Design
I won't say too much about the cover, as I designed it. But I do believe that it shows the most important ingredients with which Marion Keisker can claim her stake in music history: Sun Records, Sam Phillips, and, of course, their “prodigal son”, Elvis Presley.
Inside the 6 by 9 format book, we get a 40-to-60-percent text-to-illustrations ratio. Belard has a pleasant writing style that quickly draws you into the story of Marion Keisker's life, which is told through a collection of short chapters and anecdotes.
An example from the book: “When Sam sold Elvis to RCA, he handed over some of the songs they had been working on. Sam didn’t think they were good enough. They were never intended to be released. In fact, Marion said she would have destroyed those tapes. This is one of her recollections that left me dumbfounded. According to her, ‘Blue Moon’, and presumably ‘I Love You Because’, ‘Harbor Lights’, ‘Tomorrow Night’, ‘Just Because’, and others, would never have seen the light of day had Elvis stayed at Sun. Not to have missed gems like the haunting ‘Blue Moon’ and the stunning ‘Trying To Get To You’ make me almost glad that Parker came into the picture and pulled Elvis from Sun Records. And I do not even want to think about all the songs that Sam recorded over in order to save expensive tapes”.
Inside the 6 by 9 format book, we get a 40-to-60-percent text-to-illustrations ratio. Belard has a pleasant writing style that quickly draws you into the story of Marion Keisker's life, which is told through a collection of short chapters and anecdotes.
An example from the book: “When Sam sold Elvis to RCA, he handed over some of the songs they had been working on. Sam didn’t think they were good enough. They were never intended to be released. In fact, Marion said she would have destroyed those tapes. This is one of her recollections that left me dumbfounded. According to her, ‘Blue Moon’, and presumably ‘I Love You Because’, ‘Harbor Lights’, ‘Tomorrow Night’, ‘Just Because’, and others, would never have seen the light of day had Elvis stayed at Sun. Not to have missed gems like the haunting ‘Blue Moon’ and the stunning ‘Trying To Get To You’ make me almost glad that Parker came into the picture and pulled Elvis from Sun Records. And I do not even want to think about all the songs that Sam recorded over in order to save expensive tapes”.
And this comes from an author who published ‘The King and the Jester’, a critical book on Colonel Parker in 2024, so that says something! The use of many quotes from interviews and anecdotes like the one above add to the credibility and readability of the story before us. The author uncovered many rare photographs of Marion Keisker, her work and interesting archival material to illustrate the story, most of them black and white and many new to me. Especially striking are the photographs from Marion's days as a radio personality on WREC, her Army career, her role as a member of the women's rights movement, and her work as an actress in the theater add a new view on the woman I know from the photographs from her time at SUN.
Other stand-out images are the stylish pictures of Marion from 1938, which show a beautiful woman in a long gown, wow, she looks like a completely different woman!
In the appendix, the author has included paperwork that supports the story as presented in the book.
Content
Reading this book, we learn that Marion Keisker was so much more than Sam Phillips' assistant, her name really deserves a place in the history of Rock and Roll music. Not only because she was the first person to record Elvis Presley singing 'My Happiness' and 'That's When Your Heartaches Begin,' but because she heard something special in his voice and made a note for Sam: "Good ballad singer. Hold." Perhaps the most important scribble on a piece of paper in music history.
Reading this book, we learn that Marion Keisker was so much more than Sam Phillips' assistant, her name really deserves a place in the history of Rock and Roll music. Not only because she was the first person to record Elvis Presley singing 'My Happiness' and 'That's When Your Heartaches Begin,' but because she heard something special in his voice and made a note for Sam: "Good ballad singer. Hold." Perhaps the most important scribble on a piece of paper in music history.
Before Marion met Sam Phillips, this Memphis-born lady already had a vibrant career in radio and was referred to as "Ms. Radio of Memphis" with her own Kitty Kelly radio show on WREC. At one time, she was responsible for daily programs on every radio station in Memphis. But she gave up most of this to work for, Sam Phillips for romantic reasons. Depending whose version of the story you read it is “work with” or work for”. Like the author, I tend to believe Keisker’s recollection of history, as these are confirmed by Elvis Presley and Ed Leek, especially regarding the first recording of ‘My Happiness’.
The early years of the Memphis Recording Service, Sun Records, a young Elvis, his first records and how they came about, his performances, his move to RCA, and the Million Dollar Quartet session make up half the book. And although this is a history most fans know pretty well, Belard really adds some extra color, information, and insights by telling it from Marion's perspective and her part in creating history. The many quotes from interview work really well here.
Interesting to read is her impact on the recording of the song ‘I Don’t Care If The Sun Don’t Shine’. Apparently Elvis attempted the song, but it was missing a verse nobody knew. Marion wrote one on the spot, but, of course, she was not credited as a song writer for reasons explained in the book.
It is also sad to read that Sam apparently went out of his way to diminish Marion's role – also his ex-partner and lover while still happily married - in the Elvis story, claiming he made the first recording of 'My Happiness'. When Jerry Hopkins interviewed her for his ‘Elvis’ biography she confessed “I was surprised that you knew me and or had even heard my name. It got so I never talked of my involvement with Elvis’ career because nobody believed it, anyway, you know.”
With Phillips, she also started the all-girl radio station WHER (what else could the station’s call sign be!) helping to tear down the male-dominated radio world of the fifties, a theme she would return to later in her career.
As was a Captain in a man's world, in charge of overseeing the largest armed forces television station in the world. This would eventually bring her to Germany, where she met up with Elvis again in 1960. And when they bumped into each-other, the poor soldier boy didn’t know if he should kiss or salute her. Apparently Marion said “in that order”.
And while this was a chance meeting, it really meant a lot to her when he held her hand: “So then, he held my hand. But it was a very significant thing for me. And very important to me. I am the sole, one person who never made a penny out of him, who never asked him for a favor, who never ever benefitted directly in any way from him. And it was the first and only time that Elvis ever indicated publicly that he recognized the role that I played. And to me that was a real, big … (she fights back tears). Elvis is close, second only to my son, in my affection.”
In 1969, after 12 years, she retired from the Army as a Major and returned home to Memphis, where she started a new chapter in her life, which included an attempt to buy the original Memphis Recording Service building at 706 Union Avenue to preserve it for history. But that plan did not materialize. Looking back now, what if that had happened, how would (SUN’s) history have been written?
In an article published in 2017, Dr. Charles Hughes wrote: “Almost every telling of the Marion Keisker story begins and ends with Elvis Presley, literally and figuratively … But her next chapter revealed that - after helping to change the world through Memphis music - Marion Keisker worked to make that world a better place through political activism. Upon her return to Memphis, Keisker took an active role in the burgeoning feminist movement.” This sums it up nicely.
Back in Memphis, Keisker took a dynamic part in the Memphis chapter of the National Organization for Women, a dedicated women’s rights advocacy coalition. She said: “I think that if women stand behind women - both women as an audience, women as listeners and viewers, and women as co-workers within the broadcast field - we’d just be supportive and give each other a little encouragement, it would make all the difference."
Conclusion
With this book Paul Belard has filled a large gap in the historiography of the birth of Rock and Roll, the legacy of Elvis Presley, and the place where it all happened, the city of Memphis. And then we haven't even mentioned Keisker's contribution to the fight for equal rights for men and women, illustrating that there is more to Marion Keisker than “SUN” and “Elvis”.
I think it is actually a scandal that her side of the story during the formative years at Sun Records took so long to be revealed in this book. Fortunately, Belard places this strong woman and her achievements in life on the pedestal where she belongs.
It would be fitting to include this book in the archives of the city of Memphis, Sun Records, and Graceland. And perhaps also in the souvenir shops of the aforementioned locations so that not only historians but also Elvis, Rock and Roll, and music fans in general have a chance to read her story, as this is essential reading.
