Elvis Aaron Presley came into the world on January 8, 1935, in a tiny, two-room shotgun house in Tupelo, Mississippi. He wasn’t alone—his identical twin, Jesse Garon Presley, was stillborn just thirty-five minutes earlier.

He loves his mama more than anything—she is his whole world, and he is always by her side. Her name is Gladys Presley, and she is Elvis’s rock, the one person who always believe in him, even when times are tough. She raised him with a deep sense of kindness, respect, and humility. It was Gladys who nurtured his love for music, always encouraging him to sing and do what made him happy.

His father, Vernon Presley, had struggled for years to make ends meet. When Elvis was a child, Vernon had trouble holding down a steady job, and things only worsened. In a desperate attempt to provide for his family. The Presleys were poor—dirt poor. Work was scarce in the Depression-era South. And when Elvis was only three, Vernon got caught passing a bad check for fourteen dollars. It was an act of desperation, not greed, but the law didn’t care—he was sent to prison for eight months, leaving Gladys to scrape by alone with a toddler on her hip. They didn’t have much money, but what they lacked in riches, they made up for in love.

They lived in a Black neighborhood, and Elvis had many Black friends. Some people didn’t like seeing a white boy running around with Black kids, but he didn’t care. He grew up with them—played with them, laughed with them—and he loved their music. The rhythm, the soul, the raw emotion in gospel and blues—it got into his bones. It shaped who he was. He never saw color the way others did; he just saw people, and he respected where the music came from.

Even as a child, he felt music deep in his bones. He’d sit and listen to the gospel choirs at church, mesmerized by the voices and the spirit in the room. Sometimes he’d sneak off to the revival tents, where the music was wild and alive, and he’d feel something stir in his chest—something electric. He was different, and he knew it, but he didn’t quite know why yet.

In 1948, the Presleys packed up and moved north to Memphis, Tennessee, hoping for a better life. They didn’t have much—just each other, a few bags, and dreams they couldn’t quite name yet. In Memphis, Elvis fell even deeper in love with music. He’d spend hours outside Beale Street looking into windows of Lansky Bros, looking at the pink and black suits his favorite colors and clubs, soaking in the sound of live blues. He’d stand wide-eyed at record stores, listening to the likes of B.B. King, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup.

Elvis first walked into Sun Records in Memphis in the summer of 1953, when he was just 18 years old. He went there to record a song as a gift for his mother, Gladys it cost around $4 It wasn’t until 1954, after a few more visits and recordings, that Sam Phillips finally called him back in for a real session which led to the groundbreaking release of “That’s All Right” on July 19, 1954, considered the birth of Elvis's professional career and one of the first true rock 'n' roll records, and he startede playing with Scotty Moore on lead guitar, Bill Black on double bass.

And now millions were screaming his name, but older people were not a fan of his hip moves. They called him things like “a white man with Black hips” and “Elvis the Pelvis,” saying he was corrupting the youth. His manager, Colonel Tom Parker, thought to put him in a tux and make him family-friendly, and make him sing Hound Dog to a hound dog, embarrassing the hell out of Elvis. He returned home to Graceland, but he was upset and his world was spinning. So he grabbed his keys, stormed out into the Memphis night, and headed for Club Handy, meeting up with his friend B.B. King. They took a seat, when a performer went up on stage—a girl, singing like an angel. B.B. informed Elvis, Sister Rosetta found you on a corner of Nashville. Elvis waited until you were done before walking up to you at the bar.

"Now, RCA would love your moves. You mind if I record that song?"