* 1954 – Jon Krakauer, American author

* 1954 – Pat Travers, Canadian singer and musician

* 1954 – Thom Bray, American actor

* 1954 – Jane Campion, New Zealand director

* 1954 – Frank-Michael Marczewski, German footballer

* 1954 – John Lloyd, English tennis player

* 1954 – Derek Warwick, English race car driver

* 1954 – Paul Steigerwald, American sportscaster

* 1954 – Ray Jennings, South African cricketer and coach

* 1954 – Radio Pakistan broadcasts the " Qaumī Tarāna ", the national anthem of Pakistan for the first time.

* 1954 – Nico Assumpção, Brazilian bass player ( d. 2001 )

In 1954 – 55, Australia's batsmen had no answer to the pace of Frank Tyson and Statham.

* 1954 – James Charles Kopp, American murderer of Barnett Slepian

* 1954 – Sammy McIlroy, Irish footballer and manager

* 1993 – Alan Kulwicki, American race car driver ( b. 1954 )

After 1890 came philosopher Josiah Royce ( 1855 – 1916 ), botanist Liberty Hyde Bailey ( 1858 – 1954 ), the Southern Agrarians of the 1920s and 1930s, novelist John Steinbeck ( 1902 – 1968 ), historian A. Whitney Griswold ( 1906 – 1963 ), environmentalist Aldo Leopold ( 1887 – 1948 ), Ralph Borsodi ( 1886 – 1977 ), and present-day authors Wendell Berry ( b. 1934 ), Gene Logsdon ( b. 1932 ), Paul Thompson, and Allan C. Carlson ( b. 1949 ).

Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS ( ; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954 ), was a British mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist.

* 1954 – James Gleick, American author, journalist, and biographer

* 1954 – Benno Möhlmann, German footballer

* 1954 – Gary Peters, English footballer

* 1954 – Elvis Costello, English singer-songwriter and producer

In July 1954, Elvis Presley recorded the regional hit " That's All Right ( Mama )" at Sam Phillips ' Sun Studio in Memphis.

On October 2, 1954, a teenage Elvis Presley made his only Opry performance.

He directed many films for Paramount, including White Christmas ( 1954 ), starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye ; We're No Angels ( 1955 ), starring Humphrey Bogart ; and King Creole ( 1958 ), starring Elvis Presley.

The height of his success culminated in his launching of Elvis Presley's career in 1954.

During July 1954, Perkins and his wife heard a new release of " Blue Moon of Kentucky " by Elvis Presley, Scotty Moore and Bill Black on the radio., and Valda told Carl that someone in Memphis understood what he was doing and he should go see him.

A regular at the Grand Ole Opry, in 1954 Snow persuaded the directors to allow a young Elvis Presley to appear on stage.

There are also a few antecedents to folk rock present in pre-British Invasion American rock ' n ' roll, including Elvis Presley's 1954 cover of the Bill Monroe bluegrass standard " Blue Moon of Kentucky "; Buddy Holly's self-penned material, which strongly influenced both Dylan and The Byrds ; Ritchie Valens ' recording of the Mexican folk song " La Bamba "; Lloyd Price's rock ' n ' roll adaptation of the African-American folk song " Stagger Lee " ( which had originally been recorded by Mississippi John Hurt in 1928 ); Jimmie Rodgers ' rock ' n ' roll flavored renditions of traditional folk songs ; and the folk and country-influenced recordings featured on The Everly Brothers ' 1959 album, Songs Our Daddy Taught Us.

After Phillips discovered Elvis Presley in 1954, the Sun label turned to the rapidly expanding white audience and started recording mostly rock ' n ' roll.

) Johnny grew up with his parents and Dorsey in a public housing project in the Lauderdale Courts area of Memphis, which from 1948 until 1954 was also the home of Gladys and Vernon Presley and their son Elvis.

* In 1954, in a recording studio equipped with an Ampex reel-to-reel audio tape recording machine, an unknown truck driver named Elvis Presley recorded his historic first single, " That's All Right " at Sun Studios in Memphis.

Mark portrays the 1950s rock-a-billy era complete with exact replicas of all of Elvis ' performance guitars and stage clothes from 1954 to 1958, as well as old 1950s RCA microphones and even a full-size Nipper dog statue on-stage ( Mark is the only impersonator that uses RCA's Nipper ).

During the 1950s, she participated in several Hollywood productions such as Arrowhead ( 1953, with Charlton Heston ), Broken Lance ( 1954, with Spencer Tracy for which she received an Academy Award nomination ), Trapeze ( 1955, with Burt Lancaster ), One-Eyed Jacks ( 1959, directed by Marlon Brando ), Barabbas, Stay Away, Joe ( 1968, opposite Elvis Presley ), Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid ( 1973 ), and others.

* Memphis Mafia, a group of associates of Elvis Presley from 1954 until he died

Elvis Presley performed on the radio version of the program in 1954, and made his first television appearance on the TV version on March 3, 1955.

In 1954, Hickey heard Elvis Presley's " I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine " and became a devoted fan of rock and roll.

The Sun Sessions is a compilation of Elvis Presley recordings at Sun Studios in 1954 and 1955.

The contract, dated July 12, 1954, eight days after their first recording session, was signed by Elvis and his mother and father.

It has been argued that " That's All Right ( Mama )" ( 1954 ), Elvis Presley's first major single for Sun Records was the first rock and roll record, but, at the same time, Big Joe Turner's " Shake, Rattle & Roll ", later covered by Bill Haley, was already at the top of the Billboard R & B charts.

*" Rock Me Mamma " by Arthur " Big Boy " Crudup, recorded on 15 December 1944, was the blues singer's first and biggest R & B chart hit, but in later decades became overshadowed by his-at the time, much less successful-1946 recording of " That's All Right ", later to be covered by Elvis Presley in 1954 as his first single.

*" That's All Right " by Elvis Presley, was recorded on July 5, 1954.

* Elvis Presley's " That's All Right " ( recorded in July 1954 ), a cover of Arthur " Big Boy " Crudup's 1946 song-which itself has been cited as " the first song to contain all of the elements ... associated with rock and roll.

In their introduction, the authors claim that since the modern definition of rock ' n ' roll was set by disc jockey Alan Freed's use of the term in his groundbreaking The Rock and Roll Show on New York's WINS in late 1954, as well as at his Rock and Roll Jubilee Balls at St. Nicholas Arena in January 1955, they chose to judge their candidates according to the music Freed spotlighted: R & B combos, black vocal groups, honking saxophonists, blues belters, and several white artists playing in the authentic R & B style ( Bill Haley, Elvis Presley ).

* Elvis Costello ( b. 1954 ) British musician.