“Elvis Presley: Conversations with Scotty Moore”

Jim Berkenstadt — the Rock and Roll Detective® — returns with a fresh, intimate look at Elvis Presley in Elvis Presley: Conversations with Scotty Moore. Expanding on the glimpse he offered in Mysteries in the Music, Berkenstadt now hands readers a front‑row seat to Elvis’s early career, told by the man who stood beside him onstage and in the studio: guitarist Scotty Moore.

Berkenstadt promises a book “brimming with personal stories, surprising anecdotes, and recording information,” and he delivers. Through Moore’s homespun, often humorous oral history, we follow Elvis from the Blue Moon Boys’ earliest days to the explosive Comeback Special. Along the way, Moore reveals new insights into Colonel Parker, the band’s recording techniques, and the quiet dream Elvis never got to pursue.

The book opens in 1968, when Elvis and Moore reunite after years apart. Elvis’s upbeat invitation to join an unnamed TV special sets the stage for Moore’s vivid recollections: Steve Binder’s secret pocket recorder, Elvis’s warning to the band (“Whatever you do, don’t cuss!”), and the unforgettable moment Elvis hijacks Scotty’s guitar onstage. It’s the Comeback Special as only someone in the room could tell it.

From there, Berkenstadt rewinds to Moore’s childhood in Gadsden, Tennessee, his early musical influences, and his first professional gigs after joining the Navy at sixteen. Moore’s path leads to Sun Records, where Sam Phillips’s secretary Marion Keisker introduces him to a young truck driver named Elvis Presley. Moore’s retelling of that first meeting — the heat, the house, the kid who “knew every darned song out there” — feels like time travel.

Even familiar milestones feel new through Moore’s eyes. He explains how their guitars were mic’ed, what created the “drum beat” in “That’s Alright,” and why early sessions were so raw and electric. His stories from the Louisiana Hayride, The Jackie Gleason Show, The Milton Berle Show, and The Ed Sullivan Show sparkle with behind‑the‑scenes detail.

As Elvis’s fame grows, Moore’s accounts of Colonel Tom Parker become sharper and more sobering. The focus shifts from music to money; publishing companies multiply; and Elvis’s frustration grows. “He just wanted to sing songs,” Moore says — a simple desire increasingly buried under Parker’s ambitions.

The book doesn’t shy away from the turning points: the Hollywood years, the band’s request for a modest raise, their departure, and the complicated reunion after Elvis’s military service. By the time the Jordanaires enter the picture, Moore makes clear how much the world — and Elvis — had changed.

Berkenstadt’s meticulous presentation makes Conversations with Scotty Moore more than a memoir. It’s an historical treasure. Photos, contracts, letters, and ephemera enrich Moore’s storytelling, placing readers inside the studios, backstage corridors, and tour buses of rock’s formative years. Across 175 brisk pages, you meet Sam Phillips, Chet Atkins, Carl Perkins, Chips Moman, and a version of Elvis only a friend could reveal.

This is a quick, compelling read — and an essential one for anyone who wants to understand the man behind the myth.

Elvis Presley: Conversations with Scotty Moore will be released 11 August 2026.

-Jude Southerland Kessler

Photo: Elvis Presley with Scotty Moore (public domain)