{"id":851791,"date":"2026-09-18T06:00:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T06:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/851791\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T06:00:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T06:00:17","slug":"born-a-century-ago-today-in-memphis-the-early-rock-and-roll-pioneer-with-connections-to-elvis-presley-and-paul-mccartney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/851791\/","title":{"rendered":"Born a Century Ago Today in Memphis, the Early Rock and Roll Pioneer With Connections to Elvis Presley and Paul McCartney"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bill Black \u2014 who pioneered the distinct \u201cslap bass\u201d technique that helped define Elvis Presley\u2019s<\/a> early sound \u2014 would have turned 100 years old today. Born September 17, 1926, in Memphis, Tennessee, Black made up one third of the King\u2019s Blue Moon Boys trio alongside Presley and lead guitarist Scotty Moore. <\/p>\n

After leaving the Blue Moon Boys in the 1950s, Black joined a group of musicians which became Bill Black\u2019s Combo. With them, he recorded more than 20 albums, toured the United States and Europe, and won awards as the best instrumental group in America in 1966 and 1967.<\/p>\n

\t\t\tVideos by American Songwriter\t\t<\/p>\n

Bill Black was just 39 years old when he died of a brain tumor on October 21, 1965, in Memphis. However, a piece of the rock-and-roll icon plays on today, as ex-Beatle Paul McCartney received his main stand-up bass as a birthday present from wife Linda in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

Today, we\u2019re exploring the life and legacy of Bill Black.<\/p>\n

Remembering Bill Black<\/p>\n

The oldest of nine children, music was an early fixture in William Patton Black Jr.\u2019s life. His father, a motorman for the Memphis Street Railway, entertained the family by playing popular songs<\/a> on the banjo and fiddle.<\/p>\n

When he was 14 years old, Bill Black Sr. fashioned an instrument from a cigar box with a board nailed to it and strings attached. It was on this makeshift creation that Black Jr. first learned to play music.<\/p>\n

By 16, he\u2019d graduated to a real guitar, often performing honky-tonk music at local bars.<\/p>\n

Black met wife Evelyn while stationed with the U.S. Army in Fort Lee, Virginia. They married in 1946 and returned to Memphis, where Black worked at a Firestone plant.<\/p>\n

The \u201cSlap Bass\u201d Technique<\/p>\n

In the 1950s, Bill Black began perfecting his famous \u201cslap bass\u201d style on the upright double bass. He modeled this technique after his idol Fred Maddox, of Maddox Brothers and Rose.<\/p>\n

Taking another page from Maddox\u2019s book, Black cultivated a \u201cstage clown\u201d persona, performing as a hillbilly with blacked-out teeth, a straw hat and overalls. He would carry this sense of irreverence into his time with the Blue Moon Boys, pumping the crowd up before Elvis took the stage.<\/p>\n

The Blue Moon Boys<\/p>\n

In 1952, Bill Black began playing clubs and local radio stations with guitarist Scotty Moore. Two years later, Sun Records founder Sam Phillips asked them to play backup for an unknown artist named Elvis Presley.<\/p>\n

While the young crooner didn\u2019t make much of an impression on either Black or Moore, both agreed to one studio session. So they met at Sun Records on July 5, 1954, to test their chemistry.<\/p>\n

The session wasn\u2019t going particularly well, so they decided to take a break. Presley used this down time to \u201cact the fool\u201d, singing Arthur Crudup\u2019s \u201cThat\u2019s All Right (Mama)\u201d. The other two musicians joined in, and Phillips taped the song.<\/p>\n

\u201cDamn,\u201d remarked Black. \u201cGet that on the radio and they\u2019ll run us out of town.\u201d <\/p>\n

Reconvening the next day, the trio recorded four more songs, including Bill Monroe\u2019s \u201cBlue Moon of Kentucky\u201d. (And yes, that\u2019s where they got their name.)<\/p>\n

At Black\u2019s initiation, they transformed the mellow waltz into an uptempo blues-rock number that soon surpassed the original on the charts.<\/p>\n

\t\t\tPlay video<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Play\"\/<\/p>\n

Over the next 15 months, the trio released five singles, toured across the South, and performed regularly on the Louisiana Hayride program.<\/p>\n

In addition to playing upright bass on tracks like \u201cJailhouse Rock\u201d and \u201cHeartbreak Hotel\u201d, Black hammed it up onstage, developing comedy routines with Presley.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was necessary for us because we played for a lot of country crowds that weren\u2019t used to people jumping up and down on stage,\u201d drummer DJ Fontana said.<\/p>\n

His Post-Elvis Career<\/p>\n

The rest of his success came with the Bill Black Combo, which he formed in the late 1950s. The band\u2019s 1959 instrumental \u201cSmokie\u201d sold more than 1 million copies and reached number 17 on the pop chart.<\/p>\n

[RELATED: Inside the Beatles\u2019 First North American Tour\u2014and the 32 Shows That Changed Concert History]<\/a><\/p>\n

With that group, Black had several other instrumental hits, including the top 10 hit \u201cWhite Silver Sands\u201d.<\/p>\n

In 1964, Bill Black\u2019s Combo opened for the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. Tragically, Black died the following year during a third operation that doctors hoped would permanently eradicate his brain tumor.<\/p>\n

Featured image by Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bill Black \u2014 who pioneered the distinct \u201cslap bass\u201d technique that helped define Elvis Presley\u2019s early sound \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":851792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[359856,359857,88,216,12249],"class_list":["post-851791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-1920s","tag-bill-black","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-rock-and-roll"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=851791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/851792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}