The Memoir Of Ms. Butterfly

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

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

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

In September 1941, Presley entered first grade at East Tupelo Consolidated, where his teachers regarded him as “average. However, 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. 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. Over the following year, he received basic guitar lessons from two uncles and the new pastor at the family’s church. Presley recalled, “I took the guitar, watched people, and learned to play a little. But I would never sing in public. I was timid about it.

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 daily. 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 predominantly black neighborhood. 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 to the station. Slim supplemented Presley’s guitar instruction by demonstrating chord techniques. 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.

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. 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.” He was usually too shy to perform openly and was occasionally bullied by classmates who viewed him as a “mama’s boy.

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 frequently played around the Courts. 

That September, he began working as an usher at Loew’s State Theater. Other jobs followed at Precision Tool, Loew’s again, and MARL Metal Products. Presley also helped Jewish neighbors, the Fruchter’s, 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.

 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—the only thing I ever failed. And then they entered me in this talent show … when I came onstage, I heard people rumbling and whispering and so forth, ’cause nobody knew I even sang. So it was amazing how popular I became in school after that.

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. As a result, he knew all of Hank Snow’s songs. In addition, he loved records by other country singers such as Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb, Ted Daffan, Jimmie Rodgers, Jimmie Davis, and Bob Wills.

 The Southern gospel singer Jake Hess, one of his favorite performers, significantly influenced his ballad-singing style. 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.

 He adored the music of black gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe. But, 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.

 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. Many of his future recordings were inspired by local African-American musicians such as Arthur Crudup and Rufus Thomas. B.B. King recalled that he had known Presley before he was popular when they both used to frequent Beale Street. By the time he graduated from high school in June 1953, Presley had already singled out music as his future.

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 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 hoping to be 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.

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.

 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. Longfellow Jim Hamill later claimed that he was turned down because he did not demonstrate an ear for harmony at the time.

 In April, Presley began working as a truck driver for the Crown Electric company. After playing a few local gigs with his friend, Ronnie Smith suggested he contact Eddie Bond, leader of Smith’s professional band, which had an opening for a vocalist. Unfortunately, bond rejected him after a tryout, advising Presley to stick to truck driving “because you’re never going to make it as a singer.

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.

 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. Finally, 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.

The session, held on the evening of July 5, proved entirely unfruitful until late in the night. Then, 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.

 Then Bill picked up his bass, and he started acting the fool, too, and I started playing with them. I think Sam 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.

Three days later, famous Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips played “That’s All Right” on his Red, Hot, and Blue show. 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. Then, interviewing Presley on-air, Phillips asked him what high school he attended to clarify his color for the many callers who had assumed he was black.

 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. Blue Moon of Kentucky” on the reverse.

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. Then, 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 of dance movement that he is best known for.

 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.

 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. Black, a natural showman, whooped and rode his bass, hitting double licks that Presley would later remember as “really a fantastic sound, like a jungle drum or something.

Soon after, Moore and Black left their old Starlite Wranglers band to play with Presley regularly, and D.J./promoter Bob Neal became the trio’s manager. From August through October, they frequently played at the Eagle’s Nest club and returned to Sun Studio for more recording sessions, and Presley quickly grew more confident on stage.

 According to Moore, “His movement was natural, 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. For example, Presley made 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.

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.

 Unfortunately, he had another attack of nerves during the first set, which drew a muted reaction. However, a more composed and energetic second set inspired an enthusiastic response. House drummer D. J. Fontana brought a new element, complementing Presley’s movements with accented beats he had mastered playing in strip clubs.

 Soon after the show, 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.

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. 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.

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 (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.

 When the term reached Odessa, Texas, 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 needed to be a reference point in the culture to compare it.

 By August, Sun had released ten sides credited to “Elvis Presley, Scotty, and Bill”; on the latest recordings, the trio was 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 kinds of music in both.”

 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 said too much like a hillbilly. As a result, 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.

Presley renewed Neal’s management contract in August 1955, simultaneously appointing Parker as his special adviser. The group maintained an extensive touring schedule throughout the year’s second half. Neal recalled, “It was almost frightening, the reaction that came to Elvis from the teenage 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 was always trying to take a crack at him. They’d get a gang and try to waylay him or something.

 The trio became a quartet when Hayride drummer Fontana joined as a full member. Then, 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.

Presley was voted the year’s most promising male artist at the Country Disc Jockey Convention in early November.

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.

 Presley, at 20, was still a minor, so his father signed the contract. 

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.

By December, RCA Victor had begun to heavily promote its new singer and, before month’s end, had reissued many of his Sun recordings.

1956–1958: Commercial breakout and controversy

First national T.V. appearances and debut album

On January 10, 1956, Presley made his first recordings for RCA Victor in Nashville. 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 famous Jordanaires quartet, to fill in the sound.

The session produced the moody, unusual “Heartbreak Hotel,” released as a single on January 27. 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 by prominent band leaders and brothers Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey on alternate weeks. 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.” Then, 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. As a result, Neal’s contract was terminated, and on March 2, Parker became Presley’s manager.

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 wide 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 injected the tunes with his own vocal character and made guitar, not piano, the lead instrument in all three cases.

 It became the first rock and roll album to top the Billboard chart, a position held for 10 weeks. 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. 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.

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.

 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.

 Twelve weeks after its original release, “Heartbreak Hotel” became Presley’s first number-one pop hit.

 Presley began a two-week residency at the New Frontier Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip in late April. Unfortunately, the conservative, middle-aged hotel guests poorly received the shows—” like a jug of corn liquor at a champagne party,” wrote a critic for Newsweek.

Amid his Vegas tenure, Presley, who had serious acting ambitions, signed a seven-year contract with Paramount Pictures. He began a tour of the Midwest in mid-May, taking in 15 cities in as many days.

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.

 After a show in La Crosse, Wisconsin, an urgent message on the local Catholic diocese newspaper’s letterhead 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 to rouse the sexual passions of teenage 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.

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.

 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 by energetic, exaggerated body movements.

 Presley’s gyrations created a storm of controversy. 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.

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.

 Ed Sullivan, whose own variety show was the nation’s most popular, declared him “unfit for family viewing. 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.

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 she 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.

 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.

 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. But, on the other hand, T.V. is essential, so I will go along, but I won’t be able to give the kind of show I do in a personal appearance.

 Presley would refer to the Allen show as the most ridiculous performance of his career. Later that night, he appeared on Hy Gardner Calling, a popular local T.V. show.

 Pressed on whether he had learned anything from the criticism he was subjected to. 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. … how would rock ‘n’ roll music make anyone rebel against their parents?

The next day, Presley recorded “Hound Dog,” along with “Any Way You Want Me” and “Don’t Be Cruel.” Again, 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, announcing, “You know, those people in New York are not gonna change me.

 I’m gonna show you what the honest Elvis is like tonight. 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.

 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. Presley’s second album was recorded in Hollywood during the first week of September. Leiber and Stoller, the writers of “Hound Dog,” contributed “Love Me.

Allen’s show with Presley had beaten CBS’s Ed Sullivan Show in the ratings for the first time. Despite his June pronouncement, Sullivan booked Presley for three appearances for an unprecedented $50,000.

On September 9, 1956, the first was seen by approximately 60 million viewers—a record 82.6 percent of the television audience.

Actor Charles Laughton hosted the show while Sullivan was recovering from a car accident.

Presley appeared in two segments from CBS Television City in Los Angeles that night. 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! Sullivan publicly told T.V. Guide, “As for his gyrations, the whole thing can be controlled with camera shots.

 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.

 Presley’s performance of his forthcoming single, the ballad “Love Me Tender,” prompted a record-shattering million advance orders.

 More than any other event, this first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show made Presley a national celebrity of barely precedented proportions.

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.

Crazed crowds and film debut

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

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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.t 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.

 Elvis, Presley’s second RCA Victor album, was released in October and quickly rose to number one on 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, “in the halting chords and the somewhat stumbling rhythm, both the unmistakable emotion and the equally unmistakable valuing of emotion over technique.

 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.

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. 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. In addition, four musical numbers were added to what was originally a straight-acting role in taking advantage of Presley’s popularity. The film was panned by critics but did very well at the box office. Presley would receive top billing on every subsequent film he made.

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 ensured that the session was captured on tape. The results, none officially released for 25 years, became known as the “Million Dollar Quartet” recordings. 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 and Billboard’s declaration that he had placed more songs in the top 100 than any other artist since records were first charted. Moreover, 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.

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.

 In any event, as critic Greil Marcus describes, Presley “did not tie himself down. Instead, 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 makeup over his eyes, the hair falling in his face, and the overwhelmingly sexual cast of his mouth, he was playing Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik, with all stops out. To close, displaying his range and defying Sullivan’s wishes, Presley sang a gentle black spiritual, “Peace in the Valley.” At the show’s end, Sullivan declared Presley “a decent, fine boy. Two days later, the Memphis draft board announced that Presley would be classified 1-A and probably be drafted sometime that year.

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 though 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. As a result, Presley purchased an 18-room mansion, Graceland, between film shoots and recording sessions, on March 19, 1957, for $102,500. The estate, which was about 9 miles (14 km) south of downtown Memphis, was for himself and his parents.

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 regarded them as his “good-luck charm. He was fast,” said Leiber. “Any demo you gave him, he knew by heart in ten minutes. The title track became another number-one hit, as was the Jailhouse Rock E.P.

Presley undertook three brief tours during the year, continuing to generate a crazed audience response. A Detroit newspaper suggested that “the trouble with seeing Elvis Presley is that you’re liable to get killed. Villanova students pelted him with eggs in Philadelphia, and in Vancouver, the crowd rioted after the show’s end, destroying the stage. 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 harmful and destructive reactions in young people. It smells phony and false. Mostly, it is sung, played, and written by cretinous goons. … This rancid-smelling aphrodisiac I deplore. 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 he shouldn’t have said it. But, unfortunately, this is a trend, just the same as he faced when he started years ago.

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. The holiday release stretched Presley’s string of number-one albums to four. It would become the best-selling Christmas album in the United States, with over 20 million worldwide sales. 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. 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. As Stoller later recalled, Presley’s manager and entourage sought to wall him off: “He was removed. … They kept him separate. A brief soundtrack session on February 11 marked another ending—it was the final occasion for Black to perform with Presley. He died in 1965.

1958–1960: Military service and mother’s death

 Military career of Elvis Presley

Presley was 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 significant media event. Hundreds of people descended on Presley as he stepped from the bus; photographers then accompanied him into the installation.

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.

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. Presley recorded five songs in Nashville during the two weeks’ leave between his basic and advanced training in early June.

In early August, his mother was diagnosed with hepatitis, and her condition rapidly worsened. Presley 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; 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.

Presley, wearing the 3d Armored Division Shoulder Sleeve Insignia, poses atop a tank at Ray Barracks. 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. 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, and many of his friends in the outfit joined him in indulging.

The Army also introduced Presley to karate, which he studied seriously, training with Jürgen Seydel. It became a lifelong interest, which he later included in his live performances. Fellow soldiers have attested to Presley’s wish to be seen as an able, ordinary soldier despite his fame and generosity. He donated his Army pay to charity, purchased T.V. sets for the base, and bought an extra set of fatigues for everyone in his outfit. Presley was promoted to sergeant on February 11, 1960.

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. Still, Parker had convinced him to serve his country as a regular soldier to gain widespread respect.

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. Between his induction and discharge, Presley had ten top 40 hits, including “Wear My Ring Around Your Neck,” the bestselling “Hard Headed Woman,” “One Night” in 1958, and “(Now and Then There’s) A Fool Such as I” and the number-one “A Big Hunk of Love” in 1959.

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 L.P. chart.

Priscilla and Elvis met in 1959 when Priscilla was in high school.

Priscilla and Elvis’s story begins before they actually meet. At the time, he was the biggest rock star in the world, and she was an 11-year-old listening to his first record at an Air Force base in Austin, Texas.

“Three years later and 5,500 miles away, I would meet him,” Priscilla wrote in an essay for People in 1985. Priscilla and Elvis reportedly met in 1959 at a party in West Germany. So how did the two Americans end up at a party in Wiesbaden? Priscilla’s stepfather, who was in the Air Force, was transferred to the base there, and Elvis served in the Army.

Their age gap was pronounced, which Priscilla touches on in her essay. “When we met, I was an impressionable 14-year-old. He was 24,” she said. According to Priscilla, when he found out she was in ninth grade, he responded, “Why, you’re just a baby.

Speaking to Larry King in 1999, Priscilla contextualized the time in Elvis’ life when they met. “I saw him at a very vulnerable time in his life. He had just lost his mother.

He was grieving,” she said. Nevertheless, the two began seeing each other. “I found myself deeply involved with Elvis,” she wrote in her essay for People. Amid this relationship, Priscilla said the school “became a chore.”

“I kept telling myself that I would do better and catch up, but my concentration was totally on Elvis,” she wrote.

Priscilla said he ‘molded her’ into being the ‘right girl.

According to Priscilla’s essay in People, Elvis said he liked “soft-spoken brunettes with blue eyes” and said Priscilla “fit this image perfectly.”

Priscilla wrote he wanted to “mold (her) to his opinions and preferences” beyond her appearance. Something in his Southern upbringing had taught him that the ‘right’ girl was to be saved for marriage. I was that girl. At the same time, he molded me into his woman. I wore the clothes, hairstyle, and makeup of his careful choosing,” she continued.

Elvis won over Priscilla’s parents.

After their fourth date, Priscilla’s parents intervened. Her father, Capt. Joseph Paul Beaulieu — whom her mother married after her biological father died — asked to meet him. So again, you have women throwing themselves at you.

Why my daughter?” she recalled her dad asking in her People essay. Elvis reportedly replied, “I happen to be very fond of her. She’s a lot more mature than her age, and I enjoy her company …

You don’t have to worry about her, Captain. I’ll take good care of her. He came to the house, and he was charming and wonderful. My family had a lot of faith in him,” Priscilla told Barbara Walters for ABC in 1985. Priscilla said that she was so smitten with the “Hound Dog” singer that she would start to misbehave if her parents tried to separate them from one another.

“My parents became confused and bewildered by our relationship. We tried to make them believe that it was proper and platonic, and they wanted to believe me,” she wrote. “Whenever they tried to stop us from seeing each other, I pleaded and cried, making them and myself miserable.

But, in retrospect, nothing could have prevented me from seeing Elvis. In 1960, Elvis returned to the United States. “I didn’t hear from Elvis right away. Then, finally, my mother said, ‘See, I told you,’” Priscilla recalled to Larry King in 1999.

Then, Elvis started calling — “and that’s when it all started again. Three years after that, in 1963, Priscilla’s parents allowed her to finish her education in Memphis, Tennessee, so she could be closer to Elvis.

Elvis and Priscilla were married in Las Vegas.

In 1967, Elvis and Priscilla married in Las Vegas after he proposed to her the year before. “One day he showed me the ring and simply asked me to marry him’… Even though we were perfectly content the way we were, at that time, it wasn’t pleasant for people to live together,” Priscilla told Ladies Home Journal in 1972. The ceremony lasted eight minutes. Speaking to Walters in 1985, Priscilla said that the wedding was encouraged by Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis’s talent manager.

“Presley’s manager put pressure to marry and marry soon. We’d been together for six years,” she said.

Elvis briefly left Priscilla when she was pregnant with Lisa Marie.

Elvis and Priscilla’s daughter and only child, Lisa Marie Presley, was born nine months after their wedding. However, when Priscilla was still pregnant with their baby girl, Elvis told her they needed to briefly separate because “he was going through some things.” 

Per the Orlando Sentinel, she recalled their conversation in a 1985 as-told-to essay. I don’t think Elvis really intended to leave me. It wasn’t his style,” she said. “I later realized he, too, had questions about how a baby would affect his life. Would his public accept him as a father? He wasn’t sure whether his fans had adapted to his becoming a husband.

How loyal would they be?” After Lisa Marie was born, Elvis reportedly stopped being intimate with Priscilla. Priscilla told Walters that she believed Elvis struggled to square his image of her as a “little girl” with her as a “mother. Our communication was horrible,” Priscilla told Walters, saying Elvis didn’t feel comfortable showing weakness.

According to Country Living, she also wrote in her 1985 autobiography. Elvis and Me,” that Elvis once told her that “he had never been able to make love to a woman who had a child. I (was) beginning to doubt my sexuality as a woman,” she wrote. “My physical and emotional needs were unfulfilled.”

Priscilla said she left Elvis to ‘find Priscilla’

Priscilla left Elvis in 1972. “I had to take responsibility for myself,” Priscilla told Walters. By leaving Elvis, she said she “found Priscilla.”

She went on to become an actor, known for her time on the show “Dallas.”

Years later, during a 2016 “Loose Women” appearance, Priscilla’s feelings remained the same. “You obviously didn’t have your own life. You lived his life. You saw the movies he wanted to see.

You listened to the music he heard. You go to places he would go, so you lose yourself. As a woman, I didn’t really know who I was,” she added.

In 2018, Priscilla — while speaking to Mike Amor on Australia’s Sunday Night 2018 — revealed that Elvis had not been faithful during their marriage. “He wasn’t accurate, not that he had someone special, but when you’re in the entertainment business, there is always that, and I tried to turn my back on that, but I just didn’t want to share him.

Simple as that,” she said. “As much as he wanted to be married and have a family, I don’t know if he was ever cut to be married because I don’t think he could ever be faithful to one woman.

Priscilla was ‘shocked’ by Elvis’ death.

Priscilla said that she and Elvis remained close even after their divorce was finalized in 1973. “We never lost our friendship,” Priscilla said on the 

In August 1977, Elvis died at his Graceland home from a heart attack at age 42. News of his sudden passing shocked Priscilla.

“It was just too hard to believe,” she told Hoda Kotb during a 2018 appearance on TODAY.

Priscilla noted that Elvis’ funeral procession reminded her of how iconic the singer was.

“Going out the gates in the limo and seeing the streets lined up on both sides to the cemetery. You’d see glimpses, people crying, hysterical, fainting, and that’s how impactful it was,” she said on TODAY. “And still, people come around the same time, and they’re all there.”

After the official trailer for “Elvis” was released, Priscilla went on Instagram to share how she felt about the film.

She stated that she watched the trailer “over a dozen times” and was brought to tears when she heard how much her daughter loved the movie.

“I relived every moment in this film,” she said. “It took me a few days to overcome the emotions as it did with Lisa. Beautifully done, Baz, Tom, Austin, and Olivia.”

Priscilla attended the Golden Globes to celebrate “Elvis” with her daughter Lisa Marie, days before her death.

Her thoughts were captured by the funeral procession as she remembered how iconic Elvis was. Seeing the streets lined up on both sides, going out the gates of the limo, and going to the cemetery in front of me.

” During his public praise of Roy, Elvis referred to him as the greatest singer in the world and declared he had the perfect voice of any singer. The death of Roy Orbison, as tragic as it was for Elvis and the rest of the music industry, was a terrible loss for all involved. During Roy’s funeral, Elvis wanted to rest alongside his music and photos of him and Roy in happier times. Elvis Presley’s music will always be remembered as an essential part of his legacy.

The Death Of Elvis Presley

After Elvis Presley’s death, an unexpected wave of grief swept through the country, with many wondering who would attend his funeral. Friends and family were in attendance, but only a few people attended. Furthermore, Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis’ daughter, retains 100% ownership of the mansion and its original grounds, so she is open to allowing visitors to tour both properties at any time. Even after Elvis’ death, he is still referred to as the love of her life by Pricilla.

Where Was Priscilla Presley When Elvis Died

Priscilla Presley was at Graceland when Elvis died. She was in the den with Elvis’ father, Vernon, when they got the call that Elvis had been found dead in his bathroom.

Priscilla Presley Talks About Her Memories And Time With Elvis Presley

Presley, who starred alongside Leslie Nielsen in the three Naked Gun films and played the role of Jenna Wade on the long-running television series Dallas, has spoken out about her memories and time with Elvis Presley on the 45th anniversary of his death. During a recent interview on “Today,” Elvis Presley recalled his first marriage to the rock ‘n’ roll king and his time with her. He died of a heart attack, most likely caused by his prescription barbiturate addiction, according to doctors.

How Old Was Priscilla When She Married Elvis Presley

Elvis proposed to Priscilla on Christmas Day 1966, just three years after moving to and continuing the tumultuous lifestyle of a rock star as rumors of his affairs with Hollywood actresses swirled. Elvis, 32, and Priscilla, 22, married in Las Vegas on May 17, 1967. The Failed Marriage Of Elvis And Priscilla

She was just 21 years old when she married Elvis Presley, a rock’n’roll icon who was 38 years old at the time. They divorced eight minutes after they had separated. At the time of his death, he was only 28 years old. As a result of their split, Priscilla continued to support her daughter Lisa Marie in her career. Lisa Marie, their only child, was born nine months after their wedding on February 1, 1968, to Presley and Elvis.

How Did Elvis Presley Die

On August 16, 1977, Elvis Presley was unresponsive in his Graceland bathroom. He was pronounced dead at the hospital a short time later. The official cause of death was cardiac arrhythmia, but many fans believe Elvis died of a drug overdose. 

Ms. Butterfly Genesis