Years later, the story of what Elvis Presley really wanted for his 11th birthday got a bit confused. It might have been a bicycle, or maybe a rifle. Perhaps Elvis himself had forgotten what he actually asked for in the fog of memory. One thing was certain. When his 11th birthday came around 69 years ago on January 8, 1946, he had not asked his mother Gladys to take him to the Tupelo Hardware store in northeast Mississippi and put down around $7-8 for a new Kay guitar. But that’s exactly what happened, and Gladys Presley’s decision to ignore her son’s request might have changed the course of music history.

Elvis took guitar lessons from his uncles and pastor, and started bringing the guitar to school. He tried to impress his music teacher with his playing after she told him he couldn’t sing, but ended up with just a C in his eighth grade music class. Accounts say that when he walked into the Sun Records studio in Memphis to cut his first record as an 18-year-old in 1953, he was holding that same Kay guitar he had received as an 11-year-old.

That guitar would have helped him learn to channel the diffuse musical influences he encountered growing up in the South: White traditions like bluegrass and country mixed with the strains of music dominated by black voices, like blues and gospel, and percolated within the budding musician to help him produce a sound that was new to the country, if not original to him.

In 1956, Elvis would have his breakout year with six No. 1 singles, including “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” and “Hound Dog.” The year also took him on the national telecasts of Milton Berle, Steve Allen, and Ed Sullivan. While Elvis had a fine voice, it’s been said that the image on his first album cover of him holding a guitar was what made him an icon. (White singers had often preferred the piano as their instrument of choice before then.) Rock and roll was on its way, with Elvis leading the charge. Over the next two decades until his death in 1977, no fewer than 47 guitars – personal possessions, concert playing pieces, or movie props – would pass through his hands. But it’s interesting to wonder whether any of it would have happened without that first one he reluctantly accepted the day he turned 11.