Scotty Moore - Rock In Peace

Scotty Moore on guitar with Elvis Presley

It was sad to hear of the passing of Scotty Moore, guitarist with Elvis Presley during the early Sun Records recordings and career.

His guitar sound helped to define the genre that would become Rock n Roll and contributed along with the Bass of Bill Black and later the drums of DJ Fontana to the 'Elvis sound.'

We must not also leave out Sam Phillips, who was looking for a certain sound which Elvis provided.

Elvis had American Indian heritage from back on his grandmother's side of the family I recently found out.

Scotty Moore used one of the first Gold Top ES style guitars which he arranged for a very ill US Serviceman to own as a special order from Gibson, unfortunately the serviceman never got to make use of the guitar and as such the Gold colour became a staple colour, leading to the Les Paul Gold Top guitar.

One of Scotty's last interviews was in Vintage Rock magazine where he discussed his guitars. He had one of the first amplifiers that used a tape echo machine built in, which was essential to the 'slap back' sound of the early Elvis music, although this effect was created on the studio recordings by Sam Phillips using a tape machine..