When Elvis Got His First Guitar

Most boys his age might have wanted a bike or a rifle, but an 11-year old boy in Tupelo, Mississippi asked his mom for a guitar on his birthday and that’s what he got. Elvis Presley and his mom went to the Tupelo Hardware Store on this date in 1946 and she paid $6.95 for a guitar that changed his life and set him on a course to stardom.

Influenced by country, bluegrass, blues, gospel and pop, ten years later he was on the cutting edge of what would become known as rock and roll and it made him a star.

But Elvis was never a really great guitar player. He occasionally played a bass guitar, but his voice and stage presence is what really sold records and sold tickets to his shows.

Even so, he has guitars on display at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and some day he might have a guitar on display at the Gospel Music Hall of Fame once they decide to build it. He’s a member of a three.