On this day in 1954, Elvis is heard on the radio for the first time
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On this day in 1954, Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips played a new song on the radio for the first time.
It hadn't even been pressed into a record yet, but when Phillips heard the tape that had been recorded a few days earlier at Sun Records, he wanted to play it on the air as soon as possible.
It was the first time that the music of Elvis Presley was heard on the radio.
The switchboard at WHBQ lit up immediately with listeners wanting to know who this new artist was. Phillips played "That's All Right" over and over and tried to reach Presley on the phone.
But Elvis was at the movies. His parents tracked him down there and brought him to the studio for his first radio interview. One of the first questions that Phillips asked Presley was where he went to high school.
The answer "Humes" was a cue to the audience in the segregated south that the singer was white.
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