Entirely Elvis

Hello and welcome. My name is Peter Critchley, a philosopher who works in the fields of moral and literary ecology, political economy, and human social practice. I adhere to a musical model, which orients us all to an attunement with something that is greater than we are, of which we are a part.
I cordially invite you to explore my work on my Writing Voice website, which offers details on my work over the years.

This site is about all things Elvis. I'm from Merseyside, UK, and had the pleasure of sitting in the Beatles' Yellow Submarine in Liverpool in 1967 when I was a tiny tot. I love The Beatles as much as anyone, but it's always been Elvis for me. As the years pass, Elvis' popularity remains undiminished,. But if he still looms large as an icon, his musical status is still insecure. It is my considered view that the standing of his music is underappreciated and always was. Elvis is 'pop,' a commercial artist, which is to say not an artist at all, a mere entertainer, 'showbiz,' an idol, but of little more importance than that. That view is wrong, and profoundly so. Elvis Presley fused gospel, country, and blues - the 'folk' roots of his music, his musical lifeblood - as one, and invested them with a pop sensibility (he entered Sun singing pop standards and ballads) to create a popular music form that was without cultural, ethnic, racial, class, and national implication. If he can be criticized for selling out his 'folk' roots for commercial gain here (Sam Cooke earned the same criticism for developing his gospel root into a pop music with a soul inflection), then he should also be credited with having created a popular music form that was available to all. Even white kids in Britain could do it!

Elvis opened the door and The Beatles et al walked right on through it. As John Lennon put it: "Nothing affected me until I heard Elvis. Without Elvis there would be no Beatles." That truth was backed up by George Harrison who, when asked by an interviewer about his musical roots, replied that he didn’t have any musical roots. The only “root” he could think of was from when he was a kid in Liverpool, hearing “Heartbreak Hotel” playing through an open window. I can repeat the same story for countless others.

Elvis initiated a cultural revolution that could not but have political consequences. On the liberatory impact of Elvis, Bob Dylan had this to say:

“When I first heard Elvis Presley’s voice I just knew that I wasn’t going to work for anybody and nobody was going to be my boss. Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail.”

Dylan also went on to say that Elvis' version of his 'Tomorrow is a Long Time' is the version of his own songs that he 'treasures the most.'

To help set my views in some perspective, I should tell you that I was born in 1965, in the UK, and have been an Elvis fan since I was old enough to know what music is. I received my first Elvis album at the age of seven in 1972. The album was 'Separate Ways,' a budget compilation of waifs and strays. It was not an obvious choice for a young boy to have made in an era of glam rock. The album is a collection of sad, sweet, sentimental songs that would have put most young boys off Elvis for life. Instead, I got a taste for sad, sweet, and sentimental songs, which I retain to this day.

The dominant critical view by the seventies was that Elvis was well past his best and had long ceased to represent anything meaningful in a musical sense. His style was out of fashion. It was the era of glam rock, then disco and punk, or laid back country rock and hard rock. Elvis fitted none of these categories. That’s why he stood out for me. He was different. In fact, he was not only different, he was better. He was much better. For one thing, he could sing, which was something. I liked his voice. I didn't hear anyone who had anything like the same voice.

Disco, punk rock, new wave, electronic pop, you name it as it came and went, Elvis stayed.

I was brought up on Elvis the ballad singer. But I soon warmed to his rhythm material. I liked the variety of music contained on an Elvis album. I appreciated the fact that Elvis sang all kinds of music. He had a remarkable stylistic range. I enjoy listening to music from all parts of his career. I like the ‘whatever next’ feeling. I don’t get that same feeling with any other artist. Who else but Elvis could have recorded both 'Mystery Train' and ‘Petunia the Gardener’s Daughter?’ No-one, that’s who. Only Elvis. I like the fact that all over the Elvis catalogue there are classics waiting to be discovered by the wider world, songs such as 'Clean Up Your Own Backyard’ from 1968. I love that a long forgotten Elvis song, a song long left abandoned in the movies, could be re-discovered in 2002, re-mixed and re-released to become a global million selling number one smash hit. I am referring, of course, to 'A Little Less Conversation.' The critics all missed it, passed it by, dismissed it as a film song. Released from those connotations, the song took flight and became a global smash. It was a UK #1 for about a billion weeks as I remember. As far as I know, it could still be #1.

A Little Less Conversation, a lot more music please. ‘Sound Advice,’ as another Elvis song goes. The man has a song for all occasions.

In time, though, questions started to be asked as to Elvis' untimely end in 1977, exposing the rather compromised figure that lay behind the image. The 1980s were not a good time for Elvis, with his reputation tarnished, mounting critical accusations of his derivative style and talent, accusations of his cultural theft, his commercial sellout, and so on, all of which became the conventional wisdom through repetition. People are nothing if not unoriginal. It's all rot, of course, and a future age will come to appreciate all that it owes to Elvis in terms of cultural and musical freedom.

I've been listening to, and thinking about, Elvis over a period of five decades now. That's a long time to be doing anything, and I think it entitles me to draw a few conclusions. In an age dominated by ignorant comment and political bigotry, with Elvis symbolizing whatever pet peeve and prejudice the malcontents choose to obsess over, there is a need to affirm Elvis' genuine multiplicity in music, politics, and culture. In the process of doing precisely that in my blog essays, I aim to establish Elvis' status as an artist of the highest order. That has never been done, and Elvis' status as an artist has never been accepted. The people he inspired to enter music, the people he more than anyone opened the doors for, receive a million Grammy Awards and other such accolades each year, Elvis is ignored, relegated to dumb end of popular culture. This is a travesty, but one based on Elvis' dominant image. Elvis has ever been about the fame, fortune, and fandom - he was the biggest star with the most hits, the gold records, the sell out concerts etc etc. The problem with celebrating Elvis in those terms is that he is also most easily dismissed in those same terms - Elvis is all about numbers rather than art, quantity rather than quality, money rather than music. That's a travesty of the truth, but the possibility for perversion and distortion does indeed come with the popular music form. Chuck Berry wrote the book on rock'n'roll motivation: 'maybe one day your name will be in lights.' Elvis got his name in lights, the biggest lights of all.

This site is not about Elvis "The King." That title has always been more trouble than it could ever have been worth. Those who refer to Elvis as 'the King of Rock'n'Roll' confine his talent and his achievement and therefore diminish him. There was far more to Elvis than rock'n'roll. He possessed a genuine multiplicity in music, and this was apparent from the very first. In his own words, he sang 'all kinds' of music for 'all kinds' of people. To identify him as a rock'n'roll singer a) identifies him with a fairly limited musical genre; b) ties him to one musical form, denying the legitimacy of his artistic exploration of other forms; c) freezes him in time and place as the 21 year old Elvis leading a youthful rebellion. That title and all it entails fails entirely to capture what is truly distinctive about Elvis - the individuality, the affirmation of freedom (however much he came to be trapped by the industry he enriched), the dream to be different, and the determination to act on that dream. That's the spirit of democracy, not monarchy. It is in that spirit I write. That, and the recognition of the simple truth that Elvis Presley was a darned good singer. The very best. And I am unanimous in that opinion.