Elvis Presley

THE BOY WHO INVENTED ROCK AND ROLL
Actually, no one person can claim to have invented rock and roll. The fundamentally
mongrel genre arose from a long-simmering cross-pollination of
black and white musical styles, an evolution that was fueled by the increasing
pervasiveness of music radio broadcasting in America beginning in the 1930s.
The cross-pollination of black and white music had already begun long before the term “rock and roll” (originally African American slang for sexual intercourse)
was ever applied to music, with blues and jazz elements turning up
frequently in white country music, and vice versa.


But if one were to narrow down the birth of rock and roll to a specifi c time
and place, the most logical choice would be the informal recording session
that took place on the evening of July 5, 1954, in the modest studio of Sun
Records on 706 Union Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee. It was there that Elvis
Presley, a poor teenaged country boy from Tupelo, Mississippi, merged disparate
strands of blues, country, and gospel into a fi ercely dynamic sound that
ignited a musical and cultural explosion whose reverberations are still being
felt today. The track that Presley cut that night, “That’s All Right, Mama,”
would quickly emerge as the cornerstone of a revolution.
Elvis Presley is the single most signifi cant fi gure in rock and roll history,
and it’s hard to imagine rock and roll without his contributions. In addition
to revolutionizing the way popular music sounded and looked, he forever
changed the way young people relate to music. Emerging from the racially
segregated South in the mid-1950s, Elvis, consciously or not, struck an
important blow for racial harmony by making African American music
accessible to millions of white teens who wouldn’t have been exposed to it
otherwise. And in popularizing rock and roll for a worldwide audience,
Elvis almost single-handedly altered the parameters of the entertainment
industry. By many estimates, he remains history’s biggest-selling recording
artist.
Elvis certainly wasn’t the fi rst white man to perform black music. But he
was the fi rst to fuse elements of rhythm and blues, country, and gospel into a
distinctive, charismatic package that held consistent appeal for white kids,
without sanitizing the music or sacrifi cing its essential grit.
Charismatic and cocky yet humble and polite, generous and charitable yet
paranoid and tyrannical, Elvis embodied the contradictions of his country, his
time, and his genre. If his life and career would take a darker turn and end in
tragedy and dissipation, his best music remains as compelling as ever. His
original status as the King of Rock and Roll has never been seriously challenged,
and he’s remained a bottomless source of inspiration for the generations
of rock and rollers who’ve taken up the cause in the decades since that
July night in Memphis.
“When I fi rst heard Elvis’s voice, I just knew that I wasn’t going to work for
anybody, and nobody was going to be my boss,” Bob Dylan once said. “Hearing
him for the fi rst time was like busting out of jail.” 1
“Before Elvis,” commented Keith Richards, “everything was in black and
white. Then came Elvis. Zoom, glorious Technicolor.” 2
“Before there was Elvis, there was nothing,” John Lennon declared. 3
“It was like he came along and whispered some dream in everybody’s ear,
and somehow we all dreamed it,” rhapsodized Bruce Springsteen.

The basic elements of Elvis Presley’s history have been so thoroughly documented,
retold, and mythologized that it can be a challenge to separate fact
from legend. But even the most circumspect reading of his story reveals a
quintessential American saga that’s both a heroic saga and a cautionary tale.

THE BOY KING
Elvis Aaron Presley was born just before dawn on January 8, 1935, in a tworoom
house in rural Tupelo, Mississippi, to Vernon and Gladys Presley. Like
many of their home region, Vernon and Gladys struggled amidst the lingering
effects of the Great Depression, with Vernon taking various odd jobs to make
ends meet. Elvis’s twin brother, Jesse Garon, was stillborn, leaving Elvis an
only child. When Elvis was three years old, Vernon began serving a ninemonth
sentence at the infamous Parchman Farm prison camp for forging a
check; his father’s extended absence contributed to the closeness that he would
maintain with his mother for the rest of her life.
Although Vernon and Gladys were poor, they were protective and indulgent
of their son. At age ten, Elvis made his fi rst known public appearance,
singing “Old Shep” (a song he would record after becoming famous) in a
youth talent contest at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show, which
was broadcast over local radio station WELO. That event prompted his parents
to buy him a guitar for his eleventh birthday.
When Elvis was thirteen, the family relocated to Memphis, in search of a
better life. Memphis was a cultural crossroads that, despite institutionalized
racial segregation, played host to a vibrant melting pot of black and white
musical traditions. The Presleys lived in public housing, and in the poor neighborhoods
of the city’s north side. Their attendance of a white Pentecostal
church instilled Elvis’s lifelong affi nity for gospel music. He also developed a
passion for country, blues, and bluegrass, as well as the work of mainstream
white pop vocalists (he often cited Dean Martin as one his favorite singers).
As a teenager attending all-white L.C. Humes High School, Elvis was shy,
quiet, and something of a misfi t. A highlight of those years was his prizewinning
performance at a school talent show. He absorbed black music
through regular trips to Memphis’s bustling Beale Street, where he purchased
slick hipster threads that belied his family’s humble economic circumstances.
He cultivated a nonconformist personal style, with sideburns and a slickedback
haircut that was scandalous by the standards of the time.
After graduating from high school on June 3, 1953, Elvis took a job working
at Parker Machinists Shop, moving to a better-paying position driving a
delivery truck for the Crown Electric Company in the fall. During the summer,
he had visited the Memphis Recording Service, home of the Sun Records
label, and paid about $4 to record a pair of pop ballads, “My Happiness” and “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin,” onto a ten-inch acetate disc as a present
for his mother.
The Memphis Recording Service had been founded in early 1950 by Sam
Phillips, a former disc jockey from Alabama who paid the bills by hiring out
his services to make tape recordings of local weddings, bar mitzvahs, and
community events. But Phillips’s real passion was music, and he drew from
the region’s rich regional talent pool to record blues, R&B, and hillbilly musicians,
licensing the results to such independent labels as Chess in Chicago,
Duke-Peacock in Houston, and Modern and RPM in Los Angeles. Among the
notable African American musicians who recorded for Phillips were Howlin’
Wolf, Rufus Thomas, Rosco Gordon, Little Milton, Bobby Blue Bland, and a
young B.B. King. Eventually, Phillips started his own label, Sun, and began
releasing his recordings himself.
One of Phillips’s early successes was 1951’s “Rocket 88,” credited to Jackie
Brenston and His Delta Cats but actually the work of a young Ike Turner and
his band the Kings of Rhythm. That song is considered by many to be the fi rst
rock and roll record, thanks to its driving backbeat and raw, distorted electric
guitar.
Although Phillips had had considerable success recording and releasing
music by black artists, he realized that the racial divisions that governed the
entertainment industry at the time limited his sales potential. “If only I could
fi nd a white man (with) the Negro feel,” Phillips had been quoted as saying,
“I could make a billion dollars.” 5
Phillips wasn’t present when Elvis came to Sun to record the acetate disc for
Gladys. But Marion Keisker, Phillips’s secretary and right-hand woman, was
impressed enough to make a tape copy of the tracks to play for her boss. Phillips
wasn’t immediately impressed when he heard the tape the next day. In
January 1954, Elvis showed up at Sun again to cut another two-sided acetate.
This time, Phillips was in attendance, but still wasn’t ready to invite Presley to
make records for his label.
In June 1954, Phillips took a liking to a demo of a ballad titled “Without
You” and decided to record the tune for Sun. After an unsuccessful attempt to
fi nd the vocalist on the original demo, Keisker suggested getting “the kid with
the sideburns” to take a crack at it, and called Elvis to Sun for his fi rst chance
at making a real record. But the inexperienced singer had trouble connecting
with the song, and nothing usable arose from the session. Despite the fruitless
recording attempt, Phillips was intrigued by Presley’s voice and presence, and
tested the newcomer by asking him to run through every song he knew. Elvis
responded to the challenge by regaling Phillips with a broad array of country,
blues, gospel, and pop material.
Phillips was suffi ciently impressed with the breadth of Presley’s musical
knowledge to decide to invest some effort into developing the unseasoned youngster
into a recording artist. Toward that end, Phillips teamed the nineteenyear-
old with a pair of older local musicians, twenty-one-year-old guitarist Scotty Moore and twenty-seven-year-old bassist Bill Black. Moore and Black
were members of the local country and western outfi t the Starlight Wranglers,
which had done some recording at Sun, but Phillips felt that Elvis might fare
better with spare, stripped-down backing than a full band. For a few weeks,
Presley, Moore, and Black met daily to run through songs and work on developing
a sound.
In an era when most records were made quickly and within tightly controlled
session timeframes, Sam Phillips was an early proponent of keeping
the tape rolling and allowing the musicians to experiment. Since Phillips
owned the studio, Sun artists had the luxury of recording in informal, openended
sessions, minus the usual deadline pressures. That method would play
a key role in the development of Elvis’s musical persona.
On July 5, Presley, Moore, Black, and Phillips gathered at Sun to cut some
tracks, including a hopped-up version of the Bill Monroe bluegrass standard
“Blue Moon of Kentucky.” After they’d spent several hours running through
various material with unsatisfying results, Elvis spontaneously broke into “That’s
All Right, Mama,” a 1946 number by Mississippi bluesman Arthur “Big Boy”
Crudup. As the legend goes, Moore and Black picked up the accelerated
tempo, Phillips got the tape rolling, and the rest is history.
It’s fair to say that no one had ever heard anything like “That’s All Right,
Mama” before. The combination of Elvis’s playful, forceful vocal, Moore and
Black’s spare, fi ery support, and Sun’s trademark slapback echo combined to
create a sound that was completely new.
As spirited as the performances were, the tape-delay echo that Phillips used
on “That’s All Right, Mama” was equally integral to the track’s appeal.
Thereafter, echo would become a key component in the sound of early rock
and roll.
Phillips loved the track’s manic energy, but when Sun released Presley’s
debut single two weeks later, “That’s All Right, Mama” (listed on the label as
“That’s All Right”) was initially relegated to the B-side. The designated A-side
was “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” but it was the fl ip that would put Elvis—and
rock and roll—on the map.
A couple of nights after “That’s All Right, Mama” session, Sam brought a
test pressing of the single to his friend Dewey Phillips (no relation), a manic
white disc jockey who spun black rhythm and blues platters on his show Red
Hot and Blue on local station WHBQ. The show was broadcast from the station’s
headquarters at the Chisca Hotel in downtown Memphis, and maintained
a large biracial audience. The motor-mouthed DJ played “That’s All
Right, Mama” several times in a row, and the station’s switchboard was
reportedly fl ooded with requests to hear it again. Dewey phoned the Presley
home to get Elvis to the station for his fi rst-ever live interview. By the end of
the week, Sun had advance orders of 7,000.
Released on July 19, just two weeks after it was recorded, “That’s All Right,
Mama” became a local hit in Memphis. Presley promoted the release with some informal local performances; on some of those, he was backed by Moore
and Black’s band the Starlight Wranglers, whose other members reportedly
resented Scotty and Bill’s moonlighting with Elvis.
In an effort to generate interest outside of their hometown, Elvis, Scotty,
and Bill (sometimes billed as “the Blue Moon Boys”) hit the road as a touring
act. The three musicians and their gear crammed into a Chevrolet Bel Air,
with Black’s doghouse bass strapped to the roof, and worked at a grinding
pace, regularly driving hundreds of miles between shows around the South.
They often worked as a warmup act for such established country stars as Slim
Whitman, Minnie Pearl, and the Louvin Brothers, whose fans had never
before experienced anything like Elvis’s volcanic vocals and hip-swiveling,
leg-shaking stage moves.
“The fi rst time that I appeared on stage, it scared me to death,” Presley later
asserted in the 1972 documentary Elvis on Tour . “I really didn’t know what
all the yelling was about. I didn’t realize that my body was moving. It’s a
natural thing to me. So to the manager backstage I said, ‘What’d I do? What’d
I do?’ And he said, ‘Whatever it is, go back and do it again.’ ” 6
It wasn’t long before Elvis’s stage moves were regularly evoking hysterical
responses from female audience members. One such instance was a pair of
Webb Pierce concerts on August 10, 1954, at Overton Park in Memphis, at
which Presley appeared as an unbilled opening act. For the early show, he
played a set of country ballads to a lukewarm response. But for the late performance,
he concentrated on up-tempo material, and whipped the crowd
into such a frenzy that headliner Pierce—then one of country’s biggest stars—
refused to perform. Such occurrences generated hostility toward the young
upstart in some quarters of the conservative country music community, but
they also hastened Elvis’s rise to headliner status.
Presley delivered another savage performance on his second Sun single,
“Good Rockin’ Tonight,” a reworking of a 1948 hit by New Orleans rhythm
and blues shouter Roy Brown. The disc was released in September 1954, and
maintained Sam Phillips’s strategy of combining a “black” R&B song with a
“white” country ballad (in this case “I Don’t Care If the Sun Don’t Shine”), in
order to broaden airplay potential. “Good Rockin’ Tonight” became another
regional hit.
The same month, Elvis performed on Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry , the
wildly popular Saturday-night radio show that was a bastion of mainstream
country and western music. As the story goes, he was not well received, with
Opry manager Jim Denny famously telling the singer that he should go back
to driving a truck.
While he may have been too unruly to be embraced by the staid Opry, Presley
was more warmly received by the show’s less hidebound competitor the
Louisiana Hayride , which originated on Shreveport’s KWKH. He made his
fi rst Hayride appearance in October 1954 and soon won a one-year contract, becoming popular enough with listeners that his regular slot was expanded to
twenty minutes. His presence on the Louisiana Hayride would play a signifi -
cant role in winning Elvis new fans across the South.
Presley’s own live shows continued to draw larger concentrations of young
female fans, with the performances growing progressively wilder and more
provocative. The more raucous direction was aided by the addition of Louisiana
Hayride house drummer D.J. Fontana to Presley’s touring band.
Elvis’s rising popularity, and his musical progress, would continue with
four more Sun singles. Most were interpretations of material recorded by other
artists, but to call them cover versions hardly does them justice. By the time
Presley was done with Kokomo Arnold’s “Milkcow Blues Boogie,” Arthur
Gunter’s “Baby, Let’s Play House,” and Junior Parker’s “Mystery Train,” they
were his, and his versions would forever eclipse the originals. “Mystery
Train,” with its foreboding lyrics and general aim of enigmatic dread, is one
of Presley’s fi nest and most resonant moments.
By mid-1955, it had become obvious that Elvis had superstar potential. But
his popularity was still limited to the South, and it was apparent that a boost
to national fame would require more money and clout than Sam Phillips—or
Bob Neal, the Memphis DJ who’d become Presley’s manager—could muster.
His association with the Louisiana Hayride had put Presley in contact with
Colonel Tom Parker, whose résumé included managing country stars Eddy
Arnold and Hank Snow. A savvy huckster who’d picked up the rudiments of
show business while touring with a traveling carnival, Parker recognized
Elvis’s untapped earning potential, and offi cially took over as his manager in
August.
Parker—who’d received the honorary title of colonel in 1948 from Louisiana
governor and country singer Jimmie Davis—claimed to have been born in
Huntington, West Virginia. But in later years, it would emerge that Parker
had constructed an elaborate persona to mask his real history. Apparently
born Andreas Cornelis Van Kuijk in Breda, Holland, on June 26, 1909, he
was actually a native of the Netherlands who’d fl ed his homeland, under
shadowy circumstances, in May 1929 and later served in the U.S. Army before
being discharged for “psychosis, psychogenic depression (and) emotional
instability.”
The colonel’s relationship with Elvis, and the many questionable decisions
that he would make on his client’s behalf, would become the subject of much
speculation and criticism in the future. But there can be little doubt that Parker
was instrumental in engineering Presley’s initial rise from regional phenomenon
to international sensation.
Parker’s fi rst major move was to secure a new record deal. In November
1955, Elvis signed with RCA Records, in an arrangement that involved a buyout
of his Sun contract and recordings. Sam Phillips received the then-record
sum of $35,000, plus an additional $5,000 in back royalties owed to Presley.





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Sun Records Beyond Elvis
The seismic impact of Elvis Presley’s success made him the brightest star in the
galaxy of Sun Records. But Sam Phillips’s matchless ear for original talent and
his deceptively casual style of production brought forth several more major
artists in the period 1954–57 including three Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees:
Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins.
Johnny Cash grew up to become one of the most important artists in American
music—one whose popularity and infl uence extended well beyond the
country fi eld. The 1956 Sun release “I Walk the Line,” was the singer’s fi rst
number one country song. It established the immediately identifi able sound
of Cash’s resonant baritone voice; the sparse but propulsive accompaniment
of his band, the Tennessee Two (later Three), and songs that blended primal
strains of American folk, blues, and gospel music.
Louisiana singer/pianist Jerry Lee Lewis combined a precarious emotional
volatility with effortless musical versatility. He shot to international stardom in
1957 with the landmark Sun hits “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and “Great
Balls of Fire.”
Carl Perkins, the son of poor Tennessee sharecroppers, was a fi ne electric
guitarist with a warm, inviting vocal style and a knack for writing catchy, country-
fl avored songs set to a rock and roll beat. In early 1956, Perkins’s second
Sun single, “Blue Suede Shoes” (which he wrote), became the label’s fi rst
million-seller when it reached number one on the country charts and number
two on both the pop and R&B lists.

In hindsight, it’s easy to view Phillips’s willingness to relinquish Presley as
folly. But $35,000 was an unprecedented payoff by 1955 standards. Phillips
also pointed out that he didn’t possess the fi nancial wherewithal to promote
Elvis nationally, and that Sun was in need of an infl ux of cash to expand the
company and promote new artists like Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins.
Parker, meanwhile, set up music publishing companies to oversee the songs
Elvis would record for RCA. Shrewdly realizing the commercial value of having
a composition cut by Presley, the colonel was able to demand that songwriters
give up a piece of their publishing royalties in return for the privilege
(which explains non-writer Presley’s name occasionally turning up in the credits
of several of the tunes he recorded). While this practice would generate
additional income, it would also limit the range of material that Presley had
access to.
To further maximize his client’s profi tability, Parker licensed Presley’s name
and likeness for a dizzying array of products, from toy guitars to phonographs
to wallets to cologne to stuffed hound dogs and teddy bears, unleashing a torrent
of Elvis-related trinkets that continues to this day. Such commercial tie-ins demonstrated the colonel’s knack for sniffi ng out profi ts, but they were also
symptomatic of his tendency to go for the quick buck, with little consideration
of those moves’ long-term affect on Elvis’s image or credibility.
Parker’s schemes would generate considerable income for Presley—and for
Parker, whose hefty 25 percent commission would later rise to an unprecedented
50 percent. For better or worse, the colonel would exercise control
over most of Elvis’s business and creative decisions for the remainder of his
career.

ELVISMANIA
Elvis’s fi rst RCA session took place on January 10, 1956—two days after his
twenty-fi rst birthday—at the company’s Nashville studio. Recording was
overseen by Steve Sholes, head of RCA’s country division, who’d signed Presley
to the label. Moore, Black, and Fontana were augmented by legendary
guitarist Chet Atkins and noted session pianist Floyd Cramer, plus the gospel
vocal quartet the Jordanaires, who would continue to play a prominent role
in his recordings.
That date yielded “Heartbreak Hotel,” a stark, seething, sexually charged
manifesto that proved to be the perfect calling card to introduce Elvis to a
national—and international—audience. Released in late January as his RCA
debut, the song justifi ed the company’s investment by becoming Presley’s fi rst
national hit, rising to the number one slot on Billboard ’s pop chart and selling
over 300,000 copies in its fi rst three weeks.
Two months later, the label released Presley’s fi rst full-length LP, Elvis Presley
, which combined new RCA recordings with some previously unheard leftovers
from his Sun days. Despite containing none of his hits, the collection
spent ten weeks at the top of Billboard ’s pop LP chart, earning Elvis his fi rst
gold album award.
Elvismania briefl y simmered down on April 23, 1956, when Presley made
his Las Vegas debut with an extended engagement at the New Frontier Hotel.
But Elvis (billed as “the Atomic Powered Singer”) wasn’t well received by the
gamblers and tourists who comprised most of the New Frontier audience, and
the gig was cut short after two weeks.
Although his fi rst Vegas trip had been a failure, one good thing did come
out of it. During their visit, Elvis and band heard Freddie Bell and the Bellboys
performing a fl amboyant version of “Hound Dog,” a song penned by the upand-
coming duo of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, and originally recorded by
Big Mama Thornton in 1953. Elvis worked up his own raucous reading of the
song, which would become one of his signature hits three months later.
A key factor in Elvis’s rise to household-name status in 1956 was a series
of high-profi le prime-time TV appearances which Parker cannily booked.
Between January and March, he performed on six episodes of Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey’s CBS variety show, followed by a pair of guest spots on Milton
Berle’s NBC program. His June 5 performance of “Hound Dog” on the Berle
show generated a storm of controversy over the singer’s gyrations—and simultaneously
established Presley as a top ratings draw.
When Elvis performed “Hound Dog” on Steve Allen’s Sunday night ABC
show three weeks later, Allen had an uncomfortable-looking Elvis trussed up
in a tuxedo and singing to a basset hound. That night also marked the fi rst
time Allen had beaten Ed Sullivan’s wildly popular variety hour in the ratings,
and the shrewd Sullivan—who had initially vowed that he’d never allow Presley
onto his stage—responded by booking Elvis for three appearances in September,
October, and January, for which Colonel Tom was able to extract a
hefty $50,000 performance fee.
The Sullivan shows were instrumental in launching Elvis Presley as a
national phenomenon, raising his public profi le while amplifying the moralistic
furor over his scandalous movements. The controversy was such that, for
the last of his Sullivan spots, the camera operators were instructed to only
shoot Elvis from the waist up, even when he performed the gospel standard
“There’ll Be Peace in the Valley for Me.” The mild-mannered camera work
aside, Sullivan, at the time one of the most powerful men in television, did his
part to defuse the controversy by assuring his audience that Presley was a fi ne,
decent boy.
While the TV appearances helped to ratchet up the air of fan hysteria that
surrounded Presley, the real evidence of Elvismania was in his riotous live
concerts, which attracted teenage ticket buyers in record numbers. Reports of
his fans literally tearing the clothes off of their idol’s back arose on more than
one occasion. When he performed at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair in 1956,
100 National Guardsmen were recruited to keep fans from storming the stage.
In its May 15, 1956, issue, Time magazine offered an adult perspective on
the live Elvis experience: “Without preamble, the three-piece band cuts loose.
In the spotlight, the lanky singer fl ails furious rhythms on his guitar, every
now and then breaking a string. In a pivoting stance, his hips swing sensuously
from side to side and his entire body takes on a frantic quiver, as if he
had swallowed a jackhammer.” 7
As his popularity rose, Elvis was increasingly the target of various media
observers and moral guardians who decried him as a corruptor of the nation’s
youth. As the most visible fi gurehead of the new youth culture, he was an
inviting target for those eager to blame him and his music for a litany of social
ills, from juvenile delinquency to teen promiscuity.
The groundswell of anti-Elvis outrage was such that, when he performed in
Jacksonville, Florida, in August 1956, juvenile court judge Marion Gooding
threatened to arrest the singer if he shook his body while on stage. Presley
remained still for the entire set, wiggling a single fi nger in protest.
“Rhythm is something you either have or don’t have,” Elvis commented,
“but when you have it, you have it all over.” Although he was still treated with trepidation, condescension, or downright
derision by many mainstream commentators, the adult world’s skepticism
strengthened Elvis’s credibility with teenagers. Thanks to post–World
War II prosperity, those teens now comprised a powerful economic force that
was essential in fueling rock and roll’s birth.
Much of the criticism leveled at Elvis carried a thinly veiled—and sometimes
not so thinly veiled—air of racism. While some religious and community
leaders condemned him for playing the Devil’s Music, others castigated
his style as “nigger music.”
Much as they tried, the critics couldn’t stop Presley, or the legion of rock
and roll stars—both black and white—who followed in his wake. Elvis’s success
created an eager audience for such African American performers as Chuck
Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino, and Bo Diddley, as well as white rockers
like Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers, and Buddy Holly, who shared his
background in country and western music.
Presley’s example, particularly the homespun, do-it-yourself vibe of his Sun
recordings, also launched an explosion in rockabilly, with countless young
white boys, mostly but not exclusively in the South, picking up guitars and
delivering high-energy variations on Elvis’s sound. Some of them, like Lewis,
Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Roy Orbison, would launch their careers at
Sun. Some, like Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, and Presley’s high school classmate
Johnny Burnette, would gain major-label deals, while hundreds more
would record for small independent regional labels.

The Rockabilly Explosion
Rockabilly hitched the driving beat of early black rhythm and blues artists like
Fats Domino and Little Richard to the guitar-based instrumentation of “hillbilly,”
as the industry dubbed the country sounds of Hank Williams and Lefty
Frizzell. Although it lasted only from about 1954 to 1958, the sound and style
of rockabilly touched every region of the United States. Its popularity expanded
the overall music market through an outpouring of raw talent, the
likes of which would not be repeated until the Beatles-inspired rock explosion
of the mid-1960s.
A great rockabilly record didn’t require much in the way of musical sophistication
or technical ability. The songs were just three or four chords, and the singers
privileged excitement over enunciation. If the recording engineer could apply
enough echo to the tracks, a cardboard box might even substitute for real drums.
Many confi rmed country performers attempted to jump on the new trend, often
recording big-beat numbers under pseudonyms: George Jones as “Thumper
Jones,” Buck Owens as “Corky Jones,” Webb Pierce as “Shady Walls.”
By contrast, both the Everly Brothers and Ricky Nelson were more sincere in
their commitment to the new music and more inventive in their approach.
The roots of Don and Phil Everly lay deep in the country and bluegrass styles
of their native Kentucky, but beginning in 1957 they incorporated pop, blues,
and R&B in a dazzling series of discs including the number ones “Wake Up,
Little Susie” and “Cathy’s Clown.” In that same year, Ricky Nelson released his
fi rst single—a cover of Fats Domino’s “I’m Walkin’ ”—and promptly became
the second most famous rock and roller in the country (after Elvis), thanks to
a featured musical segment on his family’s weekly television series The Adventures
of Ozzie & Harriet. In his fi rst fi ve years as a recording artist, Nelson scored
seventeen Top Ten hits, most featuring the peerless lead guitar work of James
Burton.
Gene Vincent placed fi ve songs on the Hot 100 in 1956–57 (including the
masterful “Be-Bop-A-Lu-La”) and never had another hit. But his initial impact
was suffi cient to sustain the troubled singer’s performing career until his death
in 1971, especially among the dedicated Vincent cultists of Britain and France.
Two brothers from Memphis, Johnny and Dorsey Burnette, formed the Johnny
Burnette Trio with guitarist Paul Burlison. Their lone album, Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio
(1957), is an all-time rockabilly classic that includes “The Train Kept A-Rollin’,”
a song later recorded by the Yardbirds and Aerosmith. In 1960, Wanda Jackson’s
“Let’s Have a Party” was a spirited late entry in the rockabilly sweepstakes,
although she soon returned to a straight country repertoire.
For every hopeful with a record on the national charts, there were a halfdozen
whose songs found only local or regional success. “Everybody’s Got a
Baby but Me” by Warren Miller and “Rockin’ by Myself” by Sammy Gowans
are just two rockabilly classics by artists who were barely acknowledged even
in their own time.

Records weren’t the only things that Elvis was helping to sell. Sales of transistor
radios and record players boomed in the wake of his rise to fame, while
the rock and roll explosion that he set off helped to build the fl edgling record
business into a major industry. Teenagers around the United States emulated
his dress sense and adopted his “ducktail” haircut.
One example of Elvis’s ubiquitous fame was the publicity that accompanied
the brief, informal jam session on December 4, 1956, by the one-off super group
that came to be known as the Million Dollar Quartet. That event transpired
when Presley dropped in to visit Sun Records while Carl Perkins was recording,
with Jerry Lee Lewis playing piano on the session and Johnny Cash also in attendance.
They ran through an improvised array of gospel, country, R&B, and pop
material. One highlight was Elvis’s admiring description of Jackie Wilson, then
lead singer of Billy Ward’s Dominoes, singing his version of the recent Presley
smash “Don’t Be Cruel,” followed by Presley’s imitation of Wilson’s delivery.
Sam Phillips had the presence of mind to keep the tape rolling. The publicitysavvy
Phillips also called the local newspaper the Memphis Press-Scimitar ..

Bob Johnson, the paper’s entertainment editor, came by to document the
event, bringing a photographer who took the famous shot of Presley at the
piano surrounded by Lewis, Perkins, and Cash (Elvis’s girlfriend Marilyn
Evans was cropped out). Bootleg tapes of the sessions circulated for years
before being offi cially released in 1990.
While some observers quibble that Presley’s early RCA releases lacked some
of the raw edge and primal power of his Sun sessions, it’s hard to argue with
the quality of his early RCA releases. The impassioned “I Want You, I Need
You, I Love You” (backed by another Arthur Crudup cover, “My Baby Left
Me”) was a number one follow-up to “Heartbreak Hotel,” while the subsequent
“Hound Dog”/“Don’t Be Cruel” was a double-sided smash that became
one of the biggest-selling singles the music industry had ever seen. While less
rootsy and more polished than his Sun work, they’re still fi rst-rate vehicles for
Presley’s talent and charisma.
The holiday LP Elvis’ Christmas Album , was also released in 1957, which
combined bucolic seasonal fare, serene gospel material, and bluesy Yuletide
tunes like “Santa Claus Is Back in Town,” “Santa, Bring My Baby Back (to
Me),” and the hit “Blue Christmas.”

GOING HOLLYWOOD
Despite his massive record sales, Presley’s—and Parker’s—aspirations extended
beyond music. Offers of movie roles began to pour in during the 1956
media assault, and in April Elvis signed a seven-year movie contract with producer
Hal Wallis and Paramount Pictures. His studio screen test was a scene
from the upcoming A-list Burt Lancaster/Katharine Hepburn production
The Rainmaker . But rather than appearing in that prestigious project, Elvis
made his big-screen debut with a star turn in Love Me Tender , a hokey Civil
War–era drama that allowed him to croon four songs. It was dismissed by
critics, but became a box offi ce smash.
Love Me Tender was followed in 1957 by Presley’s fi rst color feature Loving
You , a slick but stale showbiz romance which riffed on Elvis’s early experiences
touring the rural country and western circuit. Jailhouse Rock , released
later that year, offered a slightly darker take on his rise to fame, with Presley
demonstrating genuine acting ability as an ex-con turned arrogant, amoral
rock and roll star. In 1958 with King Creole Elvis rose to the challenge of a
complex role in a serious drama, holding his own alongside such serious thespians
as Carolyn Jones, Vic Morrow, and Walter Matthau, under the guidance
of Casablanca director Michael Curtiz.
Indeed, Presley’s early performances demonstrated that he possessed
immense natural screen presence, and his early directors and co-stars consistently
described him as hard working and serious about developing his acting
skills. But the colonel’s fondness for the easy payoff—and his client’s apparent inability to stand up to intimidating father fi gure Parker—would ultimately
crush Elvis’s dream of establishing a reputation as a dramatic actor.
By 1957, Elvis Presley was arguably the world’s most famous musical entertainer.
Bill Haley (the fi rst American rocker to tour overseas) had been instrumental
in popularizing rock and roll in Europe, but Elvis triggered a massive
shift in musical tastes around the world. Other countries began to spawn their
own answers to Elvis, like England’s Cliff Richard, France’s Johnny Hallyday,
and Italy’s Adriano Celentano, who offered homegrown (if watered-down)
variations on the Presley style.
Elvis’s popularity even extended behind the Iron Curtain. On February 3,
1957, the New York Times ran a story under the headline “Presley Records a
Craze in Soviet Union.” The paper reported that, although not offi cially
released in the Soviet Union, bootleg recordings of his music were being
pressed on discarded X-ray plates and sold on the black market in Leningrad
for the equivalent of about $12.
In March 1957, Elvis purchased his soon-to-be-famous mansion Graceland
in Memphis. The following month, he made his fi rst Canadian appearances,
playing concerts in Toronto and Ottawa. A performance in Vancouver that
August would mark the last time he would perform outside of the United
States.
Presley’s music and fi lm careers were still on the upswing when Elvis received
his draft notice in December 1957. By the time he reported to Fort Chaffee for
induction (and his much-publicized GI haircut) three months later, he’d left
enough unreleased tracks in the can that RCA was able to continue releasing
new material to keep him a steady chart presence during his two-year army stint.
The fan furor surrounding his induction would inspire the successful 1960
Broadway musical Bye Bye Birdie , which would also be adapted into a fi lm.
After completing six months of basic training in Fort Hood, Texas, Presley
was stationed in Friedberg, Germany, for eighteen months. Although he maintained
an off-base residence in nearby Bad Nauheim, Elvis was reportedly a
model soldier who requested and received no special treatment from his superiors.
On August 12, 1958, Gladys Presley suffered a heart attack; Elvis fl ew
back to Memphis to be with her, and she died two days later.
While in Germany, Elvis met fourteen-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu, stepdaughter
of Army Captain Joseph Beaulieu. She would become Presley’s wife
on May 1, 1967. On February 1, 1968, exactly nine months after the wedding,
Priscilla would give birth to their only child, Lisa Marie Presley.
Although he’d worried that his fans would forget him during his absence,
Elvis Presley returned to civilian life in March 1960 to fi nd his popularity
intact. The following month saw the release of Elvis Is Back! , a solid collection
of rockers, ballads, and blues that seemed to bode well for his musical
future. It was followed by His Hand in Mine , the fi rst of his several gospel
albums; while that disc was mild-mannered rather than impassioned, it offered
credible evidence of Elvis’s sincere and deep-rooted affi nity for gospel.

The next few years would see Elvis release a handful of memorable singles,
including the catchy novelty “Return to Sender” (written by Otis Blackwell,
author of several Presley hits), the moony ballad “Can’t Help Falling in Love,”
and the tough rockers “Little Sister,” “I Feel So Bad,” and “(Marie’s the
Name) His Latest Flame.” But by 1963, just as rock was preparing to enter a
new era as an agent of social change, Elvis had more or less walked away from
his hard-won status as the King of Rock and Roll.
Elvis had initially been enthusiastic about becoming a serious actor, and his
work in Jailhouse Rock and King Creole demonstrated that his natural screen
presence could, with proper support and the right material, translate into
substantial performances.
But the Colonel had other ideas. Elvis gave sincere performances in the
fl awed but heartfelt Don Siegel–directed 1960 western Flaming Star , playing
a pensive half-breed confronting racism, and in the soap-operatic Wild in the
Country , which incongruously cast him as an aspiring novelist. But instead of
following in the footsteps of his heroes Marlon Brando and James Dean, Elvis
would spend much of the 1960s starring in a series of mind-numbingly innocuous
b-movies that neutered his dangerous edge into soft-centered cuddliness.
Two or three times a year between 1960 and 1968, Elvis dutifully walked
through such creatively bankrupt exercises as G.I. Blues , Blue Hawaii , Girls!
Girls! Girls! , It Happened at the World’s Fair , Fun in Acapulco , Kissin’ Cousins
, Viva Las Vegas , Roustabout , Girl Happy , Tickle Me , Harum Scarum ,
Paradise Hawaiian Style , Spinout , Easy Come Easy Go , Double Trouble ,
Clambake , Speedway, and Live a Little Love a Little , which demanded little
more of Elvis than that he show up. The formula was so predictable—cast
Elvis as a rakish lifeguard/helicopter pilot/race car driver, place him in an
exotic location, surround him with pretty girls and cartoonish comic complications,
and have him sing enough mediocre songs to fi ll the accompanying
soundtrack album—that the fi lms were virtually interchangeable. But most of
them were huge money makers, and the colonel saw no point in messing with
a winning formula.
While America was caught up in the political, social, and musical upheavals
of the 1960s, Elvis seemed encased in a show business bubble, out of touch
with his own talent and oblivious to the changes afoot in the outside world.
Although he remained immensely popular with millions of fans, it was hard
to believe that this was the same restless revolutionary who had single-handedly
altered the face of Western culture just a few years before.
When John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963, Elvis was busy
cavorting in Fun in Acapulco . In 1965, while the Beatles and Bob Dylan were
leading rock into provocative new areas of personal discovery and sonic experimentation,
Elvis was singing “Do the Clam” amidst carefree spring-break
hijinks in Girl Happy . In 1967, as the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement,
and the summer of love were forcing Americans to reexamine their most deeply
held beliefs, Elvis was starring in Clambake .

“The only thing worse than watching a bad movie,” Presley reportedly
said, “is being in one.” 9
Elvis made little effort to disguise his contempt for his 1960s movies, refusing
to watch them and deriding them as glorifi ed travelogues. By all accounts,
he was deeply resentful that the colonel had steered him toward such lightweight
fare and away from more credible projects. For instance, he was the
fi rst choice of the producers of West Side Story for that fi lm’s male lead, but
Parker passed. West Side Story became one of the decade’s biggest blockbusters,
and Presley apparently held it against Parker for the rest of his life. Elvis
certainly had the clout to put his foot down and demand better scripts and
bigger budgets, but he never did.
The colonel also reportedly kept Elvis from auditioning for roles in such
edgy, culturally important fi lms as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof , The Defi ant Ones ,
Thunder Road , and Midnight Cowboy . In the mid-1970s, long after his box
offi ce appeal had been decimated by too many lousy movies, Presley was offered
an attractive comeback vehicle in A Star Is Born , but the colonel apparently
wouldn’t hear of his boy sharing star billing with Barbra Streisand.
By the time the Beatles usurped his status as the world’s biggest rock and
roll act in 1964, Elvis’s musical career had become little more than a halfbaked
sideline. His fi lm commitments kept him from performing concerts,
and most of his record releases were throwaway soundtrack albums, loaded
with trivial fi lm tunes and often padded with old studio outtakes.
Although his recorded output gave little indication that he’d been keeping
up with musical trends, Elvis actually played host to the Beatles in his Bel Air
home in August 1965, while the Fab Four were on tour. The four-hour visit,
according to John Lennon, included an informal jam session, on which Elvis
played piano and drums.
One of the few bright spots of his largely forgettable soundtrack album
output was a 1966 reading of Bob Dylan’s “Tomorrow Is a Long Time” that
proved that Presley was still capable of delivering sensitive, compelling performances
when presented with quality material. But such instances were few
and far between, and the fact that this meeting of generational icons was buried
on the Spinout soundtrack LP is indicative of how far out of touch Elvis
and his handlers were with the seismic changes that were occurring in music
and popular culture at the time.

THE COMEBACK
The generally appalling quality of his movie-era music made Elvis’s subsequent
musical rejuvenation seem all the more miraculous. By 1968, the King’s
prestige was at an all-time low. Even his most patient fans had stopped turning
out for his fi lms, which by now were often consigned to the lower half
of double features, and which often didn’t receive play dates in major cities at all. Whether due to artistic inspiration or career necessity, Presley’s longdormant
musical instincts stirred back to life in the late 1960s, spawning a
brilliant new body of work that instantly reestablished him as a creative
force.
Presley’s return to rock and roll was signaled by a pair of tough, rootsy
singles, the Jimmy Reed blues classic “Big Boss Man” and the Jerry Reed–penned
“Guitar Man.” Released in September 1967 and January 1968, respectively,
those efforts found him sounding more focused and engaged than he had in
nearly a decade, weaving his blues and country infl uences into an updated
sound that was effortlessly contemporary without pandering to trends.
They were followed in October by “If I Can Dream,” an idealistic anthem
whose acknowledgment of the era’s social ills marked something of a milestone
for Elvis. In other hands, the song might have felt naive or simplistic,
but Presley tore into it with such passionate belief that one couldn’t help but
be uplifted by its hopeful message. “If I Can Dream” reached number twelve
in Billboard , his best chart showing in years.
Those releases could only hint at the full-on resurrection that would occur
with Presley’s upcoming NBC-TV special. Commonly referred to as “the 1968
comeback special” but offi cially titled Elvis , the show—shot in late June but
not broadcast until December 3—decisively re-embraced Elvis’s rocking roots,
and in the course of one hour managed to reestablish the tarnished icon as a
contemporary artist.
Although the colonel had originally envisioned the show as a bucolic
Christmas-themed trifl e, the show’s producer/director Steve Binder had something
more substantial in mind. He saw the special as an opportunity for
Presley to reassert his performing prowess and reclaim his credibility. Elvis,
frustrated after the years of forgettable fi lms and mediocre music, stood up to
his manager for a change. Actually, he and Binder conspired to keep the colonel
placated and distracted while they went ahead with their plans to do the
show their way.
Presley and Binder’s instincts proved correct. The NBC special reestablished
Elvis as a vital musical force virtually overnight, showing his talent and magnetism
intact after nearly a decade of aesthetic neglect. The show opened with
a trim, leather-clad Elvis delivering the King Creole chestnut “Trouble” with
a swagger that immediately announced that he was back with a vengeance.
An informal jam session segment in which Elvis traded songs and stories with
a circle of musical pals including Scotty Moore and D.J. Fontana, showed him
to be loose, confi dent, and fi rmly in control.
Another highlight was an extended, athletic production number built
around “Guitar Man.” The piece follows its protagonist through his journey
from struggling musician to successful star, through his eventual realization
that his dream has been achieved at the expense of his original passion. In the
end, he abandons the trappings of stardom to return to his humble musical
roots. It would be hard to miss the reference to Elvis’s own travails.
Although the colonel had originally insisted that the program end with a
rendition of “Silent Night,” the actual fi nale of “If I Can Dream” ended the
show on an inspirational note. Standing alone on stage, Elvis delivered the
song’s idealistic lyrical message with an intensity that made it one of the most
galvanizing moments of his career.
Suddenly, the thirty-three-year-old Elvis, long considered an anachronism,
was relevant again. As critic Greil Marcus observed in his 1975 book Mystery
Train , one of the fi rst serious tomes to attempt to unravel Presley’s mythical
appeal, “It was the fi nest music of his life. If ever there was music that bleeds,
this was it.” 10
The NBC special set the stage for a remarkably productive period during
which a reenergized Elvis returned to music-making in earnest. In January
and February 1969, he entered American Studios in Memphis for his fi rst
hometown sessions since 1955. Working with noted producer Chips Moman
and a crack assortment of Southern session players, Presley took a proactive
role in marathon all-night sessions, and the result was From Elvis in Memphis
, considered by many to be the best album of his career.
The American Studios recordings found Presley shaking off the boredom
and complacency that had set in during his movie years, and taking a hands-on
role in leading the band, putting together the arrangements and running the
sessions, just as he had in the old days.
As veteran producer/engineer Bones Howe, who’d served as music producer
on the NBC special, told author Jerry Hopkins in his 1971 book Elvis,
A Biography , “Elvis produced his own records. He came to the session, picked
the songs, and if something in the arrangement was changed, he was the one
to change it. Everything was worked out spontaneously. Nothing was really
rehearsed. Many of the important decisions normally made previous to a
recording session were made during the session.” 11
From Elvis in Memphis introduced a punchy new sound that imbued Elvis’s
country and blues roots with funky country-soul grooves that were well suited
to the songs’ more mature attitude. There was no mistaking the level of emotional
commitment that he brought to the material, which spanned the breadth
of his interests and infl uences. The songs ranged from contemporary soul hits
like Jerry Butler’s “Only the Strong Survive” and Chuck Jackson’s “Any Day
Now” to such venerable country tunes as Hank Snow’s classic “I’m Movin’
On” and Eddy Arnold’s “I’ll Hold You in My Arms,” as well as the recent
Glen Campbell hit “Gentle on My Mind.”
From Elvis in Memphis spawned a major hit in the Mac Davis composition
“In the Ghetto.” It was the closest Presley would ever come to singing a
protest song, and its socially conscious message carried a particular resonance
in an America torn by racial and economic injustice. If the song was
somewhat simplistic and melodramatic, the fact that it was delivered by a
fi gure of Elvis’s stature carried much weight in the divisive atmosphere of
1969.
Meanwhile, with box offi ce receipts dwindling, Elvis closed out his acting
career with some relatively offbeat projects that made some token attempts to
break away from the established formula. Charro! was a poorly executed
faux–spaghetti western in which Presley played it straight as a scruffy, nonsinging
gunfi ghter. Change of Habit was a well-intentioned but ill-conceived
stab at social relevancy, with Elvis as a guitar-slinging inner-city doctor who
may or may not be in love with nun Mary Tyler Moore.
With Elvis having fi nally freed himself of his Hollywood commitments, the
next logical step in his resurrection was a return to live performance. Rather
than bother with the rock audience that had expanded and diversifi ed during
the 1960s, Colonel Parker booked a much-ballyhooed four-week, fi fty-sevenshow
engagement at the newly constructed International Hotel in Las Vegas
beginning on July 31, 1969 (eleven days after Neil Armstrong became the fi rst
man to walk on the moon). Those performances introduced Presley’s powerful
new live band, an expanded ensemble that included the peerless rockabilly
guitarist James Burton.
At the center of the lavish presentation was the lean and hungry Elvis, performing
with the fi re of a man given a second lease on life. The International
Hotel run was an unmistakable triumph, winning rave reviews and breaking
Las Vegas attendance records. It would be followed by a series of massively
successful national tours and Vegas engagements. Presley would give over
1,000 sold-out Vegas performances between 1969 and 1977, and would be
the fi rst act to sell out New York’s Madison Square Garden for four shows in
a row.
The Vegas comeback coincided with Elvis’s biggest hit since 1962, the number
one smash “Suspicious Minds,” recorded during the From Elvis in Memphis
sessions but not included on the album. “Suspicious Minds” was a perfect
distillation of his soulful new sound, and would remain one of his most popular
numbers (and its subject matter resonated strongly with rumors of troubles
in the Presley marriage). Two more songs cut during the American Studios
sessions, “Don’t Cry Daddy” and “Kentucky Rain,” also became hits in late
1969 and early 1970, respectively.
Three months after “Suspicious Minds” was released, the song turned up in
a live version on the double album From Memphis to Vegas/From Vegas to
Memphis , which combined an LP of performances from the closing week at
the International with a disc of leftovers from the American Studios sessions.
The live half (the fi rst installment in a steady stream of live Elvis material that
RCA would continue to grind out through the 1970s) offered a persuasive
document of Presley’s return to the stage. The studio half underlined what a
bountiful creative purging the Memphis sessions had been.
When Elvis returned to the silver screen, it was as the focus of a pair of successful
feature documentaries that documented his return to the live stage,
1970’s Elvis: That’s the Way It Is and 1972’s Elvis On Tour . In January 1973,
he’d score a massive small-screen success with Aloha from Hawaii , the fi rst-ever worldwide live satellite broadcast of a musical event, seen by over a
billion viewers worldwide.
As it happened, Hawaii would be the furthest Elvis would ever travel to
perform. Many have speculated that the colonel turned down lucrative offers
of overseas tours because he was an illegal alien whose status would have
been discovered had he attempted to travel abroad. It has also been theorized
that Parker kept Elvis performing in Vegas in order to cover Parker’s massive
gambling debts.

ELVIS: WHAT HAPPENED?
The reestablished superstar of Aloha from Hawaii was a very different animal
from the comeback kid of the NBC special and the 1969 Vegas gigs. By this
point, Elvis concerts had ballooned into overblown extravaganzas that often
felt less like musical performances than opportunities for the faithful to worship
at the Elvis altar. While there was no denying the undiminished energy
of his performances or the ongoing magnifi cence of his voice, many considered
the spectacle—along with the King’s bejeweled, jumpsuit-clad stage
persona—to be gauche and overly grandiose.
By then, Priscilla had left Elvis (their divorce would become fi nal on October
9, 1973) and troubling rumors of drug use and unpredictable behavior
had begun to swirl around the singer.
On December 21, 1970, a reportedly drug-impaired Presley paid a visit to
President Richard M. Nixon at the White House, after writing Nixon a six-page
letter suggesting that he be made a “Federal Agent-at-Large” in the Bureau of
Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. The meeting yielded a famous photo of an
uncomfortable-looking Nixon shaking hands with Presley, clad in a dark
cape, open-collared shirt, and garish belt buckle. Elvis brought the soon-tobe-
disgraced president the gift of a World War II commemorative Colt .45
pistol (which the Secret Service seized), and Elvis was eventually sent a “specially
prepared” badge from the Bureau of Narcotic and Dangerous Drugs.
During a 1975 show at the Las Vegas Hilton, Elvis spontaneously addressed
recent rumors in a bizarre onstage outburst in which he denied using drugs
and threatened severe physical harm to those who’d suggest that he did.
Despite such unpredictable behavior, Presley would continue touring successfully
for the remainder of his life, playing for large, adoring crowds in Vegas
and in arenas around the United States.
In 1972 “Burning Love” became Presley’s fi nal Top 10 hit, and, for all
intents and purposes, his last stand as a rock and roller. Thereafter, he settled into
a comfortably middle-of-the-road country-pop style that yielded some catchy,
well-crafted music, but nothing approaching the intensity of his best work.
But Elvis had bigger issues than musical direction. He had grown increasingly
isolated, rising at sunset and rarely venturing outside of Graceland when he wasn’t on tour. He’d become increasingly dependent on a number of prescription
drugs, and his prodigious consumption took a heavy toll on his
health. His weight fl uctuated wildly and his performances could be distracted
and incoherent, further raising concerns among fans and the press.
His fans’ worst suspicions were confi rmed with the 1977 publication of Elvis:
What Happened? , a book that drew upon interviews with Red West, Sonny
West, and Dave Hebler, former members of the cadre of Elvis cronies and gofers
commonly known as the Memphis Mafi a. The tawdry tome painted a disturbing
portrait of the artist as a volatile drug addict obsessed with sex, death, religion,
and fi rearms, with his most irrational whims (like plotting to have his
estranged wife’s lover killed) indulged by his posse of yes-men. In those days
before twenty-four-hour news channels and Internet gossip, the book shocked
fans who still thought of Elvis as the humble, polite country boy who gave generously
to friends and charities, and purchased Cadillacs for needy strangers.
On the evening of August 16, 1977, mere weeks after the publication of
Elvis: What Happened? , Elvis Presley died at Graceland at the age of fortytwo.
He was found lying on the fl oor of the bathroom adjoining his bedroom
by girlfriend Ginger Alden, who had been asleep in his bed. He was taken to
Memphis’s Baptist Memorial Hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead
at 3:30 p.m. While the offi cial cause of death was heart failure, lab reports
detected fourteen different drugs in his system and strongly suggested that
his drug use played a role in his demise. His remains were initially buried at
Forest Hill Cemetery in Memphis, next to his mother. After an attempted
theft of the body, Elvis’s and Gladys’s graves were moved to Graceland.
Elvis Presley’s death precipitated a massive outpouring of mourning from
fans around the world. It also spawned an industry of posthumous Elvis-related
commerce, from all manner of memorabilia to a variety of musical, literary,
and cinematic tributes.
One measure of the public’s ongoing Elvis obsession is the persistence of
theories that he didn’t actually die in 1977, but faked his demise to escape the
pressures of the spotlight. Another curious manifestation of Presley’s iconic
status—and of the public’s desire to hang on to some vestige of the departed
star—is the proliferation of Elvis impersonators. Acts appropriating the King’s
likeness and performing style began to spring up almost immediately after his
death and have continued to prosper, with several annual Elvis impersonator
festivals hosting multiple tribute artists.
In the decade following his death, Elvis’s recorded legacy was treated by
RCA Records and Colonel Tom Parker with the same capriciousness with
which they handled his catalog while he was alive. The company churned out
a stream of carelessly assembled, blatantly exploitive releases, with little
regard for historical perspective and musical quality. Elvis’s body of work
fi nally began to receive respectful repackaging in the CD era.
Graceland was opened to the public in 1982 as a monument to Presley’s
memory and continues to be a major tourist destination, attracting over 600,000 visitors per year. It was designated a National Historic Landmark on
March 27, 2006.
In 1986, Elvis was one of the fi rst group of inductees into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame. He was added to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1998 and
the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2001. In 1993, the image of the young Elvis
was featured on a U.S. postage stamp. As of this writing, the Sirius Satellite
Radio service features an all-Elvis channel.
In October 2005, when the entertainment trade journal Variety named the
top 100 entertainment icons of the twentieth century, Elvis was in the top ten,
along with Louis Armstrong, Lucille Ball, the Beatles, Marlon Brando, Humphrey
Bogart, Charlie Chaplin, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and Mickey
Mouse. A week later, Forbes magazine named Elvis, for the fi fth straight year,
the top-earning dead celebrity.
More than a quarter century after his death, Elvis remains the best-selling
solo artist in popular music history, according to the RIAA, with worldwide
sales estimated at one billion as of 2006. His classic recordings continue to
attract new listeners, as evidenced by the 2002 chart success of Junkie XL’s
remix of the obscure “A Little Less Conversation” (originally from the 1968
fi lm fl op Live a Little Love a Little ) and the following year’s Paul Oakenfold
remix of “Rubberneckin’ ” (from Change of Habit ).
Like the country and culture that spawned him, Elvis Presley was a tangled
mass of contradictions. If he was ultimately brought down by his inability to
fully understand his own talent or grasp the larger implications of the changes
that he wrought, his accomplishments speak for themselves.

TIMELINE
January 8, 1935
Elvis Aaron Presley is born to Gladys and Vernon Presley in a two-room cabin in East
Tupelo, Mississippi.
July 18, 1953
Elvis Presley goes to the Memphis Recording Service, home of Sun Records, and pays
$3.25 to record two songs, “My Happiness” and “That’s When Your Heartaches
Begin,” as a present for his mother. Offi ce manager Marion Keisker makes a note to
alert her boss Sam Phillips to the eighteen-year-old’s talents as a ballad singer.
June 27, 1954
In an effort to help Presley fi nd his style, Sam Phillips teams him with two local musicians,
guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, and has the trio begin rehearsing
and learning songs together.
July 5, 1954
During a recording session at Sun, Elvis spontaneously breaks into “That’s All Right,
Mama,” a blues number by Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup. The next day, Elvis, Scotty,
and Bill cut a similarly energetic reworking the Bill Monroe bluegrass tune “Blue
Moon of Kentucky.”
July 19, 1954
Sun Records releases “That’s All Right, Mama” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky” as
Elvis Presley’s fi rst single, bearing the catalog number Sun 209.
July 20, 1954
Elvis makes his fi rst public appearance, performing on a fl atbed truck in Memphis.
October 2, 1954
Elvis appears on Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry for the fi rst and only time. His performance
of “Blue Moon of Kentucky” receives a polite audience response.
October 16, 1954
Elvis makes the fi rst of many appearances on the Louisiana Hayride radio show,
broadcast from Shreveport, Louisiana.
August 15, 1955
Elvis Presley signs a management contract with Colonel Tom Parker.
November 20, 1955
After Parker fi elds an offer from RCA Records, Sam Phillips sells Elvis’s recording
contract to RCA for $35,000.
January 27, 1956
Elvis Presley’s RCA debut, “Heartbreak Hotel,” is released. It will be the fi rst of Presley’s
seventeen number one hits, spending eight weeks at the top of the charts and
establishing Elvis as a national sensation.
January 28, 1956
Elvis Presley makes his fi rst network TV appearance on bandleaders Tommy and
Jimmy Dorsey’s Stage Show .
September 9, 1956
Elvis makes the fi rst of three appearances on TV’s Ed Sullivan Show , drawing an estimated
82.5 percent of the viewing audience.
November 15, 1956
Elvis’s fi rst fi lm, Love Me Tender , premieres at the New York Paramount.
December 4, 1956
Elvis and his former Sun label-mates Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash
gather at Sun for an informal jam session, performing gospel standards and R&B hits
around the piano. Sam Phillips dubs the one-time aggregation the Million Dollar
Quartet.
December 20, 1957
Elvis Presley is served with his draft notice while home at Graceland for Christmas.
March 24, 1958
Elvis is sworn in as a private in the U.S. Army. The Memphis draft board had granted
him a deferment to allow him to complete fi lming on King Creole .
October 1, 1958
Elvis begins his army service.
March 2, 1960
Elvis returns to the United States after completing his army service. He is honorably
discharged at the rank of sergeant.
May 12, 1960
Elvis is featured in Welcome Home Elvis , a Frank Sinatra–hosted TV special.
August 27, 1965
Elvis hosts the Beatles for an evening of music and conversation at his house in Bel Air,
California.
May 1, 1967
Elvis Presley marries Priscilla Beaulieu at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas.
February 1, 1968
Elvis and Priscilla’s only child, Lisa Marie Presley, is born, exactly nine months after
her parents’ wedding.
December 3, 1968
NBC airs Elvis , a prime-time TV special that serves notice of Presley’s resurrection as
a rock and roll performer.
January 13, 1969
Elvis enters American Sound in Memphis for his fi rst hometown recording sessions
since leaving Sun in 1956. The American sessions mark Elvis’s revitalization as a recording
artist, and spawn such hits as “Suspicious Minds” and “In the Ghetto.”
July 31, 1969
Elvis ends an eight-year hiatus from live performance, beginning a four-week engagement
at the International Hotel in Las Vegas. He will continue to perform regularly in
Vegas, and on tour, for the rest of his life.
October 9, 1973
Elvis and Priscilla Presley divorce.
June 26, 1977
Elvis Presley performs his last concert, at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.
July 16, 1977
“Way Down” enters Billboard ’s pop chart, becoming the last of 105 singles by Elvis
Presley to reach the Top Forty during his lifetime.
August 16, 1977
An unconscious Elvis Presley is rushed to Memphis’s Baptist Memorial Hospital and
subsequently pronounced dead.
July 1982
Graceland is opened to the public. It will become a popular tourist destination.
January 8, 1993
The U.S. Post Offi ce’s Elvis Presley postage stamp goes on sale.
June 2002
A remix of the 1968 Presley non-hit “A Little Less Conversation,” by Junkie XL, becomes
a number one hit in twenty countries.
March 27, 2006
Graceland is offi cially designated a National Historic Landmark.