This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 7/8/2023
Barely two months after the release of his first record and less than a month before his first and only appearance on the Grand Ole Opry, 19 year old Elvis Presley, 23 year old Scotty Moore and 27 year old Bill Black were still playing mostly small gigs in and around Memphis.
Elvis, Scotty Moore & Bill Black were hired to perform at the grand opening of a Memphis shopping center on September 9, 1954. The stage was on the back of a flat bed truck.
Opal Walker a striking, confident 21 year old from Memphis was at the concert that night and took 3 photos. She lived in the bustling Russwood Park area about a mile from Sun Records and worked in downtown Memphis.
Her girlfriend knew DJ Dewey Phillips the most popular DJ in town, and they would go visit him at his studio up on the mezzanine lever of the Chisca Hotel on Main Street. In the summer of 1954 not long after Elvis Presley’s first record came out Dewey Phillips mentioned Elvis Presley and where he went to church.
She and her girlfriend went to his church that week, and after the service they met and flirted with him, and she recalled he teased her about her long blond hair.
When she heard about the concert she went early. Elvis arrived in Scotty Moore‘s car with Bill Black. She approached him, re-introduced herself and asked if she could take a few photos and he gladly agreed. In an interview years later with a journalist from Australia she recalled she had him all to herself.
Letter of Authenticity
My mother Opal Walker was born in 1932 in Flatwoods, Perry County, Tennessee near the Buffalo, and Tennessee Rivers and went to high school in Linden the county seat. She moved to Memphis after school around 1952, lived in the Russwood Park area about a mile from Sun Records and worked in the downtown area of Memphis. Her girlfriend knew DJ Dewey Daddy – O - Phillips the most popular DJ in town, and they would go visit him at his studio up on the mezzanine lever at the Chisca Hotel on Main Street. In the summer of 1954 not long after Elvis Presley’s first record came out Dewey Phillips mentioned Elvis Presley and where he went to church. She and her girlfriend went to his church that week, and after the service they met and flirted with him, and she recalled he teased her about her long blond hair.
In September Elvis Presley’s show was announced on Dewey’s radio show so she recalled riding a streetcar to the concert and took her camera a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash. She waited for him, and Elvis arrived with Scotty Moore and Bill Black in Scotty’s Chevrolet. She asked if she could take his photo and he seemed happy to oblige. She took two photos of Elvis and one photo of Elvis with Scotty and Bill.
The camera took 620 film, and the negative is larger than 35mm and about 2.25”x2.25”. My mother and my father got to meet other Memphis musicians such as Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins early on. They were fans of the music. Over the years she held on to the negatives as a special moment and time in her life. She received many requests from major magazines over the years and with the advent of the internet in the early 1990s her attorney advised her, and he filed the © on the three photographs.
My mother passed away recently, and I inherited the (3) negatives and ©. The negatives have been in my family for 68 years.