Dewey and Elvis

"It all started in 1949 when Memphis's own WDIA became the first radio station in the country to switch to all-black programming. After WDIA went off the air, WHBQ decided to capture some of this newly discovered black audience by putting "Daddy-O-Dewey" Phillips - the most popular white deejay in the mid-South - on a new show, Red, Hot and Blue. Although the show originally aired for just fifteen minutes a night, its impact was immeasurable." "While Elvis and Sun Records were still virtually unknown - and two full years before Alan Freed famously "discovered" rock 'n' roll - Dewey Phillips was playing Howlin' Wolf, B. B. King, and Muddy Waters. Phillips is already a part of rock 'n' roll history as the first major disc jockey to play Elvis Presley (and subsequently to conduct the first live, on-air interview with Elvis)." "Using personal interviews, documentary sources, and the oral history collections at the Center for Southern Folklore and the University of Memphis, Louis Cantor presents a very personal view of the disc jockey while arguing for his place as an essential part of rock 'n' roll history. Loaded with anecdotes and insights about key figures, including Elvis's close friend George Klein and Sun Records' Sam Phillips, Dewey and Elvis will be irresistible to anyone interested in Elvis, the Memphis music scene, or the history of rock 'n' roll."--BOOK JACKET.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.