The rise and fall of Elvis Presley - Part one

04 September 2008

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There is little doubt that one of the greatest icons of all time is Elvis Aaron Presley. However, as with so many of the icons of the past, a glorious rise is so often followed by a steep fall.

Here we have one of the prime examples of this sick twist of fate; born on January 8, 1935, to his father Vernon and mother Gladys, Elvis made such a name for himself that he is often known as The King of Rock and Roll or simply just; The King.

His climb on the ladder of stardom began on October 3, 1945, when, at age ten, he made his first public performance in a singing contest at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show at the suggestion of his teacher Mrs. J.C. Grimes. Dressed as a cowboy, the young Presley had to stand on a chair to reach the microphone and sang Red Foley's "Old Shep." He came second, winning $5 and a free ticket to all the Fair rides.

Then, in 1946, for his eleventh birthday, Presley received his first guitar, which wasn't exaclty what he wanted, as he was actually after a bicycle or rifle, but his parents could only afford a guitar.

Over the following year, Vernon's brother, Vester, gave Elvis basic guitar lessons and he began to practise playing in the laundry room of the Memphis public housing development which the family lived in.

Before he became the icon he is today, he earned his cash as an usher at Loew's State Theatre in the hope of boosting the family income, however, he was fired after he got caught in a fistfight over a female employee - the start of his heartbreaking days.

On July 18, 1953, Elvis went to Sun Records' Memphis Recording Service to record "My Happiness" with "That's When Your Heartaches Begin", as a present for his mother.

On January 4, 1954, he made a second disk and coincidentally Sun Records boss Sam Phillips was on the lookout for someone who could deliver a blend of black blues and boogie-woogie music; he thought it would be very popular among white people.

When Phillips acquired a demo recording of "Without Love (There Is Nothing)" and was unable to identify the vocalist, Keisker reminded him about the young Presley; during a recording break, he began singing Arthur Crudup's "That's All Right (Mama)" which prompted Phillips to get them all to restart and began taping as this was the sound he had been looking for.

"That's All Right" was aired on July 8, 1954, by DJ Dewey Phillips and went down really well as listeners began phoning in, eager to find out who the singer was.

On January 10, Elvis recorded his first song which was Heartbreak Hotel/I Was The One which was released on 27 January 1956 and the immense public reaction prompted RCA to release it as a single in it's own right and by April it had hit number one in the U.S, selling in excess of one million copies.

On March 23, Elvis' self-titled first album was released and the majority of the tracks were country songs. The album went on to top the pop album chart for 10 weeks; a success he was set to replicate many more times in the future.

When he first started out with That's All Right, many listeners assumed that Elvis must be black; which, in turn prompted white disc-jockeys to ignore his Sun singles.

However, black disc-jockeys did not want anything to do with any record they knew was made by a white man as at the time many black adults felt that Presley had "stolen" or at least "derived his style from the Negro rhythm-and-blues performers of the late 1940s"

By the spring of 1956, Presley was becoming popular nationwide and teenagers flocked to his concerts; not only did they enjoy the music but they went wild at the sight of Elvis and many teenage boys hated him through pure jealousy, which eventually led to the fire-bombing of his car.

Things went from bad to worse for Elvis as he broke so many norms of society at the time; musicians became resentful that his unmatched onstage presence would 'kill' their own act and teenagers' parents saw the star as; the first rock symbol of teenage rebellion and their racist attitudes undoubtedly had an influence on this, despite the fact that Elvis was white.

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