Work · 1946 · Memphis [35.15, -90.05]
"That's All Right"
Written and first recorded by Mississippi bluesman Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup, 'That's All Right' was a blues number when Elvis Presley reworked it at Sun in 1954. Presley's faster, brighter version stripped the song of its melancholy and turned it into a propulsive rockabilly statement. The contrast between the blues original and the Memphis remake captures exactly how rock 'n' roll was assembled. It became the song most often cited as Presley's true starting point.
Evidence1
- Wikidata: That's All RightWikidata
www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2016244
accessed 2026-06-04
Connections1
influenced by → Robert Johnson
The Delta blues vocabulary codified by Robert Johnson and his peers supplied the harmonic and emotional grammar that Sun's first rock'n'roll sides reworked. 'That's All Right' was itself a blues reading recast at a jubilant tempo, the Delta tradition surfacing inside the new Memphis sound.