70 Years Ago: Elvis Makes His Opry Debut. It Doesn’t Go Well

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It’s a common cliché and idiom here in 2024. Whenever someone gets up to sing in front of others and their talent is less than … well, professional let’s say, we chide, “Don’t quit your day job.” This is what the King of Rock n’ Roll, and eventual Country Music Hall of Famer Elvis Presley was allegedly told after making his Grand Ole Opry debut 70 years ago today, October 2nd, 1954.

The saying “Don’t quit your day job” and Elvis’s Opry debut would become legendary, but for all the wrong reasons. It wasn’t that Elvis Presley was “bad” as much as he wasn’t ready for the Grand Ole Opry, and the Grand Ole Opry wasn’t ready for Elvis. The King would never return to the Opry.

Elvis Presley was only 19 at the time of his Opry debut, and yes, worked a day job as a delivery driver in Memphis while trying to get his career off the ground. The notorious Col. Parker was not in the picture yet, but Sam Phillips and Sun Records was. Elvis had recently released his single “That’s All Right,” with a supped-up version of bluegrass legend Bill Monroe’s “Blue Moon of Kentucky” as the B-side.

To promote the record, Sam Phillips reached out to legendary (and notoriously hard-nosed) Opry manager Jim Denny and ask him for a spot. At the time, Elvis just as well could have been considered a “country” artist as a rock n’ roll one in the nebulous world of “rockabilly.” Jim Denny agreed to let Elvis perform, and booked him during Hank Snow’s segment on the show.

Hank Snow had no idea who Elvis was, and forgetting his name, Snow simply introduced him as “A young man from Memphis.” Elvis took the stage with his legendary backing band of guitarist Scotty Moore and bass player Bill Black at around 10:15-10:30 pm, and blasted into their version of “Blue Moon of Kentucky”—a song many of the Opry faithful had heard from Bill Monroe himself on that very stage numerous times.

Though some accounts love to embellish how bad Elvis Presley bombed that night, that wasn’t really the case. He just wasn’t well-received. The performance was too rhythm-based, too aggressive for the Opry crowd, and the song was met with only polite applause. Presley only performed the one song, and then promptly left to return to Memphis.

What happened afterwards is up for some dispute and interpretation. Guitarist Scotty Moore swears that Jim Denny told Elvis “Don’t quit your day job,” or “Don’t quit your truck-driving job” or “Go back to driving truck” almost immediately after coming off the stage. Scotty Moore did not hear it, but that is what Elvis told him Jim Denny said right after the performance. Others also recall the account, including Chet Atkins saying Elvis said once in a recording session that Denny said to him on that night, “We don’t like that nig-er music around here.”

Another story attributed to Scotty Moore says that Elvis was so angry after what Jim Denny said, Presley ripped his shirt off and threw it in the trash, with Scotty lamenting that he didn’t go back and fish the shirt out of the garbage so he could sell it as a piece of history later.

Sam Phillips of Sun Records—who set up the gig—flatly denies that Jim Denny said anything negative to Elvis, though perhaps that was Phillips painting a rosy picture for his client at the time. Another story stemming from the performance was that Elvis “cried all the way back to Memphis,” but that doesn’t seem to be true. Elvis was just uncustomarily quiet according to the people who were in the car with him.

The moment was chronicled in the Ken Burns documentary on country music from 2019, with Bill Monroe characterized as not liking what Elvis did to his song, “…until the first royalty check came in,” Marty Stuart added in his commentary.

Obviously, whatever the reception was at the Ryman Auditorium, it ultimately would not affect Elvis Presley’s meteoric rise to stardom. He would find his proper footing on the national stage via The Louisiana Hayride out of Shreveport, which in many respects was The Opry’s greatest rival, and more accepting of rockabilly and early rock n’ roll acts.

The Louisiana Hayride is also where Hank Williams would land after being kicked off the Opry cast. Hank was fired by none other than Jim Denny. Despite Denny’s hard-nosed reputation, his legacy on the Opry and with music publishing made him the first non-performer to ever be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1966.

“I think country music is fantastic,” Elvis would say later. “You see, country music was always a part of the influence on my type of music anyway. It’s a combination of country music and Gospel, and rhythm & blues all combined. As a child, I was influenced by all that. The Grand Ole Opry was the first thing I ever heard probably.”

Opry manager Jim Denny was probably not the first person to ever utter the phrase “Don’t quit your day job,” or whatever he said to Elvis. But the story of Elvis’s Opry debut helped ensconce this idiom in the public consciousness. There also may have never been more worse advice ever given to a musician.

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In June, and new exhibit was opened at The Ryman Auditorium called “From Memphis to the Ryman” chronicling Elvis’s performance on the Opry, and the various stories it sparked.



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