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.
First Recordings
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.
Breakthrough
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"
Dare to be different
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.
Regardless of whether parents were aware of the Negro sexual origins of the phrase 'rock 'n' roll', Presley impressed them as the visual and aural embodiment of sex and in 1956, a critic for the New York Daily News wrote that popular music "has reached its lowest depths in the 'grunt and groin' antics of one Elvis Presley."
It might sound strange now when we see people like Girls Aloud who strut around on stage dressed in a glorified scarf but Elvis was initially deemed as a danger to the US with his actions and motions likened to a strip-tease with clothes on and sexual self-gratification on stage.
Some saw the singer as a sexual pervert, and psychologists feared that teenaged girls and boys could easily be aroused to sexual indulgence and perversion by certain types of motions and hysteria—the type that was exhibited at one of his shows.
In his defence, Elvis insisted that there was nothing vulgar about his act, but regardless of this, In August 1956, a Florida judge called Presley a "savage" and threatened to arrest him if he shook his body while performing in Jacksonville as Elvis music was undermining the youth of America. With increased concerns over privacy and security, Graceland was bought and renovated in 1957, a mansion with several acres of land which became the singer's primary residence until his death.
Acting career
In 1956, Presley launched his career as a film actor after he screen-tested for Paramount Pictures by lip-synching "Blue Suede Shoes" and performing a scene as 'Bill Starbuck' in The Rainmaker.
After signing a seven-year contract with Paramount, Presley made his big-screen début with the musical western, Love Me Tender, which was slammed by critics but did really well at the box office.
Most of his films were musical comedies which were designed to propel him as both an actor and musician yet he did appear in some more dramatic films such as Jailhouse Rock.
The movies he did make, were generally criticized as a "pantheon of bad taste." as the majority of the scripts were all quite similar and many of the songs didn't exploit Elvis' musical abilities as well as they should have.
Presley was one of the highest paid actors during the 1960s, but as time went on, newer and cooler acts started to appear and other musicians began to dominate the airwaves.
The Sex Symbol
No article on the King would be complete without some mention of his sexual exploits; which started with the steel rod sewn to the inside of his pants to make it look like he had a weapon of heroic proportions!
There is little doubt that he had his fair share of lovers, but the actual amount might be over-exaggerated as many of his ex lovers have said that he refused to have full sex with them; this might support the claims that he actually only dated many of his co-stars for publicity.
However there was woman who managed to hook him, and that was Priscilla. the pair met in 1959 when she was 14 and he was 24, but regardless of the age gap they quickly began a serious relationship.
However, serious didn't mean sex, as in her autobiography, Priscilla says that Elvis refused to have sex with her until they were married. Shortly before Christmas 1966, Presley proposed to Priscilla and they married on May 1, 1967 at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas and their only child Lisa Marie, was born on February 1, 1968.
Musical Comeback
In 1968,Guitar Man failed to enter the U.S. Top 40 and Elvis became very unhappy with his career and in a bid to revive it he starred in Elvis which was aired on December 3, 1968 as a Christmas telecast and was later dubbed '68 Comeback Special by fans and critics, as it featured some lavishly staged studio productions.
Other songs however, were performed live with a band and marked his first live appearance as a performer since 1961 and he was clad in black leather, singing and playing guitar in an uninhibited style which were reminiscent of his rock and roll days.
This performance marked his 'comeback' if it could be said that he ever really went away as he sang with power and energy that people hadn't heard in so long and made him keen to resume regular live shows and led to him smashing many attendance records.
In January 1973, Presley performed two charity concerts in Hawaii for the Kui Lee cancer foundation and the concert, named Aloha from Hawaii was the world's first live concert satellite broadcast, reaching at least a billion viewers live and a further 500 million on delay.
The show's album went to number one and spent a year in the charts. The album also proved to be Presley's last U.S. Number One album during his lifetime.
However, things are sometimes too good to be true, as Elvis so tragically found out as part two explores his fall from grace.
Read The Rise And Fall Of Elvis Presley Part Two here
FemaleFirst - Ruth Harrison
Re-live Elvis’ legendary Jailhouse Rock below;
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.
First Recordings
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.
Breakthrough
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"
Dare to be different
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.
Regardless of whether parents were aware of the Negro sexual origins of the phrase 'rock 'n' roll', Presley impressed them as the visual and aural embodiment of sex and in 1956, a critic for the New York Daily News wrote that popular music "has reached its lowest depths in the 'grunt and groin' antics of one Elvis Presley."
It might sound strange now when we see people like Girls Aloud who strut around on stage dressed in a glorified scarf but Elvis was initially deemed as a danger to the US with his actions and motions likened to a strip-tease with clothes on and sexual self-gratification on stage.