Right about the time a young fella with the unlikely name of Elvis Presley was first hanging around Sam Phillips’ Memphis Recording Services Studio in Memphis, another guy with the almost equally as unlikely name Malcolm Yelvington was also coming round. I posted a short piece on Yelvington a couple of months ago.
Yelvington recorded for Phillips’ Sun Records, but he was about 15 years older than the stars that became household names on Sun like Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins and the rest. Phillips never put much promotion behind Yelvington and his music career never really took off back in those days.
But like so many other original rockabilly stars, Yelvington enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in England during the rockabilly revival years of the 80s and after 30 years off the stage, finally made the trip to Europe to play for the young fans who appreciated the early rockers more than ever.
Today I happened upon a blog post by Yelvington’s niece and she gives a nice intimate look at knowing “uncle Mac.” I thought you might like to give it a read too. Here’s a video about Yelvington that I copped from that blog, but make sure you go read the post too!
Thanks for sharing my post and for the kind words about Uncle Mac!
You’re welcome. Thank you for sharing your memories with us. Most of us have precious little contact with original rockabilly musicians and the people who know/knew them, so we love to hear from those of you who know something we don’t!