Popular music · Pop

Elvis Presley

1935–1977 · American

Rock and roll; rockabilly — Sun and RCA, Memphis

Elvis Presley was the first great star of rock and roll, a white Southern singer who fused country, gospel and rhythm and blues into a sound that carried the music to a mass American audience. After a 1954 debut on Sam Phillips's Sun label he was sold to RCA Victor, managed for the rest of his life by Colonel Tom Parker, and became the best-selling solo recording artist in history. A decade lost to formula films ended with a 1968 television special, and he died at Graceland in 1977, aged 42.

How to spot them

▸The King of Rock and Roll; the curled lip, the swivelling hips, the Memphis drawl
▸Sun Records and Sam Phillips, then RCA Victor and Colonel Tom Parker
▸Graceland, Memphis; the Jordanaires; the black leather comeback and the Las Vegas jumpsuits
▸A stillborn identical twin, Jesse Garon; army service in West Germany, 1958–60

Songs & albums

A 1954 Memphis single, a rockabilly reworking of an Arthur Crudup blues, cut almost by accident at the end of a session (1954)

"That's All Right" — his first record, made for Sam Phillips at Sun Studio and played to death on Memphis radio.

A 1956 first single for a new major label, set in a place of loneliness at the end of Lonely Street (1956)

"Heartbreak Hotel" — his first RCA release and first US number one.

A 1956 chart-topper that turns a Big Mama Thornton blues into a snarl about a creature that never caught a rabbit (1956)

"Hound Dog" — written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, recorded by Thornton in 1952.

The 1957 title song of a prison film, with a dance routine in the cell block (1957)

"Jailhouse Rock" — another Leiber and Stoller song, and the most famous sequence he ever filmed.

A 1960 ballad adapted from the Neapolitan song 'O sole mio' (1960)

"It's Now or Never" — a worldwide hit recorded soon after his army discharge.

A 1969 Memphis recording about a man caught in a trap, his last US number one in his lifetime (1969)

"Suspicious Minds" — cut at American Sound Studio with producer Chips Moman.

A 1968 television special in black leather that rescued a career lost to film soundtracks (1968)

The NBC special now known as the '68 Comeback Special.

A 1973 concert beamed by satellite from Honolulu to a claimed audience of a billion (1973)

Aloha from Hawaii Via Satellite — the first entertainment special broadcast worldwide by satellite.

Key ideas

He wrote almost nothing himself: his genius was as an interpreter, and the songwriting credits he carried were a condition imposed by his publishers
His records moved Black rhythm and blues into white American homes, which is both the reason for his impact and the ground of the charge of appropriation

Quick-fire facts

•Born 8 January 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi; his identical twin brother Jesse Garon was stillborn
•RCA Victor bought his contract from Sun Records in November 1955 for $35,000, then an unheard-of sum for an unproven singer
•His manager, 'Colonel' Tom Parker, was neither a colonel nor American: he was born Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk in Breda, the Netherlands
•He served in the US Army from 1958 to 1960, stationed in West Germany, where he met the teenage Priscilla Beaulieu; they married in 1967
•All three of his competitive Grammy Awards were for gospel recordings, not rock and roll
•He made 31 feature films, including Jailhouse Rock, King Creole and Viva Las Vegas
•He died at Graceland on 16 August 1977, aged 42; the house opened to the public in 1982 and is among the most-visited private homes in America
•He was in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's inaugural class of 1986, and is also in the Country Music and Gospel Music Halls of Fame
•The Million Dollar Quartet session at Sun in December 1956 caught him jamming with Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis

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Sources

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — Elvis Presley — Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee
Official Charts Company — Suspicious Minds — full Official Chart history
Peter Guralnick — Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley