fbpx
Wikipedia

Elvis Presley

Elvis Aaron Presley[a] (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), often referred to mononymously as Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. His energized interpretations of songs and sexually provocative performance style, combined with a singularly potent mix of influences across color lines during a transformative era in race relations, led him to both great success and initial controversy.

Elvis Presley
Presley in a publicity photograph for the 1957 film Jailhouse Rock
Born
Elvis Aron Presley[a]

(1935-01-08)January 8, 1935
DiedAugust 16, 1977(1977-08-16) (aged 42)
Cause of deathCardiac arrest
Resting placeGraceland
Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.
35°2′46″N 90°1′23″W / 35.04611°N 90.02306°W / 35.04611; -90.02306
Occupations
  • Singer
  • actor
Works
Spouse
(m. 1967; div. 1973)
ChildrenLisa Marie Presley
RelativesRiley Keough (granddaughter)
AwardsRock and Roll Hall of Fame (1986)
Presidential Medal of Freedom (2018)
Musical career
Genres
Instruments
  • Vocals
  • guitar
  • piano
Years active1953–1977
Labels
Military service[1]
BranchUnited States Army
Years of service1958–1960
RankSergeant
UnitHeadquarters Company, 1st Medium Tank Battalion, 32d Armor, 3d Armored Division
AwardsGood Conduct Medal

Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and relocated to Memphis, Tennessee, with his family when he was 13 years old. His music career began there in 1954, recording at Sun Records with producer Sam Phillips, who wanted to bring the sound of African-American music to a wider audience. Presley, on rhythm acoustic guitar, and accompanied by lead guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, was a pioneer of rockabilly, an uptempo, backbeat-driven fusion of country music and rhythm and blues. In 1955, drummer D. J. Fontana joined to complete the lineup of Presley's classic quartet and RCA Victor acquired his contract in a deal arranged by Colonel Tom Parker, who would manage him for more than two decades. Presley's first RCA Victor single, "Heartbreak Hotel", was released in January 1956 and became a number-one hit in the United States. Within a year, RCA would sell ten million Presley singles. With a series of successful network television appearances and chart-topping records, Presley became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll; though his performative style and promotion of the then-marginalized sound of African-Americans[6] led to him being widely considered a threat to the moral well-being of the White American youth.[7]

In November 1956, Presley made his film debut in Love Me Tender. Drafted into military service in 1958, Presley relaunched his recording career two years later with some of his most commercially successful work. He held few concerts, however, and guided by Parker, proceeded to devote much of the 1960s to making Hollywood films and soundtrack albums, most of them critically derided. Some of his most famous films included Jailhouse Rock (1957), Blue Hawaii (1961), and Viva Las Vegas (1964). In 1968, following a seven-year break from live performances, he returned to the stage in the acclaimed television comeback special Elvis, which led to an extended Las Vegas concert residency and a string of highly profitable tours. In 1973, Presley gave the first concert by a solo artist to be broadcast around the world, Aloha from Hawaii. Years of prescription drug abuse and unhealthy eating habits severely compromised his health, and he died suddenly in 1977 at his Graceland estate at the age of 42.

Having sold over 400 million records worldwide, Presley is recognized as the best-selling solo music artist of all time by Guinness World Records. He was commercially successful in many genres, including pop, country, rhythm & blues, adult contemporary, and gospel. Presley won three Grammy Awards, received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36, and has been inducted into multiple music halls of fame. He holds several records, including the most RIAA certified gold and platinum albums, the most albums charted on the Billboard 200, the most number-one albums by a solo artist on the UK Albums Chart, and the most number-one singles by any act on the UK Singles Chart. In 2018, Presley was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Life and career

1935–1953: Early years

Childhood in Tupelo

Elvis Aaron Presley was born on January 8, 1935, in Tupelo, Mississippi, to Vernon Elvis (April 10, 1916 – June 26, 1979) and Gladys Love (née Smith; April 25, 1912 – August 14, 1958) Presley in a two-room shotgun house that his father built for the occasion.[8] Elvis's identical twin brother, Jesse Garon Presley, was delivered 35 minutes before him, stillborn.[9] Presley became close to both parents and formed an especially close bond with his mother. The family attended an Assembly of God church, where he found his initial musical inspiration.[10]

 
A photo of Elvis's parents at the Historic Blue Moon Museum in Verona, Mississippi

Presley's father Vernon was of German,[11] Scottish and English origins.[12] He was a descendant of the Harrison family of Virginia through his ancestor Tunis Hood.[8] Presley's mother Gladys was Scots-Irish with some French Norman ancestry.[13] His mother and the rest of the family believed that her great-great-grandmother, Morning Dove White, was Cherokee.[14][15][16] This belief was restated by Elvis's granddaughter Riley Keough in 2017.[17] Elaine Dundy, in her biography, supports the belief.[18]

Vernon moved from one odd job to the next, showing little ambition.[19][20] The family often relied on help from neighbors and government food assistance. In 1938, they lost their home after Vernon was found guilty of altering a check written by his landowner and sometime-employer. He was jailed for eight months, while Gladys and Elvis moved in with relatives.[10]

In September 1941, Presley entered first grade at East Tupelo Consolidated, where his teachers regarded him as "average".[21] He was encouraged to enter a singing contest after impressing his schoolteacher with a rendition of Red Foley's country song "Old Shep" during morning prayers. The contest, held at the Mississippi–Alabama Fair and Dairy Show on October 3, 1945, was his first public performance. The ten-year-old Presley stood on a chair to reach the microphone and sang "Old Shep". He recalled placing fifth.[22] A few months later, Presley received his first guitar for his birthday; he had hoped for something else—by different accounts, either a bicycle or a rifle.[23][24] Over the following year, he received basic guitar lessons from two of his uncles and the new pastor at the family's church. Presley recalled, "I took the guitar, and I watched people, and I learned to play a little bit. But I would never sing in public. I was very shy about it."[25]

In September 1946, Presley entered a new school, Milam, for sixth grade; he was regarded as a loner. The following year, he began bringing his guitar to school on a daily basis. He played and sang during lunchtime and was often teased as a "trashy" kid who played hillbilly music. By then, the family was living in a largely black neighborhood.[26] Presley was a devotee of Mississippi Slim's show on the Tupelo radio station WELO. He was described as "crazy about music" by Slim's younger brother, who was one of Presley's classmates and often took him into the station. Slim supplemented Presley's guitar instruction by demonstrating chord techniques.[27] When his protégé was 12 years old, Slim scheduled him for two on-air performances. Presley was overcome by stage fright the first time, but succeeded in performing the following week.[28]

Teenage life in Memphis

In November 1948, the family moved to Memphis, Tennessee. After residing for nearly a year in rooming houses, they were granted a two-bedroom apartment in the public housing complex known as the Lauderdale Courts.[29] Enrolled at L. C. Humes High School, Presley received only a C in music in eighth grade. When his music teacher told him that he had no aptitude for singing, he brought in his guitar the next day and sang a recent hit, "Keep Them Cold Icy Fingers Off Me", to prove otherwise. A classmate later recalled that the teacher "agreed that Elvis was right when he said that she didn't appreciate his kind of singing".[30] He was usually too shy to perform openly and was occasionally bullied by classmates who viewed him as a "mama's boy".[31]

In 1950, he began practicing guitar regularly under the tutelage of Lee Denson, a neighbor two and a half years his senior. They and three other boys—including two future rockabilly pioneers, brothers Dorsey and Johnny Burnette—formed a loose musical collective that played frequently around the Courts.[32] That September, he began working as an usher at Loew's State Theater.[33] Other jobs followed at Precision Tool, Loew's again, and MARL Metal Products.[34] Presley also helped Jewish neighbors, the Fruchters, by being their shabbos goy.

During his junior year, Presley began to stand out more among his classmates, largely because of his appearance: he grew his sideburns and styled his hair with rose oil and Vaseline. In his free time, he would head down to Beale Street, the heart of Memphis's thriving blues scene, and gaze longingly at the wild, flashy clothes in the windows of Lansky Brothers. By his senior year, he was wearing those clothes.[35] Overcoming his reticence about performing outside the Lauderdale Courts, he competed in Humes' Annual "Minstrel" show in April 1953. Singing and playing guitar, he opened with "Till I Waltz Again with You", a recent hit for Teresa Brewer. Presley recalled that the performance did much for his reputation: "I wasn't popular in school ... I failed music—only thing I ever failed. And then they entered me in this talent show ... when I came onstage I heard people kind of rumbling and whispering and so forth, 'cause nobody knew I even sang. It was amazing how popular I became in school after that."[36]

Presley, who received no formal music training and could not read music, studied and played by ear. He also frequented record stores that provided jukeboxes and listening booths to customers. He knew all of Hank Snow's songs,[37] and he loved records by other country singers such as Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb, Ted Daffan, Jimmie Rodgers, Jimmie Davis, and Bob Wills.[38] The Southern gospel singer Jake Hess, one of his favorite performers, was a significant influence on his ballad-singing style.[39][40] He was a regular audience member at the monthly All-Night Singings downtown, where many of the white gospel groups that performed reflected the influence of African-American spiritual music.[41] He adored the music of black gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe.[38]

Like some of his peers, he may have attended blues venues—of necessity, in the segregated South—only on nights designated for exclusively white audiences.[42] He certainly listened to the regional radio stations, such as WDIA-AM, that played "race records": spirituals, blues, and the modern, backbeat-heavy sound of rhythm and blues.[43] Many of his future recordings were inspired by local African-American musicians such as Arthur Crudup and Rufus Thomas.[44][45] B.B. King recalled that he had known Presley before he was popular when they both used to frequent Beale Street.[46] By the time he graduated from high school in June 1953, Presley had already singled out music as his future.[47][48]

1953–1956: First recordings

Sam Phillips and Sun Records

 
Presley in a Sun Records promotional photograph, 1954

In August 1953, Presley checked into the offices of Memphis Recording Service, the company run by Sam Phillips before he started Sun Records. He aimed to pay for a few minutes of studio time to record a two-sided acetate disc: "My Happiness" and "That's When Your Heartaches Begin". He later claimed that he intended the record as a birthday gift for his mother, or that he was merely interested in what he "sounded like", although there was a much cheaper, amateur record-making service at a nearby general store. Biographer Peter Guralnick argued that he chose Sun in the hope of being discovered. Asked by receptionist Marion Keisker what kind of singer he was, Presley responded, "I sing all kinds." When she pressed him on who he sounded like, he repeatedly answered, "I don't sound like nobody." After he recorded, Sun boss Sam Phillips asked Keisker to note down the young man's name, which she did along with her own commentary: "Good ballad singer. Hold."[49]

In January 1954, Presley cut a second acetate at Sun Records—"I'll Never Stand in Your Way" and "It Wouldn't Be the Same Without You"—but again nothing came of it.[50] Not long after, he failed an audition for a local vocal quartet, the Songfellows. He explained to his father, "They told me I couldn't sing."[51] Songfellow Jim Hamill later claimed that he was turned down because he did not demonstrate an ear for harmony at the time.[52] In April, Presley began working for the Crown Electric company as a truck driver.[53] His friend Ronnie Smith, after playing a few local gigs with him, suggested he contact Eddie Bond, leader of Smith's professional band, which had an opening for a vocalist. Bond rejected him after a tryout, advising Presley to stick to truck driving "because you're never going to make it as a singer".[54]

Phillips, meanwhile, was always on the lookout for someone who could bring to a broader audience the sound of the black musicians on whom Sun focused. As Keisker reported, "Over and over I remember Sam saying, 'If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars.'"[55] In June, he acquired a demo recording by Jimmy Sweeney of a ballad, "Without You", that he thought might suit the teenage singer. Presley came by the studio but was unable to do it justice. Despite this, Phillips asked Presley to sing as many numbers as he knew. He was sufficiently affected by what he heard to invite two local musicians, guitarist Winfield "Scotty" Moore and upright bass player Bill Black, to work something up with Presley for a recording session.[56]

The session held the evening of July 5, proved entirely unfruitful until late in the night. As they were about to abort and go home, Presley took his guitar and launched into a 1946 blues number, Arthur Crudup's "That's All Right". Moore recalled, "All of a sudden, Elvis just started singing this song, jumping around and acting the fool, and then Bill picked up his bass, and he started acting the fool, too, and I started playing with them. Sam, I think, had the door to the control booth open ... he stuck his head out and said, 'What are you doing?' And we said, 'We don't know.' 'Well, back up,' he said, 'try to find a place to start, and do it again.'" Phillips quickly began taping; this was the sound he had been looking for.[58]

Three days later, popular Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips played "That's All Right" on his Red, Hot, and Blue show.[59] Listeners began phoning in, eager to find out who the singer was. The interest was such that Phillips played the record repeatedly during the remaining two hours of his show. Interviewing Presley on-air, Phillips asked him what high school he attended to clarify his color for the many callers who had assumed that he was black.[60] During the next few days, the trio recorded a bluegrass song, Bill Monroe's "Blue Moon of Kentucky", again in a distinctive style and employing a jury-rigged echo effect that Sam Phillips dubbed "slapback". A single was pressed with "That's All Right" on the A-side and "Blue Moon of Kentucky" on the reverse.[61]

Early live performances and RCA Victor contract

The trio played publicly for the first time on July 17 at the Bon Air club—Presley still sporting his child-size guitar.[62] At the end of the month, they appeared at the Overton Park Shell, with Slim Whitman headlining. Here Elvis pioneered 'Rubber Legs', his signature style dance movement that he is best known for.[63][64] A combination of his strong response to rhythm and nervousness at playing before a large crowd led Presley to shake his legs as he performed: his wide-cut pants emphasized his movements, causing young women in the audience to start screaming.[65] Moore recalled, "During the instrumental parts, he would back off from the mike and be playing and shaking, and the crowd would just go wild".[66] Black, a natural showman, whooped and rode his bass, hitting double licks that Presley would later remember as "really a wild sound, like a jungle drum or something".[66]

Soon after, Moore and Black left their old band, the Starlite Wranglers, to play with Presley regularly, and DJ/promoter Bob Neal became the trio's manager. From August through October, they played frequently at the Eagle's Nest club and returned to Sun Studio for more recording sessions,[67] and Presley quickly grew more confident on stage. According to Moore, "His movement was a natural thing, but he was also very conscious of what got a reaction. He'd do something one time and then he would expand on it real quick."[68] Presley made what would be his only appearance on Nashville's Grand Ole Opry stage on October 2; after a polite audience response, Opry manager Jim Denny told Phillips that his singer was "not bad" but did not suit the program.[69][70]

Louisiana Hayride, radio commercial, and first television performances

In November 1954, Presley performed on Louisiana Hayride—the Opry's chief, and more adventurous, rival. The Shreveport-based show was broadcast to 198 radio stations in 28 states. He had another attack of nerves during the first set, which drew a muted reaction. A more composed and energetic second set inspired an enthusiastic response.[71] House drummer D. J. Fontana brought a new element, complementing Presley's movements with accented beats that he had mastered playing in strip clubs.[72] Soon after the show, the Hayride engaged Presley for a year's worth of Saturday-night appearances. Trading in his old guitar for $8 (and seeing it promptly dispatched to the garbage), he purchased a Martin instrument for $175 (equivalent to $1,800 in 2021), and his trio began playing in new locales, including Houston, Texas and Texarkana, Arkansas.[73]

Many fledgling performers, like Minnie Pearl, Johnny Horton, and Johnny Cash, sang the praises of Louisiana Hayride sponsor, Southern Maid Donuts, including Presley, who developed a lifelong love of donuts.[74] Presley made his singular product endorsement commercial for the donut company, which was never released, recording a radio jingle, "in exchange for a box of hot glazed doughnuts."[75][76]

Presley made his first television appearance on the KSLA-TV television broadcast of Louisiana Hayride. Soon after, he failed an audition for Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts on the CBS television network. By early 1955, Presley's regular Hayride appearances, constant touring, and well-received record releases had made him a regional star, from Tennessee to West Texas. In January, Neal signed a formal management contract with Presley and brought him to the attention of Colonel Tom Parker, whom he considered the best promoter in the music business. Parker—who claimed to be from West Virginia (he was actually Dutch)—had acquired an honorary colonel's commission from country singer turned Louisiana governor Jimmie Davis. Having successfully managed top country star Eddy Arnold, Parker was working with the new number-one country singer, Hank Snow. Parker booked Presley on Snow's February tour.[77][78] When the tour reached Odessa, Texas, a 19-year-old Roy Orbison saw Presley for the first time: "His energy was incredible, his instinct was just amazing. ... I just didn't know what to make of it. There was just no reference point in the culture to compare it."[37] By August, Sun had released ten sides credited to "Elvis Presley, Scotty and Bill"; on the latest recordings, the trio were joined by a drummer. Some of the songs, like "That's All Right", were in what one Memphis journalist described as the "R&B idiom of negro field jazz"; others, like "Blue Moon of Kentucky", were "more in the country field", "but there was a curious blending of the two different musics in both".[79] This blend of styles made it difficult for Presley's music to find radio airplay. According to Neal, many country-music disc jockeys would not play it because he sounded too much like a black artist and none of the rhythm-and-blues stations would touch him because "he sounded too much like a hillbilly."[80] The blend came to be known as rockabilly. At the time, Presley was variously billed as "The King of Western Bop", "The Hillbilly Cat", and "The Memphis Flash".[81]

Presley renewed Neal's management contract in August 1955, simultaneously appointing Parker as his special adviser.[82] The group maintained an extensive touring schedule throughout the second half of the year.[83] Neal recalled, "It was almost frightening, the reaction that came to Elvis from the teenaged boys. So many of them, through some sort of jealousy, would practically hate him. There were occasions in some towns in Texas when we'd have to be sure to have a police guard because somebody'd always try to take a crack at him. They'd get a gang and try to waylay him or something."[84] The trio became a quartet when Hayride drummer Fontana joined as a full member. In mid-October, they played a few shows in support of Bill Haley, whose "Rock Around the Clock" track had been a number-one hit the previous year. Haley observed that Presley had a natural feel for rhythm, and advised him to sing fewer ballads.[85]

At the Country Disc Jockey Convention in early November, Presley was voted the year's most promising male artist.[86] Several record companies had by now shown interest in signing him. After three major labels made offers of up to $25,000, Parker and Phillips struck a deal with RCA Victor on November 21 to acquire Presley's Sun contract for an unprecedented $40,000.[87][b] Presley, at 20, was still a minor, so his father signed the contract.[88] Parker arranged with the owners of Hill & Range Publishing, Jean and Julian Aberbach, to create two entities, Elvis Presley Music and Gladys Music, to handle all the new material recorded by Presley. Songwriters were obliged to forgo one-third of their customary royalties in exchange for having him perform their compositions.[89][c] By December, RCA Victor had begun to heavily promote its new singer, and before month's end had reissued many of his Sun recordings.[92]

1956–1958: Commercial breakout and controversy

First national TV appearances and debut album

On January 10, 1956, Presley made his first recordings for RCA Victor in Nashville.[93] Extending Presley's by-now customary backup of Moore, Black, Fontana, and Hayride pianist Floyd Cramer—who had been performing at live club dates with Presley—RCA Victor enlisted guitarist Chet Atkins and three background singers, including Gordon Stoker of the popular Jordanaires quartet, to fill in the sound.[94] The session produced the moody, unusual "Heartbreak Hotel", released as a single on January 27.[93] Parker finally brought Presley to national television, booking him on CBS's Stage Show for six appearances over two months. The program, produced in New York, was hosted on alternate weeks by big band leaders and brothers Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. After his first appearance, on January 28, Presley stayed in town to record at the RCA Victor New York studio. The sessions yielded eight songs, including a cover of Carl Perkins' rockabilly anthem "Blue Suede Shoes". In February, Presley's "I Forgot to Remember to Forget", a Sun recording initially released the previous August, reached the top of the Billboard country chart.[95] Neal's contract was terminated, and, on March 2, Parker became Presley's manager.[96]

RCA Victor released Presley's self-titled debut album on March 23. Joined by five previously unreleased Sun recordings, its seven recently recorded tracks were of a broad variety. There were two country songs and a bouncy pop tune. The others would centrally define the evolving sound of rock and roll: "Blue Suede Shoes"—"an improvement over Perkins' in almost every way", according to critic Robert Hilburn—and three R&B numbers that had been part of Presley's stage repertoire for some time, covers of Little Richard, Ray Charles, and The Drifters. As described by Hilburn, these "were the most revealing of all. Unlike many white artists ... who watered down the gritty edges of the original R&B versions of songs in the '50s, Presley reshaped them. He not only injected the tunes with his own vocal character but also made guitar, not piano, the lead instrument in all three cases."[97] It became the first rock and roll album to top the Billboard chart, a position it held for 10 weeks.[93] While Presley was not an innovative guitarist like Moore or contemporary African-American rockers Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry, cultural historian Gilbert B. Rodman argued that the album's cover image, "of Elvis having the time of his life on stage with a guitar in his hands played a crucial role in positioning the guitar ... as the instrument that best captured the style and spirit of this new music."[98]

Milton Berle Show and "Hound Dog"

 
Presley signing autographs in Minneapolis in 1956

On April 3, Presley made the first of two appearances on NBC's Milton Berle Show. His performance, on the deck of the USS Hancock in San Diego, California, prompted cheers and screams from an audience of sailors and their dates.[99] A few days later, a flight taking Presley and his band to Nashville for a recording session left all three badly shaken when an engine died and the plane almost went down over Arkansas.[100] Twelve weeks after its original release, "Heartbreak Hotel" became Presley's first number-one pop hit. In late April, Presley began a two-week residency at the New Frontier Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.[101] The shows were poorly received by the conservative, middle-aged hotel guests—"like a jug of corn liquor at a champagne party", wrote a critic for Newsweek.[102] Amid his Vegas tenure, Presley, who had serious acting ambitions, signed a seven-year contract with Paramount Pictures.[103] He began a tour of the Midwest in mid-May, taking in 15 cities in as many days.[104] He had attended several shows by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys in Vegas and was struck by their cover of "Hound Dog", a hit in 1953 for blues singer Big Mama Thornton by songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. It became the new closing number of his act.[105] After a show in La Crosse, Wisconsin, an urgent message on the letterhead of the local Catholic diocese's newspaper was sent to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. It warned that "Presley is a definite danger to the security of the United States. ... [His] actions and motions were such as to rouse the sexual passions of teenaged youth. ... After the show, more than 1,000 teenagers tried to gang into Presley's room at the auditorium. ... Indications of the harm Presley did just in La Crosse were the two high school girls ... whose abdomen and thigh had Presley's autograph."[106]

The second Milton Berle Show appearance came on June 5 at NBC's Hollywood studio, amid another hectic tour. Berle persuaded Presley to leave his guitar backstage, advising, "Let 'em see you, son."[107] During the performance, Presley abruptly halted an uptempo rendition of "Hound Dog" with a wave of his arm and launched into a slow, grinding version accentuated with energetic, exaggerated body movements.[107] Presley's gyrations created a storm of controversy.[108] Television critics were outraged: Jack Gould of The New York Times wrote, "Mr. Presley has no discernible singing ability. ... His phrasing, if it can be called that, consists of the stereotyped variations that go with a beginner's aria in a bathtub. ... His one specialty is an accented movement of the body ... primarily identified with the repertoire of the blond bombshells of the burlesque runway."[109] Ben Gross of the New York Daily News opined that popular music "has reached its lowest depths in the 'grunt and groin' antics of one Elvis Presley. ... Elvis, who rotates his pelvis ... gave an exhibition that was suggestive and vulgar, tinged with the kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos".[110] Ed Sullivan, whose own variety show was the nation's most popular, declared him "unfit for family viewing".[111] To Presley's displeasure, he soon found himself being referred to as "Elvis the Pelvis", which he called "one of the most childish expressions I ever heard, comin' from an adult".[112]

Steve Allen Show and first Sullivan appearance

 
Ed Sullivan and Presley during rehearsals for his second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, October 26, 1956

The Berle shows drew such high ratings that Presley was booked for a July 1 appearance on NBC's Steve Allen Show in New York. Allen, no fan of rock and roll, introduced a "new Elvis" in a white bow tie and black tails. Presley sang "Hound Dog" for less than a minute to a basset hound wearing a top hat and bow tie. As described by television historian Jake Austen, "Allen thought Presley was talentless and absurd ... [he] set things up so that Presley would show his contrition".[113] Allen later wrote that he found Presley's "strange, gangly, country-boy charisma, his hard-to-define cuteness, and his charming eccentricity intriguing" and simply worked him into the customary "comedy fabric" of his program.[114] Just before the final rehearsal for the show, Presley told a reporter, "I'm holding down on this show. I don't want to do anything to make people dislike me. I think TV is important so I'm going to go along, but I won't be able to give the kind of show I do in a personal appearance."[115] Presley would refer back to the Allen show as the most ridiculous performance of his career.[116] Later that night, he appeared on Hy Gardner Calling, a popular local TV show. Pressed on whether he had learned anything from the criticism to which he was being subjected, Presley responded, "No, I haven't, I don't feel like I'm doing anything wrong. ... I don't see how any type of music would have any bad influence on people when it's only music. ... I mean, how would rock 'n' roll music make anyone rebel against their parents?"[110]

The next day, Presley recorded "Hound Dog", along with "Any Way You Want Me" and "Don't Be Cruel". The Jordanaires sang harmony, as they had on The Steve Allen Show; they would work with Presley through the 1960s. A few days later, Presley made an outdoor concert appearance in Memphis, at which he announced, "You know, those people in New York are not gonna change me none. I'm gonna show you what the real Elvis is like tonight."[117] In August, a judge in Jacksonville, Florida, ordered Presley to tame his act. Throughout the following performance, he largely kept still, except for wiggling his little finger suggestively in mockery of the order.[118] The single pairing "Don't Be Cruel" with "Hound Dog" ruled the top of the charts for 11 weeks—a mark that would not be surpassed for 36 years.[119] Recording sessions for Presley's second album took place in Hollywood during the first week of September. Leiber and Stoller, the writers of "Hound Dog", contributed "Love Me".[120]

Allen's show with Presley had, for the first time, beaten CBS's Ed Sullivan Show in the ratings. Sullivan, despite his June pronouncement, booked Presley for three appearances for an unprecedented $50,000.[121] The first, on September 9, 1956, was seen by approximately 60 million viewers—a record 82.6 percent of the television audience.[122] Actor Charles Laughton hosted the show, filling in while Sullivan was recovering from a car accident.[111] Presley appeared in two segments that night from CBS Television City in Los Angeles. According to Elvis legend, Presley was shot only from the waist up. Watching clips of the Allen and Berle shows with his producer, Sullivan had opined that Presley "got some kind of device hanging down below the crotch of his pants—so when he moves his legs back and forth you can see the outline of his cock. ... I think it's a Coke bottle. ... We just can't have this on a Sunday night. This is a family show!"[123] Sullivan publicly told TV Guide, "As for his gyrations, the whole thing can be controlled with camera shots."[121] In fact, Presley was shown head-to-toe in the first and second shows. Though the camerawork was relatively discreet during his debut, with leg-concealing closeups when he danced, the studio audience reacted in customary style: screaming.[124][125] Presley's performance of his forthcoming single, the ballad "Love Me Tender", prompted a record-shattering million advance orders.[126] More than any other single event, it was this first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show that made Presley a national celebrity of barely precedented proportions.[111]

Accompanying Presley's rise to fame, a cultural shift was taking place that he both helped inspire and came to symbolize. The historian Marty Jezer wrote that Presley began the "biggest pop craze" since Glenn Miller and Frank Sinatra  and brought rock and roll to mainstream culture: "As Presley set the artistic pace, other artists followed. ... Presley, more than anyone else, gave the young a belief in themselves as a distinct and somehow unified generation—the first in America ever to feel the power of an integrated youth culture."[127]

Crazed crowds and film debut

 
Presley performing live at the Mississippi-Alabama Fairgrounds in Tupelo, September 26, 1956

The audience response at Presley's live shows became increasingly fevered. Moore recalled, "He'd start out, 'You ain't nothin' but a Hound Dog,' and they'd just go to pieces. They'd always react the same way. There'd be a riot every time."[128] At the two concerts he performed in September at the Mississippi–Alabama Fair and Dairy Show, 50 National Guardsmen were added to the police security to ensure that the crowd would not cause a ruckus.[129] Elvis, Presley's second RCA Victor album, was released in October and quickly rose to number one on the billboard. The album includes "Old Shep", which he sang at the talent show in 1945, and which now marked the first time he played piano on an RCA Victor session. According to Guralnick, one can hear "in the halting chords and the somewhat stumbling rhythm both the unmistakable emotion and the equally unmistakable valuing of emotion over technique."[130] Assessing the musical and cultural impact of Presley's recordings from "That's All Right" through Elvis, rock critic Dave Marsh wrote that "these records, more than any others, contain the seeds of what rock & roll was, has been and most likely what it may foreseeably become."[131]

Presley returned to the Sullivan show at its main studio in New York, hosted this time by its namesake, on October 28. After the performance, crowds in Nashville and St. Louis burned him in effigy.[111] His first motion picture, Love Me Tender, was released on November 21. Though he was not top-billed, the film's original title—The Reno Brothers—was changed to capitalize on his latest number-one record: "Love Me Tender" had hit the top of the charts earlier that month. To further take advantage of Presley's popularity, four musical numbers were added to what was originally a straight acting role. The film was panned by critics but did very well at the box office.[103] Presley would receive top billing on every subsequent film he made.[132]

On December 4, Presley dropped into Sun Records where Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis were recording and had an impromptu jam session along with Johnny Cash. Though Phillips no longer had the right to release any Presley material, he made sure that the session was captured on tape. The results, none officially released for 25 years, became known as the "Million Dollar Quartet" recordings.[133] The year ended with a front-page story in The Wall Street Journal reporting that Presley merchandise had brought in $22 million on top of his record sales,[134] and Billboard's declaration that he had placed more songs in the top 100 than any other artist since records were first charted.[135] In his first full year at RCA Victor, then the record industry's largest company, Presley had accounted for over 50 percent of the label's singles sales.[126]

Leiber and Stoller collaboration and draft notice

 
 
Elvis in publicity photos for the 1957 film Jailhouse Rock

Presley made his third and final Ed Sullivan Show appearance on January 6, 1957—on this occasion indeed shot only down to the waist. Some commentators have claimed that Parker orchestrated an appearance of censorship to generate publicity.[125][136] In any event, as critic Greil Marcus describes, Presley "did not tie himself down. Leaving behind the bland clothes he had worn on the first two shows, he stepped out in the outlandish costume of a pasha, if not a harem girl. From the make-up over his eyes, the hair falling in his face, the overwhelmingly sexual cast of his mouth, he was playing Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik, with all stops out."[111] To close, displaying his range and defying Sullivan's wishes, Presley sang a gentle black spiritual, "Peace in the Valley". At the end of the show, Sullivan declared Presley "a real decent, fine boy".[137] Two days later, the Memphis draft board announced that Presley would be classified 1-A and would probably be drafted sometime that year.[138]

Each of the three Presley singles released in the first half of 1957 went to number one: "Too Much", "All Shook Up", and "(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear". Already an international star, he was attracting fans even where his music was not officially released. Under the headline "Presley Records a Craze in Soviet", The New York Times reported that pressings of his music on discarded X-ray plates were commanding high prices in Leningrad.[139] Between film shoots and recording sessions, Presley purchased an 18-room mansion, Graceland, on March 19, 1957, for the amount of $102,500. The mansion, which was about 9 miles (14 km) south of downtown Memphis,[140] was for himself and his parents.[141][142] Before the purchase, Elvis recorded Loving You—the soundtrack to his second film, which was released in July. It was Presley's third straight number-one album. The title track was written by Leiber and Stoller, who were then retained to write four of the six songs recorded at the sessions for Jailhouse Rock, Presley's next film. The songwriting team effectively produced the Jailhouse sessions and developed a close working relationship with Presley, who came to regard them as his "good-luck charm".[143] "He was fast," said Leiber. "Any demo you gave him he knew by heart in ten minutes."[144] The title track became another number-one hit, as was the Jailhouse Rock EP.[145]

 
Presley and costar Judy Tyler in the trailer for Jailhouse Rock, released October 1957

Presley undertook three brief tours during the year, continuing to generate a crazed audience response.[146] A Detroit newspaper suggested that "the trouble with going to see Elvis Presley is that you're liable to get killed".[147] Villanova students pelted him with eggs in Philadelphia,[147] and in Vancouver the crowd rioted after the end of the show, destroying the stage.[148] Frank Sinatra, who had inspired both the swooning and screaming of teenage girls in the 1940s, condemned the new musical phenomenon. In a magazine article, he decried rock and roll as "brutal, ugly, degenerate, vicious. ... It fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people. It smells phoney and false. It is sung, played and written, for the most part, by cretinous goons. ... This rancid-smelling aphrodisiac I deplore."[149] Asked for a response, Presley said, "I admire the man. He has a right to say what he wants to say. He is a great success and a fine actor, but I think he shouldn't have said it. ... This is a trend, just the same as he faced when he started years ago."[150]

Leiber and Stoller were again in the studio for the recording of Elvis' Christmas Album. Toward the end of the session, they wrote a song on the spot at Presley's request: "Santa Claus Is Back in Town", an innuendo-laden blues.[151] The holiday release stretched Presley's string of number-one albums to four and would become the best-selling Christmas album ever in the United States,[152][153] with eventual sales of over 20 million worldwide.[154] After the session, Moore and Black—drawing only modest weekly salaries, sharing in none of Presley's massive financial success—resigned. Though they were brought back on a per diem basis a few weeks later, it was clear that they had not been part of Presley's inner circle for some time.[155] On December 20, Presley received his draft notice. He was granted a deferment to finish the forthcoming King Creole, in which $350,000 had already been invested by Paramount and producer Hal Wallis. A couple of weeks into the new year, "Don't", another Leiber and Stoller tune, became Presley's tenth number-one seller. It had been only 21 months since "Heartbreak Hotel" had brought him to the top for the first time. Recording sessions for the King Creole soundtrack were held in Hollywood in mid-January 1958. Leiber and Stoller provided three songs and were again on hand, but it would be the last time Presley and the duo worked closely together.[156] As Stoller later recalled, Presley's manager and entourage sought to wall him off: "He was removed. ... They kept him separate."[157] A brief soundtrack session on February 11 marked another ending—it was the final occasion on which Black was to perform with Presley.[158] He died in 1965.[159]

1958–1960: Military service and mother's death

 
Presley being sworn into the Army on March 24, 1958, at Fort Chaffee

On March 24, 1958, Presley was drafted into the United States Army at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. His arrival was a major media event. Hundreds of people descended on Presley as he stepped from the bus; photographers then accompanied him into the installation.[160] Presley announced that he was looking forward to his military stint, saying that he did not want to be treated any differently from anyone else: "The Army can do anything it wants with me."[161]

Between March 28 and September 17, 1958, Presley completed basic and advanced military training at Fort Hood, Texas, where he was temporarily assigned to Company A, 2d Medium Tank Battalion, 37th Armor. During the two weeks' leave between his basic and advanced training in early June, Presley recorded five songs in Nashville.[162] In early August, his mother was diagnosed with hepatitis, and her condition rapidly worsened. He was granted emergency leave to visit her and arrived in Memphis on August 12. Two days later, she died of heart failure at age 46. Presley was devastated and never the same;[163][164] their relationship had remained extremely close—even into his adulthood, they would use baby talk with each other and Presley would address her with pet names.[4]

On October 1, 1958, Presley was assigned to the 1st Medium Tank Battalion, 32d Armor, 3d Armored Division, at Ray Barracks, Germany, where he served as an armor intelligence specialist.[1] On November 27, he was promoted to private first class and on June 1, 1959, to specialist fourth class. While on maneuvers, Presley was introduced to amphetamines by another soldier. He became "practically evangelical about their benefits", not only for energy but for "strength" and weight loss as well, and many of his friends in the outfit joined him in indulging.[165] The Army also introduced Presley to karate,[166] which he studied seriously, training with Jürgen Seydel.[167][168] It became a lifelong interest, which he later included in his live performances.[169][170][171] Fellow soldiers have attested to Presley's wish to be seen as an able, ordinary soldier, despite his fame, and to his generosity. He donated his Army pay to charity, purchased TV sets for the base, and bought an extra set of fatigues for everyone in his outfit.[172]

 
Presley, wearing the 3d Armored Division Shoulder Sleeve Insignia, poses atop a tank at Ray Barracks

While in Bad Nauheim, Germany, Presley met 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu. They would eventually marry after a seven-and-a-half-year courtship. In her autobiography, Priscilla said that Presley was concerned that his 24-month spell as a G.I. would ruin his career. In Special Services, he would have been able to give musical performances and remain in touch with the public, but Parker had convinced him that to gain popular respect, he should serve his country as a regular soldier.[173] Media reports echoed Presley's concerns about his career, but RCA Victor producer Steve Sholes and Freddy Bienstock of Hill and Range had carefully prepared for his two-year hiatus. Armed with a substantial amount of unreleased material, they kept up a regular stream of successful releases.[174] Between his induction and discharge, Presley had ten top 40 hits, including "Wear My Ring Around Your Neck", the bestselling "Hard Headed Woman", and "One Night" in 1958, and "(Now and Then There's) A Fool Such as I" and the number-one "A Big Hunk o' Love" in 1959.[175] RCA Victor also generated four albums compiling previously issued material during this period, most successfully Elvis' Golden Records (1958), which hit number three on the LP chart.[176]

Presley was promoted to sergeant on February 11, 1960.[1]

1960–1968: Focus on films

Elvis Is Back

Presley returned to the United States on March 2, 1960, and was honorably discharged three days later with the rank of sergeant.[178] The train that carried him from New Jersey to Tennessee was mobbed all the way, and Presley was called upon to appear at scheduled stops to please his fans.[179] On the night of March 20, he entered RCA Victor's Nashville studio to cut tracks for a new album along with a single, "Stuck on You", which was rushed into release and swiftly became a number-one hit.[180] Another Nashville session two weeks later yielded a pair of his bestselling singles, the ballads "It's Now or Never" and "Are You Lonesome Tonight?", along with the rest of Elvis Is Back! The album features several songs described by Greil Marcus as full of Chicago blues "menace, driven by Presley's own super-miked acoustic guitar, brilliant playing by Scotty Moore, and demonic sax work from Boots Randolph. Elvis' singing wasn't sexy, it was pornographic."[181] As a whole, the record "conjured up the vision of a performer who could be all things", according to music historian John Robertson: "a flirtatious teenage idol with a heart of gold; a tempestuous, dangerous lover; a gutbucket blues singer; a sophisticated nightclub entertainer; [a] raucous rocker".[182] Released only days after recording was complete, it reached number two on the album chart.[183][184]

 
Presley with Juliet Prowse in G.I. Blues

Presley returned to television on May 12 as a guest on The Frank Sinatra Timex Special—ironic for both stars, given Sinatra's earlier excoriation of rock and roll. Also known as Welcome Home Elvis, the show had been taped in late March, the only time all year Presley performed in front of an audience. Parker secured an unheard-of $125,000 fee for eight minutes of singing. The broadcast drew an enormous viewership.[185]

G.I. Blues, the soundtrack to Presley's first film since his return, was a number-one album in October. His first LP of sacred material, His Hand in Mine, followed two months later. It reached number 13 on the U.S. pop chart and number 3 in the UK, remarkable figures for a gospel album. In February 1961, Presley performed two shows for a benefit event in Memphis, on behalf of 24 local charities. During a luncheon preceding the event, RCA Victor presented him with a plaque certifying worldwide sales of over 75 million records.[186] A 12-hour Nashville session in mid-March yielded nearly all of Presley's next studio album, Something for Everybody.[187] As described by John Robertson, it exemplifies the Nashville sound, the restrained, cosmopolitan style that would define country music in the 1960s. Presaging much of what was to come from Presley himself over the next half-decade, the album is largely "a pleasant, unthreatening pastiche of the music that had once been Elvis' birthright".[188] It would be his sixth number-one LP. Another benefit concert, raising money for a Pearl Harbor memorial, was staged on March 25, in Hawaii. It was to be Presley's last public performance for seven years.[189]

Lost in Hollywood

Parker had by now pushed Presley into a heavy filmmaking schedule, focused on formulaic, modestly budgeted musical comedies. Presley, at first, insisted on pursuing higher roles, but when two films in a more dramatic vein—Flaming Star (1960) and Wild in the Country (1961)—were less commercially successful, he reverted to the formula. Among the 27 films he made during the 1960s, there were a few further exceptions.[190] His films were almost universally panned; critic Andrew Caine dismissed them as a "pantheon of bad taste".[191] Nonetheless, they were virtually all profitable. Hal Wallis, who produced nine of them, declared, "A Presley picture is the only sure thing in Hollywood."[192]

Of Presley's films in the 1960s, 15 were accompanied by soundtrack albums and another 5 by soundtrack EPs. The films' rapid production and release schedules—he frequently starred in three a year—affected his music. According to Jerry Leiber, the soundtrack formula was already evident before Presley left for the Army: "three ballads, one medium-tempo [number], one up-tempo, and one break blues boogie".[193] As the decade wore on, the quality of the soundtrack songs grew "progressively worse".[194] Julie Parrish, who appeared in Paradise, Hawaiian Style (1966), says that he disliked many of the songs chosen for his films.[195] The Jordanaires' Gordon Stoker describes how Presley would retreat from the studio microphone: "The material was so bad that he felt like he couldn't sing it."[196] Most of the film albums featured a song or two from respected writers such as the team of Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman. But by and large, according to biographer Jerry Hopkins, the numbers seemed to be "written on order by men who never really understood Elvis or rock and roll".[197] Regardless of the songs' quality, it has been argued that Presley generally sang them well, with commitment.[198] Critic Dave Marsh heard the opposite: "Presley isn't trying, probably the wisest course in the face of material like 'No Room to Rumba in a Sports Car' and 'Rock-A-Hula Baby'."[131]

In the first half of the decade, three of Presley's soundtrack albums were ranked number one on the pop charts, and a few of his most popular songs came from his films, such as "Can't Help Falling in Love" (1961) and "Return to Sender" (1962). ("Viva Las Vegas", the title track to the 1964 film, was a minor hit as a B-side, and became truly popular only later). But, as with artistic merit, the commercial returns steadily diminished. During a five-year span—1964 through 1968—Presley had only one top-ten hit: "Crying in the Chapel" (1965), a gospel number recorded back in 1960. As for non-film albums, between the June 1962 release of Pot Luck and the November 1968 release of the soundtrack to the television special that signaled his comeback, only one LP of new material by Presley was issued: the gospel album How Great Thou Art (1967). It won him his first Grammy Award, for Best Sacred Performance. As Marsh described, Presley was "arguably the greatest white gospel singer of his time [and] really the last rock & roll artist to make gospel as vital a component of his musical personality as his secular songs".[199]

Shortly before Christmas 1966, more than seven years since they first met, Presley proposed to Priscilla Beaulieu. They were married on May 1, 1967, in a brief ceremony in their suite at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas.[200] The flow of formulaic films and assembly-line soundtracks rolled on. It was not until October 1967, when the Clambake soundtrack LP registered record low sales for a new Presley album, that RCA executives recognized a problem. "By then, of course, the damage had been done", as historians Connie Kirchberg and Marc Hendrickx put it. "Elvis was viewed as a joke by serious music lovers and a has-been to all but his most loyal fans."[201]

1968–1973: Comeback

Elvis: the '68 Comeback Special

 
The '68 Comeback Special produced "one of the most famous images" of Presley.[202] Taken on June 29, 1968, it was adapted for the cover of Rolling Stone in July 1969.[202][203]

Presley's only child, Lisa Marie, was born on February 1, 1968, during a period when he had grown deeply unhappy with his career.[204] Of the eight Presley singles released between January 1967 and May 1968, only two charted in the top 40, and none higher than number 28.[205] His forthcoming soundtrack album, Speedway, would rank at number 82 on the Billboard chart. Parker had already shifted his plans to television, where Presley had not appeared since the Sinatra Timex show in 1960. He maneuvered a deal with NBC that committed the network to both finance a theatrical feature and broadcast a Christmas special.[206]

Recorded in late June in Burbank, California, the special, simply called Elvis, aired on December 3, 1968. Later known as the '68 Comeback Special, the show featured lavishly staged studio productions as well as songs performed with a band in front of a small audience—Presley's first live performances since 1961. The live segments saw Presley dressed in tight black leather, singing and playing guitar in an uninhibited style reminiscent of his early rock and roll days. Director and co-producer Steve Binder had worked hard to produce a show that was far from the hour of Christmas songs Parker had originally planned.[207] The show, NBC's highest-rated that season, captured 42 percent of the total viewing audience.[208] Jon Landau of Eye magazine remarked, "There is something magical about watching a man who has lost himself find his way back home. He sang with the kind of power people no longer expect of rock 'n' roll singers. He moved his body with a lack of pretension and effort that must have made Jim Morrison green with envy."[209] Dave Marsh calls the performance one of "emotional grandeur and historical resonance".[210]

By January 1969, the single "If I Can Dream", written for the special, reached number 12. The soundtrack album rose into the top ten. According to friend Jerry Schilling, the special reminded Presley of what "he had not been able to do for years, being able to choose the people; being able to choose what songs and not being told what had to be on the soundtrack. ... He was out of prison, man."[208] Binder said of Presley's reaction, "I played Elvis the 60-minute show, and he told me in the screening room, 'Steve, it's the greatest thing I've ever done in my life. I give you my word I will never sing a song I don't believe in.'"[208]

From Elvis in Memphis and the International

Buoyed by the experience of the Comeback Special, Presley engaged in a prolific series of recording sessions at American Sound Studio, which led to the acclaimed From Elvis in Memphis. Released in June 1969, it was his first secular, non-soundtrack album from a dedicated period in the studio in eight years. As described by Dave Marsh, it is "a masterpiece in which Presley immediately catches up with pop music trends that had seemed to pass him by during the movie years. He sings country songs, soul songs and rockers with real conviction, a stunning achievement."[212] The album featured the hit single "In the Ghetto", issued in April, which reached number three on the pop chart—Presley's first non-gospel top ten hit since "Bossa Nova Baby" in 1963. Further hit singles were culled from the American Sound sessions: "Suspicious Minds", "Don't Cry Daddy", and "Kentucky Rain".[213]

Presley was keen to resume regular live performing. Following the success of the Comeback Special, offers came in from around the world. The London Palladium offered Parker US$28,000 (equivalent to $207,000 in 2021) for a one-week engagement. He responded, "That's fine for me, now how much can you get for Elvis?"[214] In May, the brand-new International Hotel in Las Vegas, boasting the largest showroom in the city, announced that it had booked Presley. He was scheduled to perform 57 shows over four weeks, beginning July 31. Moore, Fontana, and the Jordanaires declined to participate, afraid of losing the lucrative session work they had in Nashville. Presley assembled new, top-notch accompaniment, led by guitarist James Burton and including two gospel groups, The Imperials and Sweet Inspirations.[215] Costume designer Bill Belew, responsible for the intense leather styling of the Comeback Special, created a new stage look for Presley, inspired by Presley's passion for karate.[216] Nonetheless, he was nervous: his only previous Las Vegas engagement, in 1956, had been dismal. Parker, who intended to make Presley's return the show business event of the year, oversaw a major promotional push. For his part, International Hotel owner Kirk Kerkorian arranged to send his own plane to New York to fly in rock journalists for the debut performance.[217]

Presley took to the stage without introduction. The audience of 2,200, including many celebrities, gave him a standing ovation before he sang a note and another after his performance. A third followed his encore, "Can't Help Falling in Love" (a song that would be his closing number for much of his remaining life).[218] At a press conference after the show, when a journalist referred to him as "The King", Presley gestured toward Fats Domino, who was taking in the scene. "No," Presley said, "that's the real king of rock and roll."[219] The next day, Parker's negotiations with the hotel resulted in a five-year contract for Presley to play each February and August, at an annual salary of $1 million.[220] Newsweek commented, "There are several unbelievable things about Elvis, but the most incredible is his staying power in a world where meteoric careers fade like shooting stars."[221] Rolling Stone called Presley "supernatural, his own resurrection."[222] In November, Presley's final non-concert film, Change of Habit, opened. The double album From Memphis to Vegas/From Vegas to Memphis came out the same month; the first LP consisted of live performances from the International, the second of more cuts from the American Sound sessions. "Suspicious Minds" reached the top of the charts—Presley's first U.S. pop number-one in over seven years, and his last.[223]

Cassandra Peterson, later television's Elvira, met Presley during this period in Las Vegas, where she was working as a showgirl. She recalled of their encounter, "He was so anti-drug when I met him. I mentioned to him that I smoked marijuana, and he was just appalled. He said, 'Don't ever do that again.'"[224] Presley was not only deeply opposed to recreational drugs, he also rarely drank. Several of his family members had been alcoholics, a fate he intended to avoid.[225]

Back on tour and meeting Nixon

Presley returned to the International early in 1970 for the first of the year's two-month-long engagements, performing two shows a night. Recordings from these shows were issued on the album On Stage.[226] In late February, Presley performed six attendance-record–breaking shows at the Houston Astrodome.[227] In April, the single "The Wonder of You" was issued—a number one hit in the UK, it topped the U.S. adult contemporary chart, as well. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer filmed rehearsal and concert footage at the International during August for the documentary Elvis: That's the Way It Is. Presley was performing in a jumpsuit, which would become a trademark of his live act. During this engagement, he was threatened with murder unless US$50,000 (equivalent to $349,000 in 2021) was paid. Presley had been the target of many threats since the 1950s, often without his knowledge.[228] The FBI took the threat seriously and security was stepped up for the next two shows. Presley went onstage with a Derringer in his right boot and a .45 pistol in his waistband, but the concerts succeeded without any incidents.[229][230]

The album, That's the Way It Is, produced to accompany the documentary and featuring both studio and live recordings, marked a stylistic shift. As music historian John Robertson noted, "The authority of Presley's singing helped disguise the fact that the album stepped decisively away from the American-roots inspiration of the Memphis sessions towards a more middle-of-the-road sound. With country put on the back burner, and soul and R&B left in Memphis, what was left was very classy, very clean white pop—perfect for the Las Vegas crowd, but a definite retrograde step for Elvis."[231] After the end of his International engagement on September 7, Presley embarked on a week-long concert tour, largely of the South, his first since 1958. Another week-long tour, of the West Coast, followed in November.[232]

 
Presley meets U.S. President Richard Nixon in the White House Oval Office, December 21, 1970

On December 21, 1970, Presley engineered a meeting with President Richard Nixon at the White House, where he expressed his patriotism and explained how he believed he could reach out to the hippies to help combat the drug culture he and the president abhorred. He asked Nixon for a Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs badge, to add to similar items he had begun collecting and to signify official sanction of his patriotic efforts. Nixon, who apparently found the encounter awkward, expressed a belief that Presley could send a positive message to young people and that it was, therefore, important that he "retain his credibility".[233] Presley told Nixon that the Beatles, whose songs he regularly performed in concert during the era,[234] exemplified what he saw as a trend of anti-Americanism.[235] Presley and his friends previously had a four-hour get-together with the Beatles at his home in Bel Air, California, in August 1965. On hearing reports of the meeting, Paul McCartney later said that he "felt a bit betrayed. ... The great joke was that we were taking [illegal] drugs, and look what happened to him", a reference to Presley's early death, linked to prescription drug abuse.[236]

The U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce named Presley one of its annual Ten Most Outstanding Young Men of the Nation on January 16, 1971.[237] Not long after, the City of Memphis named the stretch of Highway 51 South on which Graceland is located "Elvis Presley Boulevard". The same year, Presley became the first rock and roll singer to be awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award (then known as the Bing Crosby Award) by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the Grammy Award organization.[238][239] Three new, non-film Presley studio albums were released in 1971, as many as had come out over the previous eight years. Best received by critics was Elvis Country, a concept record that focused on genre standards.[240] The biggest seller was Elvis Sings the Wonderful World of Christmas, "the truest statement of all", according to Greil Marcus. "In the midst of ten painfully genteel Christmas songs, every one sung with appalling sincerity and humility, one could find Elvis tom-catting his way through six blazing minutes of 'Merry Christmas Baby,' a raunchy old Charles Brown blues. ... If [Presley's] sin was his lifelessness, it was his sinfulness that brought him to life".[241]

Marriage breakdown and Aloha from Hawaii

 
Presley (center) with friends Bill Porter (left) and Paul Anka (right) backstage at the Las Vegas Hilton on August 5, 1972

MGM again filmed Presley in April 1972, this time for Elvis on Tour, which went on to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Documentary Film for that year's Golden Globe Awards. His gospel album He Touched Me, released that month, would earn him his second Grammy Award for Best Inspirational Performance, for that year's Grammy Awards. A 14-date tour commenced with an unprecedented four consecutive sold-out shows at New York's Madison Square Garden.[242] The evening concert on July 10 was recorded and issued in an LP form a week later. Elvis: As Recorded at Madison Square Garden became one of Presley's biggest-selling albums. After the tour, the single "Burning Love" was released—Presley's last top ten hit on the U.S. pop chart. "The most exciting single Elvis has made since 'All Shook Up'", wrote rock critic Robert Christgau. "Who else could make 'It's coming closer, the flames are now licking my body' sound like an assignation with James Brown's backup band?"[243]

 
Presley came up with his outfit's eagle motif, as "something that would say 'America' to the world"[244]

Presley and his wife, meanwhile, had become increasingly distant, barely cohabiting. In 1971, an affair he had with Joyce Bova resulted—unbeknownst to him—in her pregnancy and an abortion.[245] He often raised the possibility of her moving into Graceland, saying that he was likely to leave Priscilla.[246] The Presleys separated on February 23, 1972, after Priscilla disclosed her relationship with Mike Stone, a karate instructor Presley had recommended to her. Priscilla related that when she told him, Presley "grabbed ... and forcefully made love to" her, declaring, "This is how a real man makes love to his woman".[247] She later stated in an interview that she regretted her choice of words in describing the incident, and said it had been an overstatement.[248] Five months later, Presley's new girlfriend, Linda Thompson, a songwriter and one-time Memphis beauty queen, moved in with him.[249] Presley and his wife filed for divorce on August 18.[250] According to Joe Moscheo of the Imperials, the failure of Presley's marriage "was a blow from which he never recovered".[251] At a rare press conference that June, a reporter had asked Presley whether he was satisfied with his image. Presley replied, "Well, the image is one thing and the human being another ... it's very hard to live up to an image."[252]

In January 1973, Presley performed two benefit concerts for the Kui Lee Cancer Fund in connection with a groundbreaking TV special, Aloha from Hawaii, which would be the first concert by a solo artist to be aired globally. The first show served as a practice run and backup should technical problems affect the live broadcast two days later. On January 14, Aloha from Hawaii aired live via satellite to prime-time audiences in Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as to U.S. servicemen based across Southeast Asia. In Japan, where it capped a nationwide Elvis Presley Week, it smashed viewing records. The next night, it was simulcast to 28 European countries, and in April an extended version finally aired in the U.S., where it won a 57 percent share of the TV audience.[253] Over time, Parker's claim that it was seen by one billion or more people[254] would be broadly accepted,[255][256][257] but that figure appeared to have been sheer invention.[258] Presley's stage costume became the most recognized example of the elaborate concert garb with which his latter-day persona became closely associated. As described by Bobbie Ann Mason, "At the end of the show, when he spreads out his American Eagle cape, with the full stretched wings of the eagle studded on the back, he becomes a god figure."[259] The accompanying double album, released in February, went to number one and eventually sold over 5 million copies in the United States.[260] It proved to be Presley's last U.S. number-one pop album during his lifetime.[261]

At a midnight show the same month, four men rushed onto the stage in an apparent attack. Security men came to Presley's defense, and he ejected one invader from the stage himself. Following the show, he became obsessed with the idea that the men had been sent by Mike Stone to kill him. Though they were shown to have been only overexuberant fans, he raged, "There's too much pain in me ... Stone [must] die." His outbursts continued with such intensity that a physician was unable to calm him, despite administering large doses of medication. After another two full days of raging, Red West, his friend and bodyguard, felt compelled to get a price for a contract killing and was relieved when Presley decided, "Aw hell, let's just leave it for now. Maybe it's a bit heavy."[262]

1973–1977: Health deterioration and death

Medical crises and last studio sessions

Presley's divorce was finalized on October 9, 1973.[263] By then, his health was in serious decline. Twice during the year, he overdosed on barbiturates, spending three days in a coma in his hotel suite after the first incident. Towards the end of 1973, he was hospitalized, semi-comatose from the effects of a pethidine addiction. According to his primary care physician, Dr. George C. Nichopoulos, Presley "felt that by getting drugs from a doctor, he wasn't the common everyday junkie getting something off the street".[264] Since his comeback, he had staged more live shows with each passing year, and 1973 saw 168 concerts, his busiest schedule ever.[265] Despite his failing health, in 1974, he undertook another intensive touring schedule.[266]

Presley's condition declined precipitously in September. Keyboardist Tony Brown remembered Presley's arrival at a University of Maryland concert: "He fell out of the limousine, to his knees. People jumped to help, and he pushed them away like, 'Don't help me.' He walked on stage and held onto the mic for the first thirty minutes like it was a post. Everybody's looking at each other like, 'Is the tour gonna happen'?"[267] Guitarist John Wilkinson recalled, "He was all gut. He was slurring. He was so fucked up. ... It was obvious he was drugged. It was obvious there was something terribly wrong with his body. It was so bad the words to the songs were barely intelligible. ... I remember crying. He could barely get through the introductions."[268] Wilkinson recounted that a few nights later in Detroit, "I watched him in his dressing room, just draped over a chair, unable to move. So often I thought, 'Boss, why don't you just cancel this tour and take a year off ...?' I mentioned something once in a guarded moment. He patted me on the back and said, 'It'll be all right. Don't you worry about it.'"[268] Presley continued to play to sellout crowds. Cultural critic Marjorie Garber wrote that he was now widely seen as a garish pop crooner: "In effect, he had become Liberace. Even his fans were now middle-aged matrons and blue-haired grandmothers."[269]

On July 13, 1976, Presley's father—who had become deeply involved in his son's financial affairs—fired "Memphis Mafia" bodyguards Red West (Presley's friend since the 1950s), Sonny West, and David Hebler, citing the need to "cut back on expenses".[270][271][272] Presley was in Palm Springs at the time, and some suggested that he was too cowardly to face the three himself. Another associate of Presley's, John O'Grady, argued that the bodyguards were dropped because their rough treatment of fans had prompted too many lawsuits.[273] However, Presley's stepbrother, David Stanley, claimed that the bodyguards were fired because they were becoming more outspoken about Presley's drug dependency.[274]

RCA, which had always enjoyed a steady stream of product from Presley, began to grow anxious as his interest in the recording studio waned. After a session in December 1973 that produced 18 songs, enough for almost two albums, Presley made no official studio recordings in 1974.[275] Parker delivered RCA yet another concert record, Elvis Recorded Live on Stage in Memphis.[276] Recorded on March 20, it included a version of "How Great Thou Art" that would win Presley his third and final Grammy Award for Best Inspirational Performance at that year's Grammy Awards.[277][278] All three of his competitive Grammy wins – out of 14 total nominations – were for gospel recordings.[278] Presley returned to the recording studio in Hollywood in March 1975, but Parker's attempts to arrange another session toward the end of the year were unsuccessful.[279] In 1976, RCA sent a mobile recording unit to Graceland that made possible two full-scale recording sessions at Presley's home.[280] Even in that comfortable context, the recording process had become a struggle for him.[281]

Despite concerns from RCA and Parker, between July 1973 and October 1976, Presley recorded virtually the entire contents of six albums. Though he was no longer a major presence on the pop charts, five of those albums entered the top five of the country albums chart, and three went to number one: Promised Land (1975), From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee (1976), and Moody Blue (1977).[283] Similarly, his singles in this era did not prove to be major pop hits, but Presley remained a significant force in the country and adult contemporary markets. Eight studio singles from this period released during his lifetime were top ten hits on one or both charts, four in 1974 alone. "My Boy" was a number-one adult contemporary hit in 1975, and "Moody Blue" topped the country singles chart and reached the second spot on the adult contemporary chart in 1976.[284] Perhaps his most critically acclaimed recording of the era came that year, with what Greil Marcus described as his "apocalyptic attack" on the soul classic "Hurt".[285] Dave Marsh wrote of Presley's performance: "If he felt the way he sounded, the wonder isn't that he had only a year left to live but that he managed to survive that long."[286]

Final months

Presley and Linda Thompson split in November 1976, and he took up with a new girlfriend, Ginger Alden.[287] He proposed to Alden and gave her an engagement ring two months later, though several of his friends later claimed that he had no serious intention of marrying again.[288] Journalist Tony Scherman wrote that by early 1977, "Presley had become a grotesque caricature of his sleek, energetic former self. Grossly overweight, his mind dulled by the pharmacopia he daily ingested, he was barely able to pull himself through his abbreviated concerts."[289] In Alexandria, Louisiana, he was on stage for less than an hour, and "was impossible to understand".[290] On March 31, Presley canceled a performance in Baton Rouge, unable to get out of his hotel bed; a total of four shows had to be canceled and rescheduled.[291] Despite the accelerating deterioration of his health, Presley stuck to most touring commitments. According to Guralnick, fans "were becoming increasingly voluble about their disappointment, but it all seemed to go right past Presley, whose world was now confined almost entirely to his room and his spiritualism books."[292] Presley's cousin, Billy Smith, recalled how he would sit in his room and chat for hours, sometimes recounting favorite Monty Python sketches and his own past escapades, but more often gripped by paranoid obsessions that reminded Smith of Howard Hughes.[293]

"Way Down", Presley's last single issued during his lifetime, was released on June 6, 1977. That month, CBS taped two concerts for a TV special, Elvis in Concert, to be broadcast in October. In the first, shot in Omaha on June 19, Presley's voice, Guralnick writes, "is almost unrecognizable, a small, childlike instrument in which he talks more than sings most of the songs, casts about uncertainly for the melody in others, and is virtually unable to articulate or project".[294] Two days later, in Rapid City, South Dakota, "he looked healthier, seemed to have lost a little weight, and sounded better, too", though, by the conclusion of the performance, his face was "framed in a helmet of blue-black hair from which sweat sheets down over pale, swollen cheeks".[294] Presley's final concert was held in Indianapolis at Market Square Arena, on June 26, 1977.[295]

 
Presley's gravestone at Graceland

The book Elvis: What Happened?, co-written by the three bodyguards fired the previous year, was published on August 1.[296] It was the first exposé to detail Presley's years of drug misuse. He was devastated by the book, and tried unsuccessfully to halt its publication by offering money to the publishers.[297] By this point he suffered from glaucoma, hypertension, liver damage, and an enlarged colon, each magnified—and possibly caused—by drug abuse.[264]

Death

On the evening of August 16, 1977, Presley was scheduled to fly out of Memphis to begin another tour. That afternoon, Ginger Alden discovered him in an unresponsive state on the bathroom floor of his Graceland mansion.[298] Attempts to revive him failed, and he was pronounced dead at Baptist Memorial Hospital at 3:30 p.m.[299] He was 42 years old.[300]

President Jimmy Carter issued a statement that credited Presley with having "permanently changed the face of American popular culture".[301] Thousands of people gathered outside Graceland to view the open casket. One of Presley's cousins, Billy Mann, accepted US$18,000 (equivalent to $80,000 in 2021) to secretly photograph the body; the picture appeared on the cover of the National Enquirer's biggest-selling issue ever.[302] Alden struck a $105,000 (equivalent to $470,000 in 2021) deal with the Enquirer for her story, but settled for less when she broke her exclusivity agreement.[303] Presley left her nothing in his will.[304]

Presley's funeral was held at Graceland on Thursday, August 18. Outside the gates, a car plowed into a group of fans, killing two young women and critically injuring a third.[305] About 80,000 people lined the processional route to Forest Hill Cemetery, where Presley was buried next to his mother.[306] Within a few weeks, "Way Down" topped the country and UK singles chart.[284][307] Following an attempt to steal Presley's body in late August, the remains of both Presley and his mother were exhumed and reburied in Graceland's Meditation Garden on October 2.[303]

Cause of death

While an autopsy, undertaken the same day Presley died, was still in progress, Memphis medical examiner Jerry Francisco announced that the immediate cause of death was cardiac arrest. Asked if drugs were involved, he declared that "drugs played no role in Presley's death".[308] In fact, "drug use was heavily implicated" in Presley's death, writes Guralnick. The pathologists conducting the autopsy thought it possible, for instance, that he had suffered "anaphylactic shock brought on by the codeine pills he had gotten from his dentist, to which he was known to have had a mild allergy". A pair of lab reports filed two months later strongly suggested that polypharmacy was the primary cause of death; one reported "fourteen drugs in Elvis' system, ten in significant quantity".[309] In 1979, forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht conducted a review of the reports and concluded that a combination of central nervous system depressants had resulted in Presley's accidental death.[308] Forensic historian and pathologist Michael Baden viewed the situation as complicated: "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."[310]

The competence and ethics of two of the centrally involved medical professionals were seriously questioned. Francisco had offered a cause of death before the autopsy was complete; claimed the underlying ailment was cardiac arrhythmia, a condition that can be determined only in someone who is still alive; and denied drugs played any part in Presley's death before the toxicology results were known.[308] Allegations of a cover-up were widespread.[310] While a 1981 trial of Presley's main physician, George C. Nichopoulos, exonerated him of criminal liability for his death, the facts were startling: "In the first eight months of 1977 alone, he had [prescribed] more than 10,000 doses of sedatives, amphetamines, and narcotics: all in Elvis' name." His license was suspended for three months. It was permanently revoked in the 1990s after the Tennessee Medical Board brought new charges of over-prescription.[264]

In 1994, the Presley autopsy report was reopened. Joseph Davis, who had conducted thousands of autopsies as Miami-Dade County coroner,[311] declared at its completion, "There is nothing in any of the data that supports a death from drugs. In fact, everything points to a sudden, violent heart attack."[264] More recent research has revealed that Francisco did not speak for the entire pathology team. Other staff "could say nothing with confidence until they got the results back from the laboratories, if then. That would be a matter of weeks." One of the examiners, E. Eric Muirhead, "could not believe his ears. Francisco had not only presumed to speak for the hospital's team of pathologists, he had announced a conclusion that they had not reached. ... Early on, a meticulous dissection of the body ... confirmed [that] Elvis was chronically ill with diabetes, glaucoma, and constipation. As they proceeded, the doctors saw evidence that his body had been wracked over a span of years by a large and constant stream of drugs. They had also studied his hospital records, which included two admissions for drug detoxification and methadone treatments."[312] Writer Frank Coffey thought Presley's death was due to "a phenomenon called the Valsalva maneuver (essentially straining on the toilet leading to heart stoppage—plausible because Elvis suffered constipation, a common reaction to drug use)".[313] In similar terms, Dan Warlick, who was present at the autopsy, "believes Presley's chronic constipation—the result of years of prescription drug abuse and high-fat, high-cholesterol gorging—brought on what's known as Valsalva's maneuver. Put simply, the strain of attempting to defecate compressed the singer's abdominal aorta, shutting down his heart."[314]

However, in 2013, Forest Tennant, who had testified as a defense witness in Nichopoulos' trial, described his own analysis of Presley's available medical records. He concluded that Presley's "drug abuse had led to falls, head trauma, and overdoses that damaged his brain", and that his death was due in part to a toxic reaction to codeine—exacerbated by an undetected liver enzyme defect—which can cause sudden cardiac arrhythmia.[315] DNA analysis in 2014 of a hair sample, purported to be Presley's, found evidence of genetic variants that can lead to glaucoma, migraines, and obesity; a crucial variant associated with the heart muscle disease hypertrophic cardiomyopathy was also identified.[316]

Later developments

Between 1977 and 1981, six of Presley's posthumously released singles were top-ten country hits.[284]

Graceland was opened to the public in 1982. Attracting over half a million visitors annually, it became the second most-visited home in the United States, after the White House.[317] It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2006.[318]

Presley has been inducted into five music halls of fame: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1986), the Country Music Hall of Fame (1998), the Gospel Music Hall of Fame (2001), the Rockabilly Hall of Fame (2007), and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame (2012). In 1984, he received the W. C. Handy Award from the Blues Foundation and the Academy of Country Music's first Golden Hat Award. In 1987, he received the American Music Awards' Award of Merit.[319]

A Junkie XL remix of Presley's "A Little Less Conversation" (credited as "Elvis Vs JXL") was used in a Nike advertising campaign during the 2002 FIFA World Cup. It topped the charts in over 20 countries and was included in a compilation of Presley's number-one hits, ELV1S, which was also an international success. The album returned Presley to the Billboard summit for the first time in almost three decades.[320]

In 2003, a remix of "Rubberneckin'", a 1969 recording of Presley's, topped the U.S. sales chart, as did a 50th-anniversary re-release of "That's All Right" the following year.[321] The latter was an outright hit in Britain, debuting at number three on the pop chart; it also made the top ten in Canada.[322] In 2005, another three reissued singles, "Jailhouse Rock", "One Night"/"I Got Stung", and "It's Now or Never", went to number one in the United Kingdom. They were part of a campaign that saw the re-release of all 18 of Presley's previous chart-topping UK singles. The first, "All Shook Up", came with a collectors' box that made it ineligible to chart again; each of the other 17 reissues hit the British top five.[323]

In 2005, Forbes named Presley the top-earning deceased celebrity for the fifth straight year, with a gross income of $45 million.[324] He was placed second in 2006,[325] returned to the top spot the next two years,[326][327] and ranked fourth in 2009.[328] The following year, he was ranked second, with his highest annual income ever—$60 million—spurred by the celebration of his 75th birthday and the launch of Cirque du Soleil's Viva Elvis show in Las Vegas.[329] In November 2010, Viva Elvis: The Album was released, setting his voice to newly recorded instrumental tracks.[330][331] As of mid-2011, there were an estimated 15,000 licensed Presley products,[332] and he was again the second-highest-earning deceased celebrity.[333] Six years later, he ranked fourth with earnings of $35 million, up $8 million from 2016 due in part to the opening of a new entertainment complex, Elvis Presley's Memphis, and hotel, The Guest House at Graceland.[334]

In 2018, RCA/Legacy released Elvis Presley – Where No One Stands Alone, a new album focused on Elvis's love of gospel music. Produced by Joel Weinshanker, Lisa Marie Presley and Andy Childs, the album introduced newly recorded instrumentation along with vocals from singers who had performed in the past with Elvis. It also included a reimagined duet with Lisa Marie, on the album's title track.[335]

In 2022, Baz Luhrmann's film Elvis, a musical biographical film about Presley's life, was released to theaters. Presley is portrayed by Austin Butler and Colonel Tom Parker by Tom Hanks.[336] The film has grossed $261.8 million worldwide against its $85 million budget, becoming the second-highest-grossing music biopic of all-time behind Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) and the fifth-highest-grossing Australian produced film.[337]

In January 2023 on what would have been Elvis Presley’s 88th birthday his 1962 Lockheed 1329 JetStar sold at an auction for $260,000. The plane sold at the Mecum Kissimmee Collector Car auction in Florida.[338]

Artistry

Influences

Presley's earliest musical influence came from gospel. His mother recalled that from the age of two, at the Assembly of God church in Tupelo attended by the family, "he would slide down off my lap, run into the aisle and scramble up to the platform. There he would stand looking at the choir and trying to sing with them."[339] In Memphis, Presley frequently attended all-night gospel singings at the Ellis Auditorium, where groups such as the Statesmen Quartet led the music in a style that, Guralnick suggests, sowed the seeds of Presley's future stage act:

The Statesmen were an electric combination ... featuring some of the most thrillingly emotive singing and daringly unconventional showmanship in the entertainment world ... dressed in suits that might have come out of the window of Lansky's. ... Bass singer Jim Wetherington, known universally as the Big Chief, maintained a steady bottom, ceaselessly jiggling first his left leg, then his right, with the material of the pants leg ballooning out and shimmering. "He went about as far as you could go in gospel music," said Jake Hess. "The women would jump up, just like they do for the pop shows." Preachers frequently objected to the lewd movements ... but audiences reacted with screams and swoons.[340]

As a teenager, Presley's musical interests were wide-ranging, and he was deeply informed about both white and African-American musical idioms. Though he never had any formal training, he had a remarkable memory, and his musical knowledge was already considerable by the time he made his first professional recordings aged 19 in 1954. When Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller met him two years later, they were astonished at his encyclopedic understanding of the blues,[341] and, as Stoller put it, "He certainly knew a lot more than we did about country music and gospel music."[157] At a press conference the following year, he proudly declared, "I know practically every religious song that's ever been written."[148]

Musicianship

Presley played guitar, bass, and piano; he received his first guitar when he was 11 years old. Hhe could not read or write music and had no formal lessons, and played everything by ear.[342] Presley often played an instrument on his recordings and produced his own music. Presley played rhythm acoustic guitar on most of his Sun recordings and his 1950s RCA albums. He played electric bass guitar on "(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care" after his bassist Bill Black had trouble with the instrument.[343] Presley played the bass line including the intro. Presley played piano on songs such as "Old Shep" and "First in Line" from his 1956 album Elvis.[344] He is credited with playing piano on later albums such as From Elvis in Memphis and "Moody Blue", and on "Unchained Melody" which was one of the last songs that he recorded.[345] Presley played lead guitar on one of his successful singles called "Are You Lonesome Tonight".[346] In the 68 Comeback Special, Elvis took over on lead electric guitar, the first time he had ever been seen with the instrument in public, playing it on songs such as "Baby What You Want Me to Do" and "One Night".[347] Presley played the back of his guitar on some of his hits such as "All Shook Up", "Don't Be Cruel", and "(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear", providing percussion by slapping the instrument to create a beat.[348] The album Elvis is Back! features Presley playing a lot of acoustic guitar on songs such as "I Will Be Home Again" and "Like a Baby".[349]

Musical styles and genres

 
Presley with his longtime vocal backup group, the Jordanaires, March 1957

Presley was a central figure in the development of rockabilly, according to music historians. "Rockabilly crystallized into a recognizable style in 1954 with Elvis Presley's first release, on the Sun label", writes Craig Morrison.[350] Paul Friedlander describes the defining elements of rockabilly, which he similarly characterizes as "essentially ... an Elvis Presley construction": "the raw, emotive, and slurred vocal style and emphasis on rhythmic feeling [of] the blues with the string band and strummed rhythm guitar [of] country".[351] In "That's All Right", the Presley trio's first record, Scotty Moore's guitar solo, "a combination of Merle Travis–style country finger-picking, double-stop slides from acoustic boogie, and blues-based bent-note, single-string work, is a microcosm of this fusion."[351] While Katherine Charlton likewise calls Presley "rockabilly's originator",[352] Carl Perkins has explicitly stated that "[Sam] Phillips, Elvis, and I didn't create rockabilly"[353] and, according to Michael Campbell, "Bill Haley recorded the first big rockabilly hit."[354] In Moore's view, too, "It had been there for quite a while, really. Carl Perkins was doing basically the same sort of thing up around Jackson, and I know for a fact Jerry Lee Lewis had been playing that kind of music ever since he was ten years old."[355]

At RCA Victor, Presley's rock and roll sound grew distinct from rockabilly with group chorus vocals, more heavily amplified electric guitars[356] and a tougher, more intense manner.[357] While he was known for taking songs from various sources and giving them a rockabilly/rock and roll treatment, he also recorded songs in other genres from early in his career, from the pop standard "Blue Moon" at Sun Records to the country ballad "How's the World Treating You?" on his second RCA Victor LP to the blues of "Santa Claus Is Back in Town". In 1957, his first gospel record was released, the four-song EP Peace in the Valley. Certified as a million-seller, it became the top-selling gospel EP in recording history.[358] Presley would record gospel periodically for the rest of his life.

After his return from military service in 1960, Presley continued to perform rock and roll, but the characteristic style was substantially toned down. His first post-Army single, the number-one hit "Stuck on You", is typical of this shift. RCA Victor publicity referred to its "mild rock beat"; discographer Ernst Jorgensen calls it "upbeat pop".[361] The number five "She's Not You" (1962) "integrates the Jordanaires so completely, it's practically doo-wop".[362] The modern blues/R&B sound captured with success on Elvis Is Back! was essentially abandoned for six years until such 1966–67 recordings as "Down in the Alley" and "Hi-Heel Sneakers".[363] Presley's output during most of the 1960s emphasized pop music, often in the form of ballads such as "Are You Lonesome Tonight?", a number-one in 1960. "It's Now or Never", which also topped the chart that year, was a classically influenced variation of pop based on the Neapolitan song "'O sole mio" and concluding with a "full-voiced operatic cadence".[364] These were both dramatic numbers, but most of what Presley recorded for his many film soundtracks was in a much lighter vein.[365]

While Presley performed several of his classic ballads for the '68 Comeback Special, the sound of the show was dominated by aggressive rock and roll. He recorded few new straight rock and roll songs thereafter; as he explained, they had become "hard to find".[366] A significant exception was "Burning Love", his last major hit on the pop charts. Like his work of the 1950s, Presley's subsequent recordings reworked pop and country songs, but in markedly different permutations. His stylistic range now began to embrace a more contemporary rock sound as well as soul and funk. Much of Elvis in Memphis, as well as "Suspicious Minds", cut at the same sessions, reflected this new rock and soul fusion. In the mid-1970s, many of his singles found a home on country radio, the field where he first became a star.[367]

Vocal style and range

 
Publicity photo for the CBS program Stage Show, January 16, 1956

The developmental arc of Presley's singing voice, as described by critic Dave Marsh, goes from "high and thrilled in the early days, [to] lower and perplexed in the final months."[368] Marsh credits Presley with the introduction of the "vocal stutter" on 1955's "Baby Let's Play House".[369] When on "Don't Be Cruel", Presley "slides into a 'mmmmm' that marks the transition between the first two verses," he shows "how masterful his relaxed style really is."[370] Marsh describes the vocal performance on "Can't Help Falling in Love" as one of "gentle insistence and delicacy of phrasing", with the line "'Shall I stay' pronounced as if the words are fragile as crystal".[371]

Jorgensen calls the 1966 recording of "How Great Thou Art" "an extraordinary fulfillment of his vocal ambitions", as Presley "crafted for himself an ad-hoc arrangement in which he took every part of the four-part vocal, from [the] bass intro to the soaring heights of the song's operatic climax", becoming "a kind of one-man quartet".[372] Guralnick finds "Stand by Me" from the same gospel sessions "a beautifully articulated, almost nakedly yearning performance," but, by contrast, feels that Presley reaches beyond his powers on "Where No One Stands Alone", resorting "to a kind of inelegant bellowing to push out a sound" that Jake Hess of the Statesmen Quartet had in his command. Hess himself thought that while others might have voices the equal of Presley's, "he had that certain something that everyone searches for all during their lifetime."[373] Guralnick attempts to pinpoint that something: "The warmth of his voice, his controlled use of both vibrato technique and natural falsetto range, the subtlety and deeply felt conviction of his singing were all qualities recognizably belonging to his talent but just as recognizably not to be achieved without sustained dedication and effort."[374]

Marsh praises his 1968 reading of "U.S. Male", "bearing down on the hard guy lyrics, not sending them up or overplaying them but tossing them around with that astonishingly tough yet gentle assurance that he brought to his Sun records."[375] The performance on "In the Ghetto" is, according to Jorgensen, "devoid of any of his characteristic vocal tricks or mannerisms", instead relying on the exceptional "clarity and sensitivity of his voice".[376] Guralnick describes the song's delivery as of "almost translucent eloquence ... so quietly confident in its simplicity".[377] On "Suspicious Minds", Guralnick hears essentially the same "remarkable mixture of tenderness and poise", but supplemented with "an expressive quality somewhere between stoicism (at suspected infidelity) and anguish (over impending loss)".[378]

Music critic Henry Pleasants observes that "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."[379] He identifies Presley as a high baritone, calculating his range as two octaves and a third, "from the baritone low G to the tenor high B, with an upward extension in falsetto to at least a D-flat. Presley's best octave is in the middle, D-flat to D-flat, granting an extra full step up or down."[379] In Pleasants' view, his voice was "variable and unpredictable" at the bottom, "often brilliant" at the top, with the capacity for "full-voiced high Gs and As that an opera baritone might envy".[379] Scholar Lindsay Waters, who figures Presley's range as two-and-a-quarter octaves, emphasizes that "his voice had an emotional range from tender whispers to sighs down to shouts, grunts, grumbles, and sheer gruffness that could move the listener from calmness and surrender, to fear. His voice can not be measured in octaves, but in decibels; even that misses the problem of how to measure delicate whispers that are hardly audible at all."[380] Presley was always "able to duplicate the open, hoarse, ecstatic, screaming, shouting, wailing, reckless sound of the black rhythm-and-blues and gospel singers", writes Pleasants, and also demonstrated a remarkable ability to assimilate many other vocal styles.[379]

Public image

Relationship with the African-American community

When Dewey Phillips first aired "That's All Right" on Memphis' WHBQ, many listeners who contacted the station by phone and telegram to ask for it again assumed that its singer was black.[60] From the beginning of his national fame, Presley expressed respect for African-American performers and their music, and disregard for the norms of segregation and racial prejudice then prevalent in the South. Interviewed in 1956, he recalled how in his childhood he would listen to blues musician Arthur Crudup—the originator of "That's All Right"—"bang his box the way I do now, and I said if I ever got to the place where I could feel all old Arthur felt, I'd be a music man like nobody ever saw."[44] The Memphis World, an African-American newspaper, reported that Presley, "the rock 'n' roll phenomenon", "cracked Memphis' segregation laws" by attending the local amusement park on what was designated as its "colored night".[44] Such statements and actions led Presley to be generally hailed in the black community during the early days of his stardom.[44] In contrast, many white adults "did not like him, and condemned him as depraved. Anti-negro prejudice doubtless figured in adult antagonism. Regardless of whether parents were aware of the Negro sexual origins of the phrase 'rock 'n' roll', Presley impressed them as the visual and aural embodiment of sex."[6]

Despite the largely positive view of Presley held by African Americans, a rumor spread in mid-1957 that he had at some point announced, "The only thing Negroes can do for me is buy my records and shine my shoes." A journalist with the national African-American weekly Jet, Louie Robinson, pursued the story. On the set of Jailhouse Rock, Presley granted Robinson an interview, though he was no longer dealing with the mainstream press. He denied making such a statement: "I never said anything like that, and people who know me know that I wouldn't have said it. ... A lot of people seem to think I started this business. But rock 'n' roll was here a long time before I came along. Nobody can sing that kind of music like colored people. Let's face it: I can't sing like Fats Domino can. I know that."[381] Robinson found no evidence that the remark had ever been made, and on the contrary elicited testimony from many individuals indicating that Presley was anything but racist.[44][382] Blues singer Ivory Joe Hunter, who had heard the rumor before he visited Graceland one evening, reported of Presley, "He showed me every courtesy, and I think he's one of the greatest."[383] Though the rumored remark was discredited, it was still being used against Presley decades later.[384] The identification of Presley with racism—either personally or symbolically—was expressed in the lyrics of the 1989 rap hit "Fight the Power", by Public Enemy: "Elvis was a hero to most / But he never meant shit to me / Straight-up racist that sucker was / Simple and plain / Motherfuck him and John Wayne".[385] However, Chuck D, the singer and writer of the song, later clarified his lyric associating Elvis Presley with racism. In an interview with Newsday timed with the 25th anniversary of Presley's death, Chuck D acknowledged that Elvis was held in high esteem by black musicians, and that Elvis himself admired black musical performers. Chuck D stated that the target of his line about Elvis was the white culture which hailed Elvis as a "King" without acknowledging the black artists that came before him.[386][387]

The persistence of such attitudes was fueled by resentment over the fact that Presley, whose musical and visual performance idiom owed much to African-American sources, achieved the cultural acknowledgement and commercial success largely denied his black peers.[382] Into the 21st century, the notion that Presley had "stolen" black music still found adherents.[example needed][384][385] Notable among African-American entertainers expressly rejecting this view was Jackie Wilson, who argued, "A lot of people have accused Elvis of stealing the black man's music, when in fact, almost every black solo entertainer copied his stage mannerisms from Elvis."[388] Moreover, Presley also acknowledged his debt to African-American musicians throughout his career. Addressing his '68 Comeback Special audience, he said, "Rock 'n' roll music is basically gospel or rhythm and blues, or it sprang from that. People have been adding to it, adding instruments to it, experimenting with it, but it all boils down to [that]."[389] Nine years earlier, he had said, "Rock 'n' roll has been around for many years. It used to be called rhythm and blues."[390]

Sex symbol

 
Poster for the film Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962), visualizing Presley's sex symbol image

Presley's physical attractiveness and sexual appeal were widely acknowledged. "He was once beautiful, astonishingly beautiful", according to critic Mark Feeney.[391] Television director Steve Binder, no fan of Presley's music before he oversaw the 1968 Comeback Special, reported, "I'm straight as an arrow and I got to tell you, you stop, whether you're male or female, to look at him. He was that good looking. And if you never knew he was a superstar, it wouldn't make any difference; if he'd walked in the room, you'd know somebody special was in your presence."[392] His performance style, as much as his physical beauty, was responsible for Presley's eroticized image. Writing in 1970, critic George Melly described him as "the master of the sexual simile, treating his guitar as both phallus and girl".[393] In his Presley obituary, Lester Bangs credited him as "the man who brought overt blatant vulgar sexual frenzy to the popular arts in America".[394] Ed Sullivan's declaration that he perceived a soda bottle in Presley's trousers was echoed by rumors involving a similarly positioned toilet roll tube or lead bar.[395]

While Presley was marketed as an icon of heterosexuality, some cultural critics have argued that his image was ambiguous. In 1959, Sight and Sound's Peter John Dyer described his onscreen persona as "aggressively bisexual in appeal".[396] Brett Farmer places the "orgasmic gyrations" of the title dance sequence in Jailhouse Rock within a lineage of cinematic musical numbers that offer a "spectacular eroticization, if not homoeroticization, of the male image".[397] In the analysis of Yvonne Tasker, "Elvis was an ambivalent figure who articulated a peculiar feminised, objectifying version of white working-class masculinity as aggressive sexual display."[398]

Reinforcing Presley's image as a sex symbol were the reports of his dalliances with various Hollywood stars and starlets, from Natalie Wood in the 1950s to Connie Stevens and Ann-Margret in the 1960s to Candice Bergen and Cybill Shepherd in the 1970s. June Juanico of Memphis, one of Presley's early girlfriends, later blamed Parker for encouraging him to choose his dating partners with publicity in mind.[224] Presley never grew comfortable with the Hollywood scene, and most of these relationships were insubstantial.[399]

Equestrian

Elvis kept several horses at Graceland, and horses remain important to the Graceland estate. A local former teacher, Alene Alexander, has taken care of the horses at Graceland for 38 years. She and Priscilla Presley have a love for horses and have formed a special friendship. It was because of Priscilla that Elvis brought horses to Graceland. "He got me my first horse as a Christmas present – Domino," said Priscilla Presley. Alexander now serves as Graceland's Ambassador. She is one of three of the original staff members still working at the estate.[400]

The horse named Palomino Rising Sun was Elvis' favorite horse, and there are many photographs of him riding him.[401]

Associates

Colonel Parker and the Aberbachs

 
Presley and Colonel Tom Parker, 1969

Once he became Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker insisted on exceptionally tight control over his client's career. Early on, he and his Hill and Range allies, the brothers Jean and Julian Aberbach, perceived the close relationship that developed between Presley and songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller as a serious threat to that control.[402] Parker effectively ended the relationship, deliberately or not, with the new contract he sent Leiber in early 1958. Leiber thought there was a mistake—the sheet of paper was blank except for Parker's signature and a line on which to enter his. "There's no mistake, boy, just sign it and return it", Parker directed. "Don't worry, we'll fill it in later." Leiber declined, and Presley's fruitful collaboration with the writing team was over.[403] Other respected songwriters lost interest in or simply avoided writing for Presley because of the requirement that they surrender a third of their usual royalties.[404]

By 1967, Parker's contracts gave him 50 percent of most of Presley's earnings from recordings, films, and merchandise.[405] Beginning in February 1972, he took a third of the profit from live appearances;[406] a January 1976 agreement entitled him to half of that as well.[407] Priscilla Presley noted that "Elvis detested the business side of his career. He would sign a contract without even reading it."[408] Presley's friend Marty Lacker regarded Parker as a "hustler and a con artist. He was only interested in 'now money'—get the buck and get gone."[409] Priscilla Presley said after Parker's death, however, that Elvis was happy to pay 50% to Parker to manage him.[410]

Lacker was instrumental in convincing Presley to record with Memphis producer Chips Moman and his handpicked musicians at American Sound Studio in early 1969. The American Sound sessions represented a significant departure from the control customarily exerted by Hill and Range. Moman still had to deal with the publisher's staff on-site, whose song suggestions he regarded as unacceptable. He was on the verge of quitting until Presley ordered the Hill and Range personnel out of the studio.[411] Although RCA executive Joan Deary was later full of praise for the producer's song choices and the quality of the recordings,[412] Moman, to his fury, received neither credit on the records nor royalties for his work.[413]

Throughout his entire career, Presley performed in only three venues outside the United States—all of them in Canada, during brief tours there in 1957.[414] In 1968, he remarked, "Before too long I'm going to make some personal appearance tours. I'll probably start out here in this country and after that, play some concerts abroad, probably starting in Europe. I want to see some places I've never seen before."[209] Rumors that he would play overseas for the first time were fueled in 1974 by a million-dollar bid for an Australian tour. Parker was uncharacteristically reluctant, prompting those close to Presley to speculate about the manager's past and the reasons for his evident unwillingness to apply for a passport.[415] After Presley's death, it was revealed that Parker was born Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk in the Netherlands; having immigrated illegally to the U.S., he had reason to fear that if he left the country, he would not be allowed back in again.[416] Parker ultimately squelched any notions Presley had of working abroad, claiming that foreign security was poor and the venues unsuitable for a star of his magnitude.[417]

Parker arguably exercised tightest control over Presley's film career. Hal Wallis said, "I'd rather try and close a deal with the devil" than with Parker. Fellow film producer Sam Katzman described him as "the biggest con artist in the world".[418] In 1957, Robert Mitchum asked Presley to costar with him in Thunder Road, which Mitchum was producing and writing.[419] According to George Klein, one of his oldest friends, Presley was also offered starring roles in West Side Story and Midnight Cowboy.[420] In 1974, Barbra Streisand approached Presley to star with her in the remake of A Star is Born.[421] In each case, any ambitions Presley may have had to play such parts were thwarted by his manager's negotiating demands or flat refusals. In Lacker's description, "The only thing that kept Elvis going after the early years was a new challenge. But Parker kept running everything into the ground."[409] The prevailing attitude may have been summed up best by the response Leiber and Stoller received when they brought a serious film project for Presley to Parker and the Hill and Range owners for their consideration. In Leiber's telling, Jean Aberbach warned them to never again "try to interfere with the business or artistic workings of the process known as Elvis Presley".[193]

Memphis Mafia

In the early 1960s, the circle of friends with whom Presley constantly surrounded himself until his death came to be known as the "Memphis Mafia".[422] "Surrounded by the[ir] parasitic presence", as journalist John Harris puts it, "it was no wonder that as he slid into addiction and torpor, no-one raised the alarm: to them, Elvis was the bank, and it had to remain open."[423] Tony Brown, who played piano for Presley regularly in the last two years of Presley's life, observed his rapidly declining health and the urgent need to address it: "But we all knew it was hopeless because Elvis was surrounded by that little circle of people ... all those so-called friends".[424] In the Memphis Mafia's defense, Marty Lacker has said, "[Presley] was his own man. ... If we hadn't been around, he would have been dead a lot earlier."[425]

Larry Geller became Presley's hairdresser in 1964. Unlike others in the Memphis Mafia, he was interested in spiritual questions and recalls how, from their first conversation, Presley revealed his secret thoughts and anxieties: "I mean there has to be a purpose ... there's got to be a reason ... why I was chosen to be Elvis Presley. ... I swear to God, no one knows how lonely I get. And how empty I really feel."[426] Thereafter, Geller supplied him with books on religion and mysticism, which Presley read voraciously.[427] Presley would be preoccupied by such matters for much of his life, taking trunkloads of books on tour.[264]

Legacy

I know he invented rock and roll, in a manner of speaking, but ... that's not why he's worshiped as a god today. He's worshiped as a god today because in addition to inventing rock and roll he was the greatest ballad singer this side of Frank Sinatra—because the spiritual translucence and reined-in gut sexuality of his slow weeper and torchy pop blues still activate the hormones and slavish devotion of millions of female human beings worldwide.

Robert Christgau
December 24, 1985[428]

Presley's rise to national attention in 1956 transformed the field of popular music and had a huge effect on the broader scope of popular culture.[429] As the catalyst for the cultural revolution that was rock and roll, he was central not only to defining it as a musical genre but in making it a touchstone of youth culture and rebellious attitude.[430] With its racially mixed origins—repeatedly affirmed by Presley—rock and roll's occupation of a central position in mainstream American culture facilitated a new acceptance and appreciation of black culture.[431]

In this regard, Little Richard said of Presley, "He was an integrator. Elvis was a blessing. They wouldn't let black music through. He opened the door for black music."[432] Al Green agreed: "He broke the ice for all of us."[433]

President Jimmy Carter remarked on his legacy in 1977: "His 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."[301] Presley also heralded the vastly expanded reach of celebrity in the era of mass communication: at the age of 21, within a year of his first appearance on American network television, he was regarded as one of the most famous people in the world.[434]

 
A group of Elvis impersonators in 2005

Presley's name, image, and voice are recognized around the globe.[435] He has inspired a legion of impersonators.[436] In polls and surveys, he is recognized as one of the most important popular music artists and influential Americans.[d] American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein said, "Elvis Presley is the greatest cultural force in the twentieth century. He introduced the beat to everything and he changed everything—music, language, clothes. It's a whole new social revolution—the sixties came from it."[444] John Lennon said that "Nothing really affected me until Elvis."[445] Bob Dylan described the sensation of first hearing Presley as "like busting out of jail".[433]

 
Presley's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6777 Hollywood Blvd

For much of his adult life, Presley, with his rise from poverty to riches and massive fame, had seemed to epitomize the American Dream.[446][447] In his final years—and even more so after his death, and the revelations about its circumstances—he became a symbol of excess and gluttony.[448][449] Increasing attention, for instance, was paid to his appetite for the rich, heavy Southern cooking of his upbringing, foods such as chicken-fried steak and biscuits and gravy.[450][451]

In particular, his love of calorie-laden fried peanut butter, banana, and (sometimes) bacon sandwiches,[452][450] now known as "Elvis sandwiches",[453] came to stand for this aspect of his persona.[454] But the Elvis sandwich represents more than just unhealthy overindulgence—as media and culture scholar Robert Thompson describes, the unsophisticated treat also signifies Presley's enduring all-American appeal: "He wasn't only the king, he was one of us."[455]

Since 1977, there have been numerous alleged sightings of Presley. A long-standing conspiracy theory among some fans is that he faked his death.[456][457] Adherents cite alleged discrepancies in the death certificate, reports of a wax dummy in his original coffin, and accounts of Presley planning a diversion so he could retire in peace.[458] An unusually large number of fans have domestic shrines devoted to Presley and journey to sites with which he is connected, however faintly.[459] Every August 16, the anniversary of his death, thousands of people gather outside Graceland and celebrate his memory with a candlelight ritual.[460] "With Elvis, it is not just his music that has survived death", writes Ted Harrison. "He himself has been raised, like a medieval saint, to a figure of cultic status. It is as if he has been canonized by acclamation."[459]

On the 25th anniversary of Presley's death, The New York Times asserted, "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' breakthroughs are underappreciated because in this rock-and-roll age, his hard-rocking music and sultry style have triumphed so completely."[461] Not only Presley's achievements but his failings as well, are seen by some cultural observers as adding to the power of his legacy, as in this description by Greil Marcus:

Elvis Presley is a supreme figure in American life, one whose presence, no matter how banal or predictable, brooks no real comparisons. ... The cultural range of his music has expanded to the point where it includes not only the hits of the day, but also patriotic recitals, pure country gospel, and really dirty blues. ... Elvis has emerged as a great artist, a great rocker, a great purveyor of schlock, a great heart throb, a great bore, a great symbol of potency, a great ham, a great nice person, and, yes, a great American.[462]

Achievements

Presley remains the best-selling solo music artist according to Guinness World Records,[463][464] with sales estimated by various sources up to 500 million – 1 billion.[465][466]

Presley holds the records for most songs charting in Billboard's top 40 (115)[467][468][469] and top 100 (152), according to chart statistician Joel Whitburn,[469][470] 139 according to Presley historian Adam Victor.[468][469] Presley's rankings for top ten and number-one hits vary depending on how the double-sided "Hound Dog/Don't Be Cruel" and "Don't/I Beg of You" singles, which precede the inception of Billboard's unified Hot 100 chart, are analyzed.[e] According to Whitburn's analysis, Presley holds the record with 38, tying with Madonna;[467] per Billboard's current assessment, he ranks second with 36.[471] Whitburn and Billboard concur that the Beatles hold the record for most number-one hits with 20, and that Mariah Carey is second with 18. Whitburn has Presley also with 18, and thus tied for second;[467] Billboard has him third with 17.[472] Presley retains the record for cumulative weeks at number one: alone at 80, according to Whitburn and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame;[473][474] tied with Carey at 79, according to Billboard.[475][476] He holds the records for most number-one singles on the UK chart with 21 and singles reaching the top ten with 76.[477][478]

As an album artist, Presley is credited by Billboard with the record for the most albums charting in the Billboard 200: 129, far ahead of second-place Frank Sinatra's 82. He also holds the record for most time spent at number one on the Billboard 200: 67 weeks.[479] In 2015 and 2016, two albums setting Presley's vocals against music by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, If I Can Dream and The Wonder of You, both reached number one in the United Kingdom. This gave him a new record for number-one UK albums by a solo artist with 13, and extended his record for longest span between number-one albums by anybody—Presley had first topped the British chart in 1956 with his self-titled debut.[480]

As of 2020, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) credits Presley with 146.5 million certified album sales in the U.S., third all time behind the Beatles and Garth Brooks.[481] He holds the records for most gold albums (101, nearly twice as many as second-place Barbra Streisand's 51),[482] and most platinum albums (57).[483] His 25 multi-platinum albums is second behind The Beatles' 26.[484] His total of 197 album certification awards (including one diamond award), far outpaces the Beatles' second-best 122.[485] He has the third-most gold singles (54, behind Drake and Taylor Swift),[486] and the eighth-most platinum singles (27).[487]

In 2012, the spider Paradonea presleyi was named in his honor.[488] In 2018, President Donald Trump awarded Presley the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously.[489]

Bands

Presley worked with many bands and studio musicians over the course of his career. The following is a list and timeline of the most prominent musicians that worked with Presley during his lifetime.

  • Scotty Moore — lead guitar, rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1954–59, 1960–69; died 2016)
  • Bill Black — double bass, bass guitar, backing vocals (1954–58; died 1965)
  • DJ Fontana — drums, backing vocals (1955–59, 1960–69; died 2018)
  • Gordon Stoker — backing vocals, piano, organ, accordion, percussion (1956–59, 1960–68, 1969–71; died 2013)
  • Neal Matthews, Jr. — backing vocals, guitar, bass guitar, double bass (1956–59, 1960–68, 1969–71; died 2000)
  • Hoyt Hawkins — backing vocals, piano, organ, percussion (1956–59, 1960–68, 1969–71; died 1980)
  • Hugh Jarrett — backing vocals (1956–58; died 2008)
  • Ray Walker — backing vocals (1958–59, 1960–68, 1969–71)
  • Bob Moore — double bass, bass guitar (1958–59, 1960–68; died 2021)
  • Dudley Brooks — piano, celeste (1957–59, 1960–63; died 1989)
  • Tiny Timbrell — rhythm and lead guitars, mandolin (1958–59, 1963–68; died 1992)
  • Hank Garland — lead guitar, bass guitar (1960–61; died 2004)
  • Floyd Cramer — piano, organ (1960, 1963–68; died 1997)
  • Boots Randolph — saxophone, vibraphone, percussion (1960–62, 1964–68; died 2007)
  • Buddy Harman — drums, percussion (1960–63, 1964–68; died 2008)
  • Clifford Scott — saxophone (1962–64; died 1993)
  • Tony Terran — trumpet (1963-1968, 1971–1972; died 2017)
  • Hal Blaine — drums, percussion (1963; died 2019)
  • Charlie Hodge — rhythm guitar, harmony and backing vocals (1967–77; died 2006)
  • Reggie Young – lead guitar (1969; died 2019)
  • Mike Leech – bass guitar (1969)
  • Tommy Cogbill – bass guitar (1969)
  • Bobby Wood – piano (1969)
  • Bobby Emmons – electric piano, organ (1969)
  • Gene Chrisman – drums (1969)
  • James Burton — lead guitar (1969–77)
  • John Wilkinson — rhythm guitar (1969–77; died 2013)
  • Jerry Scheff — bass guitar (1969–73, 1975–77)
  • Ronnie Tutt — drums (1969, 1970–77; died 2021)
  • Larry Muhoberac — piano, electric piano (1969; died 2016)
  • Bob Lanning — drums (1970)
  • Glen D. Hardin — piano (1970–76)
  • Emory Gordy, Jr — bass guitar (1973)
  • Duke Bardwell — bass guitar (1973–75)
  • David Briggs — electric piano, clavinet, piano, organ (1975–77)
  • Tony Brown — piano, organ (1976–77)
  • Bobby Ogdin — electric piano, clavinet, piano (1977)

Discography

A vast number of recordings have been issued under Presley's name. The total number of his original master recordings has been variously calculated as 665[468] and 711.[391] His career began and he was most successful during an era when singles were the primary commercial medium for pop music. In the case of his albums, the distinction between "official" studio records and other forms is often blurred. For most of the 1960s, his recording career focused on soundtrack albums. In the 1970s, his most heavily promoted and bestselling LP releases tended to be concert albums.

Filmography

Films starred
TV concert specials

See also

Explanatory notes

  1. ^ a b Although some pronounce his surname /ˈprɛzli/ PREZ-lee, Presley himself pronounced it /ˈprɛsli/ PRESS-lee, as did his family and those who worked with him.[2] The correct spelling of his middle name has long been a matter of debate. The physician who delivered him wrote "Elvis Aaron Presley" in his ledger.[3] The state-issued birth certificate reads "Elvis Aron Presley". The name was chosen after the Presleys' friend and fellow congregation member Aaron Kennedy, though a single-A spelling was probably intended by Presley's parents to parallel the middle name of Presley's stillborn brother, Jesse Garon.[4] It reads Aron on most official documents produced during his lifetime, including his high school diploma, RCA Victor record contract, and marriage license, and this was generally taken to be the proper spelling.[5] In 1966, Presley expressed the desire to his father that the more traditional biblical rendering, Aaron, be used henceforth, "especially on legal documents".[3] Five years later, the Jaycees citation honoring him as one of the country's Outstanding Young Men used Aaron. Late in his life, he sought to officially change the spelling to Aaron and discovered that state records already listed it that way. Knowing his wishes for his middle name, Aaron is the spelling his father chose for Presley's tombstone, and it is the spelling his estate has designated as official.[5]
  2. ^ Of the $40,000, $5,000 covered back royalties owed by Sun.[87]
  3. ^ In 1956–57, Presley was also credited as a co-writer on several songs where he had no hand in the writing process: "Heartbreak Hotel"; "Don't Be Cruel"; all four songs from his first film, including the title track, "Love Me Tender"; "Paralyzed"; and "All Shook Up".[90] (Parker, however, failed to register Presley with such musical licensing firms as ASCAP and its rival BMI, which eventually denied Presley annuity from songwriter's royalties.) He received credit on two other songs to which he did contribute: he provided the title for "That's Someone You Never Forget" (1961), written by his friend and former Humes schoolmate Red West; Presley and West collaborated with another friend, guitarist Charlie Hodge, on "You'll Be Gone" (1962).[91]
  4. ^ VH1 ranked Presley No. 8 among the "100 Greatest Artists of Rock & Roll" in 1998.[437] The BBC ranked him as the No. 2 "Voice of the Century" in 2001.[438] Rolling Stone placed him No. 3 in its list of "The Immortals: The Fifty Greatest Artists of All Time" in 2004.[439] CMT ranked him No. 15 among the "40 Greatest Men in Country Music" in 2005.[440] The Discovery Channel placed him No. 8 on its "Greatest American" list in 2005.[441] Variety put him in the top ten of its "100 Icons of the Century" in 2005.[442] The Atlantic ranked him No. 66 among the "100 Most Influential Figures in American History" in 2006.[443]
  5. ^ Whitburn follows actual Billboard history in considering the four songs on the "Don't Be Cruel/Hound Dog" and "Don't/I Beg of You" singles as distinct. He tallies each side of the former single as a number-one (Billboard's sales chart had "Don't Be Cruel" at number one for five weeks, then "Hound Dog" for six) and reckons "I Beg of You" as a top ten, as it reached number eight on the old Top 100 chart. Billboard now considers both singles as unified items, ignoring the historical sales split of the former and its old Top 100 chart entirely. Whitburn thus analyzes the four songs as yielding three number ones and a total of four top tens. Billboard now states that they yielded just two number ones and a total of two top tens, voiding the separate chart appearances of "Hound Dog" and "I Beg of You".

Citations

  1. ^ a b c U.S. Department of Defense 1960.
  2. ^ Elster 2006, p. 391.
  3. ^ a b Nash 2005, p. 11.
  4. ^ a b Guralnick 1994, p. 13.
  5. ^ a b Adelman 2002, pp. 13–15.
  6. ^ a b Billboard writer Arnold Shaw, cited in Denisoff 1975, p. 22.
  7. ^ Brown & Broeske 1997, p. 55.
  8. ^ a b Guralnick & Jorgensen 1999, p. 3.
  9. ^ Earl 2017.
  10. ^ a b Guralnick 1994, pp. 12–14.
  11. ^ Kamphoefner 2009, p. 33.
  12. ^ Dundy 2004, p. 60.
  13. ^ Dundy 2004, pp. 13, 16, 20–22, 26.
  14. ^ Dundy 2004, p. 301.
  15. ^ Nash 2005, pp. 2, 188.
  16. ^ Keogh 2008, p. 222.
  17. ^ Keough 2017.
  18. ^ Dundy 2004, pp. xv, 13, 16.
  19. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 11–12, 23–24.
  20. ^ Victor 2008, p. 419.
  21. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 15–16.
  22. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 17–18.
  23. ^ Guralnick 1994, p. 19.
  24. ^ Dundy 2004, p. 101.
  25. ^ Guralnick 1994, p. 23.
  26. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 23–26.
  27. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 19–21.
  28. ^ Dundy 2004, pp. 95–96.
  29. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 32–33.
  30. ^ Guralnick 1994, p. 36.
  31. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 35–38.
  32. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 40–41.
  33. ^ Stanley & Coffey 1998, p. 20.
  34. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 43, 44, 49.
  35. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 44, 46, 51.
  36. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 52–53.
  37. ^ a b Guralnick 1994, p. 171.
  38. ^ a b Matthew-Walker 1979, p. 3.
  39. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 46–48, 358.
  40. ^ Wadey 2004.
  41. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 47–48, 77–78.
  42. ^ Guralnick 1994, p. 51.
  43. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 38–40.
  44. ^ a b c d e Guralnick 2004.
  45. ^ Bertrand 2000, p. 205.
  46. ^ Szatmary 1996, p. 35.
  47. ^ Guralnick 1994, p. 54.
  48. ^ Jorgensen 1998, p. 8.
  49. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 62–64.
  50. ^ Guralnick 1994, p. 65.
  51. ^ Guralnick 1994, p. 77.
  52. ^ Cusic 1988, p. 10.
  53. ^ Guralnick 1994, p. 80.
  54. ^ Guralnick 1994, p. 83.
  55. ^ Miller 2000, p. 72.
  56. ^ Jorgensen 1998, pp. 10–11.
  57. ^ Marcus 1982, p. 174.
  58. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 94–97.
  59. ^ Ponce de Leon 2007, p. 43.
  60. ^ a b Guralnick 1994, pp. 100–101.
  61. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 102–104.
  62. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 105, 139.
  63. ^ Miller 2021.
  64. ^ Rodman 2013, p. 151.
  65. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 106, 108–111.
  66. ^ a b Guralnick 1994, p. 110.
  67. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 117–127, 131.
  68. ^ Guralnick 1994, p. 119.
  69. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 128–130.
  70. ^ Mason 2007, pp. 37–38.
  71. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 127–128, 135–142.
  72. ^ Burke & Griffin 2006, pp. 61, 176.
  73. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 152, 156, 182.
  74. ^ Everet 1977.
  75. ^ Blazeski 2017.
  76. ^ Poché 2017.
  77. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 144, 159, 167–168.
  78. ^ Nash 2003, pp. 6–12.
  79. ^ Guralnick 1994, p. 163.
  80. ^ Bertrand 2000, p. 104.
  81. ^ Hopkins 2007, p. 53.
  82. ^ Guralnick & Jorgensen 1999, p. 45.
  83. ^ Jorgensen 1998, p. 29.
  84. ^ Rogers 1982, p. 41.
  85. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 217–119.
  86. ^ Jorgensen 1998, p. 31.
  87. ^ a b Stanley & Coffey 1998, pp. 28–29.
  88. ^ Escott 1998, p. 421.
  89. ^ Jorgensen 1998, pp. 36, 54.
  90. ^ Jorgensen 1998, pp. 35, 51, 57, 61, 75.
  91. ^ Jorgensen 1998, pp. 157–158, 166, 168.
  92. ^ Stanley & Coffey 1998, p. 29.
  93. ^ a b c Stanley & Coffey 1998, p. 30.
  94. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 235–136.
  95. ^ Slaughter & Nixon 2004, p. 21.
  96. ^ Guralnick & Jorgensen 1999, pp. 50, 54, 64.
  97. ^ Hilburn 2005.
  98. ^ Rodman 1996, p. 28.
  99. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 262–263.
  100. ^ Guralnick 1994, p. 267.
  101. ^ Koch, Manning & Toplikar 2008.
  102. ^ Guralnick 1994, p. 274.
  103. ^ a b Victor 2008, p. 315.
  104. ^ Guralnick & Jorgensen 1999, pp. 72–73.
  105. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 273, 284.
  106. ^ Fensch 2001, pp. 14–18.
  107. ^ a b Burke & Griffin 2006, p. 52.
  108. ^ Jorgensen 1998, p. 49.
  109. ^ Gould 1956.
  110. ^ a b Guralnick & Jorgensen 1999, p. 73.
  111. ^ a b c d e Marcus 2006.
  112. ^ Marsh 1982, p. 100.
  113. ^ Austen 2005, p. 13.
  114. ^ Allen 1992, p. 270.
  115. ^ Rock 'N Roll Stars 1956, p. 5.
  116. ^ Keogh 2004, p. 73.
  117. ^ Jorgensen 1998, p. 51.
  118. ^ Guralnick & Jorgensen 1999, pp. 80–81.
  119. ^ Whitburn 1993, p. 5.
  120. ^ Jorgensen 1998, pp. 60–65.
  121. ^ a b Austen 2005, p. 16.
  122. ^ Edgerton 2007, p. 187.
  123. ^ Brown & Broeske 1997, p. 93.
  124. ^ Guralnick 1994, p. 338.
  125. ^ a b Gibson 2005.
  126. ^ a b Victor 2008, p. 439.
  127. ^ Jezer 1982, p. 281.
  128. ^ Moore & Dickerson 1997, p. 175.
  129. ^ Guralnick 1994, p. 343.
  130. ^ Guralnick 1994, p. 335.
  131. ^ a b Marsh 1980, p. 395.
  132. ^ O'Malley 2016.
  133. ^ Jorgensen 1998, p. 71.
  134. ^ Palladino 1996, p. 131.
  135. ^ Stanley & Coffey 1998, p. 37.
  136. ^ Clayton & Heard 2003, pp. 117–118.
  137. ^ Keogh 2004, p. 90.
  138. ^ Guralnick & Jorgensen 1999, p. 95.
  139. ^ Salisbury 1957, p. 4.
  140. ^ Google Maps.
  141. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 395–397.
  142. ^ Nix 2019.
  143. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 406–408, 452.
  144. ^ Fox 1986, p. 178.
  145. ^ Leigh 2017, p. 187.
  146. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 399–402, 428–430, 437–440.
  147. ^ a b Guralnick 1994, p. 400.
  148. ^ a b Guralnick 1994, p. 430.
  149. ^ Turner 2004, p. 104.
  150. ^ Guralnick 1994, p. 437.
  151. ^ Guralnick 1994, p. 431.
  152. ^ Grein 2008.
  153. ^ Caulfield 2016.
  154. ^ Baird 2017.
  155. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 431–435.
  156. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 448–449.
  157. ^ a b Fox 1986, p. 179.
  158. ^ Jorgensen 1998, pp. 99, 105.
  159. ^ Billboard 1965.
  160. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 461–474.
  161. ^ Victor 2008, p. 27.
  162. ^ Jorgensen 1998, pp. 106–111.
  163. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 474–480.
  164. ^ Neibaur 2014, p. 51.
  165. ^ Guralnick 1999, p. 21.
  166. ^ BudoDragon 2021.
  167. ^ Tillery 2013, p. 60.
  168. ^ Eiland, Murray (2018). "Elvis Presley's Coat of Arms". The Armiger's News. 41 (1): 6 – via academia.edu.
  169. ^ Corcoran 1998.
  170. ^ Tillery 2013, Chapter 5: Patriot.
  171. ^ Guralnick 1999, pp. 47, 49, 55, 60, 73.
  172. ^ Clayton & Heard 2003, p. 160.
  173. ^ Presley 1985, p. 40.
  174. ^ Jorgensen 1998, p. 107.
  175. ^ Whitburn 2010, p. 520.
  176. ^ Marcus 1982, p. 278.
  177. ^ Matthew-Walker 1979, p. 49.
  178. ^ Slaughter & Nixon 2004, p. 54.
  179. ^ Matthew-Walker 1979, p. 19.
  180. ^ Slaughter & Nixon 2004, p. 57.
  181. ^ Marcus 1982, pp. 279–280.
  182. ^ Robertson 2004, p. 50.
  183. ^ "Red Carpet" 1960.
  184. ^ Jorgensen 1998, pp. 124–127, 414.
  185. ^ Guralnick 1999, pp. 44, 62–63.
  186. ^ Gordon 2005, pp. 110, 114.
  187. ^ Jorgensen 1998, p. 148.
  188. ^ Robertson 2004, p. 52.
  189. ^ Gordon 2005, pp. 110, 119.
  190. ^ Ponce de Leon 2007, p. 133.
  191. ^ Caine 2005, p. 21.
  192. ^ Fields 2007.
  193. ^ a b Guralnick 1994, p. 449.
  194. ^ Kirchberg & Hendrickx 1999, p. 67.
  195. ^ Lisanti 2000, pp. 19, 136.
  196. ^ Jorgensen 1998, p. 201.
  197. ^ Hopkins 2002, p. 32.
  198. ^ Matthew-Walker 1979, p. 66.
  199. ^ Marsh 2004, p. 650.
  200. ^ Guralnick 1999, pp. 261–263.
  201. ^ Kirchberg & Hendrickx 1999, p. 73.
  202. ^ a b Keogh 2004, p. 263.
  203. ^ Rolling Stone 2009.
  204. ^ Guralnick 1999, p. 171.
  205. ^ Whitburn 2010, p. 521.
  206. ^ Kubernick 2008, p. 4.
  207. ^ Guralnick 1999, pp. 293, 296.
  208. ^ a b c Kubernick 2008, p. 26.
  209. ^ a b Hopkins 2007, p. 215.
  210. ^ Marsh 2004, p. 649.
  211. ^ Jorgensen 1998, p. 277.
  212. ^ Marsh 1980, p. 396.
  213. ^ Jorgensen 1998, p. 419.
  214. ^ Gordon 2005, p. 146.
  215. ^ Jorgensen 1998, p. 283.
  216. ^ Guralnick 1999, p. 343.
  217. ^ Guralnick 1999, pp. 346–347.
  218. ^ Gordon 2005, pp. 149–150.
  219. ^ Cook 2004, p. 39.
  220. ^ Guralnick & Jorgensen 1999, pp. 259, 262.
  221. ^ Moyer 2002, p. 73.
  222. ^ Jorgensen 1998, p. 287.
  223. ^ Whitburn 2010, pp. 521–522.
  224. ^ a b Stein 1997.
  225. ^ Mason 2007, p. 81.
  226. ^ Stanley & Coffey 1998, p. 94.
  227. ^ Stanley & Coffey 1998, p. 95.
  228. ^ Hopkins 2007, p. 253.
  229. ^ Hopkins 2007, p. 254.
  230. ^ Stanley & Coffey 1998, p. 96.
  231. ^ Robertson 2004, p. 70.
  232. ^ Stanley & Coffey 1998, p. 99.
  233. ^ Guralnick 1999, pp. 419–422.
  234. ^ Jorgensen 1998, pp. 284, 286, 307–308, 313, 326, 338, 357–358.
  235. ^ Guralnick 1999, p. 420.
  236. ^ The Beatles 2000, p. 192.
  237. ^ Jorgensen 1998, p. 321.
  238. ^ McPhate 2017.
  239. ^ Guralnick & Jorgensen 1999, pp. 299–300.
  240. ^ Jorgensen 1998, p. 319.
  241. ^ Marcus 1982, pp. 284–185.
  242. ^ Guralnick & Jorgensen 1999, p. 308.
  243. ^ Marcus 1982, p. 283.
  244. ^ Guralnick 1999, p. 478.
  245. ^ Williamson 2015, pp. 253–254.
  246. ^ Guralnick 1999, pp. 451, 446, 453.
  247. ^ Guralnick 1999, p. 456.
  248. ^ Marsh 2015.
  249. ^ Hopkins 2007, p. 291.
  250. ^ Guralnick 1999, p. 474.
  251. ^ Moscheo 2007, p. 132.
  252. ^ Keogh 2004, pp. 234–235.
  253. ^ Hopkins 2002, pp. 61, 67, 73.
  254. ^ Hopkins 2002, p. 73.
  255. ^ Victor 2008, p. 10.
  256. ^ Brown & Broeske 1997, p. 364.
  257. ^ Guralnick 1999, p. 475.
  258. ^ Fessier 2013.
  259. ^ Mason 2007, p. 141.
  260. ^ RIAA 2010.
  261. ^ Jorgensen 1998, pp. 422–425.
  262. ^ Guralnick 1999, pp. 488–490.
  263. ^ Guralnick & Jorgensen 1999, p. 329.
  264. ^ a b c d e Higginbotham 2002.
  265. ^ Keogh 2004, p. 238.
  266. ^ Guralnick 1999, pp. 481, 487, 499, 504, 519–520.
  267. ^ Guralnick 1999, p. 547.
  268. ^ a b Hopkins 1986, p. 136.
  269. ^ Garber 1997, p. 364.
  270. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 50, 148.
  271. ^ Guralnick 1999, pp. 601–604.
  272. ^ Stanley & Coffey 1998, p. 139.
  273. ^ Hopkins 2007, p. 354.
  274. ^ Stanley & Coffey 1998, p. 140.
  275. ^ Guralnick 1999, p. 560.
  276. ^ Guralnick & Jorgensen 1999, p. 336.
  277. ^ Jorgensen 1998, p. 381.
  278. ^ a b Grammy 2014.
  279. ^ Guralnick 1999, pp. 584–585.
  280. ^ Guralnick 1999, pp. 593–595.
  281. ^ Guralnick 1999, p. 595.
  282. ^ Jorgensen 1998, p. 397.
  283. ^ Caulfield 2004.
  284. ^ a b c Whitburn 2006, p. 273.
  285. ^ Marcus 1982, p. 284.
  286. ^ Marsh 1989, p. 430.
  287. ^ Victor 2008, pp. 8, 526.
  288. ^ Victor 2008, pp. 8, 224, 325.
  289. ^ Scherman 2006.
  290. ^ Guralnick 1999, p. 628.
  291. ^ Guralnick 1999, pp. 628–630.
  292. ^ Guralnick 1999, p. 634.
  293. ^ Guralnick 1999, pp. 212, 642.
  294. ^ a b Guralnick 1999, p. 638.
  295. ^ Harrison 2016, p. 23.
  296. ^ Stanley & Coffey 1998, p. 148.
  297. ^ Humphries 2003, p. 79.
  298. ^ Alden 2014.
  299. ^ Guralnick 1999, pp. 645–648.
  300. ^ Harrison 2016, p. 242.
  301. ^ a b Woolley & Peters 1977.
  302. ^ Hopkins 2007, p. 386.
  303. ^ a b Guralnick 1999, p. 660.
  304. ^ Victor 2008, pp. 581–582.
  305. ^ Matthew-Walker 1979, p. 26.
  306. ^ Pendergast & Pendergast 2000, p. 108.
  307. ^ Warwick, Kutner & Brown 2004, pp. 860–866.
  308. ^ a b c Ramsland 2010.
  309. ^ Guralnick 1999, pp. 651–653.
  310. ^ a b Baden & Hennessee 1990, p. 35.
  311. ^ Tennant 2013, p. 2.
  312. ^ Williamson 2015, pp. 11–14.
  313. ^ Coffey 1997, p. 247.
  314. ^ Wertheimer 1997, p. 132.
  315. ^ Tennant 2013.
  316. ^ Guardian 2014.
  317. ^ Brown & Broeske 1997, p. 433.
  318. ^ National Park Service 2010.
  319. ^ Cook 2004, p. 33.
  320. ^ Garrity 2002.
  321. ^ Bronson 2004, p. 1.
  322. ^ "Hits of the World" 2004.
  323. ^ Sexton 2007.
  324. ^ Goldman & Ewalt 2007.
  325. ^ Rose 2006.
  326. ^ Goldman & Paine 2007.
  327. ^ Hoy 2008.
  328. ^ Pomerantz et al. 2009.
  329. ^ Rose et al. 2010.
  330. ^ Baillie 2010.
  331. ^ Bouchard 2010.
  332. ^ Lynch 2011.
  333. ^ Pomerantz 2011.
  334. ^ Greenburg 2017.
  335. ^ Legacy 2018.
  336. ^ Luhrmann 2022.
  337. ^ "Elvis (2022)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved August 15, 2022.
  338. ^ "Elvis Presley's Lockheed 1329 JetStar sells at auction for $260,000". Globalair.com. Retrieved January 11, 2023.
  339. ^ Guralnick 1994, p. 14.
  340. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 47–48.
  341. ^ Bertrand 2000, p. 211.
  342. ^ Graceland Blog 2015.
  343. ^ Roberts 2001, p. [page needed].
  344. ^ Osborne 2017, p. 73.
  345. ^ Duffett 2018, p. 189.
  346. ^ Murray 1961, p. 65.
  347. ^ Marcus 2015, p. 341.
  348. ^ Trynka & Bacon 1996, p. 42.
  349. ^ Eder 2013, p. 149.
  350. ^ Morrison 1996, p. x.
  351. ^ a b Friedlander 1996, p. 45.
  352. ^ Charlton 2006, p. 103.
  353. ^ Jancik 1998, p. 16.
  354. ^ Campbell 2009, p. 161.
  355. ^ Guralnick 1989, p. 104.
  356. ^ Gillett 2000, p. 113.
  357. ^ Jorgensen 1998, p. 39.
  358. ^ Wolfe 1994, p. 14.
  359. ^ Wolfe 1994, p. 22.
  360. ^ Keogh 2004, p. 184.
  361. ^ Jorgensen 1998, p. 123.
  362. ^ Marsh 1982, p. 145.
  363. ^ Jorgensen 1998, pp. 213, 237.
  364. ^ Guralnick 1999, p. 65.
  365. ^ Jorgensen 1998, pp. 142–143.
  366. ^ Jorgensen 1998, p. 343.
  367. ^ Ponce de Leon 2007, p. 199.
  368. ^ Marsh 1982, p. 234.
  369. ^ Marsh 1989, p. 317.
  370. ^ Marsh 1989, p. 91.
  371. ^ Marsh 1989, p. 490.
  372. ^ Jorgensen 1998, p. 212.
  373. ^ Guralnick 1999, p. 232.
  374. ^ Guralnick 1999, p. 231.
  375. ^ Marsh 1989, p. 424.
  376. ^ Jorgensen 1998, p. 271.
  377. ^ Guralnick 1999, p. 332.
  378. ^ Guralnick 1999, p. 335.
  379. ^ a b c d Pleasants 2004, p. 260.
  380. ^ Waters 2003, p. 205.
  381. ^ Williams 2012.
  382. ^ a b Pilgrim 2006.
  383. ^ Guralnick 1994, p. 426.
  384. ^ a b Kolawole 2002.
  385. ^ a b Myrie 2009, pp. 123–124.
  386. ^ "Chuck Hails the King". The Age. August 13, 2002. from the original on April 18, 2014. Retrieved May 8, 2014.
  387. ^ Ed Masley (July 4, 2004). "Elvis may have been the king, but was he first". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. from the original on May 8, 2014. Retrieved May 8, 2014.
  388. ^ Masley 2002.
  389. ^ Osborne 2000, p. 207.
  390. ^ Bertrand 2000, p. 198.
  391. ^ a b Feeney 2010.
  392. ^ Ashley 2009, p. 76.
  393. ^ Rodman 1996, p. 58.
  394. ^ Rodman 1996, pp. 58–59.
  395. ^ Garber 1997, p. 366.
  396. ^ Dyer 1959–1960, p. 30.
  397. ^ Farmer 2000, p. 86.
  398. ^ Tasker 2007, p. 208.
  399. ^ Kirchberg & Hendrickx 1999, p. 109.
  400. ^ Moncrease 2020.
  401. ^ Altieri 2017.
  402. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 415–417, 448–449.
  403. ^ Guralnick 1994, pp. 452–453.
  404. ^ Jorgensen 1998, p. 198.
  405. ^ Guralnick 1999, p. 248.
  406. ^ Guralnick & Jorgensen 1999, pp. 304, 365.
  407. ^ Guralnick & Jorgensen 1999, pp. 358, 375.
  408. ^ Presley 1985, p. 188.
  409. ^ a b Nash 2005, p. 290.
  410. ^ Dowd 2022.
  411. ^ Clayton & Heard 2003, pp. 262–265.
  412. ^ Clayton & Heard 2003, p. 267.
  413. ^ Jorgensen 1998, p. 281.
  414. ^ Nash 2003, p. 186.
  415. ^ Nash 2003, p. 187.
  416. ^ Nash 2005, pp. 64, 478.
  417. ^ Stanley & Coffey 1998, p. 123.
  418. ^ Hopkins 2007, p. 192.
  419. ^ Brown & Broeske 1997, p. 125.
  420. ^ Clayton & Heard 2003, p. 226.
  421. ^ Guralnick 1999, pp. 563–565.
  422. ^ Ponce de Leon 2007, pp. 139–140.
  423. ^ Harris 2006.
  424. ^ Clayton & Heard 2003, p. 339.
  425. ^ Connelly 2008, p. 148.
  426. ^ Guralnick 1999, p. 174.
  427. ^ Guralnick 1999, p. 175.
  428. ^ Christgau 1985.
  429. ^ Collins 2002.
  430. ^ Sadie 1994, p. 638.
  431. ^ Bertrand 2000, p. 94.
  432. ^ Rodman 1996, p. 193.
  433. ^ a b Victor 2008, p. 356.
  434. ^ Arnett 2006, p. 400.
  435. ^ Doss 1999, p. 2.
  436. ^ Lott 1997, p. 192.
  437. ^ VH1 1998.
  438. ^ BBC News 2001.
  439. ^ Rolling Stone 2004.
  440. ^ CMT 2005.
  441. ^ Discovery Channel 2005.
  442. ^ Variety.com 2005.
  443. ^ Atlantic 2006.
  444. ^ Keogh 2004, p. 2.
  445. ^ Davies 1996, p. 19.
  446. ^ Nash 2005, p. xv.
  447. ^ Harrison 2016, p. 149.
  448. ^ Cosby 2016, p. 144.
  449. ^ Doll 2016, p. 186.
  450. ^ a b Martin 2000.
  451. ^ Smith 2002.
  452. ^ Dundy 2004, pp. 227, 256.
  453. ^ Wilson 2010, p. 121.
  454. ^ Slater 2002.
  455. ^ Milly 2002.
  456. ^ Harrison 1992, pp. 42, 157–160, 169.
  457. ^ Clarke 2006, pp. 77, 80.
  458. ^ Harrison 1992, pp. 159–160.
  459. ^ a b Harrison 2016, p. 10.
  460. ^ Segré 2002.
  461. ^ New York Times 2002.
  462. ^ Marcus 1982, pp. 141–142.
  463. ^ Kennedy & Gadpaille 2017, p. 188.
  464. ^ Guinness World Records.
  465. ^ Nickles & Iyer 2012, p. 77.
  466. ^ Mohamed 2021.
  467. ^ a b c Whitburn 2010, p. 875.
  468. ^ a b c Victor 2008, p. 438.
  469. ^ a b c Trust 2019.
  470. ^ Hilburn 2007.
  471. ^ Hasty 2008.
  472. ^ Moody 2008.
  473. ^ Whitburn 2010, p. 876.
  474. ^ RRHF 2010.
  475. ^ Bronson 1998.
  476. ^ Trust 2010.
  477. ^ Myers 2022.
  478. ^ Myers 2021.
  479. ^ Trust 2015.
  480. ^ Sexton 2016.
  481. ^ RIAA 2020a.
  482. ^ RIAA 2020b.
  483. ^ RIAA 2020c.
  484. ^ RIAA 2020d.
  485. ^ Lewis 2017.
  486. ^ RIAA 2020e.
  487. ^ RIAA 2020f.
  488. ^ Miller et al. 2012.
  489. ^ BBC News 2018.

General sources

  • Adelman, Kim (2002). The Girls' Guide to Elvis: The Clothes, the Hair, the Women, and More!. Random House. ISBN 978-0-7679-1188-7.
  • Alden, Ginger (2014). Elvis & Ginger: Elvis Presley's Fiancée and Last Love Finally Tells her Story. New York: Berkeley Publishing. ISBN 978-1-101-61613-0.
  • Allen, Steve (1992). Hi-Ho, Steverino!: My Adventures in the Wonderful Wacky World of TV. Thorndike Press. ISBN 978-1-56054-521-7.
  • Altieri, Marion E. (August 8, 2017). "Review: All the King's Horses: the Equestrian Life of Elvis Presley by Kimberly Gatto and Victoria Racimo". Equine Info Exchange.
  • Arnett, Jeffrey Jensen (2006). Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach (3rd ed.). Pearson Prentice Hall. ISBN 978-0-13-195071-9.
  • Ashley, Martin (2009). How High Should Boys Sing?. Ashgate. ISBN 978-0-7546-6475-8.
  • "The Top 100". The Atlantic. December 2006. Retrieved January 19, 2018.
  • Austen, Jake (2005). TV-A-Go-Go: Rock on TV from American Bandstand to American Idol. Chicago Review Press. ISBN 978-1-55652-572-8.
  • Baden, Michael M.; Hennessee, Judith Adler (1990). Unnatural Death: Confessions of a Medical Examiner. Ballantine. ISBN 978-0-8041-0599-6.
  • Baillie, Russell (November 6, 2010). "Album Review: Elvis Presley Viva Elvis The Album". New Zealand Herald. Retrieved November 9, 2010.
  • Baird, Robert (December 23, 2017). "Elvis and the Royal Philharmonic". Stereophile. Retrieved January 17, 2018.
  • "Sinatra Is Voice of the Century". BBC News. April 18, 2001. Retrieved December 29, 2009.
  • "Elvis Presley gets US Presidential Medal of Freedom". BBC News. November 16, 2018. Retrieved November 17, 2018.
  • The Beatles (2000). The Beatles Anthology. Chronicle Books. ISBN 978-0-8118-2684-6.
  • Bertrand, Michael T (2000). Race, Rock, and Elvis. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-02586-0.
  • "Bill Black Dies at 39". Billboard. October 30, 1965. p. 8.
  • Blazeski, Goran (April 23, 2017). "Elvis Presley performed in a TV commercial in exchange for a box of hot glazed doughnuts". The Vintage News. Retrieved September 21, 2018.
  • Bouchard, Dany (November 5, 2010). "Priscilla Presley Keeps King Alive". Toronto Sun. Retrieved November 9, 2010.
  • Bronson, Fred (May 9, 1998). "Chart Beat". Billboard. p. 94.
  • Bronson, Fred (July 3, 2004). "Chart Beat". Billboard. p. 57.
  • Brown, Peter Harry; Broeske, Pat H. (1997). Down at the End of Lonely Street: The Life and Death of Elvis Presley. Signet. ISBN 978-0-451-19094-9.
  • "How good was Elvis Presley at Karate?". BudoDragon. April 21, 2021. Retrieved April 22, 2021.
  • Duffett, Mark (2018). Counting Down Elvis: His 100 Finest Songs. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 978-1-4422-4805-2.
  • Burke, Ken; Griffin, Dan (2006). The Blue Moon Boys: The Story of Elvis Presley's Band. Chicago Review Press. ISBN 978-1-55652-614-5.
  • Caine, Andrew (2005). Interpreting Rock Movies: The Pop Film and Its Critics in Britain. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-7190-6538-5.
  • Campbell, Michael (2009). Popular Music in America (3rd ed.).
  • Caulfield, Keith (September 18, 2004). "The King of Crossover's No. 1 Hits". Billboard. p. 24.
  • Caulfield, Keith (November 25, 2016). "Popular Demand". Billboard. Retrieved January 17, 2018.
  • Charlton, Katherine (2006). Rock Music Styles: A History (5th ed.). McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-312162-8.
  • Christgau, Robert (December 24, 1985). "Christgau's Consumer Guide". The Village Voice. New York. Retrieved August 26, 2012.
  • Clarke, Steve (2006). ""Conspiracy Theories and Conspiracy Theorizing"". In Coady, David (ed.). Conspiracy Theories: The Philosophical Debate. Ashgate. ISBN 978-0-7546-5250-2.
  • Clayton, Dick; Heard, James (2003). Elvis: By Those Who Knew Him Best. Virgin Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7535-0835-0.
  • "40 Greatest Men in Country Music". CMT. 2005. Retrieved December 29, 2009.
  • Coffey, Frank (1997). The Complete Idiot's Guide to Elvis. New York: Alpha Books.
  • Collins, Dan (August 7, 2002). "How Big Was The King?". CBS News/Associated Press. Retrieved December 27, 2009.
  • Connelly, Charlie (2008). In Search of Elvis: A Journey to Find the Man Beneath the Jumpsuit. Little, Brown. ISBN 978-0-349-11900-7.
  • Cook, Jody (2004). Graceland National Historic Landmark Nomination Form (PDF). United States Department of the Interior.
  • Corcoran, John (March 1, 1998). "The King and Karate". Black Belt. pp. 48–54. Retrieved December 17, 2017.
  • Cosby, James A. (2016). Devil's Music, Holy Rollers and Hillbillies: How America Gave Birth to Rock and Roll. McFarland. ISBN 978-1-4766-6229-9.
  • Cusic, Don (Summer 1988). "Singing with the King". Rejoice! The Gospel Music Magazine.
  • Davies, Hunter (1996). The Beatles (2nd rev. ed.). W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-31571-4.
  • Denisoff, R. Serge (1975). Solid Gold: The Popular Record Industry. Transaction Books. ISBN 978-0-87855-586-4.
  • . Discovery Channel. 2005. Archived from the original on January 29, 2010. Retrieved December 29, 2009.
  • Doll, Susan (2016). Understanding Elvis: Southern Roots vs. Star Image. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-8153-3164-3.
  • Doss, Erika Lee (1999). Elvis Culture: Fans, Faith, and Image. University of Kansas Press. ISBN 978-0-7006-0948-2.
  • Dowd, Maureen (May 22, 2022). "A Larger-Than-Life Look at a Larger-Than-Life Star". The New York Times. pp. ST10. Retrieved May 22, 2022.
  • Dundy, Elaine (2004). Elvis and Gladys (2nd ed.). University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1-57806-634-6.
  • Dyer, Peter John (Winter 1959–60). "The Teenage Rave". Sight and Sound.
  • Earl, Jennifer (February 14, 2017). "19 celebrities you didn't know were twins (Elvis and Jesse Presley)". CBS News. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  • Eder, Mike (2013). Elvis Music FAQ: All That's Left to Know About the King's Recorded Works. Backbeat Books. ISBN 978-1-61713-580-4.
  • Edgerton, Gary R. (2007). The Columbia History of American Television. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-12165-1.
  • Elster, Charles Harrington (2006). The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-618-42315-6.
  • Escott, Colin (1998). ""Elvis Presley"". In Kingsbury, Paul (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-517608-7.
  • Everet, Todd (August 17, 1977). "Elvis Presley, 42, Found Dead in His Memphis Mansion". Variety. Retrieved September 21, 2018.
  • Farmer, Brett (2000). Spectacular Passions: Cinema, Fantasy, Gay Male Spectatorships (2nd ed.). Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-2589-5.
  • Feeney, Mark (January 3, 2010). "Elvis at 75: Can We Ever Again See the Performer, Not the Punch Line?". The Boston Globe. Retrieved February 1, 2010.
  • Fensch, Thomas (2001). The FBI Files on Elvis Presley. New Century Books. ISBN 978-0-930751-03-6.
  • Fessier, Bruce (May 10, 2013). "Director Remembers Landmark Elvis Presley Performance". USA Today. Retrieved January 19, 2018.
  • Fields, Curt (August 3, 2007). "A Whole Lotta Elvis Is Goin' to the Small Screen". The Washington Post. Retrieved December 27, 2009.
  • Fox, Ted (1986). In the Groove: The People Behind the Music. St Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-01776-7.
  • Friedlander, Paul (1996). Rock and Roll: A Social History. Westview. ISBN 978-0-8133-2725-9.
  • Garber, Marjorie (1997). Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-91951-7.
  • Garrity, Brian (October 12, 2002). "King's Crown Shines: First No. 1 Debut". Billboard. pp. 1, 3.
  • Gibson, Christine (December 6, 2005). . American Heritage. Archived from the original on May 15, 2009. Retrieved December 31, 2009.
  • Gillett, Charlie (2000). "The Five Styles of Rock'n'Roll". In McKeen, William (ed.). Rock and Roll Is Here To Stay: An Anthology. W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-04700-4.
  • Goldman, Lea; Ewalt, David M. (October 29, 2007). . Forbes. Archived from the original on June 11, 2008. Retrieved January 5, 2010.
  • Goldman, Lea; Paine, Jake (October 29, 2007). "Top-Earning Dead Celebrities". Forbes. Retrieved June 5, 2011.
  • "Graceland to Downtown Memphis". Google Maps. Retrieved March 10, 2021.
  • Gordon, Robert (2005). The King on the Road. Bounty Books. ISBN 978-0-7537-1088-3.
  • Gould, Jack (June 6, 1956). "TV: New Phenomenon – Elvis Presley Rises to Fame as Vocalist Who Is Virtuoso of Hootchy-Kootchy" (PDF). The New York Times. Retrieved December 31, 2009.
  • "Elvis Presley, the Musician". Graceland Blog. December 3, 2015. Retrieved July 1, 2019.
  • . Grammy. March 17, 2014. Archived from the original on April 6, 2019. Retrieved January 9, 2019.
  • Greenburg, Zack O'Malley (October 30, 2017). "The Top-Earning Dead Celebrities of 2017". Forbes. Retrieved January 8, 2018.
  • Grein, Paul (December 5, 2008). . Yahoo! Music. Archived from the original on December 24, 2011. Retrieved February 1, 2010.
  • "Channel 4 Show 'Discovers Cause of Elvis Presley's Death'". The Guardian. March 25, 2014. Retrieved January 20, 2018.
  • Guffey, Elizabeth E. (2006). Retro: The Culture of Revival. Reaktion. ISBN 978-1-86189-290-4.
  • "Best-selling solo artist". Guinness World Records. Retrieved August 3, 2021.
  • Guralnick, Peter (1989). Lost Highway: Journeys & Arrivals of American Musicians. Vintage. ISBN 978-0-394-75215-0.
  • Guralnick, Peter (1994). Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley. Little, Brown. ISBN 978-0-316-33225-5.
  • Guralnick, Peter (1999). Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley. Back Bay Books. ISBN 978-0-316-33297-2.
  • Guralnick, Peter (January 8, 2004). "How Did Elvis Get Turned into a Racist?". The New York Times. Retrieved August 11, 2007.
  • Guralnick, Peter; Jorgensen, Ernst (1999). Elvis Day by Day: The Definitive Record of His Life and Music. Ballantine. ISBN 978-0-345-42089-3.
  • Harris, John (March 27, 2006). "Talking about Graceland". The Guardian. Retrieved January 4, 2010.
  • Harrison, Ted (1992). Elvis People: The Cult of the King. Fount. ISBN 978-0-00-627620-3.
  • Harrison, Ted (2016). The Death and Resurrection of Elvis Presley. Reaktion. ISBN 978-1-78023-637-7.
  • Hasty, Katie (May 7, 2008). "Madonna Leads Busy Billboard 200 with 7th No. 1". Billboard. Retrieved January 20, 2018.
  • Higginbotham, Alan (August 11, 2002). "Doctor Feelgood". The Observer. Retrieved December 29, 2009.
  • Hilburn, Robert (February 6, 2005). "From the Man Who Would Be King". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 4, 2010.
  • Hilburn, Robert (October 30, 2007). "This Fan of Charts Is No. 1, with a Bullet". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 17, 2010.
  • "Hits of the World". Billboard. July 24, 2004. p. 62.
  • Hopkins, Jerry (1986). Elvis: The Final Years. Berkley. ISBN 978-0-425-08999-6.
  • Hopkins, Jerry (2002). Elvis in Hawaii. Bess Press. ISBN 978-1-57306-142-1.
  • Hopkins, Jerry (2007). Elvis – The Biography. Plexus. ISBN 978-0-85965-391-6.
  • Hoy, Peter (October 27, 2008). "Top-Earning Dead Celebrities". Forbes. Retrieved June 5, 2011.
  • Humphries, Patrick (2003). Elvis the No. 1 Hits: The Secret History of the Classics. Andrews McMeel Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7407-3803-6.
  • Jancik, Wayne (1998). The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders.
  • Jezer, Marty (1982). The Dark Ages: Life in the United States 1945–1960. South End Press. ISBN 978-0-89608-127-7.
  • Jorgensen, Ernst (1998). Elvis Presley – A Life in Music: The Complete Recording Sessions. St Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-18572-5.
  • Kamphoefner, Walter D (2010). ""Elvis and Other Germans: Some Reflections and Modest Proposals on the Study of German-American Ethnicity" (2009)". In Kluge, Cora Lee (ed.). Paths Crossing: Essays in German-American Studies. Peter Lang. ISBN 978-3-0343-0221-0.
  • Kennedy, Victor; Gadpaille, Michelle (2017). Ethnic and Cultural Identity in Music and Song Lyrics. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 9781443896207.
  • Keogh, Pamela Clarke (2004). Elvis Presley: The Man, The Life, The Legend. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7434-5603-6.
  • Keogh, Pamela Clarke (2008). Elvis Presley: The Man, The Life, The Legend. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4391-0815-4.
  • Keough, Riley [@rileykeough] (July 19, 2017). "I had one great grandma who was creek and one who was full blood Cherokee" (Tweet). Retrieved October 10, 2021 – via Twitter.
  • Kirchberg, Connie; Hendrickx, Marc (1999). Elvis Presley, Richard Nixon, and the American Dream. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-0716-3.
  • Koch, Ed; Manning, Mary; Toplikar, Dave (May 15, 2008). "Showtime: How Sin City evolved into 'The Entertainment Capital of the World'". Las Vegas Sun. Retrieved March 3, 2019.
  • Kolawole, Helen (August 15, 2002). "He Wasn't My King". The Guardian. Retrieved December 27, 2009.
  • Kubernick, Harvey (2008). The Complete '68 Comeback Special. CD Book

elvis, presley, elvis, king, rock, roll, redirect, here, other, uses, elvis, disambiguation, king, rock, roll, disambiguation, elvis, aaron, presley, january, 1935, august, 1977, often, referred, mononymously, elvis, american, singer, actor, dubbed, king, rock. Elvis and King of Rock and Roll redirect here For other uses see Elvis disambiguation and King of Rock and Roll disambiguation Elvis Aaron Presley a January 8 1935 August 16 1977 often referred to mononymously as Elvis was an American singer and actor Dubbed the King of Rock and Roll he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century His energized interpretations of songs and sexually provocative performance style combined with a singularly potent mix of influences across color lines during a transformative era in race relations led him to both great success and initial controversy Elvis PresleyPresley in a publicity photograph for the 1957 film Jailhouse RockBornElvis Aron Presley a 1935 01 08 January 8 1935Tupelo Mississippi U S DiedAugust 16 1977 1977 08 16 aged 42 Memphis Tennessee U S Cause of deathCardiac arrestResting placeGracelandMemphis Tennessee U S 35 2 46 N 90 1 23 W 35 04611 N 90 02306 W 35 04611 90 02306OccupationsSinger actorWorksAlbumssinglessongs recorded Sun label film and televisionSpousePriscilla Presley m 1967 div 1973 wbr ChildrenLisa Marie PresleyRelativesRiley Keough granddaughter AwardsRock and Roll Hall of Fame 1986 Presidential Medal of Freedom 2018 Musical careerGenresRock and roll pop rockabilly country gospel R amp B bluesInstrumentsVocals guitar pianoYears active1953 1977LabelsSun RCA Victor HMV Allied Artists Music GroupMilitary service 1 BranchUnited States ArmyYears of service1958 1960RankSergeantUnitHeadquarters Company 1st Medium Tank Battalion 32d Armor 3d Armored DivisionAwardsGood Conduct MedalPresley was born in Tupelo Mississippi and relocated to Memphis Tennessee with his family when he was 13 years old His music career began there in 1954 recording at Sun Records with producer Sam Phillips who wanted to bring the sound of African American music to a wider audience Presley on rhythm acoustic guitar and accompanied by lead guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black was a pioneer of rockabilly an uptempo backbeat driven fusion of country music and rhythm and blues In 1955 drummer D J Fontana joined to complete the lineup of Presley s classic quartet and RCA Victor acquired his contract in a deal arranged by Colonel Tom Parker who would manage him for more than two decades Presley s first RCA Victor single Heartbreak Hotel was released in January 1956 and became a number one hit in the United States Within a year RCA would sell ten million Presley singles With a series of successful network television appearances and chart topping records Presley became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll though his performative style and promotion of the then marginalized sound of African Americans 6 led to him being widely considered a threat to the moral well being of the White American youth 7 In November 1956 Presley made his film debut in Love Me Tender Drafted into military service in 1958 Presley relaunched his recording career two years later with some of his most commercially successful work He held few concerts however and guided by Parker proceeded to devote much of the 1960s to making Hollywood films and soundtrack albums most of them critically derided Some of his most famous films included Jailhouse Rock 1957 Blue Hawaii 1961 and Viva Las Vegas 1964 In 1968 following a seven year break from live performances he returned to the stage in the acclaimed television comeback special Elvis which led to an extended Las Vegas concert residency and a string of highly profitable tours In 1973 Presley gave the first concert by a solo artist to be broadcast around the world Aloha from Hawaii Years of prescription drug abuse and unhealthy eating habits severely compromised his health and he died suddenly in 1977 at his Graceland estate at the age of 42 Having sold over 400 million records worldwide Presley is recognized as the best selling solo music artist of all time by Guinness World Records He was commercially successful in many genres including pop country rhythm amp blues adult contemporary and gospel Presley won three Grammy Awards received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36 and has been inducted into multiple music halls of fame He holds several records including the most RIAA certified gold and platinum albums the most albums charted on the Billboard 200 the most number one albums by a solo artist on the UK Albums Chart and the most number one singles by any act on the UK Singles Chart In 2018 Presley was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom Contents 1 Life and career 1 1 1935 1953 Early years 1 1 1 Childhood in Tupelo 1 1 2 Teenage life in Memphis 1 2 1953 1956 First recordings 1 2 1 Sam Phillips and Sun Records 1 2 2 Early live performances and RCA Victor contract 1 2 3 Louisiana Hayride radio commercial and first television performances 1 3 1956 1958 Commercial breakout and controversy 1 3 1 First national TV appearances and debut album 1 3 2 Milton Berle Show and Hound Dog 1 3 3 Steve Allen Show and first Sullivan appearance 1 3 4 Crazed crowds and film debut 1 3 5 Leiber and Stoller collaboration and draft notice 1 4 1958 1960 Military service and mother s death 1 5 1960 1968 Focus on films 1 5 1 Elvis Is Back 1 5 2 Lost in Hollywood 1 6 1968 1973 Comeback 1 6 1 Elvis the 68 Comeback Special 1 6 2 From Elvis in Memphis and the International 1 6 3 Back on tour and meeting Nixon 1 6 4 Marriage breakdown and Aloha from Hawaii 1 7 1973 1977 Health deterioration and death 1 7 1 Medical crises and last studio sessions 1 7 2 Final months 1 7 3 Death 1 8 Cause of death 1 9 Later developments 2 Artistry 2 1 Influences 2 2 Musicianship 2 3 Musical styles and genres 2 4 Vocal style and range 3 Public image 3 1 Relationship with the African American community 3 2 Sex symbol 3 3 Equestrian 4 Associates 4 1 Colonel Parker and the Aberbachs 4 2 Memphis Mafia 5 Legacy 6 Achievements 7 Bands 8 Discography 9 Filmography 10 See also 11 Explanatory notes 12 Citations 13 General sources 14 Further reading 15 External linksLife and career1935 1953 Early years Childhood in Tupelo Presley s birthplace in Tupelo Mississippi Elvis Aaron Presley was born on January 8 1935 in Tupelo Mississippi to Vernon Elvis April 10 1916 June 26 1979 and Gladys Love nee Smith April 25 1912 August 14 1958 Presley in a two room shotgun house that his father built for the occasion 8 Elvis s identical twin brother Jesse Garon Presley was delivered 35 minutes before him stillborn 9 Presley became close to both parents and formed an especially close bond with his mother The family attended an Assembly of God church where he found his initial musical inspiration 10 A photo of Elvis s parents at the Historic Blue Moon Museum in Verona Mississippi Presley s father Vernon was of German 11 Scottish and English origins 12 He was a descendant of the Harrison family of Virginia through his ancestor Tunis Hood 8 Presley s mother Gladys was Scots Irish with some French Norman ancestry 13 His mother and the rest of the family believed that her great great grandmother Morning Dove White was Cherokee 14 15 16 This belief was restated by Elvis s granddaughter Riley Keough in 2017 17 Elaine Dundy in her biography supports the belief 18 Vernon moved from one odd job to the next showing little ambition 19 20 The family often relied on help from neighbors and government food assistance In 1938 they lost their home after Vernon was found guilty of altering a check written by his landowner and sometime employer He was jailed for eight months while Gladys and Elvis moved in with relatives 10 In September 1941 Presley entered first grade at East Tupelo Consolidated where his teachers regarded him as average 21 He was encouraged to enter a singing contest after impressing his schoolteacher with a rendition of Red Foley s country song Old Shep during morning prayers The contest held at the Mississippi Alabama Fair and Dairy Show on October 3 1945 was his first public performance The ten year old Presley stood on a chair to reach the microphone and sang Old Shep He recalled placing fifth 22 A few months later Presley received his first guitar for his birthday he had hoped for something else by different accounts either a bicycle or a rifle 23 24 Over the following year he received basic guitar lessons from two of his uncles and the new pastor at the family s church Presley recalled I took the guitar and I watched people and I learned to play a little bit But I would never sing in public I was very shy about it 25 In September 1946 Presley entered a new school Milam for sixth grade he was regarded as a loner The following year he began bringing his guitar to school on a daily basis He played and sang during lunchtime and was often teased as a trashy kid who played hillbilly music By then the family was living in a largely black neighborhood 26 Presley was a devotee of Mississippi Slim s show on the Tupelo radio station WELO He was described as crazy about music by Slim s younger brother who was one of Presley s classmates and often took him into the station Slim supplemented Presley s guitar instruction by demonstrating chord techniques 27 When his protege was 12 years old Slim scheduled him for two on air performances Presley was overcome by stage fright the first time but succeeded in performing the following week 28 Teenage life in Memphis In November 1948 the family moved to Memphis Tennessee After residing for nearly a year in rooming houses they were granted a two bedroom apartment in the public housing complex known as the Lauderdale Courts 29 Enrolled at L C Humes High School Presley received only a C in music in eighth grade When his music teacher told him that he had no aptitude for singing he brought in his guitar the next day and sang a recent hit Keep Them Cold Icy Fingers Off Me to prove otherwise A classmate later recalled that the teacher agreed that Elvis was right when he said that she didn t appreciate his kind of singing 30 He was usually too shy to perform openly and was occasionally bullied by classmates who viewed him as a mama s boy 31 In 1950 he began practicing guitar regularly under the tutelage of Lee Denson a neighbor two and a half years his senior They and three other boys including two future rockabilly pioneers brothers Dorsey and Johnny Burnette formed a loose musical collective that played frequently around the Courts 32 That September he began working as an usher at Loew s State Theater 33 Other jobs followed at Precision Tool Loew s again and MARL Metal Products 34 Presley also helped Jewish neighbors the Fruchters by being their shabbos goy During his junior year Presley began to stand out more among his classmates largely because of his appearance he grew his sideburns and styled his hair with rose oil and Vaseline In his free time he would head down to Beale Street the heart of Memphis s thriving blues scene and gaze longingly at the wild flashy clothes in the windows of Lansky Brothers By his senior year he was wearing those clothes 35 Overcoming his reticence about performing outside the Lauderdale Courts he competed in Humes Annual Minstrel show in April 1953 Singing and playing guitar he opened with Till I Waltz Again with You a recent hit for Teresa Brewer Presley recalled that the performance did much for his reputation I wasn t popular in school I failed music only thing I ever failed And then they entered me in this talent show when I came onstage I heard people kind of rumbling and whispering and so forth cause nobody knew I even sang It was amazing how popular I became in school after that 36 Presley who received no formal music training and could not read music studied and played by ear He also frequented record stores that provided jukeboxes and listening booths to customers He knew all of Hank Snow s songs 37 and he loved records by other country singers such as Roy Acuff Ernest Tubb Ted Daffan Jimmie Rodgers Jimmie Davis and Bob Wills 38 The Southern gospel singer Jake Hess one of his favorite performers was a significant influence on his ballad singing style 39 40 He was a regular audience member at the monthly All Night Singings downtown where many of the white gospel groups that performed reflected the influence of African American spiritual music 41 He adored the music of black gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe 38 Like some of his peers he may have attended blues venues of necessity in the segregated South only on nights designated for exclusively white audiences 42 He certainly listened to the regional radio stations such as WDIA AM that played race records spirituals blues and the modern backbeat heavy sound of rhythm and blues 43 Many of his future recordings were inspired by local African American musicians such as Arthur Crudup and Rufus Thomas 44 45 B B King recalled that he had known Presley before he was popular when they both used to frequent Beale Street 46 By the time he graduated from high school in June 1953 Presley had already singled out music as his future 47 48 1953 1956 First recordings Sam Phillips and Sun Records See also List of songs recorded by Elvis Presley on the Sun label Presley in a Sun Records promotional photograph 1954 In August 1953 Presley checked into the offices of Memphis Recording Service the company run by Sam Phillips before he started Sun Records He aimed to pay for a few minutes of studio time to record a two sided acetate disc My Happiness and That s When Your Heartaches Begin He later claimed that he intended the record as a birthday gift for his mother or that he was merely interested in what he sounded like although there was a much cheaper amateur record making service at a nearby general store Biographer Peter Guralnick argued that he chose Sun in the hope of being discovered Asked by receptionist Marion Keisker what kind of singer he was Presley responded I sing all kinds When she pressed him on who he sounded like he repeatedly answered I don t sound like nobody After he recorded Sun boss Sam Phillips asked Keisker to note down the young man s name which she did along with her own commentary Good ballad singer Hold 49 In January 1954 Presley cut a second acetate at Sun Records I ll Never Stand in Your Way and It Wouldn t Be the Same Without You but again nothing came of it 50 Not long after he failed an audition for a local vocal quartet the Songfellows He explained to his father They told me I couldn t sing 51 Songfellow Jim Hamill later claimed that he was turned down because he did not demonstrate an ear for harmony at the time 52 In April Presley began working for the Crown Electric company as a truck driver 53 His friend Ronnie Smith after playing a few local gigs with him suggested he contact Eddie Bond leader of Smith s professional band which had an opening for a vocalist Bond rejected him after a tryout advising Presley to stick to truck driving because you re never going to make it as a singer 54 Phillips meanwhile was always on the lookout for someone who could bring to a broader audience the sound of the black musicians on whom Sun focused As Keisker reported Over and over I remember Sam saying If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel I could make a billion dollars 55 In June he acquired a demo recording by Jimmy Sweeney of a ballad Without You that he thought might suit the teenage singer Presley came by the studio but was unable to do it justice Despite this Phillips asked Presley to sing as many numbers as he knew He was sufficiently affected by what he heard to invite two local musicians guitarist Winfield Scotty Moore and upright bass player Bill Black to work something up with Presley for a recording session 56 That s All Right source source track Presley transformed not only the sound but the emotion of the song turning what had been written as a lament for a lost love into a satisfied declaration of independence 57 Problems playing this file See media help The session held the evening of July 5 proved entirely unfruitful until late in the night As they were about to abort and go home Presley took his guitar and launched into a 1946 blues number Arthur Crudup s That s All Right Moore recalled All of a sudden Elvis just started singing this song jumping around and acting the fool and then Bill picked up his bass and he started acting the fool too and I started playing with them Sam I think had the door to the control booth open he stuck his head out and said What are you doing And we said We don t know Well back up he said try to find a place to start and do it again Phillips quickly began taping this was the sound he had been looking for 58 Three days later popular Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips played That s All Right on his Red Hot and Blue show 59 Listeners began phoning in eager to find out who the singer was The interest was such that Phillips played the record repeatedly during the remaining two hours of his show Interviewing Presley on air Phillips asked him what high school he attended to clarify his color for the many callers who had assumed that he was black 60 During the next few days the trio recorded a bluegrass song Bill Monroe s Blue Moon of Kentucky again in a distinctive style and employing a jury rigged echo effect that Sam Phillips dubbed slapback A single was pressed with That s All Right on the A side and Blue Moon of Kentucky on the reverse 61 Early live performances and RCA Victor contract The trio played publicly for the first time on July 17 at the Bon Air club Presley still sporting his child size guitar 62 At the end of the month they appeared at the Overton Park Shell with Slim Whitman headlining Here Elvis pioneered Rubber Legs his signature style dance movement that he is best known for 63 64 A combination of his strong response to rhythm and nervousness at playing before a large crowd led Presley to shake his legs as he performed his wide cut pants emphasized his movements causing young women in the audience to start screaming 65 Moore recalled During the instrumental parts he would back off from the mike and be playing and shaking and the crowd would just go wild 66 Black a natural showman whooped and rode his bass hitting double licks that Presley would later remember as really a wild sound like a jungle drum or something 66 Soon after Moore and Black left their old band the Starlite Wranglers to play with Presley regularly and DJ promoter Bob Neal became the trio s manager From August through October they played frequently at the Eagle s Nest club and returned to Sun Studio for more recording sessions 67 and Presley quickly grew more confident on stage According to Moore His movement was a natural thing but he was also very conscious of what got a reaction He d do something one time and then he would expand on it real quick 68 Presley made what would be his only appearance on Nashville s Grand Ole Opry stage on October 2 after a polite audience response Opry manager Jim Denny told Phillips that his singer was not bad but did not suit the program 69 70 Louisiana Hayride radio commercial and first television performances In November 1954 Presley performed on Louisiana Hayride the Opry s chief and more adventurous rival The Shreveport based show was broadcast to 198 radio stations in 28 states He had another attack of nerves during the first set which drew a muted reaction A more composed and energetic second set inspired an enthusiastic response 71 House drummer D J Fontana brought a new element complementing Presley s movements with accented beats that he had mastered playing in strip clubs 72 Soon after the show the Hayride engaged Presley for a year s worth of Saturday night appearances Trading in his old guitar for 8 and seeing it promptly dispatched to the garbage he purchased a Martin instrument for 175 equivalent to 1 800 in 2021 and his trio began playing in new locales including Houston Texas and Texarkana Arkansas 73 Many fledgling performers like Minnie Pearl Johnny Horton and Johnny Cash sang the praises of Louisiana Hayride sponsor Southern Maid Donuts including Presley who developed a lifelong love of donuts 74 Presley made his singular product endorsement commercial for the donut company which was never released recording a radio jingle in exchange for a box of hot glazed doughnuts 75 76 Presley made his first television appearance on the KSLA TV television broadcast of Louisiana Hayride Soon after he failed an audition for Arthur Godfrey s Talent Scouts on the CBS television network By early 1955 Presley s regular Hayride appearances constant touring and well received record releases had made him a regional star from Tennessee to West Texas In January Neal signed a formal management contract with Presley and brought him to the attention of Colonel Tom Parker whom he considered the best promoter in the music business Parker who claimed to be from West Virginia he was actually Dutch had acquired an honorary colonel s commission from country singer turned Louisiana governor Jimmie Davis Having successfully managed top country star Eddy Arnold Parker was working with the new number one country singer Hank Snow Parker booked Presley on Snow s February tour 77 78 When the tour reached Odessa Texas a 19 year old Roy Orbison saw Presley for the first time His energy was incredible his instinct was just amazing I just didn t know what to make of it There was just no reference point in the culture to compare it 37 By August Sun had released ten sides credited to Elvis Presley Scotty and Bill on the latest recordings the trio were joined by a drummer Some of the songs like That s All Right were in what one Memphis journalist described as the R amp B idiom of negro field jazz others like Blue Moon of Kentucky were more in the country field but there was a curious blending of the two different musics in both 79 This blend of styles made it difficult for Presley s music to find radio airplay According to Neal many country music disc jockeys would not play it because he sounded too much like a black artist and none of the rhythm and blues stations would touch him because he sounded too much like a hillbilly 80 The blend came to be known as rockabilly At the time Presley was variously billed as The King of Western Bop The Hillbilly Cat and The Memphis Flash 81 Presley renewed Neal s management contract in August 1955 simultaneously appointing Parker as his special adviser 82 The group maintained an extensive touring schedule throughout the second half of the year 83 Neal recalled It was almost frightening the reaction that came to Elvis from the teenaged boys So many of them through some sort of jealousy would practically hate him There were occasions in some towns in Texas when we d have to be sure to have a police guard because somebody d always try to take a crack at him They d get a gang and try to waylay him or something 84 The trio became a quartet when Hayride drummer Fontana joined as a full member In mid October they played a few shows in support of Bill Haley whose Rock Around the Clock track had been a number one hit the previous year Haley observed that Presley had a natural feel for rhythm and advised him to sing fewer ballads 85 At the Country Disc Jockey Convention in early November Presley was voted the year s most promising male artist 86 Several record companies had by now shown interest in signing him After three major labels made offers of up to 25 000 Parker and Phillips struck a deal with RCA Victor on November 21 to acquire Presley s Sun contract for an unprecedented 40 000 87 b Presley at 20 was still a minor so his father signed the contract 88 Parker arranged with the owners of Hill amp Range Publishing Jean and Julian Aberbach to create two entities Elvis Presley Music and Gladys Music to handle all the new material recorded by Presley Songwriters were obliged to forgo one third of their customary royalties in exchange for having him perform their compositions 89 c By December RCA Victor had begun to heavily promote its new singer and before month s end had reissued many of his Sun recordings 92 1956 1958 Commercial breakout and controversy First national TV appearances and debut album On January 10 1956 Presley made his first recordings for RCA Victor in Nashville 93 Extending Presley s by now customary backup of Moore Black Fontana and Hayride pianist Floyd Cramer who had been performing at live club dates with Presley RCA Victor enlisted guitarist Chet Atkins and three background singers including Gordon Stoker of the popular Jordanaires quartet to fill in the sound 94 The session produced the moody unusual Heartbreak Hotel released as a single on January 27 93 Parker finally brought Presley to national television booking him on CBS s Stage Show for six appearances over two months The program produced in New York was hosted on alternate weeks by big band leaders and brothers Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey After his first appearance on January 28 Presley stayed in town to record at the RCA Victor New York studio The sessions yielded eight songs including a cover of Carl Perkins rockabilly anthem Blue Suede Shoes In February Presley s I Forgot to Remember to Forget a Sun recording initially released the previous August reached the top of the Billboard country chart 95 Neal s contract was terminated and on March 2 Parker became Presley s manager 96 RCA Victor released Presley s self titled debut album on March 23 Joined by five previously unreleased Sun recordings its seven recently recorded tracks were of a broad variety There were two country songs and a bouncy pop tune The others would centrally define the evolving sound of rock and roll Blue Suede Shoes an improvement over Perkins in almost every way according to critic Robert Hilburn and three R amp B numbers that had been part of Presley s stage repertoire for some time covers of Little Richard Ray Charles and The Drifters As described by Hilburn these were the most revealing of all Unlike many white artists who watered down the gritty edges of the original R amp B versions of songs in the 50s Presley reshaped them He not only injected the tunes with his own vocal character but also made guitar not piano the lead instrument in all three cases 97 It became the first rock and roll album to top the Billboard chart a position it held for 10 weeks 93 While Presley was not an innovative guitarist like Moore or contemporary African American rockers Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry cultural historian Gilbert B Rodman argued that the album s cover image of Elvis having the time of his life on stage with a guitar in his hands played a crucial role in positioning the guitar as the instrument that best captured the style and spirit of this new music 98 Milton Berle Show and Hound Dog Presley signing autographs in Minneapolis in 1956 On April 3 Presley made the first of two appearances on NBC s Milton Berle Show His performance on the deck of the USS Hancock in San Diego California prompted cheers and screams from an audience of sailors and their dates 99 A few days later a flight taking Presley and his band to Nashville for a recording session left all three badly shaken when an engine died and the plane almost went down over Arkansas 100 Twelve weeks after its original release Heartbreak Hotel became Presley s first number one pop hit In late April Presley began a two week residency at the New Frontier Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip 101 The shows were poorly received by the conservative middle aged hotel guests like a jug of corn liquor at a champagne party wrote a critic for Newsweek 102 Amid his Vegas tenure Presley who had serious acting ambitions signed a seven year contract with Paramount Pictures 103 He began a tour of the Midwest in mid May taking in 15 cities in as many days 104 He had attended several shows by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys in Vegas and was struck by their cover of Hound Dog a hit in 1953 for blues singer Big Mama Thornton by songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller It became the new closing number of his act 105 After a show in La Crosse Wisconsin an urgent message on the letterhead of the local Catholic diocese s newspaper was sent to FBI director J Edgar Hoover It warned that Presley is a definite danger to the security of the United States His actions and motions were such as to rouse the sexual passions of teenaged youth After the show more than 1 000 teenagers tried to gang into Presley s room at the auditorium Indications of the harm Presley did just in La Crosse were the two high school girls whose abdomen and thigh had Presley s autograph 106 The second Milton Berle Show appearance came on June 5 at NBC s Hollywood studio amid another hectic tour Berle persuaded Presley to leave his guitar backstage advising Let em see you son 107 During the performance Presley abruptly halted an uptempo rendition of Hound Dog with a wave of his arm and launched into a slow grinding version accentuated with energetic exaggerated body movements 107 Presley s gyrations created a storm of controversy 108 Television critics were outraged Jack Gould of The New York Times wrote Mr Presley has no discernible singing ability His phrasing if it can be called that consists of the stereotyped variations that go with a beginner s aria in a bathtub His one specialty is an accented movement of the body primarily identified with the repertoire of the blond bombshells of the burlesque runway 109 Ben Gross of the New York Daily News opined that popular music has reached its lowest depths in the grunt and groin antics of one Elvis Presley Elvis who rotates his pelvis gave an exhibition that was suggestive and vulgar tinged with the kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos 110 Ed Sullivan whose own variety show was the nation s most popular declared him unfit for family viewing 111 To Presley s displeasure he soon found himself being referred to as Elvis the Pelvis which he called one of the most childish expressions I ever heard comin from an adult 112 Steve Allen Show and first Sullivan appearance Ed Sullivan and Presley during rehearsals for his second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show October 26 1956 The Berle shows drew such high ratings that Presley was booked for a July 1 appearance on NBC s Steve Allen Show in New York Allen no fan of rock and roll introduced a new Elvis in a white bow tie and black tails Presley sang Hound Dog for less than a minute to a basset hound wearing a top hat and bow tie As described by television historian Jake Austen Allen thought Presley was talentless and absurd he set things up so that Presley would show his contrition 113 Allen later wrote that he found Presley s strange gangly country boy charisma his hard to define cuteness and his charming eccentricity intriguing and simply worked him into the customary comedy fabric of his program 114 Just before the final rehearsal for the show Presley told a reporter I m holding down on this show I don t want to do anything to make people dislike me I think TV is important so I m going to go along but I won t be able to give the kind of show I do in a personal appearance 115 Presley would refer back to the Allen show as the most ridiculous performance of his career 116 Later that night he appeared on Hy Gardner Calling a popular local TV show Pressed on whether he had learned anything from the criticism to which he was being subjected Presley responded No I haven t I don t feel like I m doing anything wrong I don t see how any type of music would have any bad influence on people when it s only music I mean how would rock n roll music make anyone rebel against their parents 110 The next day Presley recorded Hound Dog along with Any Way You Want Me and Don t Be Cruel The Jordanaires sang harmony as they had on The Steve Allen Show they would work with Presley through the 1960s A few days later Presley made an outdoor concert appearance in Memphis at which he announced You know those people in New York are not gonna change me none I m gonna show you what the real Elvis is like tonight 117 In August a judge in Jacksonville Florida ordered Presley to tame his act Throughout the following performance he largely kept still except for wiggling his little finger suggestively in mockery of the order 118 The single pairing Don t Be Cruel with Hound Dog ruled the top of the charts for 11 weeks a mark that would not be surpassed for 36 years 119 Recording sessions for Presley s second album took place in Hollywood during the first week of September Leiber and Stoller the writers of Hound Dog contributed Love Me 120 Allen s show with Presley had for the first time beaten CBS s Ed Sullivan Show in the ratings Sullivan despite his June pronouncement booked Presley for three appearances for an unprecedented 50 000 121 The first on September 9 1956 was seen by approximately 60 million viewers a record 82 6 percent of the television audience 122 Actor Charles Laughton hosted the show filling in while Sullivan was recovering from a car accident 111 Presley appeared in two segments that night from CBS Television City in Los Angeles According to Elvis legend Presley was shot only from the waist up Watching clips of the Allen and Berle shows with his producer Sullivan had opined that Presley got some kind of device hanging down below the crotch of his pants so when he moves his legs back and forth you can see the outline of his cock I think it s a Coke bottle We just can t have this on a Sunday night This is a family show 123 Sullivan publicly told TV Guide As for his gyrations the whole thing can be controlled with camera shots 121 In fact Presley was shown head to toe in the first and second shows Though the camerawork was relatively discreet during his debut with leg concealing closeups when he danced the studio audience reacted in customary style screaming 124 125 Presley s performance of his forthcoming single the ballad Love Me Tender prompted a record shattering million advance orders 126 More than any other single event it was this first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show that made Presley a national celebrity of barely precedented proportions 111 Accompanying Presley s rise to fame a cultural shift was taking place that he both helped inspire and came to symbolize The historian Marty Jezer wrote that Presley began the biggest pop craze since Glenn Miller and Frank Sinatra and brought rock and roll to mainstream culture As Presley set the artistic pace other artists followed Presley more than anyone else gave the young a belief in themselves as a distinct and somehow unified generation the first in America ever to feel the power of an integrated youth culture 127 Crazed crowds and film debut Presley performing live at the Mississippi Alabama Fairgrounds in Tupelo September 26 1956 We re gonna do a sad song source source Presley s definition of rock and roll included a sense of humor here during his second Sullivan appearance he introduces one of his signature numbers Problems playing this file See media help The audience response at Presley s live shows became increasingly fevered Moore recalled He d start out You ain t nothin but a Hound Dog and they d just go to pieces They d always react the same way There d be a riot every time 128 At the two concerts he performed in September at the Mississippi Alabama Fair and Dairy Show 50 National Guardsmen were added to the police security to ensure that the crowd would not cause a ruckus 129 Elvis Presley s second RCA Victor album was released in October and quickly rose to number one on the billboard The album includes Old Shep which he sang at the talent show in 1945 and which now marked the first time he played piano on an RCA Victor session According to Guralnick one can hear in the halting chords and the somewhat stumbling rhythm both the unmistakable emotion and the equally unmistakable valuing of emotion over technique 130 Assessing the musical and cultural impact of Presley s recordings from That s All Right through Elvis rock critic Dave Marsh wrote that these records more than any others contain the seeds of what rock amp roll was has been and most likely what it may foreseeably become 131 Presley returned to the Sullivan show at its main studio in New York hosted this time by its namesake on October 28 After the performance crowds in Nashville and St Louis burned him in effigy 111 His first motion picture Love Me Tender was released on November 21 Though he was not top billed the film s original title The Reno Brothers was changed to capitalize on his latest number one record Love Me Tender had hit the top of the charts earlier that month To further take advantage of Presley s popularity four musical numbers were added to what was originally a straight acting role The film was panned by critics but did very well at the box office 103 Presley would receive top billing on every subsequent film he made 132 On December 4 Presley dropped into Sun Records where Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis were recording and had an impromptu jam session along with Johnny Cash Though Phillips no longer had the right to release any Presley material he made sure that the session was captured on tape The results none officially released for 25 years became known as the Million Dollar Quartet recordings 133 The year ended with a front page story in The Wall Street Journal reporting that Presley merchandise had brought in 22 million on top of his record sales 134 and Billboard s declaration that he had placed more songs in the top 100 than any other artist since records were first charted 135 In his first full year at RCA Victor then the record industry s largest company Presley had accounted for over 50 percent of the label s singles sales 126 Leiber and Stoller collaboration and draft notice Elvis in publicity photos for the 1957 film Jailhouse Rock Presley made his third and final Ed Sullivan Show appearance on January 6 1957 on this occasion indeed shot only down to the waist Some commentators have claimed that Parker orchestrated an appearance of censorship to generate publicity 125 136 In any event as critic Greil Marcus describes Presley did not tie himself down Leaving behind the bland clothes he had worn on the first two shows he stepped out in the outlandish costume of a pasha if not a harem girl From the make up over his eyes the hair falling in his face the overwhelmingly sexual cast of his mouth he was playing Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik with all stops out 111 To close displaying his range and defying Sullivan s wishes Presley sang a gentle black spiritual Peace in the Valley At the end of the show Sullivan declared Presley a real decent fine boy 137 Two days later the Memphis draft board announced that Presley would be classified 1 A and would probably be drafted sometime that year 138 Each of the three Presley singles released in the first half of 1957 went to number one Too Much All Shook Up and Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear Already an international star he was attracting fans even where his music was not officially released Under the headline Presley Records a Craze in Soviet The New York Times reported that pressings of his music on discarded X ray plates were commanding high prices in Leningrad 139 Between film shoots and recording sessions Presley purchased an 18 room mansion Graceland on March 19 1957 for the amount of 102 500 The mansion which was about 9 miles 14 km south of downtown Memphis 140 was for himself and his parents 141 142 Before the purchase Elvis recorded Loving You the soundtrack to his second film which was released in July It was Presley s third straight number one album The title track was written by Leiber and Stoller who were then retained to write four of the six songs recorded at the sessions for Jailhouse Rock Presley s next film The songwriting team effectively produced the Jailhouse sessions and developed a close working relationship with Presley who came to regard them as his good luck charm 143 He was fast said Leiber Any demo you gave him he knew by heart in ten minutes 144 The title track became another number one hit as was the Jailhouse Rock EP 145 Presley and costar Judy Tyler in the trailer for Jailhouse Rock released October 1957 Presley undertook three brief tours during the year continuing to generate a crazed audience response 146 A Detroit newspaper suggested that the trouble with going to see Elvis Presley is that you re liable to get killed 147 Villanova students pelted him with eggs in Philadelphia 147 and in Vancouver the crowd rioted after the end of the show destroying the stage 148 Frank Sinatra who had inspired both the swooning and screaming of teenage girls in the 1940s condemned the new musical phenomenon In a magazine article he decried rock and roll as brutal ugly degenerate vicious It fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people It smells phoney and false It is sung played and written for the most part by cretinous goons This rancid smelling aphrodisiac I deplore 149 Asked for a response Presley said I admire the man He has a right to say what he wants to say He is a great success and a fine actor but I think he shouldn t have said it This is a trend just the same as he faced when he started years ago 150 Leiber and Stoller were again in the studio for the recording of Elvis Christmas Album Toward the end of the session they wrote a song on the spot at Presley s request Santa Claus Is Back in Town an innuendo laden blues 151 The holiday release stretched Presley s string of number one albums to four and would become the best selling Christmas album ever in the United States 152 153 with eventual sales of over 20 million worldwide 154 After the session Moore and Black drawing only modest weekly salaries sharing in none of Presley s massive financial success resigned Though they were brought back on a per diem basis a few weeks later it was clear that they had not been part of Presley s inner circle for some time 155 On December 20 Presley received his draft notice He was granted a deferment to finish the forthcoming King Creole in which 350 000 had already been invested by Paramount and producer Hal Wallis A couple of weeks into the new year Don t another Leiber and Stoller tune became Presley s tenth number one seller It had been only 21 months since Heartbreak Hotel had brought him to the top for the first time Recording sessions for the King Creole soundtrack were held in Hollywood in mid January 1958 Leiber and Stoller provided three songs and were again on hand but it would be the last time Presley and the duo worked closely together 156 As Stoller later recalled Presley s manager and entourage sought to wall him off He was removed They kept him separate 157 A brief soundtrack session on February 11 marked another ending it was the final occasion on which Black was to perform with Presley 158 He died in 1965 159 1958 1960 Military service and mother s death Main article Military career of Elvis Presley Presley being sworn into the Army on March 24 1958 at Fort Chaffee On March 24 1958 Presley was drafted into the United States Army at Fort Chaffee Arkansas His arrival was a major media event Hundreds of people descended on Presley as he stepped from the bus photographers then accompanied him into the installation 160 Presley announced that he was looking forward to his military stint saying that he did not want to be treated any differently from anyone else The Army can do anything it wants with me 161 Between March 28 and September 17 1958 Presley completed basic and advanced military training at Fort Hood Texas where he was temporarily assigned to Company A 2d Medium Tank Battalion 37th Armor During the two weeks leave between his basic and advanced training in early June Presley recorded five songs in Nashville 162 In early August his mother was diagnosed with hepatitis and her condition rapidly worsened He was granted emergency leave to visit her and arrived in Memphis on August 12 Two days later she died of heart failure at age 46 Presley was devastated and never the same 163 164 their relationship had remained extremely close even into his adulthood they would use baby talk with each other and Presley would address her with pet names 4 On October 1 1958 Presley was assigned to the 1st Medium Tank Battalion 32d Armor 3d Armored Division at Ray Barracks Germany where he served as an armor intelligence specialist 1 On November 27 he was promoted to private first class and on June 1 1959 to specialist fourth class While on maneuvers Presley was introduced to amphetamines by another soldier He became practically evangelical about their benefits not only for energy but for strength and weight loss as well and many of his friends in the outfit joined him in indulging 165 The Army also introduced Presley to karate 166 which he studied seriously training with Jurgen Seydel 167 168 It became a lifelong interest which he later included in his live performances 169 170 171 Fellow soldiers have attested to Presley s wish to be seen as an able ordinary soldier despite his fame and to his generosity He donated his Army pay to charity purchased TV sets for the base and bought an extra set of fatigues for everyone in his outfit 172 Presley wearing the 3d Armored Division Shoulder Sleeve Insignia poses atop a tank at Ray Barracks While in Bad Nauheim Germany Presley met 14 year old Priscilla Beaulieu They would eventually marry after a seven and a half year courtship In her autobiography Priscilla said that Presley was concerned that his 24 month spell as a G I would ruin his career In Special Services he would have been able to give musical performances and remain in touch with the public but Parker had convinced him that to gain popular respect he should serve his country as a regular soldier 173 Media reports echoed Presley s concerns about his career but RCA Victor producer Steve Sholes and Freddy Bienstock of Hill and Range had carefully prepared for his two year hiatus Armed with a substantial amount of unreleased material they kept up a regular stream of successful releases 174 Between his induction and discharge Presley had ten top 40 hits including Wear My Ring Around Your Neck the bestselling Hard Headed Woman and One Night in 1958 and Now and Then There s A Fool Such as I and the number one A Big Hunk o Love in 1959 175 RCA Victor also generated four albums compiling previously issued material during this period most successfully Elvis Golden Records 1958 which hit number three on the LP chart 176 Presley was promoted to sergeant on February 11 1960 1 1960 1968 Focus on films See also Elvis Presley on film and television Elvis Is Back It s Now or Never source source track Presley broke new stylistic ground and displayed his vocal range with this number one hit The quasi operatic ballad ends with Presley soaring up to an incredible top G sharp 177 Problems playing this file See media help Presley returned to the United States on March 2 1960 and was honorably discharged three days later with the rank of sergeant 178 The train that carried him from New Jersey to Tennessee was mobbed all the way and Presley was called upon to appear at scheduled stops to please his fans 179 On the night of March 20 he entered RCA Victor s Nashville studio to cut tracks for a new album along with a single Stuck on You which was rushed into release and swiftly became a number one hit 180 Another Nashville session two weeks later yielded a pair of his bestselling singles the ballads It s Now or Never and Are You Lonesome Tonight along with the rest of Elvis Is Back The album features several songs described by Greil Marcus as full of Chicago blues menace driven by Presley s own super miked acoustic guitar brilliant playing by Scotty Moore and demonic sax work from Boots Randolph Elvis singing wasn t sexy it was pornographic 181 As a whole the record conjured up the vision of a performer who could be all things according to music historian John Robertson a flirtatious teenage idol with a heart of gold a tempestuous dangerous lover a gutbucket blues singer a sophisticated nightclub entertainer a raucous rocker 182 Released only days after recording was complete it reached number two on the album chart 183 184 Presley with Juliet Prowse in G I Blues Presley returned to television on May 12 as a guest on The Frank Sinatra Timex Special ironic for both stars given Sinatra s earlier excoriation of rock and roll Also known as Welcome Home Elvis the show had been taped in late March the only time all year Presley performed in front of an audience Parker secured an unheard of 125 000 fee for eight minutes of singing The broadcast drew an enormous viewership 185 G I Blues the soundtrack to Presley s first film since his return was a number one album in October His first LP of sacred material His Hand in Mine followed two months later It reached number 13 on the U S pop chart and number 3 in the UK remarkable figures for a gospel album In February 1961 Presley performed two shows for a benefit event in Memphis on behalf of 24 local charities During a luncheon preceding the event RCA Victor presented him with a plaque certifying worldwide sales of over 75 million records 186 A 12 hour Nashville session in mid March yielded nearly all of Presley s next studio album Something for Everybody 187 As described by John Robertson it exemplifies the Nashville sound the restrained cosmopolitan style that would define country music in the 1960s Presaging much of what was to come from Presley himself over the next half decade the album is largely a pleasant unthreatening pastiche of the music that had once been Elvis birthright 188 It would be his sixth number one LP Another benefit concert raising money for a Pearl Harbor memorial was staged on March 25 in Hawaii It was to be Presley s last public performance for seven years 189 Lost in Hollywood Parker had by now pushed Presley into a heavy filmmaking schedule focused on formulaic modestly budgeted musical comedies Presley at first insisted on pursuing higher roles but when two films in a more dramatic vein Flaming Star 1960 and Wild in the Country 1961 were less commercially successful he reverted to the formula Among the 27 films he made during the 1960s there were a few further exceptions 190 His films were almost universally panned critic Andrew Caine dismissed them as a pantheon of bad taste 191 Nonetheless they were virtually all profitable Hal Wallis who produced nine of them declared A Presley picture is the only sure thing in Hollywood 192 Of Presley s films in the 1960s 15 were accompanied by soundtrack albums and another 5 by soundtrack EPs The films rapid production and release schedules he frequently starred in three a year affected his music According to Jerry Leiber the soundtrack formula was already evident before Presley left for the Army three ballads one medium tempo number one up tempo and one break blues boogie 193 As the decade wore on the quality of the soundtrack songs grew progressively worse 194 Julie Parrish who appeared in Paradise Hawaiian Style 1966 says that he disliked many of the songs chosen for his films 195 The Jordanaires Gordon Stoker describes how Presley would retreat from the studio microphone The material was so bad that he felt like he couldn t sing it 196 Most of the film albums featured a song or two from respected writers such as the team of Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman But by and large according to biographer Jerry Hopkins the numbers seemed to be written on order by men who never really understood Elvis or rock and roll 197 Regardless of the songs quality it has been argued that Presley generally sang them well with commitment 198 Critic Dave Marsh heard the opposite Presley isn t trying probably the wisest course in the face of material like No Room to Rumba in a Sports Car and Rock A Hula Baby 131 In the first half of the decade three of Presley s soundtrack albums were ranked number one on the pop charts and a few of his most popular songs came from his films such as Can t Help Falling in Love 1961 and Return to Sender 1962 Viva Las Vegas the title track to the 1964 film was a minor hit as a B side and became truly popular only later But as with artistic merit the commercial returns steadily diminished During a five year span 1964 through 1968 Presley had only one top ten hit Crying in the Chapel 1965 a gospel number recorded back in 1960 As for non film albums between the June 1962 release of Pot Luck and the November 1968 release of the soundtrack to the television special that signaled his comeback only one LP of new material by Presley was issued the gospel album How Great Thou Art 1967 It won him his first Grammy Award for Best Sacred Performance As Marsh described Presley was arguably the greatest white gospel singer of his time and really the last rock amp roll artist to make gospel as vital a component of his musical personality as his secular songs 199 Shortly before Christmas 1966 more than seven years since they first met Presley proposed to Priscilla Beaulieu They were married on May 1 1967 in a brief ceremony in their suite at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas 200 The flow of formulaic films and assembly line soundtracks rolled on It was not until October 1967 when the Clambake soundtrack LP registered record low sales for a new Presley album that RCA executives recognized a problem By then of course the damage had been done as historians Connie Kirchberg and Marc Hendrickx put it Elvis was viewed as a joke by serious music lovers and a has been to all but his most loyal fans 201 1968 1973 Comeback Elvis the 68 Comeback Special Main article Singer Presents Elvis The 68 Comeback Special produced one of the most famous images of Presley 202 Taken on June 29 1968 it was adapted for the cover of Rolling Stone in July 1969 202 203 Presley s only child Lisa Marie was born on February 1 1968 during a period when he had grown deeply unhappy with his career 204 Of the eight Presley singles released between January 1967 and May 1968 only two charted in the top 40 and none higher than number 28 205 His forthcoming soundtrack album Speedway would rank at number 82 on the Billboard chart Parker had already shifted his plans to television where Presley had not appeared since the Sinatra Timex show in 1960 He maneuvered a deal with NBC that committed the network to both finance a theatrical feature and broadcast a Christmas special 206 Recorded in late June in Burbank California the special simply called Elvis aired on December 3 1968 Later known as the 68 Comeback Special the show featured lavishly staged studio productions as well as songs performed with a band in front of a small audience Presley s first live performances since 1961 The live segments saw Presley dressed in tight black leather singing and playing guitar in an uninhibited style reminiscent of his early rock and roll days Director and co producer Steve Binder had worked hard to produce a show that was far from the hour of Christmas songs Parker had originally planned 207 The show NBC s highest rated that season captured 42 percent of the total viewing audience 208 Jon Landau of Eye magazine remarked There is something magical about watching a man who has lost himself find his way back home He sang with the kind of power people no longer expect of rock n roll singers He moved his body with a lack of pretension and effort that must have made Jim Morrison green with envy 209 Dave Marsh calls the performance one of emotional grandeur and historical resonance 210 By January 1969 the single If I Can Dream written for the special reached number 12 The soundtrack album rose into the top ten According to friend Jerry Schilling the special reminded Presley of what he had not been able to do for years being able to choose the people being able to choose what songs and not being told what had to be on the soundtrack He was out of prison man 208 Binder said of Presley s reaction I played Elvis the 60 minute show and he told me in the screening room Steve it s the greatest thing I ve ever done in my life I give you my word I will never sing a song I don t believe in 208 From Elvis in Memphis and the International Power of My Love source source Beginning with his American Sound recordings soul music became a central element in Presley s fusion of styles Here he revels in lyrics full of sexual innuendo 211 Problems playing this file See media help Buoyed by the experience of the Comeback Special Presley engaged in a prolific series of recording sessions at American Sound Studio which led to the acclaimed From Elvis in Memphis Released in June 1969 it was his first secular non soundtrack album from a dedicated period in the studio in eight years As described by Dave Marsh it is a masterpiece in which Presley immediately catches up with pop music trends that had seemed to pass him by during the movie years He sings country songs soul songs and rockers with real conviction a stunning achievement 212 The album featured the hit single In the Ghetto issued in April which reached number three on the pop chart Presley s first non gospel top ten hit since Bossa Nova Baby in 1963 Further hit singles were culled from the American Sound sessions Suspicious Minds Don t Cry Daddy and Kentucky Rain 213 Presley was keen to resume regular live performing Following the success of the Comeback Special offers came in from around the world The London Palladium offered Parker US 28 000 equivalent to 207 000 in 2021 for a one week engagement He responded That s fine for me now how much can you get for Elvis 214 In May the brand new International Hotel in Las Vegas boasting the largest showroom in the city announced that it had booked Presley He was scheduled to perform 57 shows over four weeks beginning July 31 Moore Fontana and the Jordanaires declined to participate afraid of losing the lucrative session work they had in Nashville Presley assembled new top notch accompaniment led by guitarist James Burton and including two gospel groups The Imperials and Sweet Inspirations 215 Costume designer Bill Belew responsible for the intense leather styling of the Comeback Special created a new stage look for Presley inspired by Presley s passion for karate 216 Nonetheless he was nervous his only previous Las Vegas engagement in 1956 had been dismal Parker who intended to make Presley s return the show business event of the year oversaw a major promotional push For his part International Hotel owner Kirk Kerkorian arranged to send his own plane to New York to fly in rock journalists for the debut performance 217 Presley took to the stage without introduction The audience of 2 200 including many celebrities gave him a standing ovation before he sang a note and another after his performance A third followed his encore Can t Help Falling in Love a song that would be his closing number for much of his remaining life 218 At a press conference after the show when a journalist referred to him as The King Presley gestured toward Fats Domino who was taking in the scene No Presley said that s the real king of rock and roll 219 The next day Parker s negotiations with the hotel resulted in a five year contract for Presley to play each February and August at an annual salary of 1 million 220 Newsweek commented There are several unbelievable things about Elvis but the most incredible is his staying power in a world where meteoric careers fade like shooting stars 221 Rolling Stone called Presley supernatural his own resurrection 222 In November Presley s final non concert film Change of Habit opened The double album From Memphis to Vegas From Vegas to Memphis came out the same month the first LP consisted of live performances from the International the second of more cuts from the American Sound sessions Suspicious Minds reached the top of the charts Presley s first U S pop number one in over seven years and his last 223 Cassandra Peterson later television s Elvira met Presley during this period in Las Vegas where she was working as a showgirl She recalled of their encounter He was so anti drug when I met him I mentioned to him that I smoked marijuana and he was just appalled He said Don t ever do that again 224 Presley was not only deeply opposed to recreational drugs he also rarely drank Several of his family members had been alcoholics a fate he intended to avoid 225 Back on tour and meeting Nixon Presley returned to the International early in 1970 for the first of the year s two month long engagements performing two shows a night Recordings from these shows were issued on the album On Stage 226 In late February Presley performed six attendance record breaking shows at the Houston Astrodome 227 In April the single The Wonder of You was issued a number one hit in the UK it topped the U S adult contemporary chart as well Metro Goldwyn Mayer filmed rehearsal and concert footage at the International during August for the documentary Elvis That s the Way It Is Presley was performing in a jumpsuit which would become a trademark of his live act During this engagement he was threatened with murder unless US 50 000 equivalent to 349 000 in 2021 was paid Presley had been the target of many threats since the 1950s often without his knowledge 228 The FBI took the threat seriously and security was stepped up for the next two shows Presley went onstage with a Derringer in his right boot and a 45 pistol in his waistband but the concerts succeeded without any incidents 229 230 The album That s the Way It Is produced to accompany the documentary and featuring both studio and live recordings marked a stylistic shift As music historian John Robertson noted The authority of Presley s singing helped disguise the fact that the album stepped decisively away from the American roots inspiration of the Memphis sessions towards a more middle of the road sound With country put on the back burner and soul and R amp B left in Memphis what was left was very classy very clean white pop perfect for the Las Vegas crowd but a definite retrograde step for Elvis 231 After the end of his International engagement on September 7 Presley embarked on a week long concert tour largely of the South his first since 1958 Another week long tour of the West Coast followed in November 232 Presley meets U S President Richard Nixon in the White House Oval Office December 21 1970 On December 21 1970 Presley engineered a meeting with President Richard Nixon at the White House where he expressed his patriotism and explained how he believed he could reach out to the hippies to help combat the drug culture he and the president abhorred He asked Nixon for a Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs badge to add to similar items he had begun collecting and to signify official sanction of his patriotic efforts Nixon who apparently found the encounter awkward expressed a belief that Presley could send a positive message to young people and that it was therefore important that he retain his credibility 233 Presley told Nixon that the Beatles whose songs he regularly performed in concert during the era 234 exemplified what he saw as a trend of anti Americanism 235 Presley and his friends previously had a four hour get together with the Beatles at his home in Bel Air California in August 1965 On hearing reports of the meeting Paul McCartney later said that he felt a bit betrayed The great joke was that we were taking illegal drugs and look what happened to him a reference to Presley s early death linked to prescription drug abuse 236 The U S Junior Chamber of Commerce named Presley one of its annual Ten Most Outstanding Young Men of the Nation on January 16 1971 237 Not long after the City of Memphis named the stretch of Highway 51 South on which Graceland is located Elvis Presley Boulevard The same year Presley became the first rock and roll singer to be awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award then known as the Bing Crosby Award by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences the Grammy Award organization 238 239 Three new non film Presley studio albums were released in 1971 as many as had come out over the previous eight years Best received by critics was Elvis Country a concept record that focused on genre standards 240 The biggest seller was Elvis Sings the Wonderful World of Christmas the truest statement of all according to Greil Marcus In the midst of ten painfully genteel Christmas songs every one sung with appalling sincerity and humility one could find Elvis tom catting his way through six blazing minutes of Merry Christmas Baby a raunchy old Charles Brown blues If Presley s sin was his lifelessness it was his sinfulness that brought him to life 241 Marriage breakdown and Aloha from Hawaii See also Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite Presley center with friends Bill Porter left and Paul Anka right backstage at the Las Vegas Hilton on August 5 1972MGM again filmed Presley in April 1972 this time for Elvis on Tour which went on to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Documentary Film for that year s Golden Globe Awards His gospel album He Touched Me released that month would earn him his second Grammy Award for Best Inspirational Performance for that year s Grammy Awards A 14 date tour commenced with an unprecedented four consecutive sold out shows at New York s Madison Square Garden 242 The evening concert on July 10 was recorded and issued in an LP form a week later Elvis As Recorded at Madison Square Garden became one of Presley s biggest selling albums After the tour the single Burning Love was released Presley s last top ten hit on the U S pop chart The most exciting single Elvis has made since All Shook Up wrote rock critic Robert Christgau Who else could make It s coming closer the flames are now licking my body sound like an assignation with James Brown s backup band 243 Presley came up with his outfit s eagle motif as something that would say America to the world 244 Presley and his wife meanwhile had become increasingly distant barely cohabiting In 1971 an affair he had with Joyce Bova resulted unbeknownst to him in her pregnancy and an abortion 245 He often raised the possibility of her moving into Graceland saying that he was likely to leave Priscilla 246 The Presleys separated on February 23 1972 after Priscilla disclosed her relationship with Mike Stone a karate instructor Presley had recommended to her Priscilla related that when she told him Presley grabbed and forcefully made love to her declaring This is how a real man makes love to his woman 247 She later stated in an interview that she regretted her choice of words in describing the incident and said it had been an overstatement 248 Five months later Presley s new girlfriend Linda Thompson a songwriter and one time Memphis beauty queen moved in with him 249 Presley and his wife filed for divorce on August 18 250 According to Joe Moscheo of the Imperials the failure of Presley s marriage was a blow from which he never recovered 251 At a rare press conference that June a reporter had asked Presley whether he was satisfied with his image Presley replied Well the image is one thing and the human being another it s very hard to live up to an image 252 In January 1973 Presley performed two benefit concerts for the Kui Lee Cancer Fund in connection with a groundbreaking TV special Aloha from Hawaii which would be the first concert by a solo artist to be aired globally The first show served as a practice run and backup should technical problems affect the live broadcast two days later On January 14 Aloha from Hawaii aired live via satellite to prime time audiences in Japan South Korea Thailand the Philippines Australia and New Zealand as well as to U S servicemen based across Southeast Asia In Japan where it capped a nationwide Elvis Presley Week it smashed viewing records The next night it was simulcast to 28 European countries and in April an extended version finally aired in the U S where it won a 57 percent share of the TV audience 253 Over time Parker s claim that it was seen by one billion or more people 254 would be broadly accepted 255 256 257 but that figure appeared to have been sheer invention 258 Presley s stage costume became the most recognized example of the elaborate concert garb with which his latter day persona became closely associated As described by Bobbie Ann Mason At the end of the show when he spreads out his American Eagle cape with the full stretched wings of the eagle studded on the back he becomes a god figure 259 The accompanying double album released in February went to number one and eventually sold over 5 million copies in the United States 260 It proved to be Presley s last U S number one pop album during his lifetime 261 At a midnight show the same month four men rushed onto the stage in an apparent attack Security men came to Presley s defense and he ejected one invader from the stage himself Following the show he became obsessed with the idea that the men had been sent by Mike Stone to kill him Though they were shown to have been only overexuberant fans he raged There s too much pain in me Stone must die His outbursts continued with such intensity that a physician was unable to calm him despite administering large doses of medication After another two full days of raging Red West his friend and bodyguard felt compelled to get a price for a contract killing and was relieved when Presley decided Aw hell let s just leave it for now Maybe it s a bit heavy 262 1973 1977 Health deterioration and death Medical crises and last studio sessions Presley s divorce was finalized on October 9 1973 263 By then his health was in serious decline Twice during the year he overdosed on barbiturates spending three days in a coma in his hotel suite after the first incident Towards the end of 1973 he was hospitalized semi comatose from the effects of a pethidine addiction According to his primary care physician Dr George C Nichopoulos Presley felt that by getting drugs from a doctor he wasn t the common everyday junkie getting something off the street 264 Since his comeback he had staged more live shows with each passing year and 1973 saw 168 concerts his busiest schedule ever 265 Despite his failing health in 1974 he undertook another intensive touring schedule 266 Presley s condition declined precipitously in September Keyboardist Tony Brown remembered Presley s arrival at a University of Maryland concert He fell out of the limousine to his knees People jumped to help and he pushed them away like Don t help me He walked on stage and held onto the mic for the first thirty minutes like it was a post Everybody s looking at each other like Is the tour gonna happen 267 Guitarist John Wilkinson recalled He was all gut He was slurring He was so fucked up It was obvious he was drugged It was obvious there was something terribly wrong with his body It was so bad the words to the songs were barely intelligible I remember crying He could barely get through the introductions 268 Wilkinson recounted that a few nights later in Detroit I watched him in his dressing room just draped over a chair unable to move So often I thought Boss why don t you just cancel this tour and take a year off I mentioned something once in a guarded moment He patted me on the back and said It ll be all right Don t you worry about it 268 Presley continued to play to sellout crowds Cultural critic Marjorie Garber wrote that he was now widely seen as a garish pop crooner In effect he had become Liberace Even his fans were now middle aged matrons and blue haired grandmothers 269 On July 13 1976 Presley s father who had become deeply involved in his son s financial affairs fired Memphis Mafia bodyguards Red West Presley s friend since the 1950s Sonny West and David Hebler citing the need to cut back on expenses 270 271 272 Presley was in Palm Springs at the time and some suggested that he was too cowardly to face the three himself Another associate of Presley s John O Grady argued that the bodyguards were dropped because their rough treatment of fans had prompted too many lawsuits 273 However Presley s stepbrother David Stanley claimed that the bodyguards were fired because they were becoming more outspoken about Presley s drug dependency 274 RCA which had always enjoyed a steady stream of product from Presley began to grow anxious as his interest in the recording studio waned After a session in December 1973 that produced 18 songs enough for almost two albums Presley made no official studio recordings in 1974 275 Parker delivered RCA yet another concert record Elvis Recorded Live on Stage in Memphis 276 Recorded on March 20 it included a version of How Great Thou Art that would win Presley his third and final Grammy Award for Best Inspirational Performance at that year s Grammy Awards 277 278 All three of his competitive Grammy wins out of 14 total nominations were for gospel recordings 278 Presley returned to the recording studio in Hollywood in March 1975 but Parker s attempts to arrange another session toward the end of the year were unsuccessful 279 In 1976 RCA sent a mobile recording unit to Graceland that made possible two full scale recording sessions at Presley s home 280 Even in that comfortable context the recording process had become a struggle for him 281 Hurt source source track An R amp B hit for Roy Hamilton in 1955 and a pop hit for blue eyed soul singer Timi Yuro in 1961 Presley s deep soul version was picked up by country radio in 1976 282 Problems playing this file See media help Despite concerns from RCA and Parker between July 1973 and October 1976 Presley recorded virtually the entire contents of six albums Though he was no longer a major presence on the pop charts five of those albums entered the top five of the country albums chart and three went to number one Promised Land 1975 From Elvis Presley Boulevard Memphis Tennessee 1976 and Moody Blue 1977 283 Similarly his singles in this era did not prove to be major pop hits but Presley remained a significant force in the country and adult contemporary markets Eight studio singles from this period released during his lifetime were top ten hits on one or both charts four in 1974 alone My Boy was a number one adult contemporary hit in 1975 and Moody Blue topped the country singles chart and reached the second spot on the adult contemporary chart in 1976 284 Perhaps his most critically acclaimed recording of the era came that year with what Greil Marcus described as his apocalyptic attack on the soul classic Hurt 285 Dave Marsh wrote of Presley s performance If he felt the way he sounded the wonder isn t that he had only a year left to live but that he managed to survive that long 286 Final months Presley and Linda Thompson split in November 1976 and he took up with a new girlfriend Ginger Alden 287 He proposed to Alden and gave her an engagement ring two months later though several of his friends later claimed that he had no serious intention of marrying again 288 Journalist Tony Scherman wrote that by early 1977 Presley had become a grotesque caricature of his sleek energetic former self Grossly overweight his mind dulled by the pharmacopia he daily ingested he was barely able to pull himself through his abbreviated concerts 289 In Alexandria Louisiana he was on stage for less than an hour and was impossible to understand 290 On March 31 Presley canceled a performance in Baton Rouge unable to get out of his hotel bed a total of four shows had to be canceled and rescheduled 291 Despite the accelerating deterioration of his health Presley stuck to most touring commitments According to Guralnick fans were becoming increasingly voluble about their disappointment but it all seemed to go right past Presley whose world was now confined almost entirely to his room and his spiritualism books 292 Presley s cousin Billy Smith recalled how he would sit in his room and chat for hours sometimes recounting favorite Monty Python sketches and his own past escapades but more often gripped by paranoid obsessions that reminded Smith of Howard Hughes 293 Way Down Presley s last single issued during his lifetime was released on June 6 1977 That month CBS taped two concerts for a TV special Elvis in Concert to be broadcast in October In the first shot in Omaha on June 19 Presley s voice Guralnick writes is almost unrecognizable a small childlike instrument in which he talks more than sings most of the songs casts about uncertainly for the melody in others and is virtually unable to articulate or project 294 Two days later in Rapid City South Dakota he looked healthier seemed to have lost a little weight and sounded better too though by the conclusion of the performance his face was framed in a helmet of blue black hair from which sweat sheets down over pale swollen cheeks 294 Presley s final concert was held in Indianapolis at Market Square Arena on June 26 1977 295 Presley s gravestone at Graceland The book Elvis What Happened co written by the three bodyguards fired the previous year was published on August 1 296 It was the first expose to detail Presley s years of drug misuse He was devastated by the book and tried unsuccessfully to halt its publication by offering money to the publishers 297 By this point he suffered from glaucoma hypertension liver damage and an enlarged colon each magnified and possibly caused by drug abuse 264 Death See also Elvis sightings On the evening of August 16 1977 Presley was scheduled to fly out of Memphis to begin another tour That afternoon Ginger Alden discovered him in an unresponsive state on the bathroom floor of his Graceland mansion 298 Attempts to revive him failed and he was pronounced dead at Baptist Memorial Hospital at 3 30 p m 299 He was 42 years old 300 President Jimmy Carter issued a statement that credited Presley with having permanently changed the face of American popular culture 301 Thousands of people gathered outside Graceland to view the open casket One of Presley s cousins Billy Mann accepted US 18 000 equivalent to 80 000 in 2021 to secretly photograph the body the picture appeared on the cover of the National Enquirer s biggest selling issue ever 302 Alden struck a 105 000 equivalent to 470 000 in 2021 deal with the Enquirer for her story but settled for less when she broke her exclusivity agreement 303 Presley left her nothing in his will 304 Presley s funeral was held at Graceland on Thursday August 18 Outside the gates a car plowed into a group of fans killing two young women and critically injuring a third 305 About 80 000 people lined the processional route to Forest Hill Cemetery where Presley was buried next to his mother 306 Within a few weeks Way Down topped the country and UK singles chart 284 307 Following an attempt to steal Presley s body in late August the remains of both Presley and his mother were exhumed and reburied in Graceland s Meditation Garden on October 2 303 Cause of death While an autopsy undertaken the same day Presley died was still in progress Memphis medical examiner Jerry Francisco announced that the immediate cause of death was cardiac arrest Asked if drugs were involved he declared that drugs played no role in Presley s death 308 In fact drug use was heavily implicated in Presley s death writes Guralnick The pathologists conducting the autopsy thought it possible for instance that he had suffered anaphylactic shock brought on by the codeine pills he had gotten from his dentist to which he was known to have had a mild allergy A pair of lab reports filed two months later strongly suggested that polypharmacy was the primary cause of death one reported fourteen drugs in Elvis system ten in significant quantity 309 In 1979 forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht conducted a review of the reports and concluded that a combination of central nervous system depressants had resulted in Presley s accidental death 308 Forensic historian and pathologist Michael Baden viewed the situation as complicated 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 310 The competence and ethics of two of the centrally involved medical professionals were seriously questioned Francisco had offered a cause of death before the autopsy was complete claimed the underlying ailment was cardiac arrhythmia a condition that can be determined only in someone who is still alive and denied drugs played any part in Presley s death before the toxicology results were known 308 Allegations of a cover up were widespread 310 While a 1981 trial of Presley s main physician George C Nichopoulos exonerated him of criminal liability for his death the facts were startling In the first eight months of 1977 alone he had prescribed more than 10 000 doses of sedatives amphetamines and narcotics all in Elvis name His license was suspended for three months It was permanently revoked in the 1990s after the Tennessee Medical Board brought new charges of over prescription 264 In 1994 the Presley autopsy report was reopened Joseph Davis who had conducted thousands of autopsies as Miami Dade County coroner 311 declared at its completion There is nothing in any of the data that supports a death from drugs In fact everything points to a sudden violent heart attack 264 More recent research has revealed that Francisco did not speak for the entire pathology team Other staff could say nothing with confidence until they got the results back from the laboratories if then That would be a matter of weeks One of the examiners E Eric Muirhead could not believe his ears Francisco had not only presumed to speak for the hospital s team of pathologists he had announced a conclusion that they had not reached Early on a meticulous dissection of the body confirmed that Elvis was chronically ill with diabetes glaucoma and constipation As they proceeded the doctors saw evidence that his body had been wracked over a span of years by a large and constant stream of drugs They had also studied his hospital records which included two admissions for drug detoxification and methadone treatments 312 Writer Frank Coffey thought Presley s death was due to a phenomenon called the Valsalva maneuver essentially straining on the toilet leading to heart stoppage plausible because Elvis suffered constipation a common reaction to drug use 313 In similar terms Dan Warlick who was present at the autopsy believes Presley s chronic constipation the result of years of prescription drug abuse and high fat high cholesterol gorging brought on what s known as Valsalva s maneuver Put simply the strain of attempting to defecate compressed the singer s abdominal aorta shutting down his heart 314 However in 2013 Forest Tennant who had testified as a defense witness in Nichopoulos trial described his own analysis of Presley s available medical records He concluded that Presley s drug abuse had led to falls head trauma and overdoses that damaged his brain and that his death was due in part to a toxic reaction to codeine exacerbated by an undetected liver enzyme defect which can cause sudden cardiac arrhythmia 315 DNA analysis in 2014 of a hair sample purported to be Presley s found evidence of genetic variants that can lead to glaucoma migraines and obesity a crucial variant associated with the heart muscle disease hypertrophic cardiomyopathy was also identified 316 Later developments Between 1977 and 1981 six of Presley s posthumously released singles were top ten country hits 284 Graceland was opened to the public in 1982 Attracting over half a million visitors annually it became the second most visited home in the United States after the White House 317 It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2006 318 Presley has been inducted into five music halls of fame the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 1986 the Country Music Hall of Fame 1998 the Gospel Music Hall of Fame 2001 the Rockabilly Hall of Fame 2007 and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame 2012 In 1984 he received the W C Handy Award from the Blues Foundation and the Academy of Country Music s first Golden Hat Award In 1987 he received the American Music Awards Award of Merit 319 A Junkie XL remix of Presley s A Little Less Conversation credited as Elvis Vs JXL was used in a Nike advertising campaign during the 2002 FIFA World Cup It topped the charts in over 20 countries and was included in a compilation of Presley s number one hits ELV1S which was also an international success The album returned Presley to the Billboard summit for the first time in almost three decades 320 In 2003 a remix of Rubberneckin a 1969 recording of Presley s topped the U S sales chart as did a 50th anniversary re release of That s All Right the following year 321 The latter was an outright hit in Britain debuting at number three on the pop chart it also made the top ten in Canada 322 In 2005 another three reissued singles Jailhouse Rock One Night I Got Stung and It s Now or Never went to number one in the United Kingdom They were part of a campaign that saw the re release of all 18 of Presley s previous chart topping UK singles The first All Shook Up came with a collectors box that made it ineligible to chart again each of the other 17 reissues hit the British top five 323 In 2005 Forbes named Presley the top earning deceased celebrity for the fifth straight year with a gross income of 45 million 324 He was placed second in 2006 325 returned to the top spot the next two years 326 327 and ranked fourth in 2009 328 The following year he was ranked second with his highest annual income ever 60 million spurred by the celebration of his 75th birthday and the launch of Cirque du Soleil s Viva Elvis show in Las Vegas 329 In November 2010 Viva Elvis The Album was released setting his voice to newly recorded instrumental tracks 330 331 As of mid 2011 there were an estimated 15 000 licensed Presley products 332 and he was again the second highest earning deceased celebrity 333 Six years later he ranked fourth with earnings of 35 million up 8 million from 2016 due in part to the opening of a new entertainment complex Elvis Presley s Memphis and hotel The Guest House at Graceland 334 In 2018 RCA Legacy released Elvis Presley Where No One Stands Alone a new album focused on Elvis s love of gospel music Produced by Joel Weinshanker Lisa Marie Presley and Andy Childs the album introduced newly recorded instrumentation along with vocals from singers who had performed in the past with Elvis It also included a reimagined duet with Lisa Marie on the album s title track 335 In 2022 Baz Luhrmann s film Elvis a musical biographical film about Presley s life was released to theaters Presley is portrayed by Austin Butler and Colonel Tom Parker by Tom Hanks 336 The film has grossed 261 8 million worldwide against its 85 million budget becoming the second highest grossing music biopic of all time behind Bohemian Rhapsody 2018 and the fifth highest grossing Australian produced film 337 In January 2023 on what would have been Elvis Presley s 88th birthday his 1962 Lockheed 1329 JetStar sold at an auction for 260 000 The plane sold at the Mecum Kissimmee Collector Car auction in Florida 338 ArtistryInfluences Presley s earliest musical influence came from gospel His mother recalled that from the age of two at the Assembly of God church in Tupelo attended by the family he would slide down off my lap run into the aisle and scramble up to the platform There he would stand looking at the choir and trying to sing with them 339 In Memphis Presley frequently attended all night gospel singings at the Ellis Auditorium where groups such as the Statesmen Quartet led the music in a style that Guralnick suggests sowed the seeds of Presley s future stage act The Statesmen were an electric combination featuring some of the most thrillingly emotive singing and daringly unconventional showmanship in the entertainment world dressed in suits that might have come out of the window of Lansky s Bass singer Jim Wetherington known universally as the Big Chief maintained a steady bottom ceaselessly jiggling first his left leg then his right with the material of the pants leg ballooning out and shimmering He went about as far as you could go in gospel music said Jake Hess The women would jump up just like they do for the pop shows Preachers frequently objected to the lewd movements but audiences reacted with screams and swoons 340 As a teenager Presley s musical interests were wide ranging and he was deeply informed about both white and African American musical idioms Though he never had any formal training he had a remarkable memory and his musical knowledge was already considerable by the time he made his first professional recordings aged 19 in 1954 When Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller met him two years later they were astonished at his encyclopedic understanding of the blues 341 and as Stoller put it He certainly knew a lot more than we did about country music and gospel music 157 At a press conference the following year he proudly declared I know practically every religious song that s ever been written 148 Musicianship Presley played guitar bass and piano he received his first guitar when he was 11 years old Hhe could not read or write music and had no formal lessons and played everything by ear 342 Presley often played an instrument on his recordings and produced his own music Presley played rhythm acoustic guitar on most of his Sun recordings and his 1950s RCA albums He played electric bass guitar on You re So Square Baby I Don t Care after his bassist Bill Black had trouble with the instrument 343 Presley played the bass line including the intro Presley played piano on songs such as Old Shep and First in Line from his 1956 album Elvis 344 He is credited with playing piano on later albums such as From Elvis in Memphis and Moody Blue and on Unchained Melody which was one of the last songs that he recorded 345 Presley played lead guitar on one of his successful singles called Are You Lonesome Tonight 346 In the 68 Comeback Special Elvis took over on lead electric guitar the first time he had ever been seen with the instrument in public playing it on songs such as Baby What You Want Me to Do and One Night 347 Presley played the back of his guitar on some of his hits such as All Shook Up Don t Be Cruel and Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear providing percussion by slapping the instrument to create a beat 348 The album Elvis is Back features Presley playing a lot of acoustic guitar on songs such as I Will Be Home Again and Like a Baby 349 Musical styles and genres Presley with his longtime vocal backup group the Jordanaires March 1957 Presley was a central figure in the development of rockabilly according to music historians Rockabilly crystallized into a recognizable style in 1954 with Elvis Presley s first release on the Sun label writes Craig Morrison 350 Paul Friedlander describes the defining elements of rockabilly which he similarly characterizes as essentially an Elvis Presley construction the raw emotive and slurred vocal style and emphasis on rhythmic feeling of the blues with the string band and strummed rhythm guitar of country 351 In That s All Right the Presley trio s first record Scotty Moore s guitar solo a combination of Merle Travis style country finger picking double stop slides from acoustic boogie and blues based bent note single string work is a microcosm of this fusion 351 While Katherine Charlton likewise calls Presley rockabilly s originator 352 Carl Perkins has explicitly stated that Sam Phillips Elvis and I didn t create rockabilly 353 and according to Michael Campbell Bill Haley recorded the first big rockabilly hit 354 In Moore s view too It had been there for quite a while really Carl Perkins was doing basically the same sort of thing up around Jackson and I know for a fact Jerry Lee Lewis had been playing that kind of music ever since he was ten years old 355 At RCA Victor Presley s rock and roll sound grew distinct from rockabilly with group chorus vocals more heavily amplified electric guitars 356 and a tougher more intense manner 357 While he was known for taking songs from various sources and giving them a rockabilly rock and roll treatment he also recorded songs in other genres from early in his career from the pop standard Blue Moon at Sun Records to the country ballad How s the World Treating You on his second RCA Victor LP to the blues of Santa Claus Is Back in Town In 1957 his first gospel record was released the four song EP Peace in the Valley Certified as a million seller it became the top selling gospel EP in recording history 358 Presley would record gospel periodically for the rest of his life Run On source source From How Great Thou Art 1967 a traditional song popular in the black gospel tradition The arrangement evokes the percussive style of the 1930s Golden Gate Quartet 359 360 Problems playing this file See media help After his return from military service in 1960 Presley continued to perform rock and roll but the characteristic style was substantially toned down His first post Army single the number one hit Stuck on You is typical of this shift RCA Victor publicity referred to its mild rock beat discographer Ernst Jorgensen calls it upbeat pop 361 The number five She s Not You 1962 integrates the Jordanaires so completely it s practically doo wop 362 The modern blues R amp B sound captured with success on Elvis Is Back was essentially abandoned for six years until such 1966 67 recordings as Down in the Alley and Hi Heel Sneakers 363 Presley s output during most of the 1960s emphasized pop music often in the form of ballads such as Are You Lonesome Tonight a number one in 1960 It s Now or Never which also topped the chart that year was a classically influenced variation of pop based on the Neapolitan song O sole mio and concluding with a full voiced operatic cadence 364 These were both dramatic numbers but most of what Presley recorded for his many film soundtracks was in a much lighter vein 365 While Presley performed several of his classic ballads for the 68 Comeback Special the sound of the show was dominated by aggressive rock and roll He recorded few new straight rock and roll songs thereafter as he explained they had become hard to find 366 A significant exception was Burning Love his last major hit on the pop charts Like his work of the 1950s Presley s subsequent recordings reworked pop and country songs but in markedly different permutations His stylistic range now began to embrace a more contemporary rock sound as well as soul and funk Much of Elvis in Memphis as well as Suspicious Minds cut at the same sessions reflected this new rock and soul fusion In the mid 1970s many of his singles found a home on country radio the field where he first became a star 367 Vocal style and range Publicity photo for the CBS program Stage Show January 16 1956 The developmental arc of Presley s singing voice as described by critic Dave Marsh goes from high and thrilled in the early days to lower and perplexed in the final months 368 Marsh credits Presley with the introduction of the vocal stutter on 1955 s Baby Let s Play House 369 When on Don t Be Cruel Presley slides into a mmmmm that marks the transition between the first two verses he shows how masterful his relaxed style really is 370 Marsh describes the vocal performance on Can t Help Falling in Love as one of gentle insistence and delicacy of phrasing with the line Shall I stay pronounced as if the words are fragile as crystal 371 Jorgensen calls the 1966 recording of How Great Thou Art an extraordinary fulfillment of his vocal ambitions as Presley crafted for himself an ad hoc arrangement in which he took every part of the four part vocal from the bass intro to the soaring heights of the song s operatic climax becoming a kind of one man quartet 372 Guralnick finds Stand by Me from the same gospel sessions a beautifully articulated almost nakedly yearning performance but by contrast feels that Presley reaches beyond his powers on Where No One Stands Alone resorting to a kind of inelegant bellowing to push out a sound that Jake Hess of the Statesmen Quartet had in his command Hess himself thought that while others might have voices the equal of Presley s he had that certain something that everyone searches for all during their lifetime 373 Guralnick attempts to pinpoint that something The warmth of his voice his controlled use of both vibrato technique and natural falsetto range the subtlety and deeply felt conviction of his singing were all qualities recognizably belonging to his talent but just as recognizably not to be achieved without sustained dedication and effort 374 Marsh praises his 1968 reading of U S Male bearing down on the hard guy lyrics not sending them up or overplaying them but tossing them around with that astonishingly tough yet gentle assurance that he brought to his Sun records 375 The performance on In the Ghetto is according to Jorgensen devoid of any of his characteristic vocal tricks or mannerisms instead relying on the exceptional clarity and sensitivity of his voice 376 Guralnick describes the song s delivery as of almost translucent eloquence so quietly confident in its simplicity 377 On Suspicious Minds Guralnick hears essentially the same remarkable mixture of tenderness and poise but supplemented with an expressive quality somewhere between stoicism at suspected infidelity and anguish over impending loss 378 Music critic Henry Pleasants observes that 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 379 He identifies Presley as a high baritone calculating his range as two octaves and a third from the baritone low G to the tenor high B with an upward extension in falsetto to at least a D flat Presley s best octave is in the middle D flat to D flat granting an extra full step up or down 379 In Pleasants view his voice was variable and unpredictable at the bottom often brilliant at the top with the capacity for full voiced high Gs and As that an opera baritone might envy 379 Scholar Lindsay Waters who figures Presley s range as two and a quarter octaves emphasizes that his voice had an emotional range from tender whispers to sighs down to shouts grunts grumbles and sheer gruffness that could move the listener from calmness and surrender to fear His voice can not be measured in octaves but in decibels even that misses the problem of how to measure delicate whispers that are hardly audible at all 380 Presley was always able to duplicate the open hoarse ecstatic screaming shouting wailing reckless sound of the black rhythm and blues and gospel singers writes Pleasants and also demonstrated a remarkable ability to assimilate many other vocal styles 379 Public imageRelationship with the African American community When Dewey Phillips first aired That s All Right on Memphis WHBQ many listeners who contacted the station by phone and telegram to ask for it again assumed that its singer was black 60 From the beginning of his national fame Presley expressed respect for African American performers and their music and disregard for the norms of segregation and racial prejudice then prevalent in the South Interviewed in 1956 he recalled how in his childhood he would listen to blues musician Arthur Crudup the originator of That s All Right bang his box the way I do now and I said if I ever got to the place where I could feel all old Arthur felt I d be a music man like nobody ever saw 44 The Memphis World an African American newspaper reported that Presley the rock n roll phenomenon cracked Memphis segregation laws by attending the local amusement park on what was designated as its colored night 44 Such statements and actions led Presley to be generally hailed in the black community during the early days of his stardom 44 In contrast many white adults did not like him and condemned him as depraved Anti negro prejudice doubtless figured in adult antagonism Regardless of whether parents were aware of the Negro sexual origins of the phrase rock n roll Presley impressed them as the visual and aural embodiment of sex 6 Despite the largely positive view of Presley held by African Americans a rumor spread in mid 1957 that he had at some point announced The only thing Negroes can do for me is buy my records and shine my shoes A journalist with the national African American weekly Jet Louie Robinson pursued the story On the set of Jailhouse Rock Presley granted Robinson an interview though he was no longer dealing with the mainstream press He denied making such a statement I never said anything like that and people who know me know that I wouldn t have said it A lot of people seem to think I started this business But rock n roll was here a long time before I came along Nobody can sing that kind of music like colored people Let s face it I can t sing like Fats Domino can I know that 381 Robinson found no evidence that the remark had ever been made and on the contrary elicited testimony from many individuals indicating that Presley was anything but racist 44 382 Blues singer Ivory Joe Hunter who had heard the rumor before he visited Graceland one evening reported of Presley He showed me every courtesy and I think he s one of the greatest 383 Though the rumored remark was discredited it was still being used against Presley decades later 384 The identification of Presley with racism either personally or symbolically was expressed in the lyrics of the 1989 rap hit Fight the Power by Public Enemy Elvis was a hero to most But he never meant shit to me Straight up racist that sucker was Simple and plain Motherfuck him and John Wayne 385 However Chuck D the singer and writer of the song later clarified his lyric associating Elvis Presley with racism In an interview with Newsday timed with the 25th anniversary of Presley s death Chuck D acknowledged that Elvis was held in high esteem by black musicians and that Elvis himself admired black musical performers Chuck D stated that the target of his line about Elvis was the white culture which hailed Elvis as a King without acknowledging the black artists that came before him 386 387 The persistence of such attitudes was fueled by resentment over the fact that Presley whose musical and visual performance idiom owed much to African American sources achieved the cultural acknowledgement and commercial success largely denied his black peers 382 Into the 21st century the notion that Presley had stolen black music still found adherents example needed 384 385 Notable among African American entertainers expressly rejecting this view was Jackie Wilson who argued A lot of people have accused Elvis of stealing the black man s music when in fact almost every black solo entertainer copied his stage mannerisms from Elvis 388 Moreover Presley also acknowledged his debt to African American musicians throughout his career Addressing his 68 Comeback Special audience he said Rock n roll music is basically gospel or rhythm and blues or it sprang from that People have been adding to it adding instruments to it experimenting with it but it all boils down to that 389 Nine years earlier he had said Rock n roll has been around for many years It used to be called rhythm and blues 390 Sex symbol Poster for the film Girls Girls Girls 1962 visualizing Presley s sex symbol image Presley s physical attractiveness and sexual appeal were widely acknowledged He was once beautiful astonishingly beautiful according to critic Mark Feeney 391 Television director Steve Binder no fan of Presley s music before he oversaw the 1968 Comeback Special reported I m straight as an arrow and I got to tell you you stop whether you re male or female to look at him He was that good looking And if you never knew he was a superstar it wouldn t make any difference if he d walked in the room you d know somebody special was in your presence 392 His performance style as much as his physical beauty was responsible for Presley s eroticized image Writing in 1970 critic George Melly described him as the master of the sexual simile treating his guitar as both phallus and girl 393 In his Presley obituary Lester Bangs credited him as the man who brought overt blatant vulgar sexual frenzy to the popular arts in America 394 Ed Sullivan s declaration that he perceived a soda bottle in Presley s trousers was echoed by rumors involving a similarly positioned toilet roll tube or lead bar 395 While Presley was marketed as an icon of heterosexuality some cultural critics have argued that his image was ambiguous In 1959 Sight and Sound s Peter John Dyer described his onscreen persona as aggressively bisexual in appeal 396 Brett Farmer places the orgasmic gyrations of the title dance sequence in Jailhouse Rock within a lineage of cinematic musical numbers that offer a spectacular eroticization if not homoeroticization of the male image 397 In the analysis of Yvonne Tasker Elvis was an ambivalent figure who articulated a peculiar feminised objectifying version of white working class masculinity as aggressive sexual display 398 Reinforcing Presley s image as a sex symbol were the reports of his dalliances with various Hollywood stars and starlets from Natalie Wood in the 1950s to Connie Stevens and Ann Margret in the 1960s to Candice Bergen and Cybill Shepherd in the 1970s June Juanico of Memphis one of Presley s early girlfriends later blamed Parker for encouraging him to choose his dating partners with publicity in mind 224 Presley never grew comfortable with the Hollywood scene and most of these relationships were insubstantial 399 Equestrian Elvis kept several horses at Graceland and horses remain important to the Graceland estate A local former teacher Alene Alexander has taken care of the horses at Graceland for 38 years She and Priscilla Presley have a love for horses and have formed a special friendship It was because of Priscilla that Elvis brought horses to Graceland He got me my first horse as a Christmas present Domino said Priscilla Presley Alexander now serves as Graceland s Ambassador She is one of three of the original staff members still working at the estate 400 The horse named Palomino Rising Sun was Elvis favorite horse and there are many photographs of him riding him 401 AssociatesColonel Parker and the Aberbachs Further information Colonel Tom Parker Presley and Colonel Tom Parker 1969 Once he became Presley s manager Colonel Tom Parker insisted on exceptionally tight control over his client s career Early on he and his Hill and Range allies the brothers Jean and Julian Aberbach perceived the close relationship that developed between Presley and songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller as a serious threat to that control 402 Parker effectively ended the relationship deliberately or not with the new contract he sent Leiber in early 1958 Leiber thought there was a mistake the sheet of paper was blank except for Parker s signature and a line on which to enter his There s no mistake boy just sign it and return it Parker directed Don t worry we ll fill it in later Leiber declined and Presley s fruitful collaboration with the writing team was over 403 Other respected songwriters lost interest in or simply avoided writing for Presley because of the requirement that they surrender a third of their usual royalties 404 By 1967 Parker s contracts gave him 50 percent of most of Presley s earnings from recordings films and merchandise 405 Beginning in February 1972 he took a third of the profit from live appearances 406 a January 1976 agreement entitled him to half of that as well 407 Priscilla Presley noted that Elvis detested the business side of his career He would sign a contract without even reading it 408 Presley s friend Marty Lacker regarded Parker as a hustler and a con artist He was only interested in now money get the buck and get gone 409 Priscilla Presley said after Parker s death however that Elvis was happy to pay 50 to Parker to manage him 410 Lacker was instrumental in convincing Presley to record with Memphis producer Chips Moman and his handpicked musicians at American Sound Studio in early 1969 The American Sound sessions represented a significant departure from the control customarily exerted by Hill and Range Moman still had to deal with the publisher s staff on site whose song suggestions he regarded as unacceptable He was on the verge of quitting until Presley ordered the Hill and Range personnel out of the studio 411 Although RCA executive Joan Deary was later full of praise for the producer s song choices and the quality of the recordings 412 Moman to his fury received neither credit on the records nor royalties for his work 413 Throughout his entire career Presley performed in only three venues outside the United States all of them in Canada during brief tours there in 1957 414 In 1968 he remarked Before too long I m going to make some personal appearance tours I ll probably start out here in this country and after that play some concerts abroad probably starting in Europe I want to see some places I ve never seen before 209 Rumors that he would play overseas for the first time were fueled in 1974 by a million dollar bid for an Australian tour Parker was uncharacteristically reluctant prompting those close to Presley to speculate about the manager s past and the reasons for his evident unwillingness to apply for a passport 415 After Presley s death it was revealed that Parker was born Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk in the Netherlands having immigrated illegally to the U S he had reason to fear that if he left the country he would not be allowed back in again 416 Parker ultimately squelched any notions Presley had of working abroad claiming that foreign security was poor and the venues unsuitable for a star of his magnitude 417 Parker arguably exercised tightest control over Presley s film career Hal Wallis said I d rather try and close a deal with the devil than with Parker Fellow film producer Sam Katzman described him as the biggest con artist in the world 418 In 1957 Robert Mitchum asked Presley to costar with him in Thunder Road which Mitchum was producing and writing 419 According to George Klein one of his oldest friends Presley was also offered starring roles in West Side Story and Midnight Cowboy 420 In 1974 Barbra Streisand approached Presley to star with her in the remake of A Star is Born 421 In each case any ambitions Presley may have had to play such parts were thwarted by his manager s negotiating demands or flat refusals In Lacker s description The only thing that kept Elvis going after the early years was a new challenge But Parker kept running everything into the ground 409 The prevailing attitude may have been summed up best by the response Leiber and Stoller received when they brought a serious film project for Presley to Parker and the Hill and Range owners for their consideration In Leiber s telling Jean Aberbach warned them to never again try to interfere with the business or artistic workings of the process known as Elvis Presley 193 Memphis Mafia Main article Memphis Mafia In the early 1960s the circle of friends with whom Presley constantly surrounded himself until his death came to be known as the Memphis Mafia 422 Surrounded by the ir parasitic presence as journalist John Harris puts it it was no wonder that as he slid into addiction and torpor no one raised the alarm to them Elvis was the bank and it had to remain open 423 Tony Brown who played piano for Presley regularly in the last two years of Presley s life observed his rapidly declining health and the urgent need to address it But we all knew it was hopeless because Elvis was surrounded by that little circle of people all those so called friends 424 In the Memphis Mafia s defense Marty Lacker has said Presley was his own man If we hadn t been around he would have been dead a lot earlier 425 Larry Geller became Presley s hairdresser in 1964 Unlike others in the Memphis Mafia he was interested in spiritual questions and recalls how from their first conversation Presley revealed his secret thoughts and anxieties I mean there has to be a purpose there s got to be a reason why I was chosen to be Elvis Presley I swear to God no one knows how lonely I get And how empty I really feel 426 Thereafter Geller supplied him with books on religion and mysticism which Presley read voraciously 427 Presley would be preoccupied by such matters for much of his life taking trunkloads of books on tour 264 LegacyFurther information Cultural impact of Elvis Presley Cultural depictions of Elvis Presley Elvis has left the building and List of songs about or referencing Elvis Presley I know he invented rock and roll in a manner of speaking but that s not why he s worshiped as a god today He s worshiped as a god today because in addition to inventing rock and roll he was the greatest ballad singer this side of Frank Sinatra because the spiritual translucence and reined in gut sexuality of his slow weeper and torchy pop blues still activate the hormones and slavish devotion of millions of female human beings worldwide Robert Christgau December 24 1985 428 Presley s rise to national attention in 1956 transformed the field of popular music and had a huge effect on the broader scope of popular culture 429 As the catalyst for the cultural revolution that was rock and roll he was central not only to defining it as a musical genre but in making it a touchstone of youth culture and rebellious attitude 430 With its racially mixed origins repeatedly affirmed by Presley rock and roll s occupation of a central position in mainstream American culture facilitated a new acceptance and appreciation of black culture 431 In this regard Little Richard said of Presley He was an integrator Elvis was a blessing They wouldn t let black music through He opened the door for black music 432 Al Green agreed He broke the ice for all of us 433 President Jimmy Carter remarked on his legacy in 1977 His 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 301 Presley also heralded the vastly expanded reach of celebrity in the era of mass communication at the age of 21 within a year of his first appearance on American network television he was regarded as one of the most famous people in the world 434 A group of Elvis impersonators in 2005 Presley s name image and voice are recognized around the globe 435 He has inspired a legion of impersonators 436 In polls and surveys he is recognized as one of the most important popular music artists and influential Americans d American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein said Elvis Presley is the greatest cultural force in the twentieth century He introduced the beat to everything and he changed everything music language clothes It s a whole new social revolution the sixties came from it 444 John Lennon said that Nothing really affected me until Elvis 445 Bob Dylan described the sensation of first hearing Presley as like busting out of jail 433 Presley s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6777 Hollywood Blvd For much of his adult life Presley with his rise from poverty to riches and massive fame had seemed to epitomize the American Dream 446 447 In his final years and even more so after his death and the revelations about its circumstances he became a symbol of excess and gluttony 448 449 Increasing attention for instance was paid to his appetite for the rich heavy Southern cooking of his upbringing foods such as chicken fried steak and biscuits and gravy 450 451 In particular his love of calorie laden fried peanut butter banana and sometimes bacon sandwiches 452 450 now known as Elvis sandwiches 453 came to stand for this aspect of his persona 454 But the Elvis sandwich represents more than just unhealthy overindulgence as media and culture scholar Robert Thompson describes the unsophisticated treat also signifies Presley s enduring all American appeal He wasn t only the king he was one of us 455 Since 1977 there have been numerous alleged sightings of Presley A long standing conspiracy theory among some fans is that he faked his death 456 457 Adherents cite alleged discrepancies in the death certificate reports of a wax dummy in his original coffin and accounts of Presley planning a diversion so he could retire in peace 458 An unusually large number of fans have domestic shrines devoted to Presley and journey to sites with which he is connected however faintly 459 Every August 16 the anniversary of his death thousands of people gather outside Graceland and celebrate his memory with a candlelight ritual 460 With Elvis it is not just his music that has survived death writes Ted Harrison He himself has been raised like a medieval saint to a figure of cultic status It is as if he has been canonized by acclamation 459 On the 25th anniversary of Presley s death The New York Times asserted 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 breakthroughs are underappreciated because in this rock and roll age his hard rocking music and sultry style have triumphed so completely 461 Not only Presley s achievements but his failings as well are seen by some cultural observers as adding to the power of his legacy as in this description by Greil Marcus Elvis Presley is a supreme figure in American life one whose presence no matter how banal or predictable brooks no real comparisons The cultural range of his music has expanded to the point where it includes not only the hits of the day but also patriotic recitals pure country gospel and really dirty blues Elvis has emerged as a great artist a great rocker a great purveyor of schlock a great heart throb a great bore a great symbol of potency a great ham a great nice person and yes a great American 462 AchievementsPresley remains the best selling solo music artist according to Guinness World Records 463 464 with sales estimated by various sources up to 500 million 1 billion 465 466 Presley holds the records for most songs charting in Billboard s top 40 115 467 468 469 and top 100 152 according to chart statistician Joel Whitburn 469 470 139 according to Presley historian Adam Victor 468 469 Presley s rankings for top ten and number one hits vary depending on how the double sided Hound Dog Don t Be Cruel and Don t I Beg of You singles which precede the inception of Billboard s unified Hot 100 chart are analyzed e According to Whitburn s analysis Presley holds the record with 38 tying with Madonna 467 per Billboard s current assessment he ranks second with 36 471 Whitburn and Billboard concur that the Beatles hold the record for most number one hits with 20 and that Mariah Carey is second with 18 Whitburn has Presley also with 18 and thus tied for second 467 Billboard has him third with 17 472 Presley retains the record for cumulative weeks at number one alone at 80 according to Whitburn and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 473 474 tied with Carey at 79 according to Billboard 475 476 He holds the records for most number one singles on the UK chart with 21 and singles reaching the top ten with 76 477 478 As an album artist Presley is credited by Billboard with the record for the most albums charting in the Billboard 200 129 far ahead of second place Frank Sinatra s 82 He also holds the record for most time spent at number one on the Billboard 200 67 weeks 479 In 2015 and 2016 two albums setting Presley s vocals against music by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra If I Can Dream and The Wonder of You both reached number one in the United Kingdom This gave him a new record for number one UK albums by a solo artist with 13 and extended his record for longest span between number one albums by anybody Presley had first topped the British chart in 1956 with his self titled debut 480 As of 2020 update the Recording Industry Association of America RIAA credits Presley with 146 5 million certified album sales in the U S third all time behind the Beatles and Garth Brooks 481 He holds the records for most gold albums 101 nearly twice as many as second place Barbra Streisand s 51 482 and most platinum albums 57 483 His 25 multi platinum albums is second behind The Beatles 26 484 His total of 197 album certification awards including one diamond award far outpaces the Beatles second best 122 485 He has the third most gold singles 54 behind Drake and Taylor Swift 486 and the eighth most platinum singles 27 487 In 2012 the spider Paradonea presleyi was named in his honor 488 In 2018 President Donald Trump awarded Presley the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously 489 BandsSee also The Blue Moon Boys TCB Band Nashville A Team and The Jordanaires Presley worked with many bands and studio musicians over the course of his career The following is a list and timeline of the most prominent musicians that worked with Presley during his lifetime Scotty Moore lead guitar rhythm guitar backing vocals 1954 59 1960 69 died 2016 Bill Black double bass bass guitar backing vocals 1954 58 died 1965 DJ Fontana drums backing vocals 1955 59 1960 69 died 2018 Gordon Stoker backing vocals piano organ accordion percussion 1956 59 1960 68 1969 71 died 2013 Neal Matthews Jr backing vocals guitar bass guitar double bass 1956 59 1960 68 1969 71 died 2000 Hoyt Hawkins backing vocals piano organ percussion 1956 59 1960 68 1969 71 died 1980 Hugh Jarrett backing vocals 1956 58 died 2008 Ray Walker backing vocals 1958 59 1960 68 1969 71 Bob Moore double bass bass guitar 1958 59 1960 68 died 2021 Dudley Brooks piano celeste 1957 59 1960 63 died 1989 Tiny Timbrell rhythm and lead guitars mandolin 1958 59 1963 68 died 1992 Hank Garland lead guitar bass guitar 1960 61 died 2004 Floyd Cramer piano organ 1960 1963 68 died 1997 Boots Randolph saxophone vibraphone percussion 1960 62 1964 68 died 2007 Buddy Harman drums percussion 1960 63 1964 68 died 2008 Clifford Scott saxophone 1962 64 died 1993 Tony Terran trumpet 1963 1968 1971 1972 died 2017 Hal Blaine drums percussion 1963 died 2019 Charlie Hodge rhythm guitar harmony and backing vocals 1967 77 died 2006 Reggie Young lead guitar 1969 died 2019 Mike Leech bass guitar 1969 Tommy Cogbill bass guitar 1969 Bobby Wood piano 1969 Bobby Emmons electric piano organ 1969 Gene Chrisman drums 1969 James Burton lead guitar 1969 77 John Wilkinson rhythm guitar 1969 77 died 2013 Jerry Scheff bass guitar 1969 73 1975 77 Ronnie Tutt drums 1969 1970 77 died 2021 Larry Muhoberac piano electric piano 1969 died 2016 Bob Lanning drums 1970 Glen D Hardin piano 1970 76 Emory Gordy Jr bass guitar 1973 Duke Bardwell bass guitar 1973 75 David Briggs electric piano clavinet piano organ 1975 77 Tony Brown piano organ 1976 77 Bobby Ogdin electric piano clavinet piano 1977 DiscographyMain articles Elvis Presley albums discography Elvis Presley singles discography and List of songs recorded by Elvis Presley A vast number of recordings have been issued under Presley s name The total number of his original master recordings has been variously calculated as 665 468 and 711 391 His career began and he was most successful during an era when singles were the primary commercial medium for pop music In the case of his albums the distinction between official studio records and other forms is often blurred For most of the 1960s his recording career focused on soundtrack albums In the 1970s his most heavily promoted and bestselling LP releases tended to be concert albums Studio albums Elvis Presley 1956 Elvis 1956 Elvis Christmas Album 1957 Elvis Is Back 1960 His Hand in Mine 1960 Something for Everybody 1961 Pot Luck 1962 Elvis for Everyone 1965 How Great Thou Art 1967 From Elvis in Memphis 1969 From Memphis to Vegas From Vegas to Memphis 1969 That s the Way It Is 1970 Elvis Country I m 10 000 Years Old 1971 Love Letters from Elvis 1971 Elvis sings The Wonderful World of Christmas 1971 Elvis Now 1972 He Touched Me 1972 Elvis 1973 The Fool Album Raised on Rock For Ol Times Sake 1973 Good Times 1974 Promised Land 1975 Today 1975 From Elvis Presley Boulevard Memphis Tennessee 1976 Moody Blue 1977 Soundtrack albums original material Loving You 1957 King Creole 1958 G I Blues 1960 Blue Hawaii 1961 Girls Girls Girls 1962 It Happened at the World s Fair 1963 Fun in Acapulco 1963 Kissin Cousins 1964 Roustabout 1964 Girl Happy 1965 Harum Scarum 1965 Frankie and Johnny 1966 Paradise Hawaiian Style 1966 Spinout 1966 Double Trouble 1967 Clambake 1967 Speedway 1968 FilmographyMain article Elvis Presley on film and television Films starredLove Me Tender 1956 Loving You 1957 Jailhouse Rock 1957 King Creole 1958 G I Blues 1960 Flaming Star 1960 Wild in the Country 1961 Blue Hawaii 1961 Follow That Dream 1962 Kid Galahad 1962 Girls Girls Girls 1962 It Happened at the World s Fair 1963 Fun in Acapulco 1963 Kissin Cousins 1964 Viva Las Vegas 1964 Roustabout 1964 Girl Happy 1965 Tickle Me 1965 Harum Scarum 1965 Frankie and Johnny 1966 Paradise Hawaiian Style 1966 Spinout 1966 Easy Come Easy Go 1967 Double Trouble 1967 Clambake 1967 Stay Away Joe 1968 Speedway 1968 Live a Little Love a Little 1968 Charro 1969 The Trouble with Girls 1969 Change of Habit 1969 Elvis That s the Way It Is 1970 Elvis on Tour 1972 TV concert specialsElvis 1968 Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite 1973 Elvis in Concert 1977 See alsoElvis Presley Enterprises Honorific nicknames in popular music List of artists by number of UK Albums Chart number ones List of artists by number of UK Singles Chart number ones List of bestselling music artists Personal relationships of Elvis PresleyExplanatory notes a b Although some pronounce his surname ˈ p r ɛ z l i PREZ lee Presley himself pronounced it ˈ p r ɛ s l i PRESS lee as did his family and those who worked with him 2 The correct spelling of his middle name has long been a matter of debate The physician who delivered him wrote Elvis Aaron Presley in his ledger 3 The state issued birth certificate reads Elvis Aron Presley The name was chosen after the Presleys friend and fellow congregation member Aaron Kennedy though a single A spelling was probably intended by Presley s parents to parallel the middle name of Presley s stillborn brother Jesse Garon 4 It reads Aron on most official documents produced during his lifetime including his high school diploma RCA Victor record contract and marriage license and this was generally taken to be the proper spelling 5 In 1966 Presley expressed the desire to his father that the more traditional biblical rendering Aaron be used henceforth especially on legal documents 3 Five years later the Jaycees citation honoring him as one of the country s Outstanding Young Men used Aaron Late in his life he sought to officially change the spelling to Aaron and discovered that state records already listed it that way Knowing his wishes for his middle name Aaron is the spelling his father chose for Presley s tombstone and it is the spelling his estate has designated as official 5 Of the 40 000 5 000 covered back royalties owed by Sun 87 In 1956 57 Presley was also credited as a co writer on several songs where he had no hand in the writing process Heartbreak Hotel Don t Be Cruel all four songs from his first film including the title track Love Me Tender Paralyzed and All Shook Up 90 Parker however failed to register Presley with such musical licensing firms as ASCAP and its rival BMI which eventually denied Presley annuity from songwriter s royalties He received credit on two other songs to which he did contribute he provided the title for That s Someone You Never Forget 1961 written by his friend and former Humes schoolmate Red West Presley and West collaborated with another friend guitarist Charlie Hodge on You ll Be Gone 1962 91 VH1 ranked Presley No 8 among the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock amp Roll in 1998 437 The BBC ranked him as the No 2 Voice of the Century in 2001 438 Rolling Stone placed him No 3 in its list of The Immortals The Fifty Greatest Artists of All Time in 2004 439 CMT ranked him No 15 among the 40 Greatest Men in Country Music in 2005 440 The Discovery Channel placed him No 8 on its Greatest American list in 2005 441 Variety put him in the top ten of its 100 Icons of the Century in 2005 442 The Atlantic ranked him No 66 among the 100 Most Influential Figures in American History in 2006 443 Whitburn follows actual Billboard history in considering the four songs on the Don t Be Cruel Hound Dog and Don t I Beg of You singles as distinct He tallies each side of the former single as a number one Billboard s sales chart had Don t Be Cruel at number one for five weeks then Hound Dog for six and reckons I Beg of You as a top ten as it reached number eight on the old Top 100 chart Billboard now considers both singles as unified items ignoring the historical sales split of the former and its old Top 100 chart entirely Whitburn thus analyzes the four songs as yielding three number ones and a total of four top tens Billboard now states that they yielded just two number ones and a total of two top tens voiding the separate chart appearances of Hound Dog and I Beg of You Citations a b c U S Department of Defense 1960 Elster 2006 p 391 a b Nash 2005 p 11 a b Guralnick 1994 p 13 a b Adelman 2002 pp 13 15 a b Billboard writer Arnold Shaw cited in Denisoff 1975 p 22 Brown amp Broeske 1997 p 55 a b Guralnick amp Jorgensen 1999 p 3 Earl 2017 a b Guralnick 1994 pp 12 14 Kamphoefner 2009 p 33 Dundy 2004 p 60 Dundy 2004 pp 13 16 20 22 26 Dundy 2004 p 301 Nash 2005 pp 2 188 Keogh 2008 p 222 Keough 2017 Dundy 2004 pp xv 13 16 Guralnick 1994 pp 11 12 23 24 Victor 2008 p 419 Guralnick 1994 pp 15 16 Guralnick 1994 pp 17 18 Guralnick 1994 p 19 Dundy 2004 p 101 Guralnick 1994 p 23 Guralnick 1994 pp 23 26 Guralnick 1994 pp 19 21 Dundy 2004 pp 95 96 Guralnick 1994 pp 32 33 Guralnick 1994 p 36 Guralnick 1994 pp 35 38 Guralnick 1994 pp 40 41 Stanley amp Coffey 1998 p 20 Guralnick 1994 pp 43 44 49 Guralnick 1994 pp 44 46 51 Guralnick 1994 pp 52 53 a b Guralnick 1994 p 171 a b Matthew Walker 1979 p 3 Guralnick 1994 pp 46 48 358 Wadey 2004 Guralnick 1994 pp 47 48 77 78 Guralnick 1994 p 51 Guralnick 1994 pp 38 40 a b c d e Guralnick 2004 Bertrand 2000 p 205 Szatmary 1996 p 35 Guralnick 1994 p 54 Jorgensen 1998 p 8 Guralnick 1994 pp 62 64 Guralnick 1994 p 65 Guralnick 1994 p 77 Cusic 1988 p 10 Guralnick 1994 p 80 Guralnick 1994 p 83 Miller 2000 p 72 Jorgensen 1998 pp 10 11 Marcus 1982 p 174 Guralnick 1994 pp 94 97 Ponce de Leon 2007 p 43 a b Guralnick 1994 pp 100 101 Guralnick 1994 pp 102 104 Guralnick 1994 pp 105 139 Miller 2021 Rodman 2013 p 151 Guralnick 1994 pp 106 108 111 a b Guralnick 1994 p 110 Guralnick 1994 pp 117 127 131 Guralnick 1994 p 119 Guralnick 1994 pp 128 130 Mason 2007 pp 37 38 Guralnick 1994 pp 127 128 135 142 Burke amp Griffin 2006 pp 61 176 Guralnick 1994 pp 152 156 182 Everet 1977 Blazeski 2017 Poche 2017 Guralnick 1994 pp 144 159 167 168 Nash 2003 pp 6 12 Guralnick 1994 p 163 Bertrand 2000 p 104 Hopkins 2007 p 53 Guralnick amp Jorgensen 1999 p 45 Jorgensen 1998 p 29 Rogers 1982 p 41 Guralnick 1994 pp 217 119 Jorgensen 1998 p 31 a b Stanley amp Coffey 1998 pp 28 29 Escott 1998 p 421 Jorgensen 1998 pp 36 54 Jorgensen 1998 pp 35 51 57 61 75 Jorgensen 1998 pp 157 158 166 168 Stanley amp Coffey 1998 p 29 a b c Stanley amp Coffey 1998 p 30 Guralnick 1994 pp 235 136 Slaughter amp Nixon 2004 p 21 Guralnick amp Jorgensen 1999 pp 50 54 64 Hilburn 2005 Rodman 1996 p 28 Guralnick 1994 pp 262 263 Guralnick 1994 p 267 Koch Manning amp Toplikar 2008 Guralnick 1994 p 274 a b Victor 2008 p 315 Guralnick amp Jorgensen 1999 pp 72 73 Guralnick 1994 pp 273 284 Fensch 2001 pp 14 18 a b Burke amp Griffin 2006 p 52 Jorgensen 1998 p 49 Gould 1956 a b Guralnick amp Jorgensen 1999 p 73 a b c d e Marcus 2006 Marsh 1982 p 100 Austen 2005 p 13 Allen 1992 p 270 Rock N Roll Stars 1956 p 5 Keogh 2004 p 73 Jorgensen 1998 p 51 Guralnick amp Jorgensen 1999 pp 80 81 Whitburn 1993 p 5 Jorgensen 1998 pp 60 65 a b Austen 2005 p 16 Edgerton 2007 p 187 Brown amp Broeske 1997 p 93 Guralnick 1994 p 338 a b Gibson 2005 a b Victor 2008 p 439 Jezer 1982 p 281 Moore amp Dickerson 1997 p 175 Guralnick 1994 p 343 Guralnick 1994 p 335 a b Marsh 1980 p 395 O Malley 2016 Jorgensen 1998 p 71 Palladino 1996 p 131 Stanley amp Coffey 1998 p 37 Clayton amp Heard 2003 pp 117 118 Keogh 2004 p 90 Guralnick amp Jorgensen 1999 p 95 Salisbury 1957 p 4 Google Maps Guralnick 1994 pp 395 397 Nix 2019 Guralnick 1994 pp 406 408 452 Fox 1986 p 178 Leigh 2017 p 187 Guralnick 1994 pp 399 402 428 430 437 440 a b Guralnick 1994 p 400 a b Guralnick 1994 p 430 Turner 2004 p 104 Guralnick 1994 p 437 Guralnick 1994 p 431 Grein 2008 Caulfield 2016 Baird 2017 Guralnick 1994 pp 431 435 Guralnick 1994 pp 448 449 a b Fox 1986 p 179 Jorgensen 1998 pp 99 105 Billboard 1965 Guralnick 1994 pp 461 474 Victor 2008 p 27 Jorgensen 1998 pp 106 111 Guralnick 1994 pp 474 480 Neibaur 2014 p 51 Guralnick 1999 p 21 BudoDragon 2021 Tillery 2013 p 60 Eiland Murray 2018 Elvis Presley s Coat of Arms The Armiger s News 41 1 6 via academia edu Corcoran 1998 Tillery 2013 Chapter 5 Patriot Guralnick 1999 pp 47 49 55 60 73 Clayton amp Heard 2003 p 160 Presley 1985 p 40 Jorgensen 1998 p 107 Whitburn 2010 p 520 Marcus 1982 p 278 Matthew Walker 1979 p 49 Slaughter amp Nixon 2004 p 54 Matthew Walker 1979 p 19 Slaughter amp Nixon 2004 p 57 Marcus 1982 pp 279 280 Robertson 2004 p 50 Red Carpet 1960 Jorgensen 1998 pp 124 127 414 Guralnick 1999 pp 44 62 63 Gordon 2005 pp 110 114 Jorgensen 1998 p 148 Robertson 2004 p 52 Gordon 2005 pp 110 119 Ponce de Leon 2007 p 133 Caine 2005 p 21 Fields 2007 a b Guralnick 1994 p 449 Kirchberg amp Hendrickx 1999 p 67 Lisanti 2000 pp 19 136 Jorgensen 1998 p 201 Hopkins 2002 p 32 Matthew Walker 1979 p 66 Marsh 2004 p 650 Guralnick 1999 pp 261 263 Kirchberg amp Hendrickx 1999 p 73 a b Keogh 2004 p 263 Rolling Stone 2009 Guralnick 1999 p 171 Whitburn 2010 p 521 Kubernick 2008 p 4 Guralnick 1999 pp 293 296 a b c Kubernick 2008 p 26 a b Hopkins 2007 p 215 Marsh 2004 p 649 Jorgensen 1998 p 277 Marsh 1980 p 396 Jorgensen 1998 p 419 Gordon 2005 p 146 Jorgensen 1998 p 283 Guralnick 1999 p 343 Guralnick 1999 pp 346 347 Gordon 2005 pp 149 150 Cook 2004 p 39 Guralnick amp Jorgensen 1999 pp 259 262 Moyer 2002 p 73 Jorgensen 1998 p 287 Whitburn 2010 pp 521 522 a b Stein 1997 Mason 2007 p 81 Stanley amp Coffey 1998 p 94 Stanley amp Coffey 1998 p 95 Hopkins 2007 p 253 Hopkins 2007 p 254 Stanley amp Coffey 1998 p 96 Robertson 2004 p 70 Stanley amp Coffey 1998 p 99 Guralnick 1999 pp 419 422 Jorgensen 1998 pp 284 286 307 308 313 326 338 357 358 Guralnick 1999 p 420 The Beatles 2000 p 192 Jorgensen 1998 p 321 McPhate 2017 Guralnick amp Jorgensen 1999 pp 299 300 Jorgensen 1998 p 319 Marcus 1982 pp 284 185 Guralnick amp Jorgensen 1999 p 308 Marcus 1982 p 283 Guralnick 1999 p 478 Williamson 2015 pp 253 254 Guralnick 1999 pp 451 446 453 Guralnick 1999 p 456 Marsh 2015 Hopkins 2007 p 291 Guralnick 1999 p 474 Moscheo 2007 p 132 Keogh 2004 pp 234 235 Hopkins 2002 pp 61 67 73 Hopkins 2002 p 73 Victor 2008 p 10 Brown amp Broeske 1997 p 364 Guralnick 1999 p 475 Fessier 2013 Mason 2007 p 141 RIAA 2010 Jorgensen 1998 pp 422 425 Guralnick 1999 pp 488 490 Guralnick amp Jorgensen 1999 p 329 a b c d e Higginbotham 2002 Keogh 2004 p 238 Guralnick 1999 pp 481 487 499 504 519 520 Guralnick 1999 p 547 a b Hopkins 1986 p 136 Garber 1997 p 364 Guralnick 1994 pp 50 148 Guralnick 1999 pp 601 604 Stanley amp Coffey 1998 p 139 Hopkins 2007 p 354 Stanley amp Coffey 1998 p 140 Guralnick 1999 p 560 Guralnick amp Jorgensen 1999 p 336 Jorgensen 1998 p 381 a b Grammy 2014 Guralnick 1999 pp 584 585 Guralnick 1999 pp 593 595 Guralnick 1999 p 595 Jorgensen 1998 p 397 Caulfield 2004 a b c Whitburn 2006 p 273 Marcus 1982 p 284 Marsh 1989 p 430 Victor 2008 pp 8 526 Victor 2008 pp 8 224 325 Scherman 2006 Guralnick 1999 p 628 Guralnick 1999 pp 628 630 Guralnick 1999 p 634 Guralnick 1999 pp 212 642 a b Guralnick 1999 p 638 Harrison 2016 p 23 Stanley amp Coffey 1998 p 148 Humphries 2003 p 79 Alden 2014 Guralnick 1999 pp 645 648 Harrison 2016 p 242 a b Woolley amp Peters 1977 Hopkins 2007 p 386 a b Guralnick 1999 p 660 Victor 2008 pp 581 582 Matthew Walker 1979 p 26 Pendergast amp Pendergast 2000 p 108 Warwick Kutner amp Brown 2004 pp 860 866 a b c Ramsland 2010 Guralnick 1999 pp 651 653 a b Baden amp Hennessee 1990 p 35 Tennant 2013 p 2 Williamson 2015 pp 11 14 Coffey 1997 p 247 Wertheimer 1997 p 132 Tennant 2013 Guardian 2014 Brown amp Broeske 1997 p 433 National Park Service 2010 Cook 2004 p 33 Garrity 2002 Bronson 2004 p 1 Hits of the World 2004 Sexton 2007 Goldman amp Ewalt 2007 Rose 2006 Goldman amp Paine 2007 Hoy 2008 Pomerantz et al 2009 Rose et al 2010 Baillie 2010 Bouchard 2010 Lynch 2011 Pomerantz 2011 Greenburg 2017 Legacy 2018 Luhrmann 2022 sfn error no target CITEREFLuhrmann2022 help Elvis 2022 Box Office Mojo Retrieved August 15 2022 Elvis Presley s Lockheed 1329 JetStar sells at auction for 260 000 Globalair com Retrieved January 11 2023 Guralnick 1994 p 14 Guralnick 1994 pp 47 48 Bertrand 2000 p 211 Graceland Blog 2015 Roberts 2001 p page needed Osborne 2017 p 73 Duffett 2018 p 189 Murray 1961 p 65 Marcus 2015 p 341 Trynka amp Bacon 1996 p 42 Eder 2013 p 149 Morrison 1996 p x a b Friedlander 1996 p 45 Charlton 2006 p 103 Jancik 1998 p 16 Campbell 2009 p 161 Guralnick 1989 p 104 Gillett 2000 p 113 Jorgensen 1998 p 39 Wolfe 1994 p 14 Wolfe 1994 p 22 Keogh 2004 p 184 Jorgensen 1998 p 123 Marsh 1982 p 145 Jorgensen 1998 pp 213 237 Guralnick 1999 p 65 Jorgensen 1998 pp 142 143 Jorgensen 1998 p 343 Ponce de Leon 2007 p 199 Marsh 1982 p 234 Marsh 1989 p 317 Marsh 1989 p 91 Marsh 1989 p 490 Jorgensen 1998 p 212 Guralnick 1999 p 232 Guralnick 1999 p 231 Marsh 1989 p 424 Jorgensen 1998 p 271 Guralnick 1999 p 332 Guralnick 1999 p 335 a b c d Pleasants 2004 p 260 Waters 2003 p 205 Williams 2012 a b Pilgrim 2006 Guralnick 1994 p 426 a b Kolawole 2002 a b Myrie 2009 pp 123 124 Chuck Hails the King The Age August 13 2002 Archived from the original on April 18 2014 Retrieved May 8 2014 Ed Masley July 4 2004 Elvis may have been the king but was he first Pittsburgh Post Gazette Archived from the original on May 8 2014 Retrieved May 8 2014 Masley 2002 Osborne 2000 p 207 Bertrand 2000 p 198 a b Feeney 2010 Ashley 2009 p 76 Rodman 1996 p 58 Rodman 1996 pp 58 59 Garber 1997 p 366 Dyer 1959 1960 p 30 Farmer 2000 p 86 Tasker 2007 p 208 Kirchberg amp Hendrickx 1999 p 109 Moncrease 2020 Altieri 2017 Guralnick 1994 pp 415 417 448 449 Guralnick 1994 pp 452 453 Jorgensen 1998 p 198 Guralnick 1999 p 248 Guralnick amp Jorgensen 1999 pp 304 365 Guralnick amp Jorgensen 1999 pp 358 375 Presley 1985 p 188 a b Nash 2005 p 290 Dowd 2022 Clayton amp Heard 2003 pp 262 265 Clayton amp Heard 2003 p 267 Jorgensen 1998 p 281 Nash 2003 p 186 Nash 2003 p 187 Nash 2005 pp 64 478 Stanley amp Coffey 1998 p 123 Hopkins 2007 p 192 Brown amp Broeske 1997 p 125 Clayton amp Heard 2003 p 226 Guralnick 1999 pp 563 565 Ponce de Leon 2007 pp 139 140 Harris 2006 Clayton amp Heard 2003 p 339 Connelly 2008 p 148 Guralnick 1999 p 174 Guralnick 1999 p 175 Christgau 1985 Collins 2002 Sadie 1994 p 638 Bertrand 2000 p 94 Rodman 1996 p 193 a b Victor 2008 p 356 Arnett 2006 p 400 Doss 1999 p 2 Lott 1997 p 192 VH1 1998 BBC News 2001 Rolling Stone 2004 CMT 2005 Discovery Channel 2005 Variety com 2005 Atlantic 2006 Keogh 2004 p 2 Davies 1996 p 19 Nash 2005 p xv Harrison 2016 p 149 Cosby 2016 p 144 Doll 2016 p 186 a b Martin 2000 Smith 2002 Dundy 2004 pp 227 256 Wilson 2010 p 121 Slater 2002 Milly 2002 Harrison 1992 pp 42 157 160 169 Clarke 2006 pp 77 80 Harrison 1992 pp 159 160 a b Harrison 2016 p 10 Segre 2002 New York Times 2002 Marcus 1982 pp 141 142 Kennedy amp Gadpaille 2017 p 188 Guinness World Records Nickles amp Iyer 2012 p 77 Mohamed 2021 a b c Whitburn 2010 p 875 a b c Victor 2008 p 438 a b c Trust 2019 Hilburn 2007 Hasty 2008 Moody 2008 Whitburn 2010 p 876 RRHF 2010 Bronson 1998 Trust 2010 Myers 2022 Myers 2021 Trust 2015 Sexton 2016 RIAA 2020a RIAA 2020b RIAA 2020c RIAA 2020d Lewis 2017 RIAA 2020e RIAA 2020f Miller et al 2012 BBC News 2018 General sourcesAdelman Kim 2002 The Girls Guide to Elvis The Clothes the Hair the Women and More Random House ISBN 978 0 7679 1188 7 Alden Ginger 2014 Elvis amp Ginger Elvis Presley s Fiancee and Last Love Finally Tells her Story New York Berkeley Publishing ISBN 978 1 101 61613 0 Allen Steve 1992 Hi Ho Steverino My Adventures in the Wonderful Wacky World of TV Thorndike Press ISBN 978 1 56054 521 7 Altieri Marion E August 8 2017 Review All the King s Horses the Equestrian Life of Elvis Presley by Kimberly Gatto and Victoria Racimo Equine Info Exchange Arnett Jeffrey Jensen 2006 Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood A Cultural Approach 3rd ed Pearson Prentice Hall ISBN 978 0 13 195071 9 Ashley Martin 2009 How High Should Boys Sing Ashgate ISBN 978 0 7546 6475 8 The Top 100 The Atlantic December 2006 Retrieved January 19 2018 Austen Jake 2005 TV A Go Go Rock on TV from American Bandstand to American Idol Chicago Review Press ISBN 978 1 55652 572 8 Baden Michael M Hennessee Judith Adler 1990 Unnatural Death Confessions of a Medical Examiner Ballantine ISBN 978 0 8041 0599 6 Baillie Russell November 6 2010 Album Review Elvis Presley Viva Elvis The Album New Zealand Herald Retrieved November 9 2010 Baird Robert December 23 2017 Elvis and the Royal Philharmonic Stereophile Retrieved January 17 2018 Sinatra Is Voice of the Century BBC News April 18 2001 Retrieved December 29 2009 Elvis Presley gets US Presidential Medal of Freedom BBC News November 16 2018 Retrieved November 17 2018 The Beatles 2000 The Beatles Anthology Chronicle Books ISBN 978 0 8118 2684 6 Bertrand Michael T 2000 Race Rock and Elvis University of Illinois Press ISBN 978 0 252 02586 0 Bill Black Dies at 39 Billboard October 30 1965 p 8 Blazeski Goran April 23 2017 Elvis Presley performed in a TV commercial in exchange for a box of hot glazed doughnuts The Vintage News Retrieved September 21 2018 Bouchard Dany November 5 2010 Priscilla Presley Keeps King Alive Toronto Sun Retrieved November 9 2010 Bronson Fred May 9 1998 Chart Beat Billboard p 94 Bronson Fred July 3 2004 Chart Beat Billboard p 57 Brown Peter Harry Broeske Pat H 1997 Down at the End of Lonely Street The Life and Death of Elvis Presley Signet ISBN 978 0 451 19094 9 How good was Elvis Presley at Karate BudoDragon April 21 2021 Retrieved April 22 2021 Duffett Mark 2018 Counting Down Elvis His 100 Finest Songs Rowman amp Littlefield Publishers ISBN 978 1 4422 4805 2 Burke Ken Griffin Dan 2006 The Blue Moon Boys The Story of Elvis Presley s Band Chicago Review Press ISBN 978 1 55652 614 5 Caine Andrew 2005 Interpreting Rock Movies The Pop Film and Its Critics in Britain Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 978 0 7190 6538 5 Campbell Michael 2009 Popular Music in America 3rd ed Caulfield Keith September 18 2004 The King of Crossover s No 1 Hits Billboard p 24 Caulfield Keith November 25 2016 Popular Demand Billboard Retrieved January 17 2018 Charlton Katherine 2006 Rock Music Styles A History 5th ed McGraw Hill ISBN 978 0 07 312162 8 Christgau Robert December 24 1985 Christgau s Consumer Guide The Village Voice New York Retrieved August 26 2012 Clarke Steve 2006 Conspiracy Theories and Conspiracy Theorizing In Coady David ed Conspiracy Theories The Philosophical Debate Ashgate ISBN 978 0 7546 5250 2 Clayton Dick Heard James 2003 Elvis By Those Who Knew Him Best Virgin Publishing ISBN 978 0 7535 0835 0 40 Greatest Men in Country Music CMT 2005 Retrieved December 29 2009 Coffey Frank 1997 The Complete Idiot s Guide to Elvis New York Alpha Books Collins Dan August 7 2002 How Big Was The King CBS News Associated Press Retrieved December 27 2009 Connelly Charlie 2008 In Search of Elvis A Journey to Find the Man Beneath the Jumpsuit Little Brown ISBN 978 0 349 11900 7 Cook Jody 2004 Graceland National Historic Landmark Nomination Form PDF United States Department of the Interior Corcoran John March 1 1998 The King and Karate Black Belt pp 48 54 Retrieved December 17 2017 Cosby James A 2016 Devil s Music Holy Rollers and Hillbillies How America Gave Birth to Rock and Roll McFarland ISBN 978 1 4766 6229 9 Cusic Don Summer 1988 Singing with the King Rejoice The Gospel Music Magazine Davies Hunter 1996 The Beatles 2nd rev ed W W Norton ISBN 978 0 393 31571 4 Denisoff R Serge 1975 Solid Gold The Popular Record Industry Transaction Books ISBN 978 0 87855 586 4 Greatest American Discovery Channel 2005 Archived from the original on January 29 2010 Retrieved December 29 2009 Doll Susan 2016 Understanding Elvis Southern Roots vs Star Image Routledge ISBN 978 0 8153 3164 3 Doss Erika Lee 1999 Elvis Culture Fans Faith and Image University of Kansas Press ISBN 978 0 7006 0948 2 Dowd Maureen May 22 2022 A Larger Than Life Look at a Larger Than Life Star The New York Times pp ST10 Retrieved May 22 2022 Dundy Elaine 2004 Elvis and Gladys 2nd ed University Press of Mississippi ISBN 978 1 57806 634 6 Dyer Peter John Winter 1959 60 The Teenage Rave Sight and Sound Earl Jennifer February 14 2017 19 celebrities you didn t know were twins Elvis and Jesse Presley CBS News Retrieved July 12 2020 Eder Mike 2013 Elvis Music FAQ All That s Left to Know About the King s Recorded Works Backbeat Books ISBN 978 1 61713 580 4 Edgerton Gary R 2007 The Columbia History of American Television Columbia University Press ISBN 978 0 231 12165 1 Elster Charles Harrington 2006 The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations Houghton Mifflin ISBN 978 0 618 42315 6 Escott Colin 1998 Elvis Presley In Kingsbury Paul ed The Encyclopedia of Country Music Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 517608 7 Everet Todd August 17 1977 Elvis Presley 42 Found Dead in His Memphis Mansion Variety Retrieved September 21 2018 Farmer Brett 2000 Spectacular Passions Cinema Fantasy Gay Male Spectatorships 2nd ed Duke University Press ISBN 978 0 8223 2589 5 Feeney Mark January 3 2010 Elvis at 75 Can We Ever Again See the Performer Not the Punch Line The Boston Globe Retrieved February 1 2010 Fensch Thomas 2001 The FBI Files on Elvis Presley New Century Books ISBN 978 0 930751 03 6 Fessier Bruce May 10 2013 Director Remembers Landmark Elvis Presley Performance USA Today Retrieved January 19 2018 Fields Curt August 3 2007 A Whole Lotta Elvis Is Goin to the Small Screen The Washington Post Retrieved December 27 2009 Fox Ted 1986 In the Groove The People Behind the Music St Martin s Press ISBN 978 0 312 01776 7 Friedlander Paul 1996 Rock and Roll A Social History Westview ISBN 978 0 8133 2725 9 Garber Marjorie 1997 Vested Interests Cross Dressing and Cultural Anxiety Routledge ISBN 978 0 415 91951 7 Garrity Brian October 12 2002 King s Crown Shines First No 1 Debut Billboard pp 1 3 Gibson Christine December 6 2005 Elvis on Ed Sullivan The Real Story American Heritage Archived from the original on May 15 2009 Retrieved December 31 2009 Gillett Charlie 2000 The Five Styles of Rock n Roll In McKeen William ed Rock and Roll Is Here To Stay An Anthology W W Norton ISBN 978 0 393 04700 4 Goldman Lea Ewalt David M October 29 2007 Top Earning Dead Celebrities Forbes Archived from the original on June 11 2008 Retrieved January 5 2010 Goldman Lea Paine Jake October 29 2007 Top Earning Dead Celebrities Forbes Retrieved June 5 2011 Graceland to Downtown Memphis Google Maps Retrieved March 10 2021 Gordon Robert 2005 The King on the Road Bounty Books ISBN 978 0 7537 1088 3 Gould Jack June 6 1956 TV New Phenomenon Elvis Presley Rises to Fame as Vocalist Who Is Virtuoso of Hootchy Kootchy PDF The New York Times Retrieved December 31 2009 Elvis Presley the Musician Graceland Blog December 3 2015 Retrieved July 1 2019 Elvis Presley Grammy March 17 2014 Archived from the original on April 6 2019 Retrieved January 9 2019 Greenburg Zack O Malley October 30 2017 The Top Earning Dead Celebrities of 2017 Forbes Retrieved January 8 2018 Grein Paul December 5 2008 Chart Watch Extra The Top 40 Christmas Albums Yahoo Music Archived from the original on December 24 2011 Retrieved February 1 2010 Channel 4 Show Discovers Cause of Elvis Presley s Death The Guardian March 25 2014 Retrieved January 20 2018 Guffey Elizabeth E 2006 Retro The Culture of Revival Reaktion ISBN 978 1 86189 290 4 Best selling solo artist Guinness World Records Retrieved August 3 2021 Guralnick Peter 1989 Lost Highway Journeys amp Arrivals of American Musicians Vintage ISBN 978 0 394 75215 0 Guralnick Peter 1994 Last Train to Memphis The Rise of Elvis Presley Little Brown ISBN 978 0 316 33225 5 Guralnick Peter 1999 Careless Love The Unmaking of Elvis Presley Back Bay Books ISBN 978 0 316 33297 2 Guralnick Peter January 8 2004 How Did Elvis Get Turned into a Racist The New York Times Retrieved August 11 2007 Guralnick Peter Jorgensen Ernst 1999 Elvis Day by Day The Definitive Record of His Life and Music Ballantine ISBN 978 0 345 42089 3 Harris John March 27 2006 Talking about Graceland The Guardian Retrieved January 4 2010 Harrison Ted 1992 Elvis People The Cult of the King Fount ISBN 978 0 00 627620 3 Harrison Ted 2016 The Death and Resurrection of Elvis Presley Reaktion ISBN 978 1 78023 637 7 Hasty Katie May 7 2008 Madonna Leads Busy Billboard 200 with 7th No 1 Billboard Retrieved January 20 2018 Higginbotham Alan August 11 2002 Doctor Feelgood The Observer Retrieved December 29 2009 Hilburn Robert February 6 2005 From the Man Who Would Be King Los Angeles Times Retrieved January 4 2010 Hilburn Robert October 30 2007 This Fan of Charts Is No 1 with a Bullet Los Angeles Times Retrieved January 17 2010 Hits of the World Billboard July 24 2004 p 62 Hopkins Jerry 1986 Elvis The Final Years Berkley ISBN 978 0 425 08999 6 Hopkins Jerry 2002 Elvis in Hawaii Bess Press ISBN 978 1 57306 142 1 Hopkins Jerry 2007 Elvis The Biography Plexus ISBN 978 0 85965 391 6 Hoy Peter October 27 2008 Top Earning Dead Celebrities Forbes Retrieved June 5 2011 Humphries Patrick 2003 Elvis the No 1 Hits The Secret History of the Classics Andrews McMeel Publishing ISBN 978 0 7407 3803 6 Jancik Wayne 1998 The Billboard Book of One Hit Wonders Jezer Marty 1982 The Dark Ages Life in the United States 1945 1960 South End Press ISBN 978 0 89608 127 7 Jorgensen Ernst 1998 Elvis Presley A Life in Music The Complete Recording Sessions St Martin s Press ISBN 978 0 312 18572 5 Kamphoefner Walter D 2010 Elvis and Other Germans Some Reflections and Modest Proposals on the Study of German American Ethnicity 2009 In Kluge Cora Lee ed Paths Crossing Essays in German American Studies Peter Lang ISBN 978 3 0343 0221 0 Kennedy Victor Gadpaille Michelle 2017 Ethnic and Cultural Identity in Music and Song Lyrics Cambridge Scholars Publishing ISBN 9781443896207 Keogh Pamela Clarke 2004 Elvis Presley The Man The Life The Legend Simon amp Schuster ISBN 978 0 7434 5603 6 Keogh Pamela Clarke 2008 Elvis Presley The Man The Life The Legend Simon and Schuster ISBN 978 1 4391 0815 4 Keough Riley rileykeough July 19 2017 I had one great grandma who was creek and one who was full blood Cherokee Tweet Retrieved October 10 2021 via Twitter Kirchberg Connie Hendrickx Marc 1999 Elvis Presley Richard Nixon and the American Dream McFarland ISBN 978 0 7864 0716 3 Koch Ed Manning Mary Toplikar Dave May 15 2008 Showtime How Sin City evolved into The Entertainment Capital of the World Las Vegas Sun Retrieved March 3 2019 Kolawole Helen August 15 2002 He Wasn t My King The Guardian Retrieved December 27 2009 Kubernick Harvey 2008 The Complete 68 Comeback Special CD Book, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.