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Elvis Presley may be the single most important figure in American 20th century popular music. Not necessarily the best, and certainly notthe most consistent. But no one could argue with the fact that he was the musician most responsible for popularizing rock & roll on aninternational level. Viewed in cold sales figures, his impact was phenomenal. Dozens upon dozens of international smashes from the mid-'50s to the mid-'70s, as well as the steady sales of his catalog and reissues since his death in 1977, may make him the single highest-selling performer in history.More important from a music lo ...read more
Elvis Presley may be the single most important figure in American 20th century popular music. Not necessarily the best, and certainly notthe most consistent. But no one could argue with the fact that he was the musician most responsible for popularizing rock & roll on aninternational level. Viewed in cold sales figures, his impact was phenomenal. Dozens upon dozens of international smashes from the mid-'50s to the mid-'70s, as well as the steady sales of his catalog and reissues since his death in 1977, may make him the single highest-selling performer in history.More important from a music lover's perspective, however, are his remarkable artistic achievements. Presley was not the very first whiteman to sing rhythm & blues; Bill Haley predated him in that regard, and there may have been others as well. Elvis was certainly the first,however, to assertively fuse country and blues music into the style known as rockabilly. While rockabilly arrangements were the foundationsof his first (and possibly best) recordings, Presley could not have become a mainstream superstar without a much more varied palette thatalso incorporated pop, gospel, and even some bits of bluegrass and operatic schmaltz here and there. His 1950s recordings established thebasic language of rock & roll; his explosive and sexual stage presence set standards for the music's visual image; his vocals wereincredibly powerful and versatile.Unfortunately, to much of the public, Elvis is more icon than artist. Innumerable bad Hollywood movies, increasingly caricatured records andmannerisms, and a personal life that became steadily more sheltered from real-world concerns (and steadily more bizarre) gave his story asomewhat mythic status. By the time of his death, he'd become more a symbol of gross Americana than of cultural innovation. Thecontinued speculation about his incredible career has sustained interest in his life, and supported a large tourist/entertainment industry,that may last indefinitely, even if the fascination is fueled more by his celebrity than his music.Born to a poor Mississippi family in the heart of Depression, Elvis had moved to Memphis by his teens, where he absorbed the vibrantmelting pot of Southern popular music in the form of blues, country, bluegrass, and gospel. After graduating from high school, he became atruck driver, rarely if ever singing in public. Some 1953 and 1954 demos, recorded at the emerging Sun label in Memphis primarily for Elvis'own pleasure, helped stir interest on the part of Sun owner Sam Phillips. In mid-1954, Phillips, looking for a white singer with a black feel,teamed Presley with guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black. Almost by accident, apparently, the trio hit upon a version of an ArthurCrudup blues tune, "That's All Right Mama," that became Elvis' first single.Elvis' five Sun singles pioneered the blend of R&B and C&W that would characterize rockabilly music. For quite a few scholars, they remainnot only Elvis' best singles, but the best rock & roll ever recorded. Claiming that Elvis made blues acceptable for the white market is not thewhole picture; the singles usually teamed blues covers with country and pop ones, all made into rock & roll (at this point a term that barelyexisted) with the pulsing beat, slap-back echo, and Elvis' soaring, frenetic vocals. "That's All Right Mama," "Blue Moon of Kentucky," "GoodRockin' Tonight," "Baby Let's Play House," and "Mystery Train" remain core early rock classics.The singles sold well in the Memphis area immediately, and by 1955 were starting to sell well to country audiences throughout the South.Presley, Moore, and Black hit the road with a stage show that grew ever wilder and more provocative, Elvis' swiveling hips causing enormouscontroversy. The move to all-out rock was hastened by the addition of drums. The last Sun single, "I Forgot to Remember Forget"/"MysteryTrain," hit number one on the national country charts in late 1955. Presley was obviously a performer with superstar potential, attractingthe interest of bigger labels and Colonel Tom Parker, who became Elvis' manager. In need of capital to expand the Sun label, Sam Phillipssold Presley's contract to RCA in late 1955 for 35,000 dollars; a bargain, when viewed in hindsight, but an astronomical sum at the time.This is the point where musical historians start to diverge in opinion. For many, the whole of his subsequent work for RCA -- encompassingover 20 years -- was a steady letdown, never recapturing the pure, primal energy that was harnessed so effectively on the handful of Sunsingles. Elvis, however, was not a purist. What he wanted, more than anything, was to be successful. To do that, his material needed more ofa pop feel; in any case, he'd never exactly been one to disparage the mainstream, naming Dean Martin as one of his chief heroes from theget-go. At RCA, his rockabilly was leavened with enough pop flavor to make all of the charts, not just the country ones.At the beginning, at least, the results were hardly any tamer than the Sun sessions. "Heartbreak Hotel," his first single, rose to number oneand, aided by some national television appearances, helped make Elvis an instant superstar. "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You" was anumber one follow-up; the double-sided monster "Hound Dog"/"Don't Be Cruel" was one of the biggest-selling singles the industry had everexperienced up to that point. Albums and EPs were also chart-toppers, not just in the U.S., but throughout the world. The 1956 RCArecordings, while a bit more sophisticated in production and a bit less rootsy in orientation than his previous work, were still oftenmagnificent, rating among the best and most influential recordings of early rock & roll.Elvis' (and Colonel Parker's) aspirations were too big to be limited to records and live appearances. By late 1956, his first Hollywood movie,Love Me Tender, had been released; other screen vehicles would follow in the next few years, Jailhouse Rock being the best. The hitscontinued unabated, several of them ("Jailhouse Rock," "All Shook Up," "Too Much") excellent, and often benefiting from the efforts of topearly rock songwriter Otis Blackwell, as well as the emerging team of Jerry Leiber-Mike Stoller. The Jordanaires added both pop and gospelelements with their smooth backup vocals.Yet worrisome signs were creeping in. The Dean Martin influence began rearing his head in smoky, sentimental ballads such as "LovingYou"; the vocal swoops became more exaggerated and stereotypical, although the overall quality of his output remained high. And althoughMoore and Black continued to back Elvis on his early RCA recordings, within a few years the musicians had gone their own ways.Presley's recording and movie careers were interrupted by his induction into the Army in early 1958. There was enough material in the canto flood the charts throughout his two-year absence (during which he largely served in Germany). When he re-entered civilian life in 1960,his popularity, remarkably, was at just as high a level as when he left.One couldn't, unfortunately, say the same for the quality of his music, which was not just becoming more sedate, but was starting to eitherrepeat itself, or opt for operatic ballads that didn't have a whole lot to do with rock. Elvis' rebellious, wild image had been tamed to a largedegree as well, as he and Parker began designing a career built around Hollywood films. Shortly after leaving the Army, in fact, Presley gaveup live performing altogether for nearly a decade to concentrate on movie-making. The films, in turn, would serve as vehicles to bothpromote his records and to generate maximum revenue with minimal effort. For the rest of the '60s, Presley ground out two or three movies ayear that, while mostly profitable, had little going for them in the way of story, acting, or social value.While there were some quality efforts on Presley's early-'60s albums, his discography was soon dominated by forgettable soundtracks,mostly featuring material that was dispensable or downright ridiculous. In time he became largely disinterested in devoting much time to hiscraft in the studio. The soundtrack LPs themselves were sometimes filled out with outtakes that had been in the can for years (and these,sadly, were often the highlights of the albums). There were some good singles in the early '60s, like "Return to Sender"; once in a whilethere was even a flash of superb, tough rock, like "Little Sister" or "(Marie's the Name) His Latest Flame." But by 1963 or so there was littleto get excited about, although he continued to sell in large quantities.The era spanning, roughly, 1962-1967 has generated a school of Elvis apologists, eager to wrestle any kernel of quality that emerged fromhis recordings during this period. They also point out that Presley was assigned poor material, and assert that Colonel Parker was largelyresponsible for Presley's emasculation. True to a point, but on the other hand it could be claimed, with some validity, that Presley himselfwas doing little to rouse himself from his artistic stupor, letting Parker destroy his artistic credibility without much apparent protest, andholing up in his large mansion with a retinue of yes-men that protected their benefactor from much day-to-day contact with a fast-changingworld.The Beatles, all big Elvis fans, displaced Presley as the biggest rock act in the world in 1964. What's more, they did so by writing their ownmaterial and playing their own instruments; something Elvis had never been capable of, or particularly aspired to. They, and the British andAmerican groups the Beatles influenced, were not shy about expressing their opinions, experimenting musically, and taking the reins of theirartistic direction into their own hands. The net effect was to make Elvis Presley, still churning out movies in Hollywood as psychedelia andsoul music became the rage, seem irrelevant, even as he managed to squeeze out an obscure Dylan cover ("Tomorrow Is a Long Time") ona 1966 soundtrack album.By 1967 and 1968, there were slight stirrings of an artistic reawakening by Elvis. Singles like "Guitar Man," "Big Boss Man," and "U.S.Male," though hardly classics, were at least genuine rock & roll that sounded better than much of what he'd been turning out for years. A1968 television special gave Presley the opportunity he needed to reinvent himself as an all-out leather-coated rocker, still capable ofmagnetizing an audience, and eager to revisit his blues and country roots.The 1968 album Elvis in Memphis was the first LP in nearly a decade in which Presley seemed cognizant of current trends, as he updatedhis sounds with contemporary compositions and touches of soul to create some reasonably gutsy late-'60s pop/rock. This material, and1969 hits like "Suspicious Minds" and "In the Ghetto," returned him to the top of the charts. Arguably, it's been overrated by critics, whowere so glad to have him singing rock again that they weren't about to carp about the slickness of some of the production, or the mediocrityof some of the songwriting.But Elvis' voice did sound good, and he returned to live performing in 1969, breaking in with weeks of shows in Las Vegas. This was followedby national tours that proved him to still be an excellent live entertainer, even if the exercises often reeked of show-biz extravaganza. (Elvisnever did play outside of North America and Hawaii, possibly because Colonel Parker, it was later revealed, was an illegal alien who couldhave faced serious problems if he traveled abroad.) Hollywood was history, but studio and live albums were generated at a rapid pace,usually selling reasonably well, although Presley never had a Top Ten hit after 1972's "Burning Love."Presley's 1970s recordings, like most of his '60s work, are the focus of divergent critical opinion. Some declare them to be, when Elvis wason, the equal of anything he did, especially in terms of artistic diversity. It's true that the material was pretty eclectic, running from countryto blues to all-out rock to gospel (Presley periodically recorded gospel-only releases, going all the way back to 1957). At the same time,his vocal mannerisms were often stilted, and the material -- though not nearly as awful as that '60s soundtrack filler -- sometimessubstandard. Those who are not serious Elvis fans will usually find this late-period material to hold only a fraction of the interest of his '50sclassics.Elvis' final years have been the subject of a cottage industry of celebrity bios, tell-alls, and gossip screeds from those who knew him well, or(more likely) purported to know him well. Those activities are really beyond the scope of a mini-bio such as this, but it's enough to note thathis behavior was becoming increasingly instable. His weight fluctuated wildly; his marriage broke up; he became dependent upon a variety ofprescription drugs. Worst of all, he became isolated from the outside world except for professional purposes (he continued to tour until theend), rarely venturing outside of his Graceland mansion in Memphis. Colonel Parker's financial decisions on behalf of his client have alsocome in for much criticism.On August 16, 1977, Presley was found dead in Graceland. The cause of death remains a subject of widespread speculation, although itseems likely that drugs played a part. An immediate cult (if cult is the way to describe millions of people) sprang up around his legacy, keptalive by the hundreds of thousands of visitors who make the pilgrimage to Graceland annually. Elvis memorabilia, much of it kitsch, isanother industry in his own right. Dozens if not hundreds make a comfortable living by impersonating the King in live performance. And thenthere are all those Elvis sightings, reported in tabloids on a seemingly weekly basis.Although Presley had recorded a mammoth quantity of both released and unreleased material for RCA, the label didn't show much interest inrepackaging it with the respect due such a pioneer. Haphazard collections of outtakes and live performances were far rarer than budgetreissues and countless repackagings of the big hits. In the CD age, RCA finally began to treat the catalog with some of the reverence itdeserved, at long last assembling a box set containing nearly all of the 1950s recordings. Similar, although less exciting, box sets weredocumenting the 1960s, the 1970s, and his soundtrack recordings. And exploitative reissues of Elvis material continue to appearconstantly, often baited with one or two rare outtakes or alternates to entice the completists (of which there are many). In death, as in life,Presley continues to be one of RCA's most consistent earners. Fortunately, with a little discretion, a good Elvis library can be built with littleduplication, sticking largely to the most highly recommended selections. « hide |
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