Scotty Moore, Elvis Presley’s first guitarist, dies at 84

In an interview with Guitar Player Magazine, Moore recalled when he first learned of Presley through Sam Phillips, the legendary producer who discovered Presley. “It was as plain as day”, Richards once said.

Studio founder Sam Phillips would introduce Moore to a teenage Elvis Presley that same year, with Moore performing on Presley’s landmark “That’s All Right” single. As part of The Blue Moon Boys, Moore backed Presley on many of his epochal early hits such as Heartbreak Hotel, Blue Suede Shoes and Jailhouse Rock. After “That’s All Right” began drawing attention, Presley, Moore and Black took to the road playing any gig they could find, large or small, adding drummer D.J. Fontana and trying their best to be heard over thousands of screaming fans. “Scotty Moore was one of the foundational figures in rock and roll, a profoundly influential guitarist, and the musician who helped Elvis Presley become The King”.

Fellow musicians have been paying tribute, with Billy Idol tweeting: “Not many guitarists in R&R were as original and as inventive as Scotty Moore RIP”. The guitarist changed the world…especially mine; I hope you don’t mind if I keep stealing your licks.

Moore was introduced to Elvis Presley via Phillips at Sun Records. It’s hard to fully explain the impact of this, except to say that the role of the lead guitarist and their relationship with the singer in many major rock bands since simply would not have been the same without Moore.

Moore and Presley went their separate ways in the late 50s, though they teamed up again in 1968 for a television “comeback” special.

His contributions to such Presley classics as “Heartbreak Hotel” and “All Shook Up” made him one of the early engineers of the sound that would come to define the early era of rock and influence young musicians like Keith Richards and Jimmy Page.

Moore and Bill Black, the bassist of the Starlite Wranglers, met with Elvis on July 4, 1954 and played through a few tunes.

While with Presley, Moore initially played a Gibson ES-295 (which has been called “The Guitar that Changed the World”) before switching to a Gibson L5, followed by a Gibson Super 400. Thanks to his engineering work on Ringo Starr’s 1970 album Beaucoups of Blues, Moore noted that he was the only artist to work with both Sun and Apple Records.