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Home Tips > Useful > Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), Was An American Singer, Musician And Actor. He Is Often Known Simply As Elvis; Also "The King Of Rock 'n' Roll", Or Simply "The King". Presley began his career as a singer of rockabilly, a novel, uptempo combination of country and rhythm and blues. His stage act was marked by an uninhibited - and controversial - delivery. His 1950's recordings are seen as some of the earliest examples of rock and roll, with tracks like Jailhouse Rock and Hound Dog embodying the style. He developed a versatile voice and had success with other genres, including gospel, blues, ballads and pop. To date, he is the only performer to have been inducted into three of the music 'Halls of Fame'. Presley made thirty-three movies, the majority during the 1960s, but he made a critically-acclaimed return to live music in 1968, followed by performances in Las Vegas and across the U.S. Throughout his career, he set records for concert attendance, television ratings, and records sales. He is one of the best-selling and most influential artists in the history of popular music.
His premature death, at age 42, shocked his fans worldwide
Elvis Presley was mostly of Scottish ancestry. An Andrew Presley II is known to have emigrated from Lomnay, Aberdeenshire, Scotland to North Carolina, USA in 1745. His father, Vernon (b. April 10, 1916, Fulton, Mississippi, d. June 26, 1979) was an impoverished truck driver. Gladys Love Smith (b. April 25, 1912, Pontotoc County, Mississippi, d. August 14, 1958) was a sewing machine operator - not much is known about her early life. The two married on June 17, 1933.
Elvis Presley was born in a two-room house in Tupelo, Mississippi. He was the second of identical twins - his brother was stillborn and given the names Jesse Garon. He grew up as an only child and "was, everyone agreed, unusually close to his mother." The family lived just above the poverty line in East Tupelo and attended the Assembly of God church.
At school, he was teased by his fellow classmates who threw "things at him - rotten fruit and stuff - because he was different, because he was quiet and he stuttered and he was a mama's boy.
Aged ten, he made his first public performance in a singing contest at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show. Dressed as a cowboy, the young Elvis stood on a chair to reach the microphone and sang Red Foley's "Old Shep". He came in second.
In 1946, Presley was taken to Tupelo Hardware and bought a guitar - a $7.90 birthday present (He had wanted a rifle). Three years later, the Presleys moved to Lauderdale Courts public housing development in one of Memphis, Tennessee's poorer sections. He practiced guitar playing in the basement laundry room and also played in a five-piece band with other tenants. Another resident, Johnny Burnette, recalled: "Wherever Elvis went he'd have his guitar slung across his back... He used to go down to the fire station and sing to the boys there... [H]e'd go in to one of the cafes or bars... Then some folks would say: 'Let's hear you sing, boy,'"
Presley attended L. C. Humes High school and occasionally worked evenings to boost the family income. He began to grow his sideburns longer, and dressed in the wild, flashy clothes of Lansky Brothers on Beale Street. Presley stood out, especially in the conservative Deep South of the 1950s and he was mocked and bullied for it. He enrolled in the school's ROTC and Christmas, 1952 saw Presley perform in the "Annual Minstrel Show" sponsored by the Humes High Band. Presley received most applause - he sang "Cold Cold Icy Fingers" and gave an encore of "Till I Waltz Again With You"
After graduation, Presley was still a rather shy person, a "kid who had spent scarcely a night away from home." His third job was with the Crown Electric Company, as a truck driver. He began wearing his hair longer with a 'ducktail' - the style of truck drivers at that time.
Initial influences came exclusively through his family's attendance at the Assembly of God, a Pentecostal Holiness church. Rolling Stone magazine wrote that: "Gospel pervaded Elvis' character and was a defining and enduring influence all of his days."
The young Presley listened a lot to local radio; his first musical hero was Mississippi Slim, a hillbilly singer with a radio show on Tupelo’s WELO. Presley performed occasionally on Slim’s Saturday morning show, Singin’ and Pickin’ Hillbilly. "He was crazy about music... That’s all he talked about," recalled his sixth grade friend, James Ausborn, Slim’s younger brother. "I think gospel sort of [inspired] him to be in music, but then my brother helped carry it on." Before he was a teenager, music was already Presley’s "consuming passion." J. R. Snow, son of 1940s country superstar Hank Snow, later recalled that Presley knew all of Hank Snow’s songs, "even the most obscure."
The family's move to Memphis expanded Presley's musical horizons. He became a regular at record stores that had jukeboxes and listening booths - playing old records and new releases for hours. He began to attend services at the East Trigg Baptist Church. Memphis Symphony Orchestra concerts at Overton Park were another Presley favorite, along with the Metropolitan Opera. His small record collection included Mario Lanza and Dean Martin. Presley later said: "I just loved music. Music period."
Presley went to blues and hillbilly venues and was an audience member at the all-night white - and black - gospel sings downtown. He "spent much of his spare time hanging around the black section of town, especially on Beale Street, where bluesmen like Furry Lewis and B.B. King performed". King says that he "knew Elvis before he was popular. He used to come around and be around us a lot... on Beale Street".
Several major record labels had shown interest in signing Presley. On November 21, 1955, Parker and Phillips negotiated a deal with RCA Victor Records to acquire Presley's Sun contract for an unprecedented $35,000.
To increase the singer's exposure, Parker finally brought Presley to television (In March 1955, Presley had failed a TV audition - for Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts). He had the singer booked for six of the Dorsey Brothers Stage Show (CBS), beginning January 28, 1956, when he was introduced by Cleveland DJ Bill Randle. Jackie Gleason, the show's producer, was so disturbed by Presley's performance he later apologized for putting on "a porno act Parker also obtained a lucrative deal with Milton Berle (NBC) for two appearances.
On January 27, Presley's first RCA single, "Heartbreak Hotel", was released. By April it would reach number one in the U.S. and sell a million copies. On March 23, RCA released the first Presley album: Elvis Presley. As with the Sun recordings, the majority of the tracks were songs by or from country artists.
From April 23, he had a two-week booking at the Venus Room of the New Frontier Hotel, Las Vegas - billed as "the Atomic Powered Singer". His performances were not well received, by critics or guests (it was an older, more conservative audience). However, Presley, Scotty and Bill saw Freddie Bell and the Bellboys live in Vegas, and liked their version of Leiber and Stoller's "Hound Dog". By May 16, Presley had added the song to his own act.
After an April 3 appearance, Presley returned to the Milton Berle Show on June 5 and performed "Hound Dog" (without a guitar). After singing it uptempo, he then performed a slower version, using the microphone stand as a support. His exaggerated, straight-legged shuffle stirred the audience - as did his vigorous leg shaking and hip thrusts in time to the beat. Presley's "gyrations" created a storm of controversy: the next day's press used such words as "vulgar" and "obscene" because of the strong sexual content perceived by some. He was obliged to explain himself on a local New York City TV show, Hy Gardner Calling: "Rock and roll music, if you like it, and you feel it, you can't help but move to it. That's what happens to me. I have to move around. I can't stand still. I've tried it, and I can't do it".
The Milton Berle appearances drew such huge ratings that Steve Allen (NBC), not a fan of rock and roll, booked him for one appearance. Allen announced: "... We want to do a show the whole family can watch and enjoy. And that’s what we always do." After Allen introduced "the new Elvis" (in white bow tie and black tails), he remarked: "You are certainly being a good sport about the whole thing." Presley then sang "Hound Dog" to a top hat and bow tie-wearing bassett hound perched on a pedestal. The day after (July 2), Presley, Scotty, and Bill recorded the single "Hound Dog"; they did thirty takes before Elvis was satisfied. Scotty Moore later said they were "all angry about their treatment the previous night". Presley often referred to the Allen show as the most ridiculous performance of his career. Nevertheless, Allen had for the first time beaten The Ed Sullivan Show in the Sunday night ratings, prompting a previously critical Sullivan (CBS) to book Presley for three appearances for an unprecedented $50,000.
Although country vocalists The Jordanaires accompanied Presley on the Steve Allen show, their first recording session with him was July 2, for the recording of "Any Way You Want Me". The Jordanaires would work with the singer through the 1960s.
Presley's first Ed Sullivan appearance (September 9, 1956) was seen by an estimated 55-60 million viewers. During the second, Presley only had to shake his legs to get screams from the audience, which a bemused Sullivan didn't notice him doing when stood next to the singer. On the third show, the family-minded Sullivan censored Presley's "gyrations": he was shown only above the waist. Despite this, Sullivan still declared at the end: "This is a real decent, fine boy. We've never had a pleasanter experience on our show with a big name than we've had with you... you're thoroughly all right."
On November 16, Presley's first movie was released - Love Me Tender. It was panned by the critics, but did well at the box office.
Towards the end of his life, Presley had many health problems, some of them chronic. "Elvis had had an enlarged heart for a long time. That, together with his drug habit, caused his death. But he was difficult to diagnose; it was a judgment call."
Presley first took drugs in the army, taking amphetamines to stay awake on late shifts, though there are claims that pills of some form were first given to him by Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips. In Elvis and Me, his ex-wife Priscilla writes that by 1962, Presley was taking placidyls to combat severe insomnia in ever increasing doses and later took Dexedrine to counter the sleeping pills' after effects. Over time, she saw "problems in Elvis' life, all magnified by taking prescribed drugs."
According to Peter Guralnick: "drug use was heavily implicated in this unanticipated death of a middle-aged man with no known history of heart disease...no one ruled out the possibility of anaphylactic shock brought on by the codeine pills...to which he was known to have had a mild allergy...There was little disagreement in fact between the two principal laboratory reports and analyses filed two months later, with each stating a strong belief that the primary cause of death was polypharmacy, and the BioScience Laboratories report...indicating the detection of fourteen drugs in Elvis' system, ten in significant quantity."
The judgement of some in the medical profession has also been called into question. Although Presley's physician, Dr. George C. Nichopoulos, was exonerated in Presley's death, "In the first eight months of 1977 alone, he had written 199 prescriptions totalling more than 10,000 doses of sedatives, amphetamines and narcotics: all in Elvis' name. On January 20 1980, the board found him guilty of overprescription, but decided that he was not unethical." His license was suspendend and he was given three years' probation. In July 1995, his license was permanently revoked after the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners found that he had improperly dispensed drugs to a number of his patients.
However in 1994, the autopsy into the death of Presley was re-opened. Coroner Dr Joseph Davis declared: "There is nothing in any of the data that supports a death from drugs. In fact, everything points to a sudden, violent heart attack."
Presley's autopsy results will not be in the public domain until 2027.
Biographer Ernst Jorgensen has written: "When Elvis died, it was as if all perspective on his musical career was somehow lost. From the utter ridicule of the tabloids [regarding his latter-day obesity and performances] to the almost religious dedication of the most ardent fans, any wish to understand Elvis Presley the singer seemed almost totally obscured."
In the late sixties, composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein remarked: "Elvis is the greatest cultural force in the twentieth century. He introduced the beat to everything, music, language, clothes, it's a whole new social revolution... the 60's comes from it." Presley's early music helped to lay a commercial foundation which allowed other established performers to be recognised. African-American acts like Fats Domino, Chuck Berry and Little Richard came to national prominence after Presley's acceptance among the mass audience of White American teenagers. Little Richard commented: "He was an integrator, Elvis was a blessing. They wouldn't let black music through. He opened the door for black music."
Presley's recorded voice is seen by many as his enduring legacy (His death triggered a huge boost in record sales, as well as other merchandise). In The Great American Popular Singers (1974), Henry Pleasants wrote: "Elvis Presley has been described variously as a baritone and a tenor. An extraordinary compass... and a very wide range of vocal color have something to do with this divergence of opinion. The voice covers two octaves and a third... Moreover, he has not been confined to one type of vocal production. In ballads and country songs he belts out full-voiced high G's and A's that an opera baritone might envy. He is a naturally assimilative stylist with a multiplicity of voices - in fact, Elvis' is an extraordinary voice, or many voices."
Gospel tenor Shawn Nielsen, who backed Presley, said: "He could sing anything. I've never seen such versatility... He had such great soul. He had the ability to make everyone in the audience think that he was singing directly to them. He just had a way with communication that was totally unique." Bob Dylan remarked: "When I first heard Elvis' voice I just knew that I wasn't going to work for anybody; and nobody was going to be my boss... Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail."
Many others have paid tribute to Presley's uninhibited performing style, as well as his singing. Deep Purple's Ian Gillan said: "For a young singer he was an absolute inspiration. I soaked up what he did like blotting paper... you learn by copying the maestro." Rod Stewart declared: "Elvis was the king. No doubt about it. People like myself, Mick Jagger and all the others only followed in his footsteps." Cher recalled: "The first concert I attended was an Elvis concert when I was eleven. Even at that age he made me realize the tremendous effect a performer could have on an audience."
By 1958, singers adopting Presley's style, like Billy Fury, Marty Wilde and Cliff Richard (the so-called "British Elvis"), were rising to prominence in the UK. Elsewhere in Europe, Johnny Hallyday became the French equivalent and the Italians Adriano Celentano and Bobby Solo were also heavily influenced by Presley.
The singer has also been widely imitated - and parodied - outside the main music industry. Presley songs continue to be very popular on the karaoke circuit and many from a diversity of cultures and backgrounds work as Elvis impersonators ("the raw 1950s Elvis and the kitschy 1970s Elvis are the favorites.").
Presley's informal jamming in front of a small audience in the '68 Comeback Special is regarded as a forerunner of the so-called 'Unplugged' concept, later popularized by MTV.
In 2002 it was observed: "For those too young to have experienced Elvis Presley in his prime, today’s celebration of the 25th anniversary of his death must seem peculiar. All the talentless impersonators and appalling black velvet paintings on display can make him seem little more than a perverse and distant memory. But before Elvis was camp, he was its opposite: a genuine cultural force... Elvis’s breakthroughs are underappreciated because in this rock-and-roll age, his hard-rocking music and sultry style have triumphed so completely."
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