08/08/2007

Elvis Remembered
By Tom Range, Sr.

Thirty years ago, on August 16, 1977, 42-year-old Elvis Aaron Presley, was found dead in his Tennessee mansion, apparently of a drug overdose.  He is remembered by many American brought up after Elvis' peak years as a performer, as an excessively heavy, bloated caricature of the intense, earnest young singer whose career began in 1953 and peaked in the early 1970s.

Elvis was an 18-year-old truck driver living with his parents in Memphis when, on July 18, 1953, he went to Sun Record Company to record an acetate record, the song "My Happiness," which he gave to his mother as a birthday present.  While Elvis had performed only in church "gospel" groups, the owner of the record company Sam Phillips recognized the young man's talent.  More records were pressed and disk-jockeys in the Memphis area became interested. 

Presley's' style combined the emerging rock and roll, hillbilly and black gospel music; genres heard throughout the rural South but seldom in the white, urban North.  Even in his native South (he was born in Tupelo, Mississippi on January 8, 1935) the styles were seldom heard blended together in a hybrid form.  Phillips recalled; "The white disk-jockeys wouldn't touch what they regarded as Negroes' music and the Negro disk-jockeys didn't want anything to do with a record made by a white man."  In this environment, acceptance was hard to come by.
But accepted he was.  In 1956 alone he had these hits; "Heartbreak Hotel," "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You," "Don't Be Cruel," "Hound Dog" and "Love Me Tender."  The melody of the last song named dates to the Civil War when it was named "Aura Lea."  "Blue Suede Shoes," "Jailhouse Rock" and "All Shook Up' soon followed.

Television spots came next, the most famous one being the last of a three appearance series on the Ed Sullivan Show, these appearances negotiated by Elvis' manager "Colonel" Tom Parker whose showbiz acumen resulted in a recording contract with the giant RCA Victor Records.  Elvis had appeared on the Milton Berle Show on June 5, 1956.  His exaggerated, straight-legged shuffle stirred the audience as did his vigorous hip gyrations and leg shaking in time to the beat.  He next appeared on a Steve Allen show and then in the first of his two appearances with Ed Sullivan.  In each appearance, the gyrations were a part of the performance.  The program's producers received adverse reactions to these movements so that the performer was televised only from the waist up in the final Sullivan appearance in January 1957. 

During this controversy with the Sullivan producers, Elvis' first movie "Love Me Tender" was released.  It was panned by the critics, but did well at the box office as did most of his early films.  He made over 30 movies throughout his career. 

Elvis Presley's impact on popular music cannot be overemphasized.  His peers are universal in their acknowledgment of his influence on their careers.  Typical is this comment of John Lennon's: "Nothing really affected me until I heard Elvis.  If there hadn't been an Elvis, there wouldn't have been a Beatles."  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."  The acceptance of Presley's "black" music among the mass audience of white American teenagers brought African-American acts like Fats Domino, Chuck Berry and Little Richard into national prominence.

People in showbiz circles still debate whether Presley would have become the superstar he became without Colonel Parker who, among other decisions he made for his client, saw to it that Presley's career did not falter during his stint in the U.S. Army.  He was drafted in March 1958 and assigned to an armored unit stationed in Germany.  An account of this period indicates that a sergeant had introduced Presley to amphetamines while the unit was on maneuvers.  He was honorably discharged in 1960 but hooked for life on drugs, taking them in ever increasing doses as his career ebbed and flowed.  Ironically his first Grammy award was for the spiritual "How Great Thou Art" in 1974, long after what most critics consider his prime.

Elvis Stamp

Toward the end, he had become a bloated caricature of his sleek, energetic former self.  He was barely able to pull himself through his abbreviated concerts.  His final performance was held on June 26, 1977 in Indianapolis.  He was to begin another tour the day after he died at Graceland, his mansion in Memphis, which was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006.  His image had appeared on a U.S. postage stamp in 1993, which, as a result of a survey in 2006, was declared the most popular U.S. stamp issued.

Perhaps the most compelling comment on Elvis Presley's contribution to the world's cultural scene was expressed in the late 1960s by composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein; "Elvis is the greatest cultural force in the twentieth century.  He introduced the beat to everything, music, language, clothes; it's a whole social revolution… the 60s comes from it."