Elvis Presley’s First Recording Sells For $300,000

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Yesterday would have been the 80th birthday of rock legend Elvis Presley. In honor of the occasion, a celebration was held at his famed estate in Graceland, Tennessee, where an unnamed buyer purchased Presley’s first recording for $300,000.

According to the BBC, the winning bid for the 78 rpm recording of “My Happiness” was placed online. This is the first time the record has come up for pubic sale. Bidding began at $50,000.

Presley recorded the song in 1953 at Sun Records when he was just 18 years old. He paid four dollars for a recording session and laid the tracks to both “My Happiness” and “That’s When Your Heartache Begins” onto acetate.

He is rumored to have made the recordings as a present for his mother. Unfortunately, their home did not have a record player, so he took it to a friend’s house where it remained for 60 years before being inherited by Lorisa Hilburn.

Hilburn remarked that she was “very happy” with the record’s hammer price. And who wouldn’t be?

Other offerings at the sale were Elvis’s first driver’s license, issued in 1952; a 1955 contract to perform on The Lousiana Hayride radio show; and a jacket he wore in the hit film Viva Las Vegas.

US Weekly reports that the birthday celebration also included an eight-layer cake, cut by former wife Priscilla Presley before a crowd of fans.


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