Impact
So what is an Elvis Presley? Elvis had a voice that was many voices; his identity is one of many identities. Elvis is legion. He is everyman. And everywoman. His impact was democratic:
‘When he hit the world, this is one of the most beautiful people anybody had ever looked at, and he's also coinciding with the explosion of the mass media invention in America. We are unleashing levels of power through cinema and television and radio that the world has never really experienced before, and we're combining that with the fire power of such a truly beautiful, majestic, authentic creature — this Elvis Presley. So what is an Elvis Presley? It's a funny name with this amazing figure who's part black, part white, looks like a Greek statue one second, looks vaguely like a woman the next second. I think Elvis even stands for something much deeper, something akin to Lincoln or Herman Melville or Emily Dickenson or Franklin Roosevelt, or even Teddy Roosevelt. I think he stands for something about how America became what it is, in the best sense. What he symbolized, in the best sense, was to say to so many people, if he could make it, they could make it. That’s the majesty of Elvis Presley.’
Eugene Jarecki, director of the documentary The King, in trying to describe the person he was looking to find, in his own movie, as published by WBUR on July 9, 2018.
He was different, though, and hit with something like shock and awe:
‘The first thing he did when he came out in 1955 in Texas, it seemed like he was spitting on the stage. It all affected me like the first time I saw that David Lynch film. There was just no reference point in the culture to compare it too. In fact, he was the firstest with the mostest.’
Roy Orbison, as published in www.graceland.com
Let’s begin with the epochal ‘Heartbreak Hotel.’
‘After Elvis Presley, nothing was the same. Rock ’n’ roll might have emerged in the international consciousness 10 months earlier with "Rock Around the Clock", but nobody wanted to be Bill Haley. Everybody wanted to be Elvis. If you didn’t want to be Elvis, you wanted to be with him. With a series of now legendary — and at the time risque — TV appearances on Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey’s Stage Show and the Milton Berle Show, "Heartbreak Hotel" rose quickly to No 1 by April 21, 1956. It stayed there eight weeks. Presley, with his first million-seller, had rearranged the musical and social landscapes of a changed America. He was just 21 years and 137 days old. He had 21 years and 30 days to live.’
Alan Howe, writing for The Australian on 3 January 2018 in an article entitled "Heartbreak Hotel: Epochal moment in popular culture"
Elvis was a controversial figure from the moment he came to public prominence. He thrilled some, appalled and horrified others. He was dangerous. What was liberatory to some was a threat to peace and order to others. It wasn’t just his voice and the lyrics he sang that scandalized people, it was the way he moved and used his body. Elvis didn’t just sing, he performed, he acted out the songs. When the songs are songs like ‘Shake, Rattle, and Roll,’ ‘Baby Let’s Play House,’ and ‘So Glad You’re Mine,’ putting words and actions together constitutes a threat to public decency:
“Without preamble, the three-piece band cuts loose. In the spotlight, the lanky singer flails furious rhythms on his guitar, every now and then breaking a string. In a pivoting stance, his hips swing sensuously from side to side and his entire body takes on a frantic quiver, as if he had swallowed a jackhammer.”
- "Time Magazine," May 15, 1956
Something should be done:
“It isn’t enough to say that Elvis is kind to his parents, sends money home, and is the same unspoiled kid he was before all the commotion began. That still isn’t a free ticket to behave like a sex maniac in public.”
- Eddie Condon, "Cosmopolitan," December 1956
Elvis was a threat to the pop establishment, and they hit back hard:
"His kind of music is deplorable, a rancid smelling aphrodisiac...It fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people."
- Frank Sinatra, 1950s
The New York Times is known as "the paper of record" in the US, but its early take on Elvis Presley had nought to do with a fair and accurate assessment on Elvis’ abilities as a singer and everything to do with repressing the change that he so evidently presaged. Writing in the NYT in 1956, Jack Gould masked a vicious assault on an entire movement with a pretence at musical criticism:
"Mr Presley has no discernible singing ability. His specialty is rhythm songs which he renders in an undistinguished whine; his phrasing, if it can be called that, consists of the stereotyped variations that go with a beginner's aria in a bathroom. For the ear, he is an unutterable bore."
Elvis was the voice of a generation no longer content with the old ways of doing things. It was inevitable, then, that reactionaries would attack that voice. But Elvis’ singing voice was only the ostensible target. Rock 'n' roll was a movement that promised to subvert the social and cultural world of the 1950’s. To pour scorn on Gould's views on account of their wildly inaccurate assessment of the qualities of Elvis’ voice is to miss the point. Gould’s attack wasn’t merely on Elvis but mainly on all that he represented, promised, and threatened. The violence of his language betrays his great fear, the fear of an older generation seeing their world being turned upside down by the man who would soon be king and who would remain king.
‘They had me convinced that no teenage girl was safe around him. They wanted to have him watched at the theater and they wanted his hotel room watched. They had him pictured as a real villain. In my chambers, I warned him and his manager that I would be present at the first of six shows and that I had prepared warrants charging him with "impairing the morality of minors". As if for proof, deputies would be stationed in wings of the theater, I added. Once on the stage, he opened with "Heartbreak Hotel", threw his hips out once and so I immediately told the lawyer on the theater, in a whisper that I was going to put him in jail, sure as anything. But then, miraculously, Elvis caught himself. "Wait a minute. I can't do this. They won't let me do this here," I heard Elvis say. To everyone's amazement, instead of shaking, wiggling, and jumping around, Elvis stood perfectly still, wiggled his little finger suggestively in place of his usual movements, which thrilled the crowd, who I guess found "the finger" both hilarious and deeply erotic. So in the end, my wife, my three daughters and their girlfriends all watched as Elvis wiggled his finger suggestively throughout the show. And they roared when Elvis dedicated "Hound Dog" to me. Everybody in the audience got the biggest charge out of that. I was later told that Elvis continued the finger twitching movements throughout the other five Jacksonville shows. But he had made some new fans, including my grandson, Tony, who would grow up to idolize him by plastering his posters all over his bedroom walls.’
Judge Marion W. Gooding, recalling how, in early August of 1956, he had warned Elvis (whom he later described as a sweet, gentle kid with the sort of good manners that we associate with southern politeness), to avoid moving during any of his 6 shows at the famed Florida Theater, in Jacksonville Florida, as published in Mental Floss, on March 21, 2012
Elvis could convert his persecutors. If you can’t beat ‘em …
‘A lot of people are knocking this Elvis Presley guy, but I think he's all right.’
Burl Ives in the book The Last Word, page 27,
Elvis was in a different league to his critics. He was throwing moves with his voice they had no idea about:
‘It is a weakness of the mind to preconceive a judgment of your thought, before the act is done. Despite the acid hemlock stirred by "The Las Vegas Sun", Mr. Presley will survive and live to sing some more. Perhaps this cat should have studied grand opera, or the fiddle (but), I don't join that school of thought. You see, he's a natural and any dope knows what a natural is. His vocal is real and has a hep to the motion of sound, with a retort that is tremendous. Squares who like to detract their imagined misvalues can only size a note creeping upstairs after dark; this cat can throw them downstairs, or even out the window, with a depth of tone that can sink deeper than a well. He can wilt into a whisper faster than a gossipmonger can throw down a free drink and he really makes them cry. Presley's voice is that of American youth looking at the moon and wondering how long it will take to get there, something new coming over the horizon, all by himself, and he deserves his ever-growing audience. Yep, this boy's sails are set and he's got wind. Good luck and the best of everything. I hope they hold you over! After all, ten million cats can't be wrong.’
Ed Jameson, President and CEO of Bancorp, Las Vegas, writing a letter to the Editor, as a then teenager, and as published in the "Las Vegas SUN", on May 12, 1956
Levon Helm, drummer for The Band, got to see Elvis playing live in 1955. Already he was causing a stir:
‘I got to see him twice. The first time he played the Catholic Club, which was like a gymnasium at the local Catholic high school. He and Scotty Moore and Bill Black — a three piece. He was hot. He wasn’t famous yet but he was hot. I think he had put out, like, three records that I had heard. The girls were there, too and you couldn’t really hear because they were starting to act up.’
Levon Helm in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.
Those girls seemed intent on keep turning up and acting up, ruining everything. Here is record producer, songwriter and guitar player and native of Shreveport, LA Jerry Kennedy recalling witnessing one of Elviṣ̣' almost four dozen shows at Municipal Auditorium in the period from October 1954 to December of 1956:
‘I was a 13 year old kid sitting on the front row on Hank Williams' last performance at the Municipal Auditorium. It changed my life. A couple of years later, during one of Elvis ̪Presley's appearances with the Louisiana Hayride, I was also in attendance there, with a friend, and we got real mad at all of the girls screaming when Elvis was doing his shaking. It upset us that we couldn't hear anything.’
Jerry Kennedy, reported in radio station 710keel on December 28, 2018.
Imagine paying good money to hear nothing but lots of girls screaming. The fifth Elvis album I ever owned was ‘A Legendary Performer volume one.’ The album contained three performances from the NBC/TV ’68 Special – ‘Love Me,’ ‘Tryin’ to Get to You,’ and ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’ I also had ‘Tiger Man’ from the same live show. There was something thrilling about hearing Elvis sing live. But the shrieking and squealing coming from female audience members was somewhat disconcerting. I wanted someone to intervene to tell them to sit down and shut up. This noise is now getting somewhat alarming.
When I finally got to see the ’68 Special, one of the things I noticed was that Elvis played a gutsy guitar. I’m not saying he was a virtuoso. But he took the lead guitar from Scotty Moore at one point and drove the music on himself as band leader. Johnny Cash noticed Elvis the guitar player too:
‘That night at the Eagle's Nest, he was playing a D-18 Martin acoustic guitar and he was dressed in the latest teen fashion. ...The thing I really noticed was guitar playing and you didn't want to hear anything else.’
- Johnny Cash
I love Jimi Hendrix obviously, and Jimmy Page and Prince. And also Elvis Presley is a really great guitar player. I don't think he ever took lessons; he was piecing it together himself. But he has great rhythm. And rhythm, to me, you can use it to your advantage if you're not all over the fretboard.’
Brittany Howard
Elvis had musical ears. But he was doing something else. To give the full quote from Time:
‘Without preamble, the three-piece band cuts loose. In the spotlight, the lanky singer flails furious rhythms on his guitar, every now and then breaking a string; in a pivoting stance, his hips swing sensuously from side to side and his entire body takes on a frantic quiver, as if he had swallowed a jackhammer; his loud baritone goes raw and whining in the high notes, but down low it is rich and round. As he throws himself into one of his specialties— "Blue Suede Shoes" or "Long Tall Sally", his throat seems full of desperate aspirates or hiccuping glottis strokes, but his movements suggest, in a word, sex.’
TIME Magazine, April 02, 1956 issue.
I wonder if that was what was causing all the excitement among the females.
‘On October 28th, 1956, Elvis Presley, who, just a month earlier, had set the world record for most viewed telecast in TV history, takes the stage of the Ed Sullivan Show for the second time. He gyrates through “Don’t Be Cruel,” shakes out “Hound Dog” thus cementing himself in the collective memory of an entire generation one shake, rattle and roll at a time. On October 29th, 1956 the L.A Times columnist Dick Williams writes, “Sexhibitionist Elvis Presley has come at last in person to a visibly palpitating, adolescent female Los Angeles to give all the little girls’ libidos the jolt of their lives.” And while Elvis’ three performances on Ed Sullivan are all well-situated in the pantheon of American music history, Williams thought little of it, concluding, “If any further proof were needed that what Elvis offers is not basically music but a sex show, it was provided last night.” Presley, sober and Christian, saw his act as art. To Williams it was pornography. Elvis was dancing to his own music, consumed with passion. Williams wasn’t even listening.’
Eric Krebs, a sophomore at Yale in 2019, and the Valedictorian at NY's Xavier in 2017, in an article entitled "With your eyes closed", and as published in the Yale Daily Newsʼ February 25, 2019 edition.
I’ll bet that shut the girls up. Not.
‘I bet you wish they would stop screaming...’
Actress Sophia Loren telling Elvis she understood what fame brought in terms of fan's reactions, as recounted by photographer Bob Willoughby, present during their ad hoc meeting at the Paramount Pictures Commissary and as published in the London newspaper 'The People' in 1994.
‘Ma'am, I'm not tryin' to be sexy. Ah didn't have any clear ideah of trying to sell sex. It's just my way of expressin' how I feel when I move around. It's all leg movement. Ah don't do nothin' with my body.’
-- Elvis Presley to a reporter early in his career, quoted in: Joe Kohut and John J Kohut, ed., Rock Talk (1994)
That’s not what the film I’ve seen shows. Elvis knew the reaction he was provoking, of course, and so did it all the more. He did the same in his seventies concerts. If he knew something would get a reaction, he would do it. It can tempt an artist into becoming lazy, taking the edge off the music. It made Elvis’ name and it was a thrill for the world. It was fun. But the dangers of playing for effect were there at the start. Much as I love a performance, I like to hear the song sung well too. I ain’t asking for too much. Elvis gave the impression of sailing through it all. I think we all took it far more seriously than he ever did:
‘Here is a nonchalant phenomenon whom, as yet, no one has accurately described, a young man who has an inherent ability to arouse mass hysteria (or should I say ecstasy?) wherever he goes, yet is unassuming and completely untouched by the fabulous success he has achieved almost overnight.’
Bud Lilly Publicity director for the New Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas, in a letter to the Las Vegas SUN, which had requested the hotel management to provide the paper with more information on Presley, as published on April 26, 1956.
‘"Bob King's", the nightclub, was packed and it was filled with anticipation. Even a seasoned musician like Sonny Burgess knew the vibe in the club was different that night. As Elvis Presley stepped onto the stage and the band started to play, his hips began to move and as sang "Good Rocking Tonight" the crowd was whirled into a frenzy. Burgess has witnessed hundreds of musicians and bands and played before millions of fans throughout the United States and Europe during his long career that has spanned more than 50 years, but the guitarist has never experienced the energy and emotion he felt the night he heard Elvis play that tune, back in 1955. "Boy, he was different," Burgess told The Jonesboro Sun. "As soon as he walked into the building you could feel his energy. He had the looks, the songs and the charisma. Whatever a star has, he had it — more than anyone else.”’
Excerpted from an interview by seasoned columnist George Jared with rockabilly musician Albert "Sonny" Burgess, and posted on The "Jonesboro Sun" on Sep. 2, 2014.
I really don’t need to add any extra words to these accounts, they say it all with great clarity. This next account restores the bedlam to Elvis’ strong musical root. Elvis wasn’t just a pretty boy playing for effect. He possessed an innate musical sensibility. That was his bedrock, from which he could venture forth:
‘In 1956, I bought my Elvis records at Duvan Music in downtown Sioux City. They had a booth there where you could sit and listen to the record before you bought it. I had 'em all. So did every kid at Central High. So my friend and I bought tickets for the May 23 Elvis concert, the cheapest ones. It was a mob. It took a half-hour for us to squeeze and wedge our way to the stage. It may have been warm in there, I don't know but all I remember is the electricity. He came out there with a saunter like he knew what he was doing, singing 'Mystery Train' first and all you could hear was the first words 'Train a ride'. After that, it was just bedlam, and screaming, along with Elvis and his two musicians. And he was so cool, rebellion in the flesh. I mean who grows his hair long like that? And shakes his butt? We loved him. I played harmonica at the time, was almost 17 and he was only 21, not much difference. I just stood there with my mouth open thinking, my God, this guy has picked up on something. He had charisma, the crowd in the palm of his hand. His musical ability had a lot to do with it, he wasn't just a pretty face. I used to listen to the blues on black radio stations at night and I said, 'This guy's a black musician in a white man's body. Elvis had a real strong sense of gospel and was just fascinated with gospel groups.’
Jack Langley, a Central High School student in 1956 who took up music as a way of life after attending Elvis' May 23, 1956 concert, as published in the Sioux City Journal on August 18, 2002
At the centre of it all is Elvis’ innate musical intelligence and ability. He had a lot to play with, and play he did:
‘It is when Guralnick shows how young Elvis made his way through this cultural briar patch, that we get what we need. He got voluptuous phrasing and ecstatic self-confidence from gospel, wit and menace from the blues, homespun sincerity from country and, from what we can now call gay theatrics, he got glamour and self-parody. He played the outlaw and the good son. How he flirts with his audiences, first being casual, fervent, sneering, then inviting us to laugh at, or with him. ¨As you desire me¨, he is saying, ¨so shall I be¨. Was he a great performer? Yes and yes again. He galvanized rock-and-roll and made you feel the fun and the risk and all the contradictions. That's self-invention, and that's entertainment.
Margo Jefferson, reviewing Peter Guralnick's biography of Elvis Last Train to Memphis, The Rise of Elvis Presley for The New York Times (26 October 1996)
Read that passage again and ponder again how Elvis could hold the contradictions together in his musical persona.
‘He was not quite a hillbilly, not yet a drugstore cowboy. He was a Southern — in that word’s connotation of rebellion and slow, sweet charm.’
Stanley Booth, casting back to the 1950s in his Esquire magazine article “Situation Report: Elvis in Memphis, 1967.”
Bear this incredible dialectic at work at the heart of Elvis next time you hear someone dismiss Elvis as ‘showbiz.’ Of course he was showbiz! That’s entertainment! He was good at it and hugely popular. But that’s only one part of what makes Elvis Presley what he is. Only when you acknowledge the other parts, the core, the substance, the quality, will you begin to have an idea of what an Elvis Presley is. Of course, if you feel threatened, jealous, bitter, you can opt for the easiest line of attack. It will miss its target by a very wide margin, though. Elvis was dismissed as a non-talent performer from the very first. He’s still standing.
Elvis was all the liberatory forces of the present converging in one to presage the future:
‘The sloe-eyed Presley had a leering smile while his body gyrated with unabashed sexuality. A strong country blues sense emanated from the handsome young singer … whose forelock drooped over his face, added to his allure. Elvis Presley was rock ’n’ roll, which was suddenly embraced by the emerging generation as its own music. Its sound shattered the complacency of the 1950s and broke the ground for the anti-establishment culture coming in the following decades. And with its visual impact, television would suddenly cause the look of a musical artist to become almost as important as the content of his or her music. His arsenal of bumps and grinds again alternately shocked, terrified, and delighted the television audience. He had nothing to learn from Tommy Dorsey musically.’
Peter Levinson, as told to Tino Barzie, Tommy Dorsey’s band manager and published in elvis-history on September 12, 2011.
It’s the voice that does it. But of course that voice comes with a body. Elvis sings with a beat and performs a song:
‘But it is Presley's singing, halfway between a western and a rock 'n' roll style, that has sent teen-agers into a trance; they like his wailing in a popular song like "Blue Moon" or such western tunes as "I'll Never Let You Go", but they go crazy over the earthy, lusty mood of such rock 'n' roll numbers as "Money Honey"; and the reason is simple enough: Presley sings with a beat; and you can be certain that there'll always be music with a beat and that, whether you like it or not, there will always be an Elvis Presley.’
Helen MacNamara, Canadian Music writer and book author, writing on Presley's future impact, as published on the June 9, 1956 issue of "Saturday Night Magazine"
David Pristash, author, recalls the time he saw the then relatively unknown Elvis perform at his alma mater, the Brooklyn High School, near Cleveland:
‘He was good. I mean, all the girls liked him, and there is a film of that performance, somewhere.’
David Pristash, in an article entitled "John Wayne, Elvis and ‘The Deer Hunter: A Green Beret’s Vietnam service was nothing like the movie" and as published in their January 20, 2019 edition.
Not everyone was impressed:
‘It probably will require a hurricane to de-contaminate this area properly after his appearance here. I know hundreds, and there must be thousands, who deplore the type of music that is being fed to the younger elements of our community. Let us hope that those who feel as do will make themselves heard so that something may be done to curb the mouthings of that avaricious maniac.’
̇ W.A. Morris, commentimg on Elvis' performance at The Citadel 's College Park, in Charleston, SC, on June 28, 1956 in a letter to the Editor of The News and Courier published on July 3, 1956.
It seems that Elvis was stirring up passions that were getting beyond his capacity to handle:
‘He was causing riots wherever he went. On May 5, 1955, he was chased at intermission and across the field by a pack of women at Ladd Stadium in Mobile, right after he finished singing, which had been set to start before intermission....’
Jimmy Rodgers Snow, son of Hank Snow and as told to Elvis biographer Peter Guralnick
He learned his lesson:
‘Just about everywhere we played, it happened. Sometimes it would be more people than other times, depending on the size of the crowds, but after that first time, when there was a riot, Elvis did not invite the girls backstage anymore. I think he learned that it was not a good idea.’
Jimmy Rodgers Snow, as told to Elvis biographer Peter Guralnick
Elvis was identified by the authorities as a public menace. In fact, he was identified as a danger to national security:
‘Elvis Presley press-agented as a singer and entertainer, played to two groups of teenagers numbering several thousand at the city auditorium here, Monday, May 14. As newspaper man, parent, and former member of Army Intelligence Service, I feel an obligation to pass on to you my conviction that Presley is a definite danger to the security of the United States.’
First paragraph of the Roman Catholic Diocese of La Crosse -influenced letter, signed by the Editor in Chief of La Crosse Register's and addressed to the then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover on May 16, 1956.
In 1964, Bob Dylan wrote The Times they are a Changin’, urging those who ‘prophesize with your pen’ to keep their eyes wide open:
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'
Dylan was hailed a prophet of the new world. In truth, he was putting into words something Elvis had unleashed the previous decade.
Raquel Welch recalls seeing Elvis in concert when she was a teenager:
‘He played the San Diego Arena in the spring, and my family lived in nearby La Jolla, so I went to the concert. "Heartbreak Hotel" was already a radio hit, and I couldn't get enough of it. Hearing that song was a real turning point for me as a teenager. When I saw him in action, he was mesmerizing, dressed as he was in a pair of loose trousers, loafers, a shirt and open jacket. When he moved, he was smoldering, his hair falling over his eyes, his tone sensual. His delivery on "Heartbreak Hotel" was also in a minor key, which always triggered a reaction in me. But it was when he slipped in those low-register Elvis-isms— you know, the huh-huh thing— it came from his body, not from his head. He had that emotional intensity that was impossible to resist.’
Raquel Welch, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Oct. 25, 2013
What the critics didn’t realize is that Elvis was drawing on the raw emotionalism of gospel and church performance. Or they knew, and just wanted to keep parts of America buried and hidden from view:
“Finally, he wove into ‘Hound Dog’ and bounced off the stage, carrying the mike with him. There, on the 50-yard-line, he sank to his knees, rose, wove, bumped, ground and sank again, time after time. The girls screamed themselves silly. If that may have been obscene, but it was in the same way the climax of a revival meeting is obscene. Elvis worked himself over to the grass alongside the stage, sank almost out of sight and suddenly slipped into the waiting Cadillac. A motorcycle cop roared out in front, the car drove off and quickly the bowl’s overhead lights were turned on. The shrieks became groans of disappointment. But the ball was over, the spell was broken. Noisily, the fans began filing out of the stadium, spent.”
William Steif, writer for the "San Francisco News", on assignment at the Dallas Cotton Bowl to find out, as he put it, "what makes Elvis tick" and as published in that newspaper on October 13, 1956.
‘Don't get too hot and bothered. We have heard some expressions of annoyance among the older set over the current teenage rage, a young hillbilly entertainer named Elvis Presley. We were about to identify Mr. Presley more explicitly as a singer, but out of deference to sensitive feelings we chose the less controversial noun. Elvis puts on the most active act on TV, contorting his face and body as though in great pain, whomping the daylights out of his defenceless guitar, and uttering unintelligible shrieks and groans. The latter manifestations, preserved on phonograph records, are selling like mad. A good many parents seem fearful for the future of American youth if it can see merit in Mr. Presley's aggravated assaults on the musical idiom. We would remind such worriers of their own youth. Don't they recall their parents threatening to smash the loud speaker of the battery radio if Rudy Vallee megaphoned the 'Maine Stein Song' through it once again? Or fretting over juvenile appreciation for Cab Calloway's scat lyrics? But somehow the youngsters of yesterday grew up to be the sensible citizens of today, and now Rudy's crooning and Cab's hi-de-hi sound sort of pleasantly old-fashioned. So brace up, parents of '56. In another 20 years Elvis Presley really won't seem so bad, and your grown-up teenagers will be biting their nails over the entertainment sensation of '76."
Southwestersontario's 1956 take on the advent of Elvis Presley and predictions fo his taming, as published on August 20, 2018.
That’s kind of true … the Elvis of 1976 looked and sounded incredibly old and safe in the context of funk and punk and disco and hard rock. The truth is, though, the frenzy and fanaticism around Elvis remained. He continued to sing with a beat. It’s the rhythm of life, universal and eternal. That capacity to drive an audience into a frenzy stayed with Elvis to the very end, when he was older and in poor shape health wise. When asked which was the most memorable concert he ever attended, Pat Paxton, President of Entercom, answered an Elvis concert just a month or so before he died:
‘Living with my parents in Rapid City, S.D, I was 14 or 15, and Elvis Presley coming to town. This was a month or two before he died. I witnessed women throwing everything onstage -- everything that goes with an Elvis show. It was fascinating.’
Pat Paxton, President of Entercom's answer to the question of which was the most memorable concert he ever attended, in an interview with Billboard and as published on January 25, 2018.
But, gradually, Elvis won people over. Here is Ed Sullivan paying tribute at the end of Elvis’ last Sullivan show:
‘I wanted to say to Elvis Presley and the country that this is a real decent, fine boy, and wherever you go, Elvis, we want to say we've never had a pleasanter experience on our show with a big name than we've had with you.’
CBS TV personality Ed Sullivan, closing his show on the night of January 6, 1957.
Those predicting an early demise were indulging in wishful thinking. Something isn’t true merely because you want it to be true:
‘I predict that Elvis Presley's star will fall as quickly as it rose...’
Drew Pearson, columnist, discussing his impact on society in 1956 as noted in one of his early 1957 NBC TV Washington Merry Go round episodes.
And who the heck is Drew Pearson? Another know-all know-nothing paid to offer views which fill up empty space. Others in the business could see Elvis had something. Here is Lionel Hampton:
‘I’ve heard some musicians say, ‘That man ain’t sayin’ nothing.’ It’s just a matter of rival performers trying to detract from those who are doing business. As far as I’m concerned, a man that sells that many records must be saying something to somebody.’
Jazz pianist and bandleader Lionel Hampton's laud of Elvis Presley, as noted in a December 19, 1957 article in Variety.
The fanatical devotion has endured beyond Elvis’ death in 1977:
‘I often wondered if Elvis mania will ever truly die. I'm too young to remember the apex of his career, but I vividly remember the deep mourning that followed his death. For years — maybe, still? — his birthday and death day were marked by vigils in Memphis. The other day, I was charmed by a TV commercial that features Elvis impersonators from around the world using FaceTime to sing the Elvis ballad "There's Always Me." Anyone under 30 probably wonders who these strangely dressed guys are. To me, the commercial was literally music to my ears.’
Mark Kennedy, writing for the Chattanooga Times Free Press in an article entitled "20th century 'survivors' provide comfort" and published in their 9 December 2018 edition.
Elvis survived the initial frenzy, but there were opportunities missed along the way. Here is Chris Mitchum talking about Elvis’ meeting with his father, actor Robert Mitchum:
‘Actually my dad saw Elvis before he was well known. In mid November of 1954, he and mom were down in New Orleans staying with Frank and Isabell Monteleone, who owned the Monteleone Hotel in the French Quarter in New Orleans. On the weekend, they went to their place in Pass Christian, Mississippi. The Monteleones said, “There’s a little club about a half hour from here. They’ve got this singer there, and we ought to go up and see him.” Then, after seeing him and when my dad was preparing his original written story of "Thunder Road", he wanted Elvis to play his younger brother Robin Doolin. In 1957, my parents as usual had a Christmas party, and they invited Elvis to discuss the matter. My mom served us some delicious roast beef and I remember at the end of the party and after everybody had left, my dad and Elvis were at the piano taking turns playing and singing songs. My dad loved jazz and knew a lot of Southern jazz songs. Dad would be like, “Do you know this one?” I sat there half the night listening to them. At 13 years old, I knew who Elvis Presley was. It was something. Elvis wanted to play the part, but his manager Colonel Parker claimed that Elvis had too many obligations to fulfill and too many film contracts already pending to take on my dad’s project. But I think the real problem was that Parker was unhappy that someone had gotten straight to Elvis without going through him...’
Chris Mitchum, in an interview with Medium Corporation dealing with his father, actor and producer Robert Mitchum's wishes to give Elvis the role of his younger brother in the 1958 classic "Thunder Road"
Society survived. In changing the world, Elvis became enslaved to the means of his triumph. The old order thought it had seen off the threat he posed. As to the precise nature of that threat, it can take the form of the fear expressed by those who feel threatened:
‘Titley uses the memoirs of mostly former nuns very adroitly to give us a sense of what life was like during this period for those who felt or were persuaded that they had a vocation. Despite the church’s toxic fear of sexuality, the “Brides of Christ” designation for nuns had a very unhealthy aura of sexual desire built into it, channelling feelings that would otherwise have found outlets in human sexual partnerships. One nun recounts how her teacher (a nun) was thrilled when Dolores Hart, an actress who was the first to kiss Elvis Presley on screen, became a Benedictine sister: even Elvis could not compete with Jesus.’
Catriona Crowe, Head of Special Projects at the National Archives of Ireland, reviewing Brian Titley’s "Into Silence and Servitude" for the Irish Times, and published there on January 7, 2018.
That wasn’t quite the victory it seemed. Elvis had unleashed forces that could no longer be so easily contained.