Back in my high school days, the music changed over night. The USA discovered the Beatles and Rolling Stones. We'd never heard anything like it. Up to that time, Elvis, Motown and The Supremes, and Frankie Valley and the Four Seasons and a fellow named Neil Sedaka had things under control. But the British rockers came in wave after wave much to the dismay of established groups.

Music, suddenly, surrounded us. Not just from Britain but homegrown music too. Bands sprung up. Ronnie Myers and the Comets used to play where Albea's Store stood, facing what used to be the Central Supermarket. If memory serves me right, regular band nights took place there Friday nights. Across town in the old skating rink, the speakers blared Beatles songs over the sound of wheels upon hardwood cutting endless circles just off Highway 378.

Up in Washington at the National Guard armory, some boys from Greenwood played "Double Shot Of My Baby's Love" to a dancing crowd, but the British Invasion was about to put beach music and the Swinging Medallions on the back burner.

Rock and roll was the thing, and a lot of youngsters took up guitars, including guys back home. How good the local boys got, I never knew.

One day on assignment at Savannah River Site, the old "Bomb Plant," I was talking to Whit Gibbons, the director of the University of Georgia's Ecology Lab there. Whit asked me where I was from.

"Lincolnton, Georgia," I answered.

Whit said, "Oh yeah, one of the guys in Dire Straits is from Lincolnton, Georgia."

What? Dire Straits performed the classic "Money For Nothing" (I Want MY MTV). Had someone from Lincolnton made it to superstardom as a rocker? That couldn't be true or we'd known it from day one. Dire Straits is a British band and we didn't provide them a musician, but Lincoln County's place in music annals is secure thanks to The Lewis Family, "The First Family of Bluegrass Gospel." No rockers that I know of, though, came out of the county and back then I thought I knew all about rock and roll.

I didn't.

We had a small stereo back then. We'd buy used 45s from Bobby Parks who stocked area jukeboxes with records. Once they wore out, we got them cheap. I remember hearing a few Elvis tunes on that old stereo, but I gave Presley no credit. To me he was old school; I didn't like him. Thus, I cared to know little about Elvis, but that would change. I'm writing a book these days that involves music and it opened my eyes to what Elvis accomplished. He came from nowhere but changed everything.

It began so simply.

One day Elvis Presley walked into Sun Records in Memphis to record a song for his mom's birthday. Nothing more. The receptionist asked, "Who do you sound like?" Elvis replied, "Uh, I don't sound like nobody." His reply lingered in the receptionist's mind and in the summer of 1954 when Sam Phillips, Sun's legendary owner, needed a singer for a ballad, the receptionist said, "Why don't you try that young truck driver."

Elvis, a shy truck driver with a ducktail, returned to Sun Records to record "Without Love" for Phillips. Phillips was looking for a singer who could blend black blues and boogiewoogie music. Elvis flopped, disappointing Phillips.

Phillips nonetheless asked the young singer to come back to audition with two other musicians, Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black. Elvis was uptight and again the audition wasn't working out. Then one of recording's groundbreaking moments arrived. The musicians took a break and Elvis loosened up while singing "That's All Right Mama." Phillips hustled the musicians into the studio, recorded "That's All Right Mama," and released it as a 78 RPM. Soon it was charting across the South, and the name "Elvis Presley" began to burn itself into history.

Elvis's first number one pop record made him a household name. "Heartbreak Hotel" reigned as the number one tune on the Billboard Pop Singles Chart for eight weeks in 1956. Soon, just one name was all he needed. Elvis.

By 1957, Elvis was the world's most famous entertainer. And across the Atlantic, unknowns with names like Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, and the incomparable Robert Plant idolized Elvis. Said Plant, "What he did was he made it possible for me, as a singer, to become other worldly."

I have no idea how the fellow at the bomb plant got the notion a rocker from Lincolnton ended up with Dire Straits. And I'm sure Lincoln County never produced a genuine rocker, but we've come close. Athens is close. James Brown was closer. Elvis was far away in Memphis. But today, now that I am older and wiser, I wonder what would have happened had Elvis never been born.

There'd be no Elvis tribute songs from Dire Straits nor would Paul Simon have written "Graceland" nor would John Lennon have had his life changed and ended so dramatically. Cher, I doubt, would have sung "Walking in Memphis."

I do know this. The King brought about his own demise by inspiring the Brits. Thanks to him we had Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and many other bands. I can't answer for Ronnie Myers and The Comets but all these many years later, if you love rock 'n' roll, you owe a lot to Elvis. From Memphis, he reached over and touched us all in ways that would take a while to unravel. The music in the mid '60s seemed to change over night, but it didn't. Elvis had started it all some ten years earlier. We just didn't realize it.

Email Tom with feedback and ideas for new columns. tompol@earthlink.net