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May 15, 1954 - Hi-Hat Club, Memphis TN

Here's Eddie Bond, "the man who broke Elvis Presley's heart", and his wife Gladys at the 1954 Mid-South Fair.

With the assistance of teenage compatriot Ronnie Smith, who was only 16 but already an established member of rockabilly frontman Eddie Bond's troupe of country musicians, Elvis famously (or infamously) auditioned for Bond at the Hi-Hat Club in Memphis just a couple of months before his first Sun recording sessions. There are slightly conflicting accounts of exactly why Bond turned down the King, though he would later claim he was compelled to do so by the club's owner or manager. As the story goes, Eddie Bond told Elvis to keep driving a truck because he wouldn't make it as a singer, a strikingly similar story to what happened after Elvis' performance at the Grand Ole Opry on October 2.

For such an important event in the lore of Elvis Presley, information on the Hi-Hat Club has proven elusive at best. There are some source conflicts, as I have seen the audition attributed to May 15, 1953, but the 1954 date makes more sense in light of the truck-driving reference. Some sources confuse the Memphis Hi-Hat Club with the much more well-known Hi-Hat Club in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The Hattiesburg venue was a legendary 1950s blues joint, but not the scene of Elvis' rejection by Eddie Bond. I have also seen the Memphis venue referred to as the High Hat Club, but the most prevalent version is Hi-Hat. 

The only geographic information I have found so far about the Memphis Hi-Hat Club is that it was located on South 3rd Street, and the only photograph I've come across is shown below, labelled "Hi Hat Club Nowadays", but it doesn't give any details or context for the precise location.

If anyone has information on the location shown above or anything verifiable at all about the Memphis Hi-Hat Club, please get in touch.

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