Sam Phillips, a Memphis record producer who ran Sun Records, is credited with sparking the birth of rock and roll in 1954 despite never setting out to invent a genre. After years spent recording blues and R&B artists such as BB King and Howlin' Wolf, whose records struggled to sell due to America's racial segregation, Phillips was searching for a breakthrough act when a young truck driver named Elvis Presley walked into his Memphis Recording Service.

Presley's early sessions with musicians Scotty Moore and Bill Black had gone nowhere, but during a break the trio launched into an unplanned, loose rendition of Arthur Crudup's "That's All Right". Recognising something special, Phillips had them repeat the performance with the tape rolling; the recording, cut on 5 July 1954, became Presley's debut single weeks later and an instant radio hit, marking the accidental start of rock and roll.