was a jewel to work with – just a great lady and a great singer.

It was really fun stuff. Good songs, good recordings, and great musicians. Everything clicked. We toured with her in England and it was like she became a big star overnight.

She got a standing ovation every night. They just loved her.

You worked with Glen Campbell, too.

Yes, I met him when he first came to California. I remember he was driving a ’61 Thunderbird at the time.

I was playing in a little club out in the valley in Van Nuys [California], with this blues singer, and Glen would come and sit in with us.

He asked me to play on his first album, Kentucky Means Paradise. It was a bluegrass album, and he wanted me to play slide Dobro, but actually I played a standard big-body acoustic guitar.

I just raised the strings up with a taller nut and played it like a steel guitar. I played on the whole album and it was just great.

I was working with Ricky Nelson at that time, and when we weren’t touring I would go out and play this club just to keep my chops up.

I also started giving Glen my sessions back then because Ricky didn’t want me to play on records with other artists.

How did you get involved in recording with Tom Jones?

Tom was a big fan of Elvis, and he would come and see us every night in Las Vegas.

One night, at a party after the show, Tom went over and asked Elvis, “Do you mind if I borrow your guitar player to play on some records for me?”

Elvis said, “There he is, go ask him yourself.”

In truth, he’d already asked me and I’d agreed, but I guess he wanted to make sure it was okay with Elvis.

Tom’s guitarist for many years was Big Jim Sullivan, and he once said to me, “I used to teach guitar in England and do you know who my students were?”

I told him I had no idea. He said, “Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck – and these guys wanted to play like you.”

I felt pretty honored by that. I mean I wish I could play like them.

Long before there was rock ‘n’ roll, Scotty Moore (1931-2016) was a rock ‘n’ roll guitar player.

As Elvis Presley's first guitarist, every note the young man played – including such groundbreaking classics as "Hound Dog,“ "Don't Be Cruel“ and “Heartbreak Hotel" – was memorized by countless budding guitar players (many of whom have gone on to become legends themselves.)

Moore was among the handful of musicians in the early ‘50s of whom it can be said, “They invented rock ‘n’ roll.“

The following interview extract originally appeared in the August 1974 issue of Guitar Player…

Tell us about your childhood and your early interest in music.

I was born in West Tennessee – Humboldt. My father and two brothers all played, so that's where my first interest came from. They mostly played the country songs of the time.

I was the youngest in the family, so by the time I was old enough to start playing, my brothers had left home, and my dad was too old to care anything about it anymore. So I didn’t pursue it very much until I got into the service and formed a couple of bands.

When I came out in '52, I went to Memphis to work for my brother who had a cleaning plant. And in my spare time I formed a band and met Sam Phillips [of Sun Records] and began getting into recording a bit.

Were you a studio musician with Sun?

Yes, I guess you could call it that. Sam had been into rhythm and blues before that, and with the band that I'd put together we started working on some country product.

What was the name of the group?

The Starlight Wranglers! [laughs] Bill Black was the bass player. The singer's name was Doug Poindexter. We put one record out and were playing some of the clubs around Memphis.

Then along came Elvis.

Bill and myself auditioned with him. Sam also had a custom record service, and Elvis had been in a year before and made a record for his mother. Sam liked his voice, and kept his name on file.

At the time, the music business was at a very low ebb, and we were all looking for something that would sell. Sam had me get hold of Elvis, and so Elvis came over to my house one Sunday afternoon. We sat around and played, and Elvis sang a little bit of everything – pop, country, R&B.

So after that I called Sam and said, “Well, the guy sings good. He doesn't really knock me out, you know, but…"

So Sam says, “Let's go into the studio and see what he sounds like on tape." So that's what happened, and the first record came out of that first session.

What guitar were you playing at the time?

I had a Fender. I don’t remember if it was a Telecaster, a Broadcaster, a Lancaster – it was one of those 'casters, I do know that.

Then shortly after that I went to a Gibson, and I’ve been playing Gibsons ever since. I had a Les Paul model, made just like the small Les Pauls, but it had a bigger body.

An ES-295 with a gold top?

I'm not sure of the number. I played it for about a year, then went to an L-5, then to a Super 400. I’ve been playing Super 400's ever since.

What was your amp back then?

It was a custom-built Echo-Sonic, made by Ray Butts. Chet Atkins had one, I can't think who had the second, and I had the third one built.

It had a tape, more like a slap-back effect – not the Echoplex we know of now with a repeater. But it just gave a little boost to the sound.

It was awful good if you missed a note. It wouldn't come out so bad. [laughs] I still have that same amp, but of course I also have two or three others.

How did you get a rock ‘n’ roll sound out of a hollowbody?

That's hard to say, because there wasn't any rock ‘n’ roll before. So that was it! We couldn't get the highs or bend the strings as far as many players do now, because we didn‘t use light gauge. We just had to work harder.

The Gretsch Chet Atkins strings were the only ones that would hold up on that particular guitar.

On a couple of earlier guitars, I'd used different ones though. I still use the same Atkins strings now by today's standards they‘re like rope, they‘re so big.

So then what happened after the release of Elvis' first record?

The first one wasn't a nationwide thing. It was more in the Southwest: Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas...

We started doing some shows, and it was rough, it was wild. It wasn't an overnight success, by any means. But even in those early days the crowds were just as ecstatic as now, but not as large.

Then we went to the [Shreveport, Louisiana] Louisiana Hayride and worked with the other acts that were on it. And then we did the first show with Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, and with that, coupled with the first record we did on RCA, "Heartbreak Hotel,“ it was just like an atomic bomb going off!

Nobody even had time to think after that. A phenomenon. really! And even being as close to it as I was, it's still hard for me to realize it.

I think I'm still getting shock waves out of it.

How long did you stay with Elvis?

Full-time until he went into the Army in '58. And again when he came out. Then he did movies more. Didn't do too many shows. We worked record sessions, movie soundtracks and such.

I worked with him up through the Singer [Presents… Elvis '68 Comeback Special] which was about three or four years ago.

At that time he was going to Vegas for the first time and wanted myself, D. J. [Fontana, drummer] and the Jordanaires to go with him. But it was going to be a six-week bit, and you know what it means to be out of town that long – it's like starting over.

Is that when James Burton joined Elvis?

Elvis needed a man to work with him who was loose enough to travel. And I don‘t think he could have found a better player! That's for sure!

James Burton is fantastic and, I might add, a personal friend for years. l knew him back when he was with Ricky Nelson.

James, Fred Carter Jr. (who's here in Nashville), and Ricky – we all used to get in the hotel, in California, and jam.

What was Elvis like in the beginning? Was he much of a player then?

Elvis was just an everyday guy – young and wild. Now he's old and wild!

He only played rhythm guitar, what I call self-accompaniment. He played a little piano, too. But he didn't consider himself a guitar player as such, but his playing did add to the group, because he played rhythm and more or less tied things together from the rhythm standpoint.

But singing was always his first concern.

Did he have a shaping effect on the course the music was taking? Or did you, Bill and D. J. pretty much decide what that music was to be?

It was a combination of everybody. We'd stop and say, “Let's see if this’ll work." But for the most part I think you could say that once we'd get a rhythm pattern going that felt good with the way Elvis wanted to sing it, we'd work everything else in around that.

The rhythm was the primary thing. Any lead work was really secondary at that point.

In Jerry Hopkins’ book, Elvis, he hints strongly that you were the real reason for the Elvis sound, that it was your musicianship and your guitar playing that actually drove the group and created its sound.

Well, it's easy for another guy to say nice things about you.

He also suggests that you guys really got beat on the money end of it.

Ouch! That was a good lick… Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. I guess there are some things that should be put in writing.

How much did you get paid in those early days?

I think it was along about 250 dollars a week. Back then it was a good salary.

Was it strictly up to you to decide the guitar leads in those pre-rock days?

Yeah, basically. They were primarily my own invention, if you can use the word ‘invention.’

A lot was a combination of old blues guitar licks, some Travis, some Atkins, a combination of thumb and finger – just whatever I could make work, really.

I used a thumb pick mostly, then a straight pick on other styles.

Who did you learn from in those days? Who were your inspirations?

I don't think I really had any particular favorites. I was listening to Atkins, Travis, Barney Kessel, Tal Farlow, B.B. King.

I was just into everybody. As long as he played guitar, he was fine with me.

Browse the Elvis Presley catalog here.

Call it the ’22 Comeback Special. Elvis Presley is making yet another comeback this year, with Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis movie packing theaters with a film that captures the impact Presley had on popular music and pays respect to the black American blues, gospel and rock’n’roll music he was influenced by.

One of the movie’s key moments centres around the ’68 Comeback Special, the TV show he made for NBC that year, and Elvis’s showdown with manager Colonel Tom Parker as The King tries to win back some relevancy after years of throwaway movies and cornball soundtrack albums. 

The ’68 Comeback Special had originally been conceived as a Christmas show – and it did air on 3 December, 1968 – but filming for the special happened in the summer of that year. The segment it’s possibly most famous for today – the live ‘in the round’ sections featuring Elvis jamming with his band – was filmed on 27 June, 1968 in NBC’s Studio 4, Burbank, California.

The idea of stripping Presley’s act back to its bare essentials came to producer Steve Binder during rehearsals. After a day filming the more theatrical numbers, Presley and his guitarist Charlie Hodge would sit in their dressing room with guitars and jam. It was so much fun that Binder suggested that should be the show – for a while he even thought of filming it in their changing room – and when Elvis agreed, the producer flew out original guitarist Scotty Moore and drummer DJ Fontana.

“When we first went out there we thought we’d be standing up [like a regular gig],” Scotty Moore told me in 2002. Then Binder explained the plan. He wanted it informal, with the playfulness and excitement that comes from jamming. The only direction he gave the musicians was “Just don’t cuss!” 

“That part in the round was ‘whatever happens, happens',” said Scotty. “We didn’t even have a set list. In fact, I had my guitar and amp and he had his rhythm guitar, and we thought we were going to be sitting down so I didn’t carry a strap…”

Scotty Moore had brought a 1963 Gibson Super 400 CES for the show. He’d bought the guitar in ’63 from a store in Chicago for $237 and a part exchange on a Gibson bass, and used it on his 1964 solo album The Guitar That Changed The World. Elvis was playing a 1960 Gibson J200 acoustic.

The TV show filmed the in-the-round segments over two performances. The First “Sit Down” Show captures Moore’s Chet Atkins-influenced electric style, as he solos over That’s Alright and adds his signature licks to Heartbreak Hotel. 

After a jokey rendition of Love Me, Elvis looks at Moore and says, “Let’s swap axes,” and hands Scotty his J200. 

"He asks to borrow my guitar because his is not loud enough,” said Scotty. “Next time you see it, look at the expression on my face, like… I wish I'd thought fast enough to say, ‘No! Go get your own guitar!’”

Armed with the electric guitar, Elvis tears into Jimmy Reed’s Baby, What You Want Me To Do, with gusto, literally taking the lead. Back in front of an audience, playing the rhythm and blues he loves, his guitar playing is rough round the edges but tough and exciting. Boots are stomped, the musicians shout encouragement and a decade of hokey pop is forgiven.

(In other segments, Elvis also turns to an electric guitar to modernise his image. The Hagstrom Viking II he used in the Guitar Man segment recently sold for $625,000.)

In the second "sit down show" (available now on several boxset collections), the two men don’t swap guitars (at first) and the song lacks punch. Scotty’s playing is slick and melodic, with country twangs. They do a couple more songs, then swap guitars and try again. Instantly, Elvis is transformed. It’s like the electric guitar itself brings something to his performance (maybe a recognition that the new kids on the block – The Beatles and the Stones – are electric players?). 

Scotty, a Chet Atkins fan, is slick – but Elvis plays his heart out. “He was a great rhythm player, really good,” said Scotty. “He wasn’t a good enough player that he could just start playing lead guitar on any song or in any key or anything, but on songs that he knew…

“When I first met him, that was the thing that really impressed me as much as anything. He had great rhythm on the guitar and great rhythm in his voice. We did some songs and they were very rhythmic.”

They were. Those rhythms changed the world. 

In the Comeback Special, Elvis stands up for Blue Suede Shoes. But without a strap, he struggles, propping the guitar on his knee with the aid of his chair. 

“We don’t have a strap?” Elvis asks Scotty. 

“No,” replies the guitarist. 

“I gotta keep my leg here all night?” 

“Yep,” says Moore, adding: “Watch it” (ie be careful with my guitar).

That day, 27 June 1968, was the last time Scotty Moore saw Elvis. “That was the last time I saw him or played with him,” said Scotty, who died in 2016 and whose character barely appears in the Baz Lurhmann film. (Although the film majors on the drama surrounding the special, the “sit down sessions" don’t appear in the movie.) 

“He really wanted to do a European tour,” said Scotty. “That I know for a fact. DJ and I had dinner with him and he had told us then that he would like to do a European tour, all of Europe. We said, ‘Sure’. I had never been over at that point in time.

“There were two things at that dinner. He asked about that and he asked if I still had my studio. He only had one or two movies to finish, and he said, ‘Do you still have your studio?’“ I said, ‘Yeah, sure do’. And he said, ‘What’s the chances of getting in for a couple of weeks and seeing what we come up with?’ That was the way he put it.

“I said, ‘Yeah. Just give me a little bit of advance warning so I can block the time out’. But of course, management – Parker – wouldn’t let that happen, I don’t know why.”

And the guitars? Elvis’s Gibson J200 is on display at Graceland. Scotty kept the Super 400 until December of 1985:  “After years of not playing,” says Moore’s website, “he sold it to a private collector, Paul Dragon, for $10,000”.  

Dragon sold the guitar to Frank Lucido of California Guitar in Ojai, California.  "It was my guitar store that sold the guitar to the Hard Rock Cafe," says Frank. "I sold the guitar to the Hard Rock for $30,000. 

"They originally hung it on the wall at their club in Dallas. When I saw the guitar it was hanging low on the wall and two of the plastic control knobs had been stolen from it. I told them that their 'clients' were going to strip the guitar completely if they left it were it was. They moved it quickly."

The guitar is believed to still be a part of the Hard Rock Cafe collection.

Before the Super 400 CES, Scotty had played a 1956 Super 400 CES. He sold that guitar to producer Chips Moman in 1963. Moman put it up for auction at Christie's Auction House in London. In April 2000, it went for $98,652. 

Chet Atkins once asked Scotty why he had sold the Super 400. Moore told him he needed a tractor. Elsewhere on the webpage is a picture of the tractor with the caption: “The tractor still works and, unlike the guitar, is still used”.

Throughout his storied career, the “King of Rock ‘n’ Roll” played various Gibson instruments. These included electric guitars such as the Super 400CES and acoustic guitars – notably a black customized Dove that was presented to him by his father.

In turn, a notoriously generous Elvis then gifted the prized instrument to uber-lucky fan Mike Harris in 1975 while performing his version of the 12-bar blues number “See See Rider.”

In 2016, this unique piece of rock ‘n’ roll history was sold at auction for $334,000.

Elvis performed with this fabled guitar for several years throughout the early ‘70s. It can be spotted in some of his best-known live footage such as the 1973 Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite broadcast, and the film from his historical 1972 Madison Square Garden gig.

Here, the King is seen hitting the stage of the famous New York concert venue to the tune of "That's All Right" before strapping on his iconic black Gibson Dove:

Alongside the new Elvis SJ-200, Gibson has just launched the Elvis Dove. 

Inspired by the flat-top seen in the above film, this instrument appears sans large “Elvis Presley” fingerboard inlays, although “Elvis” has been scribed on the truss rod cover.

Aside from that small detail you might never know it was a signature model. You could always attach the included Kenpo Karate body decal, however, should there be any doubt.

Featuring a Sitka spruce top with hand-scalloped X-bracing, this maple-bodied square-shouldered dreadnought is fitted with a glued-in 25.5” scale mahogany neck sporting a 20-fret Indian rosewood fingerboard.

Decked out with mother-of-pearl double-parallelogram fretboard markers, headstock logo and crown inlays, and dove wing bridge motifs, this high-end guitar features gold-plated hardware throughout. 

A striking gloss nitrocellulose Ebony finish completes the look.

Purchase Elvis: As Recorded At Madison Square Garden here.

Ten years ago, on this day, legendary session guitarist, singer, songwriter and arranger Billy Strange passed away at the age of 81.

The Wrecking Crew member may not be a household name, but he is the talent behind countless songs hummed, whistled and sung in households across the country since the 1950s.

His list of credits reads like a who’s who of rock ‘n’ roll and includes the likes of Elvis Presley, The Everly Brothers and Ricky Nelson.

Of course, us guitar players are more likely to be aware of the session guitarist's masterful touches to such universally loved hit records as The Beach Boys’ “Sloop John B,” to which he added electric 12-string. Or perhaps the haunting, tremolo-drenched Gibson ES-335 accompaniment on Nancy Sinatra’s “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down).”

From vocal accompaniments to large orchestras, Strange did it all. 

“I have played every kind of music in the world,” he once told an interviewer. “I played rock ‘n’ roll, did all the surf records, played with big orchestras...

“They needed somebody in a small group that knew what the hell they were doing in a studio, you know, and that was me.”

As well as lending his talents to other artists, Strange released a ton of material under his own name, beginning in the early ‘50s with numerous Capitol Records singles.

Among his catalog of guitar-centric albums from the ‘60s and ‘70s are several James Bond-themed releases as well as a number of notable collaborations that some readers may wish to explore.

Strange is credited as being one of the earliest proponents of the fuzz sound, as heard on Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans top ten single "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah." 

According to Strange, the track’s fuzzed out electric guitar tone was achieved “by pulling two 6L6 tubes out of my amp."

Speaking of the 1962 recording session he goes on to say, “I remember that very well. [Phil] Spector was looking for a new sound and, boy, it fuzzed up.”

That same year, the world’s first fuzz pedal – the Maestro FZ-1 Fuzz-Tone – was released. Similarly, the genesis of this sound lies in malfunctioning electronic musical equipment (a faulty recording console in the case of the Maestro pedal.) 

Slow to catch on at first, the fuzz sound exploded in popularity following the Rolling Stones’ 1965 hit "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction."

And in this entertaining clip from the mid-‘60s music variety television show Hollywood a Go-Go, Strange performs a rendition of the Rolling Stones classic which is featured as the opening track from his 1965 album Billy Strange Plays the Hits!

James Burton. Elvis Presley. A Fender Paisley Red Telecaster. “Johnny B. Goode.” How could that combo possibly get any better? If Burton played the guitar behind his head, of course.

Self-taught Telecaster master Burton gained notoriety as a session guitarist throughout the 1950s and ‘60s, starring on a host of landmark recordings such as Dale Hawkins’ “Susie Q” while enjoying a longstanding working relationship with American pop pioneer Ricky Nelson. By the late ‘60s, Burton had gained an enviable reputation and was in high demand, turning down gigs for both Bob Dylan and Elvis Presley.

Eventually, in 1969, Burton joined Elvis as guitarist and bandleader, staying with the group until Elvis’ untimely passing in 1977. A star of the show in his own right, Elvis would often call out Burton on stage, using the cue, "Play it, James," before he ripped into a solo using his Fender Paisley Red Telecaster.

In the late-60s, Fender further experimented with the form of the Telecaster and introduced a variety of striking new finishes. In ‘68, while attempting to embrace flower power, the company released two distinctly lysergic Telecaster finishes in tandem with the Telecaster Bass: Paisley Red and Blue Flower. It was, however, just a brief stop at the love in, as both finishes were discontinued the following year, making these models a rare sight.

“Paisley Red pulsates with every beat and swirls in a blinding carousel of color forms and tones. Fender shines again,” proclaims an advert for the Paisley Red Tele, while its Blue Flower counterpart reads, “Blue Flower bursts forth in a dazzling array of subtle purple and green patterns. Never before has such an exciting profusion of color been offered.”

Hey, it was the 60s!

Burton is one of few well-known electric guitar players to have embraced the Paisley Red Telecaster (albeit somewhat reluctantly to begin with) after Fender contacted him directly in '69, just prior to Elvis’ Las Vegas residency shows. “I took it to Vegas,” Burton told an interviewer for Musicians Hall of Fame. “It took me two weeks into the show to break it out and play it on stage. There was no telling what Elvis might say on stage and freak out or something.  

“But anyway, I took it out and he loved it. He never said anything on stage but in between shows he called me and asked me about that guitar. He said, “Where did you get that?” you know, and I said, “Well, Fender called me and gave it to me, and it took me a while to break it out and play it.” He said, “No, it’s great; sounds great, looks great.” He loved it."

On this day in 1956, Elvis Presley recorded his record-breaking single “Hound Dog” at RCA’s New York studio. Clocking in at just two minutes and fifteen seconds this short, sharp shock of rock ‘n’ roll manages to squeeze in not one but two original guitar solos by Elvis’ right-hand man, Scotty Moore. Having been put through his paces recording dozens of takes (it is believed number 31 made the final cut) Moore later referred to his contribution on this landmark recording as “ancient psychedelia”.

By this time, Elvis had become a national star, appearing on The Milton Berle Show to a television audience of over 40 million earlier in the year. Having smashed viewer ratings again on The Steve Allen Show, the band entered the studio the very next day to record “Hound Dog”. And less than two weeks later, this monumental track hit the airwaves, capturing the raw energy and excitement of a new era where the electric guitarist increasingly took centre stage.

In this video from October ‘56 – Elvis’ second TV appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show – Moore is playing the dual ‘Alnico’ pickup-loaded ’54 Gibson L-5CESN he’d acquired the previous year. Early on in the clip he can be seen (and heard) adjusting his custom-built Ray Butts-designed EchoSonic amplifier. Inspired by Chet Atkins’ use of the amp, Scotty ordered his tape echo-equipped EchoSonic in ‘55 and used it continuously for many years on stage and in the studio to achieve his signature slapback sound.

While this clip shows Elvis casually strumming his tooled leather-covered Martin D-28 and throwing some impressive shapes, its Moore’s distinctive rock ‘n’ roll guitar tone that really cuts through the mix.

This chart-topping single ultimately went on to sell millions of copies, while Moore’s exemplary rock ‘n’ roll riffing inspired countless budding guitar players the world over. Indeed, as Keith Richards once wrote, “I might not have wanted to be Elvis, but I wasn’t so sure about Scotty Moore. Scotty Moore was my icon.”

Discover more about Scotty Moore and Elvis Presley here

A Hagstrom Viking II electric guitar, used by Elvis Presley during his legendary 1968 televised 'comeback special,' has sold at auction for $625,000.

Once owned by Al Casey, a member of Presley's band for the special, the guitar – which was sold by GWS as part of its "Artifacts of Hollywood & Music" auction – had initially been given a starting bid of $250,000.

Presley used the guitar – which previously featured in an exhibit at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame – during the opening segment and one of the live "stand-up" portions of the 1968 show, which marked his return to the stage after focusing exclusively on films for all of the 1960s up to that point. Presley can also be seen with the guitar on the cover of his 1969 album, From Elvis in Memphis. 

In a letter that accompanied the Hagstrom, Casey wrote that the special's producers asked him to let Presley use the guitar because they "thought it would look beautiful on camera and with the set."

That notarized letter from Casey, a second letter from Casey, a notarized statement from Hal Blaine (who was Presley's drummer for the performance), and a letter from the show’s music producer, Bones Howe, also came with the guitar.

It was also sold with loan paperwork from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and a number of photographs of Presley taken during the filming of the performance.

A Hagstrom Viking II electric guitar, used by Elvis Presley during his legendary 1968 televised 'comeback special,' is heading to auction.

Owned by Al Casey, who was a part of Presley's backing band for the special, the semi-hollow guitar is being put up for bidding as part of Kruse GWS Auctions’ 'Artifacts of Hollywood & Music' auction, which begins on March 27. The guitar has a starting bid of $250,000.

Presley's 1968 'comeback special' marked his return to the stage after almost a decade of focusing exclusively on films. The performance was both critically acclaimed and a commercial triumph, bringing the singer back to the forefront of popular music.

Presley used the Hagstrom as part of the special's opening segment and during one of the live "stand-up" portions of the show. In a letter accompanying the guitar, Casey wrote that the special's producers asked him to let Presley use the guitar because they "thought it would look beautiful on camera and with the set."

That notarized letter from Casey, a second letter from Casey, a notarized statement from Hal Blaine (who was Presley's drummer for the performance), and a letter from the show’s music producer, Bones Howe, all affirm the guitar's authenticity, and that it's the exact one from the special.

Presley can also be seen with the guitar – which was featured in an exhibition at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame – on the cover of his 1969 album, From Elvis in Memphis. 

In addition to the letters of authenticity, the Hagstrom comes with loan paperwork from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and a number of photographs of Presley taken during the filming of the performance.

For more info on the guitar, stop by gwsauctions.com.