July 20th in Elvis History

It's July twentieth, and on this day in 1955, Elvis performed at the Cape Arena Building in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Just a year earlier, on July nineteenth, 1954, Elvis’s first professional single 45, “That’s All Right” backed with “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” was released. The record quickly gained traction, with one of the earliest known sales to fifteen-year-old Eldene Beard at Charlie’s Blues Record Shop in Memphis. *Billboard* praised Elvis as “a potent new chanter,” and by the end of that month, “That’s All Right” had sold 6,300 copies in Memphis alone. Sales rapidly increased, reaching over 250,000 by February 1955, mainly in the South and Southwest. On this day in 1956, while returning to Memphis from Biloxi, Elvis was mobbed by fans during a stop in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. In 1970, Elvis purchased patio furniture in Palm Springs as a birthday gift for his manager, Colonel Tom Parker. Later, in 1971, Elvis performed at the High Sierra Room of the Sahara Tahoe in Stateline, Nevada. In 1975, he held two concerts at the Scope in Norfolk, Virginia, at 2:30 and 8:30 p.m.