Bill Haley might have got there before him (
he had his first hit with Rock This Joint
in 1951 ), but Haley was chubby, Married-and
above all corny. But Presley was snake
hipped, macho - and above all, carnal.
When he exploded onto 1954 with That's
All Right, Elvis triggered a cultural
revolution. Hollering out something pitched
between black rhythm 'n' blues and white
gospel quartet crooning, with as much off -
kilter sexuality as you could take, Elvis
Presley was like nothing on earth.
Baptist ministers across America called him
"morally insane". The young truck driver
with a toothpaste grin from Memphis who
loved his mother and mashed banana
sandwiches was suddenly an antichrist whose
diabolical image could only be shown on T.V.
from the waist up.
By the end of the sixties, Presley's promise
was largely unfulfilled. Manager Colonel
Parker's "business decision" that his client
concentrate on recording soundtracks to
accompany his movies-was the biggest mistake
of the century. It speeded Elvis's
degeneration from The King to Burger King.
Like Marilyn Monroe before him, the question
of Elvis Aaron Presley - who he was, what he
represented, and what he did to our culture
- is as alive today as the man is dead.
On August 16th. 1977, at age 42, he died in
his bathroom at Graceland - a victim of his
own phenomenal success. Beyond the various
attempts at character assassination,
however, there is one very magical thing
about Presley that they can never take away:
his music. With it, he mapped out the
blueprint for the pop music that spills out
of your MTV today.
Who could forget the biting carnality of
Hound Dog - a women's dig at her
no-good man? Or the edgy kick of
Jailhouse Rock - with drummer D.J.
Fontana imagining he was on "a chain-gang
smashing rocks" for the recording? Or
the haunting spookiness of Heartbreak
Hotel -
inspired by a newspaper story of a
man who committed suicide, leaving a note
which read: "I walk a lonely
street..."? Or the bawling R 'n' B bluster
of I Got A Women - which
inspired guitarist Chet Atkins, who played
on the sessions, to call his wife to tell
her to come on down to the studio because
"she'd never see anything like this again"?
Not me anyway.
The last time I cried was when Elvis died.
It was a terrible night. I took down the
Elvis mirror that hung on the wall in my
bedroom. It didn't seem right to keep him up
there, now that he was Up There. The Elvis
bedspread had to go in the hot press too.
The most embarrassing moment of my life?
My sister Karen walking in on me when I was
a six- year- old, dancing and singing along
with a broom in my hand to Elvis's woe-is-me
classic This Time Lord You Gave Me A
Mountain.
Karen still ribs me about it to this day.