>…Although Crudup is often elided from accounts of [Presley’s rise, the singer](https://apnews.com/hub/elvis-presley) did publicly credit the songwriter. “Down in Tupelo, Mississippi, I used to hear old Arthur Crudup bang his box the way I do now,” Presley told The Charlotte Observer in 1956, “and I said if I ever got to the place I could feel all old Arthur felt, I’d be a music man like nobody ever saw.”
>Crudup himself liked Presley’s interpretation.
>“He made it into a kind of hillbilly record,” Crudup later told the Los Angeles Times. “But I liked it. I thought it would be a hit. Some people like the blues, some don’t. But the way he did it, everyone liked it.”
>In the early 1960s, Crudup finally got a sizable royalty check — for $1,600. But Melrose refused to turn over the copyright…
>…Indeed, a settlement came only after Crudup’s 1974 death. Chappell Music refused to go forward with buying Hill & Range until the Crudup matter was resolved. The first check was slightly more than $248,000, Waterman wrote, with Crudup’s estate receiving around $3 million over the following decades…
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>FRANKTOWN, Va. (AP) — Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup helped invent [rock ‘n’ roll.](https://apnews.com/hub/rock-music)
His 1946 song “That’s All Right,” an easygoing shrug to a lover, would become the [first single Elvis Presley ever released.](https://apnews.com/general-news-music-f2b33a089be14ae7a54fe5831ecfd090) Rod Stewart would sing it on a chart-topping album. Led Zeppelin would play it live…
>…Although Crudup is often elided from accounts of [Presley’s rise, the singer](https://apnews.com/hub/elvis-presley) did publicly credit the songwriter. “Down in Tupelo, Mississippi, I used to hear old Arthur Crudup bang his box the way I do now,” Presley told The Charlotte Observer in 1956, “and I said if I ever got to the place I could feel all old Arthur felt, I’d be a music man like nobody ever saw.”
>Crudup himself liked Presley’s interpretation.
>“He made it into a kind of hillbilly record,” Crudup later told the Los Angeles Times. “But I liked it. I thought it would be a hit. Some people like the blues, some don’t. But the way he did it, everyone liked it.”
>In the early 1960s, Crudup finally got a sizable royalty check — for $1,600. But Melrose refused to turn over the copyright…
>…Indeed, a settlement came only after Crudup’s 1974 death. Chappell Music refused to go forward with buying Hill & Range until the Crudup matter was resolved. The first check was slightly more than $248,000, Waterman wrote, with Crudup’s estate receiving around $3 million over the following decades…