Elvis Presley

• Born: January 8, 1935
• Birthplace: Tupelo, Mississippi
• Died: August 16, 1977
• Place of death: Memphis, Tennessee

American singer-musician

Fusing the legacies of Black and White American music, Presley helped create the cultural phenomenon of rock and roll and became its most famous and influential performer.

Areas of achievement Music, film

Early Life

Elvis Aaron Presley was the son of Gladys Presley and Vernon Presley; his twin brother, Jesse Garon Presley, died at birth and was buried in an unmarked grave in a local cemetery. There were no other children in the Presley family, and Elvis grew up especially close to his mother. His father held a variety of jobs, none very successfully, and served time in the state penitentiary for check forgery. While not actually poverty-stricken, the Presley family was poor. In 1948, they moved to Memphis, Tennessee.

Presley had already demonstrated a talent for singing, particularly in church, and in Memphis he won first place at his high school’s annual variety show. He had already assimilated much of the rich musical tradition of the South: the blues and spirituals; gospel and country music, some of it reaching back to the English folk tradition; and contemporary American song, including jazz and the first stirrings of what he would help transform into rock and roll. With no formal training, Presley combined these varied influences through his inborn gifts.

After high school, Presley became a truck driver for the Crown Electric Company in Memphis. In 1953, he paid to record a single at a local studio; Sam Phillips, the owner of Sun Records, heard this single and recognized the immense talent Elvis possessed. In July 1954, Presley recorded his first commercial tapes with Phillips for Sun Records in Memphis.

As he began his career, Presley was of average height, and his dark hair was worn rather long for the period, with sideburns. He had full lips, which would later become famous for his “sneer,” a slight lifting as he talked or sang. His eyes were dark, penetrating, and heavy-lidded. As he grew older, he would have increasing problems with his weight. When he performed, he moved freely, even wildly, about the stage; his pronounced hip movements while singing earned for him the nickname Elvis the Pelvis. His most remarkable characteristics were his fine singing voice and his intense, charismatic presence.

Life’s Work

For Sun, Presley recorded a song called “That’s All Right Mama,” which was released in July 1954. Played on the local radio stations, it became an immediate hit. Other records followed, equally successful, and Presley rapidly became a regional sensation. In 1955, Phillips sold his contract with Presley to Radio Corporation of America (RCA), and Colonel Tom Parker became Elvis’s manager; Parker would retain almost complete control of all financial matters until long after Presley’s death.

Presley’s fame spread rapidly as more and more radio stations aired his records, and his recognition spread beyond the South. He appeared on major television shows, including the Dorsey brothers’ Stage Show, The Milton Berle Show, and The Steve Allen Show. His real explosion into national prominence came with his three appearances on the popular Ed Sullivan Show, between September 8, 1956, and January 6, 1957. In the last of these, Presley was shown only from the waist up, to avoid complaints over his wild gyrations. Older viewers were astonished, younger ones delighted, and almost everyone recognized that a new era in popular music had been inaugurated by this skinny southern boy.

The years between 1955 and 1958 were the most creative and important of Presley’s career. It was during this time that he recorded music the likes of which had never been heard before, and which transformed American popular songs. Violence, tragedy, and lost love mingled with unlimited promise and undefeated optimism in these songs, as Presley’s remarkable performances drew on the musical heritage he had known and then transcended it. His immensely popular recordings included “Mystery Train,” “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Shake, Rattle and Roll,” “Teddy Bear,” and what became the song most closely associated with him, “Hound Dog.” The pulsing, infectious rhythm of these songs, a combination of all the songs and singers Presley had known growing up in the South, swept across the country with unprecedented popularity.

Such popularity was soon translated into films. Presley signed a contract with Hal Wallis of Paramount Studios, and, in 1956, he began filming Love Me Tender, the first of his thirty-three films. His early films were his best, especially Jailhouse Rock (1957), a gritty film that used prison as a metaphor for the fate of the popular artist, and King Creole (1958), in which Presley was given the opportunity to display his real, if limited, dramatic abilities. His later films were repetitious in plot and mechanical in production; they were always set in some exotic location and used a breezy, romantic story line on which to hang a half dozen forgettable songs. These songs were written specifically for the films and were far removed from the energetic recordings of Presley’s first years as an artist.

In 1957, Presley received his induction notice from the Memphis draft board, and in March 1958, he entered the US Army. While stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, for his basic training, Presley received emergency leave to visit his mother in a Memphis hospital. Gladys Presley died on August 14, 1958, at the age of forty-six. The cause of death was a heart attack, complicated by hepatitis. His mother’s death was a severe blow to Presley. The huge mansion he had built for her in Memphis, Graceland, would be his home for the remainder of his life.

Stationed in Germany, Presley met Priscilla Beaulieu, the teenage daughter of a career Army officer. They began dating, and after his duty in the service, Presley convinced the Beaulieus to permit Priscilla to move into Graceland. His grandmother served as chaperone while Priscilla completed high school. Presley and Priscilla were married on May 1, 1967, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Nine months later, on February 1, 1968, their daughter and only child, Lisa Marie Presley, was born.

Presley had been discharged from the Army in March 1960. There was some concern that his absence from the musical scene would have erased or diluted his popularity, but his reception by two thousand fans at Fort Dix, New Jersey, was an indication that such fears were groundless. He was soon in the studio recording new tracks for an album, and he appeared in a television special entitled Frank Sinatra’s Welcome Home Party for Elvis Presley. It was soon apparent that Presley’s time in the Army had not weakened his hold on the popular imagination.

Changes were made, however, under the direction of Presley’s manager, Parker. In March 1961, Presley gave a memorial concert; it would be his last for eight years. Instead of live appearances, he concentrated on films, making an average of two a year. His records consisted mostly of songs written for the films, the title track, and a variety of forgettable tunes. On occasion, he recorded some gospel albums, such as the powerful How Great Thou Art (1967), which demonstrated his mastery of that musical genre. The RCA record label also released collections of his best-selling hits.

During the 1960s, however, Presley displayed none of the galvanic, revolutionary musical energy that had captured the attention of millions at the start of his career. That energy still had its effect, however, as an entire generation of performers, American and British, followed in his path. Groups such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and individual artists such as Bob Dylan, expanded in their own ways the musical frontier that Presley had first marked out. Ironically, the originator of this movement was conspicuous by his absence.

In 1968, Presley returned to public performances. He first recorded a television program called, simply enough, Elvis. The success of the program led to live appearances in resort hotels in Las Vegas and a series of concert tours across the United States. The act Presley presented in these concerts was totally different from that of his early days: He now had a large, carefully rehearsed orchestra, sizable numbers of background singers, and increasingly elaborate costumes. His popularity, always high, increased; his records began to appear at the top of the music charts for the first time since the early 1960s. In 1973, his television special Elvis: Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite was broadcast to forty countries throughout the world.

During the 1970s, Presley toured heavily, as well as performing regularly in Las Vegas. In part because of his schedule, in part for personal reasons, the Presley marriage deteriorated, and on August 18, 1972, Presley filed for divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. The divorce was granted on October 9, 1973.

Over the years, Presley had come to rely increasingly on a wide variety of drugs: stimulants for the concerts, depressants for sleep, painkillers for comfort. His behavior became occasionally erratic and irrational, and at times, even violent. He took to carrying pistols and other weapons, insulting or attacking longtime friends, and afterward presenting them with automobiles or other expensive gifts. Some attributed these actions to regret over the failure of his marriage or to a long-standing depression at the death of his mother; other observers blamed the peculiar lifestyle imposed on such a hugely popular entertainer, or the influence of drugs.

Despite these problems, and perhaps to avoid them, Presley continued to tour. In the summer of 1977, he planned another national circuit, to begin with a concert on August 17. On the afternoon of August 16, Presley was discovered unconscious in a bathroom of Graceland. Efforts by paramedics at the mansion failed to revive him, as did further attempts by doctors at Baptist Memorial Hospital. Although his death was apparently drug-related, the official statement gave the cause as heart disease.

His body was viewed by thousands as he lay in state in his mansion, and thousands more formed the miles-long procession to the cemetery. His body was later moved to Graceland, where he was buried beside his mother. Elvis Presley was forty-two years old when he died.

Significance

The career of Elvis Presley and his impact on modern culture transcend the outlines of biography and defy analysis. Rising from poverty and obscurity, Presley became a major force in shaping contemporary popular music; indeed, for some, he was the essential inspiration and source of rock and roll. While this claim may be extreme, there is little doubt that Presley was the focus that brought together the various traditions that united to produce America’s most energetic and perhaps most typical music.

With his background in southern gospel, Black soul and blues, and traditional country music, Presley was able to forge something new yet totally familiar. His music was instantly recognized as the work of genius, even if the work was denounced as obscene or attacked as primitive. In its truest sense, it was primitive, because it went to the very roots of American culture.

President Jimmy Carter attempted to express this feeling in his tribute to Presley when he said that Presley’s

music and his personality, fusing the styles of White country and Black rhythm and blues, permanently changed the face of American popular culture. His following was immense and he was a symbol to people the world over of the vitality, rebelliousness, and good humor of his country.

Perhaps the truest summary came from rock and roll critic Greil Marcus, who wrote of the relationship between the performer and the United States: “At his best Elvis not only embodies but personalizes so much of what is good about this place.”

Presley’s impact is even more remarkable when it is noted that his period of truly creative work fell within the relatively short period of the late 1950s. During these years, he recorded his most memorable and influential songs, the songs for which he will always be remembered. The path to both Woodstock and Abbey Road begins at Sun Records in Memphis. This period ended with his induction into the Army; following his return to civilian life, Presley spent most of the 1960s making films and recording sound tracks; he remained popular but distant from his public. It was not until 1968 that he staged a triumphant comeback and resumed live performances. Clearly, however, he had either lost or muted his energy and his unpredictable, even dangerous, appeal. Just as clearly, it made little difference, for his image had become reality to his fans.

Presley was undoubtedly the most famous entertainer in the world, known to millions only as Elvis. Others knew him as the King, perhaps of rock and roll, perhaps of entertainment, and perhaps, in some mysterious way, king of the complex experience of America itself, which he summed up so well in his performances and his presence. In November 2018, President Donald Trump recognized Presley's legacy by posthumously honoring him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The year 2022 saw the release of director Baz Luhrmann's biopic ELVIS, in which the musical legend was portrayed by Austin Butler. The film received mixed reviews, with many arguing that it was a poor, insufficient treatment of a worthwhile subject that focused too much on aesthetics.

Bibliography

Cotton, Lee. All Shook Up: Elvis Day-by-Day, 1954-1977. Pierian Press, 1985.

Dundy, Elaine. Elvis and Gladys. Macmillan, 1985.

Goldman, Albert. Elvis. McGraw-Hill, 1981.

Guralnick, Peter. Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley. Little, Brown, 1994.

Guralnick, Peter. Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley. Little, Brown, 1995.

Hopkins, Jerry. Elvis: A Biography. Simon & Schuster, 1971.

Hopkins, Jerry. Elvis: The Final Years. St. Martin’s Press, 1980.

Marcus, Greil. Mystery Train. Rev. ed., E. P. Dutton, 1982.

Mason, Bobbie Ann. Elvis Presley. Viking, 2003.

Nash, Alanna. The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley. Simon & Schuster, 2003.