Webb The George Martin Orchestra The Family Way – McCartney composed most of the music for this soundtrack The Chris Barber Band Catcall – Originally known as Catswalk performed from to and revisited during the Get Back sessions in January Carlos Mendes Penina – Badfinger Come and Get It UK The original demo was included on Anthology Unreleased songs edit The following compositions are believed to have been written by Lennon and McCartney but never officially released by The Beatles or any other artist Many have appeared on Beatles bootlegs a notable exception being Carnival of Light The list of unreleased songs includes some of the earliest Lennon–McCartney joint works dating back to The Quarrymen the group which evolved into the Beatles Several of these songs were revisited during the Get Back sessions of early Title Year Notes I Lost My Little Girl First song written by McCartney Performed by The Beatles with Lennon on lead vocals during the Get Back sessions Too Bad About Sorrows One of the earliest Lennon–McCartney compositions Briefly sung by Lennon during the Get Back sessions of January sung by McCartney during Get Back sessions of January Just Fun Played by The Quarrymen from to briefly sung by Lennon during the Get Back sessions of January Keep Looking That Way Played by The Quarrymen Looking Glass Instrumental Mentioned in film outtakes unknown if performed during Get Back sessions That s My Woman Played by The Quarrymen Thinking of Linking Played by The Quarrymen briefly sung by Lennon during the Get Back sessions of January performed by McCartney Harrison and Starr for The Beatles Anthology

Winston s Walk Instrumental Years Roll Along Played by The Quarrymen Because I Know You Love Me So Country influenced duets briefly sung by Lennon and McCartney during the Get Back sessions of January I ll Wait Till Tomorrow I ve Been Thinking That You Love Me Briefly performed during the Get Back sessions of January Won t You Please Say Goodbye Briefly sung by Lennon during the Get Back sessions of January Some Days Speculative titles based on taped works in progress You ll Be Mine also recorded at the time was released on Anthology You Must Write Everyday Well Darling Come on People I Don t Know I Fancy Me Chances Performed live in and briefly during the Get Back sessions the latter was released as Fancy My Chances with You on the bonus disc of Let It Be Naked Pinwheel Twist Performed live in Carnival of Light Recorded on January nearly minute long experimental collage Shirley s Wild Accordion Recorded on October instrumental intended for Magical Mystery Tour film Commonwealth Improvised studio jam satirising Enoch Powell s claim in a speech that immigration into the UK would cause a race war Sung by McCartney during the Get Back sessions of January Song of Love Sung by McCartney performed during the Get Back sessions of January Watching Rainbows Sung by Lennon performed during the Get Back sessions of January Madman Sung by Lennon performed during the Get Back sessions of and January Year Chart Peak position Netherlands Dutch Top Netherlands Single Top UK Singles Official Charts Company UK Singles Official Charts Company Belgium Back Catalogue Singles Flanders Netherlands Single Top UK Singles Official Charts Company Netherlands Single Top Japan Hot Singles France SNEP Year end charts edit Chart Position Australia Kent Music Report Australia Go Set National Top Austria Ö Austria Top Belgium Ultratop Flanders Canada RPM Italy FIMI Netherlands Dutch Top Switzerland Schweizer Hitparade UK Singles Official Charts Company US Billboard Hot US Cash Box Chart Position Australia Go Set National Top All time charts edit Chart Position US Billboard Hot Certifications edit Region Certification Sales shipments United States RIAA × Platinum ^ ^shipments figures based on certification alone Personnel edit Paul McCartney – double tracked vocal backing vocal bass lead guitar piano handclaps drums percussion John Lennon – backing vocal lead guitar six string bass handclaps drums percussion George Harrison – backing vocal lead guitar bass handclaps drums percussion George Martin – piano Personnel per Ian MacDonald and Mark Lewisohn Variations edit On The Beatles album the end of Back in the U S S R is cross faded with the start of the next track Dear Prudence On The Beatles – Back in the U S S R fades out before the cross fade of Dear Prudence starts This is also the case on the remixed version of the song from Love Cover versions edit In Ramsey Lewis covered Back in the U S S R on his album Mother Nature s Son along with other songs from The Beatles In Chubby Checker s cover version charted on the Billboard Hot Also in John Fred His Playboy Band released it as a single and on their album Love My Soul In the punk group Dead Kennedys recorded a live version of the song that was released in on Live at the Deaf Club In Elton John sang the song in the opening credits of To Russia with Elton a film about a concert given in Moscow Russia by the rock singer In the song was recorded and released by Jan Dean on their album One Summer Night Live In actress Su Pollard performed the song on the BBC series The Laughter Show In The King s Singers on their album Beatles Collection In Billy Joel covered the song on his live in the Soviet Union album KOH EPT In Dutch producers Jochem Fluitsma and Eric van Tijn released a reworked cover version as B Mania In the Russian band Baba Yaga released a cover of the song on their album Baba Yaga In Finnish band Leningrad Cowboys performed a live version on their album Live in Prowinzz In the film Heartbreakers Sigourney Weaver performed the song In Lemmy of Motörhead recorded a version for the Butchering The Beatles compilation Parody band Beatallica recorded a mashup of the song and Metallica s Blackened entitled Blackened the U S S R on their album Sgt Hetfield s Motorbreath Pub Band Tomoyasu Hotei covered it on his cover album Modern Times Rock N Roll Amanda Overmyer performed the song on American Idol and released a studio version The Rutles song We ve Arrived and to Prove It We re Here is a pastiche of this song Type O Negative have performed the song live numerous times throughout their year career In Molly Hatchet recorded the song for the tribute album Top Musicians Play The Beatles While my guitar gently weeps As I m sitting here doing nothing but ageing Still my guitar gently weeps As well as an unused line in the very beginning The problems you sow are the troubles you re reaping Still my guitar gently weeps This line was eventually omitted in favour of the one appearing on The Beatles An early acoustic guitar and organ demo of the song featured a slightly different third verse I look from the wings at the play you are staging While my guitar gently weeps As I m sitting here doing nothing but ageing Still my guitar gently weeps This version was released on the compilation Anthology and was used as the basis of the Love remix with a string arrangement by George Martin The band recorded the song several times Take on July involved Harrison on his Gibson J acoustic guitar and an overdubbed harmonium Sessions on August and and September included a version with a backward or backmasked guitar solo as Harrison had done for I m Only Sleeping on Revolver but Harrison was not satisfied On September during a ride from Surrey into London Harrison asked friend Eric Clapton to contribute lead guitar to the song Clapton was reluctant he said Nobody ever plays on the Beatles records but Harrison convinced him and Clapton s guitar parts using Harrison s Gibson Les Paul electric guitar Lucy a recent gift from Clapton were recorded that evening Harrison later said that in addition to his contribution Clapton s presence had another effect on the band It made them all try a bit harder they were all on their best behaviour Clapton wanted a more Beatley sound so the sound was run through an ADT circuit with varispeed with engineer Chris Thomas manually waggling the oscillator apparently Eric said that he didn t want it to sound like him So I was just sitting there wobbling the thing they wanted it really extreme so that s what I did While My Guitar Gently Weeps was one of three songs on The Beatles that Paul McCartney experimented with the Fender Jazz Bass the others being Glass Onion and Yer Blues instead of his Hofner and Rickenbacker basses According to Walter Everett s book The Beatles as Musicians John Lennon s electric guitar is only audible in the coda with the tremolo switched on Musical structure edit The song is in Am with a shift to a Am G on all bass note G and a D major rd F after love bass note F to a Fmaj on sleeping bass note F This progression has been described as an Aeolian Dorian hybrid Everett notes that the change from the minor mode verse A B to the parallel major for the bridge might express hope that unrealized potential described in the lyrics is to be fulfilled but that the continued minor triads III VI and II seem to express a strong dismay that love is not to be unfolded Clapton s guitar contribution has been described as making this a monumental track particularly notable features include the increasing lengths of thrice heard first scale degrees the restraint showed by rests in many bars then unexpected appearances as at commanding turnaround phrases expressive string bends marking modal changes from C to C power retransition emotive vibrato and a solo with a measured rise in intensity rhythmic activity tonal drive and registral climb Personnel edit George Harrison – double tracked vocal backing vocal acoustic guitar string guitar Hammond organ Paul McCartney – harmony vocal piano bass John Lennon – electric guitar with tremolo Ringo Starr – drums tambourine castanets Eric Clapton – lead guitar uncredited Personnel per Ian MacDonald Anthology version George Harrison vocals acoustic guitar Elvis Aaron Presley a January – August was an American singer and actor Regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the th century he is often referred to as the King of Rock and Roll or simply the King Presley was born in Tupelo Mississippi as a twinless twin and when he was years old he and his family relocated to Memphis Tennessee His music career began there in when he recorded a song with producer Sam Phillips at Sun Records Accompanied by guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black Presley was an early popularizer of rockabilly an uptempo backbeat driven fusion of country music and rhythm and blues RCA Victor acquired his contract in a deal arranged by Colonel Tom Parker who managed the singer for more than two decades Presley s first RCA single Heartbreak Hotel was released in January and became a number one hit in the United States He was regarded as the leading figure of rock and roll after a series of successful network television appearances and chart topping records His energized interpretations of songs and sexually provocative performance style combined with a singularly potent mix of influences across color lines that coincided with the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement made him enormously popular—and controversial In November he made his film debut in Love Me Tender In he was drafted into military service He resumed his recording career two years later producing some of his most commercially successful work before devoting much of the s to making Hollywood movies and their accompanying soundtrack albums most of which were critically derided In following a seven year break from live performances he returned to the stage in the acclaimed televised comeback special Elvis which led to an extended Las Vegas concert residency and a string of highly profitable tours In Presley was featured in the first globally broadcast concert via satellite Aloha from Hawaii Several years of prescription drug abuse severely damaged his health and he died in at the age of Presley is one of the most celebrated and influential musicians of the th century Commercially successful in many genres including pop blues and gospel he is the best selling solo artist in the history of recorded music with estimated record sales of around million units worldwide He won three Grammys also receiving the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age and has been inducted into multiple music halls of fame Contents Life and career Early years – Childhood in Tupelo Teenage life in Memphis First recordings – Sam Phillips and Sun Records Early live performances and signing with RCA Commercial breakout and controversy – First national TV appearances and debut album Milton Berle Show and Hound Dog Steve Allen Show and first Sullivan appearance Crazed crowds and movie debut Leiber and Stoller collaboration and draft notice Military service and mother s death – Focus on movies – Elvis Is Back Lost in Hollywood Comeback – Elvis the Comeback Special From Elvis In Memphis and the International Back on tour and meeting Nixon Marriage breakdown and Aloha from Hawaii Health deterioration and death – Medical crises and last studio sessions Final year and death Questions over cause of death Since Musical style Influences Genres Vocal style and range Racial issues Influence of Colonel Parker and others Parker and the Aberbachs Memphis Mafia Sex symbol Legacy Discography Number one albums Number one singles Filmography See also Notes References Footnotes Sources Further reading External links Life and careerEarly years – Childhood in Tupelo Presley s birthplace in Tupelo MississippiPresley was born on January in Tupelo Mississippi the son of Gladys Love née Smith April – August and Vernon Elvis Presley April – June in the two room shotgun house built by Vernon s father in preparation for the child s birth Jesse Garon Presley his identical twin brother was delivered stillborn minutes before him As an only child Presley became close to both parents and formed an especially close bond with his mother The family attended an Assembly of God church where he found his initial musical inspiration Presley s ancestry was primarily a Western European mix including Scots Irish Scottish German and some French Norman Gladys great great grandmother Morning Dove White was possibly a Cherokee Native American b Gladys was regarded by relatives and friends as the dominant member of the small family Vernon moved from one odd job to the next evidencing little ambition The family often relied on help from neighbors and government food assistance The Presleys survived the F tornado in the Tupelo Gainesville tornado outbreak In they lost their home after Vernon was found guilty of kiting a check written by the landowner Orville S Bean the dairy farmer and cattle and hog broker for whom he then worked He was jailed for eight months and Gladys and Elvis moved in with relatives In September Presley entered first grade at East Tupelo Consolidated where his instructors regarded him as average He was encouraged to enter a singing contest after impressing his schoolteacher with a rendition of Red Foley s country song Old Shep during morning prayers The contest held at the Mississippi Alabama Fair and Dairy Show on October was his first public performance dressed as a cowboy the ten year old Presley stood on a chair to reach the microphone and sang Old Shep He recalled placing fifth A few months later Presley received his first guitar for his birthday he had hoped for something else—by different accounts either a bicycle or a rifle Over the following year he received basic guitar lessons from two of his uncles and the new pastor at the family s church Presley recalled I took the guitar and I watched people and I learned to play a little bit But I would never sing in public I was very shy about it Entering a new school Milam for sixth grade in September Presley was regarded as a loner The following year he began bringing his guitar in on a daily basis He played and sang during lunchtime and was often teased as a trashy kid who played hillbilly music The family was by then living in a largely African American neighborhood A devotee of Mississippi Slim s show on the Tupelo radio station WELO Presley was described as crazy about music by Slim s younger brother a classmate of Presley s who often took him into the station Slim supplemented Presley s guitar tuition by demonstrating chord techniques When his protégé was years old Slim scheduled him for two on air performances Presley was overcome by stage fright the first time but succeeded in performing the following week Teenage life in MemphisIn November the family moved to Memphis Tennessee After residing for nearly a year in rooming houses they were granted a two bedroom apartment in the public housing complex known as the Lauderdale Courts Enrolled at L C Humes High School Presley received only a C in music in eighth grade When his music teacher told him he had no aptitude for singing he brought in his guitar the next day and sang a recent hit Keep Them Cold Icy Fingers Off Me in an effort to prove otherwise A classmate later recalled that the teacher agreed that Elvis was right when he said that she didn t appreciate his kind of singing He was usually too shy to perform openly and was occasionally bullied by classmates who viewed him as a mama s boy In he began practicing guitar regularly under the tutelage of Jesse Lee Denson a neighbor two and a half years his senior They and three other boys—including two future rockabilly pioneers brothers Dorsey and Johnny Burnette—formed a loose musical collective that played frequently around the Courts That September he began ushering at Loew s State Theater Other jobs followed including Precision Tool Loew s again and MARL Metal Products During his junior year Presley began to stand out more among his classmates largely because of his appearance he grew out his sideburns and styled his hair with rose oil and Vaseline On his own time he would head down to Beale Street the heart of Memphis s thriving blues scene and gaze longingly at the wild flashy clothes in the windows of Lansky Brothers By his senior year he was wearing them Overcoming his reticence about performing outside the Lauderdale Courts he competed in Humes s Annual Minstrel show in April Singing and playing guitar he opened with Till I Waltz Again with You a recent hit for Teresa Brewer Presley recalled that the performance did much for his reputation I wasn t popular in school I failed music—only thing I ever failed And then they entered me in this talent show when I came onstage I heard people kind of rumbling and whispering and so forth cause nobody knew I even sang It was amazing how popular I became after that Presley who never received formal music training or learned to read music studied and played by ear He also frequented record stores with jukeboxes and listening booths He knew all of Hank Snow s songs and he loved records by other country singers such as Roy Acuff Ernest Tubb Ted Daffan Jimmie Rodgers Jimmie Davis and Bob Wills The Southern Gospel singer Jake Hess one of his favorite performers was a significant influence on his ballad singing style He was a regular audience member at the monthly All Night Singings downtown where many of the white gospel groups that performed reflected the influence of African American spiritual music He adored the music of black gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe Like some of his peers he may have attended blues venues—of necessity in the segregated South on only the nights designated for exclusively white audiences He certainly listened to the regional radio stations such as WDIA AM that played race records spirituals blues and the modern backbeat heavy sound of rhythm and blues Many of his future recordings were inspired by local African American musicians such as Arthur Crudup and Rufus Thomas B B King recalled that he had known Presley before he was popular when they both used to frequent Beale Street By the time he graduated from high school in June Presley had already singled out music as his future First recordings – Sam Phillips and Sun RecordsSee also List of songs recorded by Elvis Presley on the Sun label Presley in a Sun Records promotional photograph In August Presley walked into the offices of Sun Records He aimed to pay for a few minutes of studio time to record a two sided acetate disc My Happiness and That s When Your Heartaches Begin He would later claim that he intended the record as a gift for his mother or that he was merely interested in what he sounded like although there was a much cheaper amateur record making service at a nearby general store Biographer Peter Guralnick argues that he chose Sun in the hope of being discovered Asked by receptionist Marion Keisker what kind of singer he was Presley responded I sing all kinds When she pressed him on who he sounded like he repeatedly answered I don t sound like nobody After he recorded Sun boss Sam Phillips asked Keisker to note down the young man s name which she did along with her own commentary Good ballad singer Hold In January Presley cut a second acetate at Sun Records— I ll Never Stand In Your Way and It Wouldn t Be the Same Without You —but again nothing came of it Not long after he failed an audition for a local vocal quartet the Songfellows He explained to his father They told me I couldn t sing Songfellow Jim Hamill later claimed that he was turned down because he did not demonstrate an ear for harmony at the time In April Presley began working for the Crown Electric company as a truck driver His friend Ronnie Smith after playing a few local gigs with him suggested he contact Eddie Bond leader of Smith s professional band which had an opening for a vocalist Bond rejected him after a tryout advising Presley to stick to truck driving because you re never going to make it as a singer Phillips meanwhile was always on the lookout for someone who could bring to a broader audience the sound of the black musicians on whom Sun focused As Keisker reported Over and over I remember Sam saying If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel I could make a billion dollars In June he acquired a demo recording of a ballad Without You that he thought might suit the teenage singer Presley came by the studio but was unable to do it justice Despite this Phillips asked Presley to sing as many numbers as he knew He was sufficiently affected by what he heard to invite two local musicians guitarist Winfield Scotty Moore and upright bass player Bill Black to work something up with Presley for a recording session That s All Right Sorry your browser either has JavaScript disabled or does not have any supported player You can download the clip or download a player to play the clip in your browser Presley transformed not only the sound but the emotion of the song turning what had been written as a lament for a lost love into a satisfied declaration of independence Problems playing this file See media help The session held the evening of July proved entirely unfruitful until late in the night As they were about to give up and go home Presley took his guitar and launched into a blues number Arthur Crudup s That s All Right Moore recalled All of a sudden Elvis just started singing this song jumping around and acting the fool and then Bill picked up his bass and he started acting the fool too and I started playing with them Sam I think had the door to the control booth open he stuck his head out and said What are you doing And we said We don t know Well back up he said try to find a place to start and do it again Phillips quickly began taping this was the sound he had been looking for Three days later popular Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips played That s All Right on his Red Hot and Blue show Listeners began phoning in eager to find out who the singer was The interest was such that Phillips played the record repeatedly during the last two hours of his show Interviewing Presley on air Phillips asked him what high school he attended in order to clarify his color for the many callers who had assumed he was black During the next few days the trio recorded a bluegrass number Bill Monroe s Blue Moon of Kentucky again in a distinctive style and employing a jury rigged echo effect that Sam Phillips dubbed slapback A single was pressed with That s All Right on the A side and Blue Moon of Kentucky on the reverse Early live performances and signing with RCAThe trio played publicly for the first time on July at the Bon Air club—Presley still sporting his child size guitar At the end of the month they appeared at the Overton Park Shell with Slim Whitman headlining A combination of his strong response to rhythm and nervousness at playing before a large crowd led Presley to shake his legs as he performed his wide cut pants emphasized his movements causing young women in the audience to start screaming Moore recalled During the instrumental parts he would back off from the mike and be playing and shaking and the crowd would just go wild Black a natural showman whooped and rode his bass hitting double licks that Presley would later remember as really a wild sound like a jungle drum or something Soon after Moore and Black quit their old band to play with Presley regularly and DJ and promoter Bob Neal became the trio s manager From August through October they played frequently at the Eagle s Nest club and returned to Sun Studio for more recording sessions and Presley quickly grew more confident on stage According to Moore His movement was a natural thing but he was also very conscious of what got a reaction He d do something one time and then he would expand on it real quick Presley made what would be his only appearance on Nashville s Grand Ole Opry on October after a polite audience response Opry manager Jim Denny told Phillips that his singer was not bad but did not suit the program Two weeks later Presley was booked on Louisiana Hayride the Opry s chief and more adventurous rival The Shreveport based show was broadcast to radio stations in states Presley had another attack of nerves during the first set which drew a muted reaction A more composed and energetic second set inspired an enthusiastic response House drummer D J Fontana brought a new element complementing Presley s movements with accented beats that he had mastered playing in strip clubs Soon after the show the Hayride engaged Presley for a year s worth of Saturday night appearances Trading in his old guitar for and seeing it promptly dispatched to the garbage he purchased a Martin instrument for and his trio began playing in new locales including Houston Texas and Texarkana Arkansas By early Presley s regular Hayride appearances constant touring and well received record releases had made him a regional star from Tennessee to West Texas In January Neal signed a formal management contract with Presley and brought the singer to the attention of Colonel Tom Parker whom he considered the best promoter in the music business Having successfully managed top country star Eddy Arnold Parker was now working with the new number one country singer Hank Snow Parker booked Presley on Snow s February tour When the tour reached Odessa Texas a year old Roy Orbison saw Presley for the first time His energy was incredible his instinct was just amazing I just didn t know what to make of it There was just no reference point in the culture to compare it Presley made his television debut on March on the KSLA TV broadcast of Louisiana Hayride Soon after he failed an audition for Arthur Godfrey s Talent Scouts on the CBS television network By August Sun had released ten sides credited to Elvis Presley Scotty and Bill on the latest recordings the trio were joined by a drummer Some of the songs like That s All Right were in what one Memphis journalist described as the R B idiom of negro field jazz others like Blue Moon of Kentucky were more in the country field but there was a curious blending of the two different musics in both This blend of styles made it difficult for Presley s music to find radio airplay According to Neal many country music disc jockeys would not play it because he sounded too much like a black artist and none of the rhythm and blues stations would touch him because he sounded too much like a hillbilly The blend came to be known as rockabilly At the time Presley was variously billed as The King of Western Bop The Hillbilly Cat and The Memphis Flash Presley renewed Neal s management contract in August simultaneously appointing Parker as his special adviser The group maintained an extensive touring schedule throughout the second half of the year Neal recalled It was almost frightening the reaction that came to Elvis from the teenaged boys So many of them through some sort of jealousy would practically hate him There were occasions in some towns in Texas when we d have to be sure to have a police guard because somebody d always try to take a crack at him They d get a gang and try to waylay him or something The trio became a quartet when Hayride drummer Fontana joined as a full member In mid October they played a few shows in support of Bill Haley whose Rock Around the Clock had been a number one hit the previous year Haley observed that Presley had a natural feel for rhythm and advised him to sing fewer ballads At the Country Disc Jockey Convention in early November Presley was voted the year s most promising male artist Several record companies had by now shown interest in signing him After three major labels made offers of up to Parker and Phillips struck a deal with RCA Victor on November to acquire Presley s Sun contract for an unprecedented c Presley at was still a minor so his father signed the contract Parker arranged with the owners of Hill and Range Publishing Jean and Julian Aberbach to create two entities Elvis Presley Music and Gladys Music to handle all the new material recorded by Presley Songwriters were obliged to forgo one third of their customary royalties in exchange for having him perform their compositions d By December RCA had begun to heavily promote its new singer and before month s end had reissued many of his Sun recordings Commercial breakout and controversy – First national TV appearances and debut album The iconic cover of Presley s debut album featuring a photo taken July in Tampa Florida On January Presley made his first recordings for RCA in Nashville Extending the singer s by now customary backup of Moore Black and Fontana RCA enlisted pianist Floyd Cramer guitarist Chet Atkins and three background singers including first tenor Gordon Stoker of the popular Jordanaires quartet to fill out the sound The session produced the moody unusual Heartbreak Hotel released as a single on January Parker finally brought Presley to national television booking him on CBS s Stage Show for six appearances over two months The program produced in New York was hosted on alternate weeks by big band leaders and brothers Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey After his first appearance on January introduced by disc jockey Bill Randle Presley stayed in town to record at RCA s New York studio The sessions yielded eight songs including a cover of Carl Perkins rockabilly anthem Blue Suede Shoes In February Presley s I Forgot to Remember to Forget a Sun recording initially released the previous August reached the top of the Billboard country chart Neal s contract was terminated and on March Parker became Presley s manager Blue Suede Shoes Sorry your browser either has JavaScript disabled or does not have any supported player You can download the clip or download a player to play the clip in your browser Presley exhorts guitarist Scotty Moore during his break Let s go cat was in the Perkins original Aw walk the dog is all Elvis Problems playing this file See media help RCA Victor released Presley s self titled debut album on March Joined by five previously unreleased Sun recordings its seven recently recorded tracks were of a broad variety There were two country songs and a bouncy pop tune The others would centrally define the evolving sound of rock and roll Blue Suede Shoes — an improvement over Perkins in almost every way according to critic Robert Hilburn—and three R B numbers that had been part of Presley s stage repertoire for some time covers of Little Richard Ray Charles and The Drifters As described by Hilburn these were the most revealing of all Unlike many white artists who watered down the gritty edges of the original R B versions of songs in the s Presley reshaped them He not only injected the tunes with his own vocal character but also made guitar not piano the lead instrument in all three cases It became the first rock and roll album to top the Billboard chart a position it held for weeks While Presley was not an innovative guitarist like Moore or contemporary African American rockers Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry cultural historian Gilbert B Rodman argues that the album s cover image of Elvis having the time of his life on stage with a guitar in his hands played a crucial role in positioning the guitar as the instrument that best captured the style and spirit of this new music Milton Berle Show and Hound Dog Presley made the first of two appearances on NBC s Milton Berle Show on April His performance on the deck of the USS Hancock in San Diego prompted cheers and screams from an audience of sailors and their dates A few days later a flight taking Presley and his band to Nashville for a recording session left all three badly shaken when an engine died and the plane almost went down over Arkansas Twelve weeks after its original release Heartbreak Hotel became Presley s first number one pop hit In late April Presley began a two week residency at the New Frontier Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip The shows were poorly received by the conservative middle aged hotel guests — like a jug of corn liquor at a champagne party wrote a critic for Newsweek Amid his Vegas tenure Presley who had serious acting ambitions signed a seven year contract with Paramount Pictures He began a tour of the Midwest in mid May taking in cities in as many days He had attended several shows by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys in Vegas and was struck by their cover of Hound Dog a hit in for blues singer Big Mama Thornton by songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller It became the new closing number of his act After a show in La Crosse Wisconsin an urgent message on the letterhead of the local Catholic diocese s newspaper was sent to FBI director J Edgar Hoover It warned that Presley is a definite danger to the security of the United States His actions and motions were such as to rouse the sexual passions of teenaged youth After the show more than teenagers tried to gang into Presley s room at the auditorium Indications of the harm Presley did just in La Crosse were the two high school girls whose abdomen and thigh had Presley s autograph The second Milton Berle Show appearance came on June at NBC s Hollywood studio amid another hectic tour Berle persuaded the singer to leave his guitar backstage advising Let em see you son During the performance Presley abruptly halted an uptempo rendition of Hound Dog with a wave of his arm and launched into a slow grinding version accentuated with energetic exaggerated body movements Presley s gyrations created a storm of controversy Newspaper critics were outraged Jack Gould of The New York Times wrote Mr Presley has no discernible singing ability His phrasing if it can be called that consists of the stereotyped variations that go with a beginner s aria in a bathtub His one specialty is an accented movement of the body primarily identified with the repertoire of the blond bombshells of the burlesque runway Ben Gross of the New York Daily News opined that popular music has reached its lowest depths in the grunt and groin antics of one Elvis Presley Elvis who rotates his pelvis gave an exhibition that was suggestive and vulgar tinged with the kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos Ed Sullivan whose own variety show was the nation s most popular declared him unfit for family viewing To Presley s displeasure he soon found himself being referred to as Elvis the Pelvis which he called one of the most childish expressions I ever heard comin from an adult Steve Allen Show and first Sullivan appearanceThe Berle shows drew such high ratings that Presley was booked for a July appearance on NBC s Steve Allen Show in New York Allen no fan of rock and roll introduced a new Elvis in a white bow tie and black tails Presley sang Hound Dog for less than a minute to a basset hound wearing a top hat and bow tie As described by television historian Jake Austen Allen thought Presley was talentless and absurd he set things up so that Presley would show his contrition Allen for his part later wrote that he found Presley s strange gangly country boy charisma his hard to define cuteness and his charming eccentricity intriguing and simply worked the singer into the customary comedy fabric of his program Just before the final rehearsal for the show Presley told a reporter I m holding down on this show I don t want to do anything to make people dislike me I think TV is important so I m going to go along but I won t be able to give the kind of show I do in a personal appearance Presley would refer back to the Allen show as the most ridiculous performance of his career Later that night he appeared on Hy Gardner Calling a popular local TV show Pressed on whether he had learned anything from the criticism to which he was being subjected Presley responded No I haven t I don t feel like I m doing anything wrong I don t see how any type of music would have any bad influence on people when it s only music I mean how would rock n roll music make anyone rebel against their parents The next day Presley recorded Hound Dog along with Any Way You Want Me and Don t Be Cruel The Jordanaires sang harmony as they had on The Steve Allen Show they would work with Presley through the s A few days later the singer made an outdoor concert appearance in Memphis at which he announced You know those people in New York are not gonna change me none I m gonna show you what the real Elvis is like tonight In August a judge in Jacksonville Florida ordered Presley to tame his act Throughout the following performance he largely kept still except for wiggling his little finger suggestively in mockery of the order The single pairing Don t Be Cruel with Hound Dog ruled the top of the charts for weeks—a mark that would not be surpassed for years Recording sessions for Presley s second album took place in Hollywood during the first week of September Leiber and Stoller the writers of Hound Dog contributed Love Me Allen s show with Presley had for the first time beaten CBS s Ed Sullivan Show in the ratings Sullivan despite his June pronouncement booked the singer for three appearances for an unprecedented The first on September was seen by approximately million viewers—a record percent of the television audience Actor Charles Laughton hosted the show filling in while Sullivan recuperated from a car accident Presley appeared in two segments that night from CBS Television City in Los Angeles According to Elvis legend Presley was shot from only the waist up Watching clips of the Allen and Berle shows with his producer Sullivan had opined that Presley got some kind of device hanging down below the crotch of his pants–so when he moves his legs back and forth you can see the outline of his cock I think it s a Coke bottle We just can t have this on a Sunday night This is a family show Sullivan publicly told TV Guide As for his gyrations the whole thing can be controlled with camera shots In fact Presley was shown head to toe in the first and second shows Though the camerawork was relatively discreet during his debut with leg concealing closeups when he danced the studio audience reacted in customary style screaming Presley s performance of his forthcoming single the ballad Love Me Tender prompted a record shattering million advance orders More than any other single event it was this first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show that made Presley a national celebrity of barely precedented proportions Accompanying Presley s rise to fame a cultural shift was taking place that he both helped inspire and came to symbolize Igniting the biggest pop craze since Glenn Miller and Frank Sinatra Presley brought rock n roll into the mainstream of popular culture writes historian Marty Jezer As Presley set the artistic pace other artists followed Presley more than anyone else gave the young a belief in themselves as a distinct and somehow unified generation—the first in America ever to feel the power of an integrated youth culture Crazed crowds and movie debut We re gonna do a sad song Sorry your browser either has JavaScript disabled or does not have any supported player You can download the clip or download a player to play the clip in your browser Presley s definition of rock and roll included a sense of humor—here during his second Sullivan appearance he introduces one of his signature numbers Problems playing this file See media help The audience response at Presley s live shows became increasingly fevered Moore recalled He d start out You ain t nothin but a Hound Dog and they d just go to pieces They d always react the same way There d be a riot every time At the two concerts he performed in September at the Mississippi Alabama Fair and Dairy Show National Guardsmen were added to the police security to prevent crowd trouble Elvis Presley s second album was released in October and quickly rose to number one Assessing the musical and cultural impact of Presley s recordings from That s All Right through Elvis rock critic Dave Marsh wrote that these records more than any


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christine-black christine-chavert christine-neona christine-rigoler christy-canyon cicciolina cindi-stephens cindy-carver cindy-crawford cindy-more cindy-shepard cindy-wong cinthya-marinho clair-dia claire-robbins claude-janna claudia-jackson claudia-jamsson claudia-mehringer claudia-nero claudia-van-statt claudia-zante claudine-beccarie clea-carson cleo-nichole cleo-patra cody-lane cody-love cody-nicole coffee-brown colleen-brennan connie-bennett connie-peterson constance-money copper-penny coreena corey-everson corinne-lemoine corneliah cory-everson cory-wolf courtney courtney-cummz courtney-james cris-cassidy crissy-moran cris-taliana crystal-breeze crystal-dawn crystal-holland crystal-knight crystal-lake crystal-lovin crystal-sync csilla-kalnay cuban-bee cynara-fox cyndee-summers cynthia-black cynthia-brooks cynthia-hammers cynthia-lavigne dagmar-lost daisy-layne dallas-miko dana-dylan dana-lynn danica-rhea daniela-nanou daniela-schiffer daniele-troeger daniella daniella-schiffer danielle danielle-foxxx danielle-rodgers danny-ricci danyel-cheeks daphne daphne-rosen darby-lloyd-rains darla-crane darla-delovely davia-ardell dayton-rain debbie-northrup debbie-revenge debbie-van-gils debi-diamond debi-jointed debra-lynn deidra-hopkins deidre-holland delania-raffino delia-moore delphine-thail delta-force delta-white demi-moor denice-klarskov denise-derringer denise-dior denise-sloan desiree-cousteau desiree-foxx desiree-lane desiree-west deva-station devin-devasquez devinn-lane devon-shire dia diana-holt diana-kisabonyi diana-siefert diana-stevenson diane-dubois diane-richards diane-sloan diane-suresne dido-angel dillan-lauren dina-deville dina-jewel dina-pearl ditty-blue diva divinity-love djiana dolly-darkley dominique dominique-dewitt dominique-saint-claire donna-hart donna-marie dorle-buchner dorothy-lemay dorothy-onan drea drimla dru-berrymore dusty-rose dyanna-lauren ebony-ayes edina-blond edita-ungerova edwige-faillel eileen-wells elaine-southern elena-berkova elena-maria-ricci eleonore-melzer elisabeth-bure elis-black elise elise-di-medici elle-devyne elle-rio elodie-delage elsa-maroussia elza-brown emili-doll emily-evermoore emily-george emily-jewel emmanuelle-pareze envy-mi erica-boyer erica-eaton erica-havens erica-idol erica-lauren erika-bella erika-cool erika-heaven erika-lockett esme-monroe eva-allen eva-angel eva-dionisio eva-gross eva-kleber eva-lux eva-uettori eve-laurence evelyne-lang evie-delatosso fabiana-venturi faith-stevens fallon fanny-garreau fanny-steel faye-runaway flame flick-shagwell flore-soller flower france-lomay france-quenie francoise frankie-leigh gabriella gabriella-mirelba gabriella-vincze gail-force gail-palmer gail-sterling georgette-saunders georgia-peach georgina-spelvin gia-givanna gianna-lynn gili-sky gina-carrera gina-gianetti gina-janssen gina-lee gina-martell gina-valentino ginger-jay ginger-lee ginger-lynn ginny-noack giovanna gisela-schwarz giselle-monet gladys-laroche gloria-leonard gloria-todd golden-jade greta-carlson greta-milos guia-lauri-filzi gwenda-farnel hare-krane harley-raine hayley-jade hazel-young heather-deeley heather-ellis heather-hart heather-lere heather-lyn heather-manfield heather-thomas heather-torrance heather-wayne heather-young helen-madigan helen-thomas helga-sven helga-wild hillary-summers holly-hollywood holly-joy holly-page holly-ryder honey-winter hottie-hollie hyapatia-lee ida-fabry ildiko-smits illana-moor ines-ridere ingrid-choray isabella-dior isabella-soprano isabelle-allay isabelle-brell isabelle-marchall isobel-wren iveta ivette-blanche jackie-right jacqueline-lorians jacy-allen jada-stevens jade-east jade-hsu jade-marcela jade-summers jade-wong jahn-gold jamie-brooks jamie-james jamie-summers jana-irrova jana-mrazkova jane-baker jane-darling jane-iwanoff jane-lindsay jane-lixx janet-jacme janey-robbins jasmine-delatori jayden-simone jaylyn-rose jayna-woods jazella-moore jazmin-luna-gold jean-afrique jeanette-littledove jeanie-marie-sullivan jean-jennings jeanna-fine jeannie-pepper jenna-jameson jenna-jane jenna-presley jenna-wells jennifer-haussmann jennifer-janes jennifer-jordan jennifer-morante jennifer-noxt jennifer-stewart jennifer-welles jennifer-west jenny jenny-feeling jenny-fields jenny-wings jersey-jaxin jesie-st-james jesse-capelli jessica-bangkok jessica-bogart jessica-darlin jessica-fiorentino jessica-gabriel jessica-laine jessica-may jessica-road jessica-wylde jessi-foster jill-ferari jill-kelly joana-redgrave joan-devlon joanna-storm joanna-sweet jody-maxwell joelle-lequement joelle-petinot johnni-black jordana-james jordan-green jordan-nevaeh jordan-star josephine-carrington joslyn-james julia-chanel julia-dal-fuoco juliana-grandi julia-paes julia-parton julia-perrin julia-swen julia-thomas julie-meadows julie-rage julie-simone juliet-anderson juliet-graham juliette-carelton kacey-jordan kagney-linn-karter kaitlyn-ashley kalena-rios kami-andrews kamila-smith kandee-licks kandi-barbour kapri-styles kara-nox karen-summer kari-foxx karine-gambier karin-schubert karli-sweet karmen-kennedy karol-castro kascha kassi-nova kat kate-frost kate-jones kathia-nobili kathleen-gentry kathleen-white kathy-divan kathy-harcourt kathy-heart kathy-kash katie-cummings katja-love kat-langer katrina-isis katrina-kraven katy-borman katy-caro kaycee-dean kayla-kupcakes kay-parker k-c-valentine keama-kim keira-moon keisha keli-richards kelli-tyler kelly-adams kelly-blue kelly-broox kelly-hearn kelly-kay kelly-kline kelly-nichols kelly-royce kelly-skyline kendra-kay kenzi-marie keri-windsor ketthy-divan kianna-dior kiley-heart kim-alexis kimber-blake kimberly-carson kimberly-kane kimberly-kyle kim-de-place kim-holland kimi-gee kimkim-de kim-kitaine kimmie-lee kimmy-nipples kina-kara kira-eggers kira-red kirsty-waay kitty-langdon kitty-lynxxx kitty-marie kitty-shayne kitty-yung kora-cummings kris-lara krista-lane krista-maze kristara-barrington kristarah-knight kristi-klenot kristina-blonde kristina-king kristina-klevits kristina-soderszk kristine-heller kristin-steen krisztina-ventura krystal-de-boor krystal-steal kylee-karr kylee-nash kylie-brooks kylie-channel kylie-haze kylie-wylde kym-wilde kyoto-sun lachelle-marie lacy-rose lady-amanda-wyldefyre lady-stephanie laetitia-bisset lana-burner lana-cox lana-wood lara-amour lara-roxx lara-stevens lataya-roxx latoya laura-clair laura-lazare laura-lion laura-may laura-orsolya laura-paouck laura-zanzibar lauren-black laurence-boutin lauren-montgomery laurien-dominique laurien-wilde laurie-smith lauryl-canyon lauryn-may leah-wilde lea-magic lea-martini leanna-foxxx lee-caroll leigh-livingston leilani lenora-bruce leslie-winston lesllie-bovee letizia-bruni lexi-lane lexi-matthews lezley-zen lia-fire liliane-gray liliane-lemieuvre lili-marlene lily-gilder lily-labeau lily-rodgers lily-valentine linda-shaw linda-vale linda-wong linnea-quigley lisa-bright lisa-de-leeuw lisa-k-loring lisa-lake lisa-melendez lisa-sue-corey 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moxxie-maddron mulani-rivera mysti-may nadege-arnaud nadia-styles nadine-bronx nadine-proutnal nadine-roussial nadi-phuket nanci-suiter nancy-hoffman nancy-vee natacha-delyro natalia-wood natalli-diangelo natascha-throat natasha-skyler naudia-nyce nessa-devil nessy-grant nesty nicki-hunter nicky-reed nicole-berg nicole-bernard nicole-black nicole-grey nicole-london nicole-parks nicole-scott nicole-taylor nicolette-fauludi nicole-west nika-blond nika-mamic niki-cole nikita-love nikita-rush nikki-charm nikki-grand nikki-king nikki-knight nikki-randall nikki-rhodes nikki-santana nikki-steele nikki-wilde niko nina-cherry nina-deponca nina-hartley nina-preta oana-efria obaya-roberts olesja-derevko olga-cabaeva olga-conti olga-pechova olga-petrova olivia-alize olivia-del-rio olivia-flores olivia-la-roche olivia-outre ophelia-tozzi orchidea-keresztes orsolya-blonde paige-turner paisley-hunter pamela-bocchi pamela-jennings pamela-mann pamela-stanford pamela-stealt pandora paola-albini pascale-vital pat-manning pat-rhea patricia-dale patricia-diamond patricia-kennedy patricia-rhomberg patrizia-predan patti-cakes patti-petite paula-brasile paula-harlow paula-morton paula-price paula-winters pauline-teutscher penelope-pumpkins penelope-valentin petra-hermanova petra-lamas peyton-lafferty phaedra-grant pia-snow piper-fawn pipi-anderson porsche-lynn porsha-carrera precious-silver priscillia-lenn purple-passion queeny-love rachel-ashley rachel-love rachel-luv rachel-roxxx rachel-ryan rachel-ryder racquel-darrian rane-revere raven reagan-maddux rebecca-bardoux regan-anthony regine-bardot regula-mertens reina-leone reka-gabor renae-cruz renee-foxx renee-lovins renee-morgan renee-perez renee-summers renee-tiffany rhonda-jo-petty rikki-blake riley-ray rio-mariah rita-ricardo roberta-gemma roberta-pedon robin-byrd robin-cannes robin-everett robin-sane rochell-starr rosa-lee-kimball rosemarie roxanne-blaze roxanne-hall roxanne-rollan ruby-richards sabina-k sabre sabrina-chimaera sabrina-dawn sabrina-jade sabrina-johnson sabrina-love-cox sabrina-mastrolorenzi sabrina-rose sabrina-scott sabrina-summers sacha-davril sahara sahara-sands sai-tai-tiger samantha-fox samantha-ryan samantha-sterlyng samantha-strong samueline-de-la-rosa sandra-cardinale sandra-de-marco sandra-kalermen sandra-russo sandy-lee sandy-pinney sandy-reed sandy-samuel sandy-style sandy-summers sara-brandy-canyon sara-faye sarah-bernard sarah-cabrera sarah-hevyn sarah-mills sarah-shine sara-sloane sasha sasha-hollander sasha-ligaya sasha-rose satine-phoenix satin-summer savannah-stern savanna-jane scarlet-scarleau scarlet-windsor seka selena serena serena-south severine-amoux shana-evans shanna-mccullough shannon-kelly shannon-rush shantell-day sharon-da-vale sharon-kane sharon-mitchell shaun-michelle shawna-sexton shawnee-cates shay-hendrix shayne-ryder sheena-horne sheer-delight shelby-star shelby-stevens shelly-berlin shelly-lyons sheri-st-clair sheyla-cats shonna-lynn shyla-foxxx shy-love sierra-sinn sierra-skye sigrun-theil silver-starr silvia-bella silvia-saint silvie-de-lux silvy-taylor simone-west sindee-coxx sindy-lange sindy-shy siobhan-hunter skylar-knight skylar-price skyler-dupree smokie-flame smoking-mary-jane solange-shannon sonya-summers sophia-santi sophie-call sophie-duflot sophie-evans sophie-guers stacey-donovan stacy-lords stacy-moran stacy-nichols stacy-silver stacy-thorn starla-fox starr-wood stefania-bruni stella-virgin stephanie-duvalle stephanie-rage stephanie-renee stevie-taylor summer-knight summer-rose sunny-day sunset-thomas sunshine-seiber susan-hart susanne-brend susan-nero susi-hotkiss suzanne-mcbain suzan-nielsen suzie-bartlett suzie-carina suzi-sparks sweet-nice sweety-pie sybille-rossani sylvia-benedict sylvia-bourdon sylvia-brand sylvia-engelmann syreeta-taylor syren-de-mer syvette szabina-black szilvia-lauren tai-ellis taija-rae taisa-banx talia-james tamara-lee tamara-longley tamara-n-joy tamara-west tami-white tammy tammy-lee tammy-reynolds tania-lorenzo tantala-ray tanya-danielle tanya-fox tanya-foxx tanya-lawson tanya-valis tara-aire tasha-voux tatjana-belousova tatjana-skomorokhova tawnee-lee tawny-pearl tayla-rox taylor-wane teddi-austin teddi-barrett tera-bond tera-heart tera-joy teresa-may teresa-orlowski teri-diver teri-weigel terri-dolan terri-hall tess-ferre tess-newheart thais-vieira tia-cherry tianna tiara tiffany-blake tiffany-clark tiffany-duponte tiffany-rayne tiffany-rousso tiffany-storm tiffany-towers tiffany-tyler tiger-lily tigr timea-vagvoelgyi tina-blair tina-burner tina-evil tina-gabriel tina-loren tina-marie tina-russell tish-ambrose tommi-rose tonisha-mills topsy-curvey tori-secrets tori-sinclair tori-welles tracey-adams traci-lords traci-topps traci-winn tracy-duzit tracy-love tracy-williams tricia-devereaux tricia-yen trinity-loren trisha-rey trista-post trixie-tyler ultramax ursula-gaussmann ursula-moore uschi-karnat valentina valerie-leveau valery-hilton vanessa-chase vanessa-del-rio vanessa-michaels vanessa-ozdanic vanilla-deville velvet-summers veri-knotty veronica-dol veronica-hart veronica-hill veronica-rayne veronica-sage veronika-vanoza via-paxton vicky-lindsay vicky-vicci victoria-evans victoria-gold victoria-knight victoria-luna victoria-paris victoria-slick victoria-zdrok viper virginie-caprice vivian-valentine vivien-martines wendi-white wendy-divine whitney-banks whitney-fears whitney-wonders wonder-tracey wow-nikki xanthia-berstein yasmine-fitzgerald yelena-shieffer yvonne-green zara-whites zsanett-egerhazi zuzie-boobies

others contain the seeds of what rock roll was has been and most likely what it may foreseeably become Presley returned to the Sullivan show at its main studio in New York hosted this time by its namesake on October After the performance crowds in Nashville and St Louis burned him in effigy His first motion picture Love Me Tender was released on November Though he was not top billed the film s original title—The Reno Brothers—was changed to capitalize on his latest number one record Love Me Tender had hit the top of the charts earlier that month To further take advantage of Presley s popularity four musical numbers were added to what was originally a straight acting role The movie was panned by the critics but did very well at the box office On December Presley dropped into Sun Records where Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis were recording and jammed with them Though Phillips no longer had the right to release any Presley material he made sure the session was captured on tape The results became legendary as the Million Dollar Quartet recordings—Johnny Cash was long thought to have played as well but he was present only briefly at Phillips instigation for a photo opportunity The year ended with a front page story in The Wall Street Journal reporting that Presley merchandise had brought in million on top of his record sales and Billboard s declaration that he had placed more songs in the top than any other artist since records were first charted In his first full year at RCA one of the music industry s largest companies Presley had accounted for over percent of the label s singles sales Leiber and Stoller collaboration and draft noticePresley made his third and final Ed Sullivan Show appearance on January —on this occasion indeed shot only down to the waist Some commentators have claimed that Parker orchestrated an appearance of censorship to generate publicity In any event as critic Greil Marcus describes Presley did not tie himself down Leaving behind the bland clothes he had worn on the first two shows he stepped out in the outlandish costume of a pasha if not a harem girl From the make up over his eyes the hair falling in his face the overwhelmingly sexual cast of his mouth he was playing Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik with all stops out To close displaying his range and defying Sullivan s wishes Presley sang a gentle black spiritual Peace in the Valley At the end of the show Sullivan declared Presley a real decent fine boy Two days later the Memphis draft board announced that Presley would be classified A and would probably be drafted sometime that year Presley and costar Judy Tyler in the trailer for Jailhouse Rock released October Each of the three Presley singles released in the first half of went to number one Too Much All Shook Up and Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear Already an international star he was attracting fans even where his music was not officially released Under the headline Presley Records a Craze in Soviet The New York Times reported that pressings of his music on discarded X ray plates were commanding high prices in Leningrad Between film shoots and recording sessions the singer also found time to purchase an room mansion eight miles km south of downtown Memphis for himself and his parents Graceland Loving You—the soundtrack to his second film released in July—was Presley s third straight number one album The title track was written by Leiber and Stoller who were then retained to write four of the six songs recorded at the sessions for Jailhouse Rock Presley s next movie The songwriting team effectively produced the Jailhouse sessions and developed a close working relationship with Presley who came to regard them as his good luck charm Presley undertook three brief tours during the year continuing to generate a crazed audience response A Detroit newspaper suggested that the trouble with going to see Elvis Presley is that you re liable to get killed Villanova students pelted him with eggs in Philadelphia and in Vancouver the crowd rioted after the end of the show destroying the stage Frank Sinatra who had famously inspired the swooning of teenaged girls in the s condemned the new musical phenomenon In a magazine article he decried rock and roll as brutal ugly degenerate vicious It fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people It smells phoney and false It is sung played and written for the most part by cretinous goons This rancid smelling aphrodisiac I deplore Asked for a response Presley said I admire the man He has a right to say what he wants to say He is a great success and a fine actor but I think he shouldn t have said it This is a trend just the same as he faced when he started years ago Leiber and Stoller were again in the studio for the recording of Elvis Christmas Album Toward the end of the session they wrote a song on the spot at Presley s request Santa Claus Is Back In Town an innuendo laden blues The holiday release stretched Presley s string of number one albums to four and would eventually become the best selling Christmas album of all time After the session Moore and Black—drawing only modest weekly salaries sharing in none of Presley s massive financial success—resigned Though they were brought back on a per diem basis a few weeks later it was clear that they had not been part of Presley s inner circle for some time On December Presley received his draft notice He was granted a deferment to finish the forthcoming King Creole in which had already been invested by Paramount and producer Hal Wallis A couple of weeks into the new year Don t another Leiber and Stoller tune became Presley s tenth number one seller It had been only months since Heartbreak Hotel had brought him to the top for the first time Recording sessions for the King Creole soundtrack were held in Hollywood mid January Leiber and Stoller provided three songs and were again on hand but it would be the last time they worked closely with Presley A studio session on February marked another ending it was the final occasion on which Black was to perform with Presley He died in Military service and mother s death – See also Elvis Presley s Army career Elvis with his parents upon Army induction March On March Presley was inducted into the U S Army as a private at Fort Chaffee near Fort Smith Arkansas His arrival was a major media event Hundreds of people descended on Presley as he stepped from the bus photographers then accompanied him into the fort Presley announced that he was looking forward to his military stint saying he did not want to be treated any differently from anyone else The Army can do anything it wants with me Soon after Presley commenced basic training at Fort Hood Texas he received a visit from Eddie Fadal a businessman he had met on tour According to Fadal Presley had become convinced his career was finished— He firmly believed that But then during a two week leave in early June Presley recorded five songs in Nashville In early August his mother was diagnosed with hepatitis and her condition rapidly worsened Presley granted emergency leave to visit her arrived in Memphis on August Two days later she died of heart failure aged Presley was devastated their relationship had remained extremely close—even into his adulthood they would use baby talk with each other and Presley would address her with pet names After training Presley joined the rd Armored Division in Friedberg Germany on October Introduced to amphetamines by a sergeant while on maneuvers he became practically evangelical about their benefits —not only for energy but for strength and weight loss as well—and many of his friends in the outfit joined him in indulging The Army also introduced Presley to karate which he studied seriously later including it in his live performances Fellow soldiers have attested to Presley s wish to be seen as an able ordinary soldier despite his fame and to his generosity He donated his Army pay to charity purchased TV sets for the base and bought an extra set of fatigues for everyone in his outfit Presley with Queen Ratna and King Mahendra of Nepal Los Angeles During his time in Friedberg Elvis lived in nearby Bad Nauheim which since has held an annual Elvis festival While in Friedberg Presley met year old Priscilla Beaulieu They would eventually marry after a seven and a half year courtship In her autobiography Priscilla says that despite his worries that it would ruin his career Parker convinced Presley that to gain popular respect he should serve his country as a regular soldier rather than in Special Services where he would have been able to give some musical performances and remain in touch with the public Media reports echoed Presley s concerns about his career but RCA producer Steve Sholes and Freddy Bienstock of Hill and Range had carefully prepared for his two year hiatus Armed with a substantial amount of unreleased material they kept up a regular stream of successful releases Between his induction and discharge Presley had ten top hits including Wear My Ring Around Your Neck the best selling Hard Headed Woman and One Night in and Now and Then There s A Fool Such as I and the number one A Big Hunk o Love in RCA also generated four albums compiling old material during this period most successfully Elvis Golden Records which hit number three on the LP chart Focus on movies – See also Elvis Presley filmography Elvis Is Back It s Now or Never Sorry your browser either has JavaScript disabled or does not have any supported player You can download the clip or download a player to play the clip in your browser Presley broke new stylistic ground and displayed his vocal range with this number one hit The quasi operatic ballad ends with Presley soaring up to an incredible top G sharp Problems playing this file See media help Presley returned to the United States on March and was honorably discharged with the rank of sergeant on March The train that carried him from New Jersey to Tennessee was mobbed all the way and Presley was called upon to appear at scheduled stops to please his fans On the night of March he entered RCA s Nashville studio to cut tracks for a new album along with a single Stuck on You which was rushed into release and swiftly became a number one hit Another Nashville session two weeks later yielded a pair of his best selling singles the ballads It s Now or Never and Are You Lonesome Tonight along with the rest of Elvis Is Back The album features several songs described by Greil Marcus as full of Chicago blues menace driven by Presley s own super miked acoustic guitar brilliant playing by Scotty Moore and demonic sax work from Boots Randolph Elvis s singing wasn t sexy it was pornographic As a whole the record conjured up the vision of a performer who could be all things in the words of music historian John Robertson a flirtatious teenage idol with a heart of gold a tempestuous dangerous lover a gutbucket blues singer a sophisticated nightclub entertainer a raucous rocker Presley returned to television on May as a guest on The Frank Sinatra Timex Special—ironic for both stars given Sinatra s not so distant excoriation of rock and roll Also known as Welcome Home Elvis the show had been taped in late March the only time all year Presley performed in front of an audience Parker secured an unheard of fee for eight minutes of singing The broadcast drew an enormous viewership G I Blues the soundtrack to Presley s first film since his return was a number one album in October His first LP of sacred material His Hand in Mine followed two months later It reached number on the U S pop chart and number in Great Britain remarkable figures for a gospel album In February Presley performed two shows for a benefit event in Memphis on behalf of local charities During a luncheon preceding the event RCA presented him with a plaque certifying worldwide sales of over million records A hour Nashville session in mid March yielded nearly all of Presley s next studio album Something for Everybody As described by John Robertson it exemplifies the Nashville sound the restrained cosmopolitan style that would define country music in the s Presaging much of what was to come from Presley himself over the next half decade the album is largely a pleasant unthreatening pastiche of the music that had once been Elvis s birthright It would be his sixth number one LP Another benefit concert raising money for a Pearl Harbor memorial was staged on March in Hawaii It was to be Presley s last public performance for seven years Lost in HollywoodParker had by now pushed Presley into a heavy moviemaking schedule focused on formulaic modestly budgeted musical comedies Presley at first insisted on pursuing more serious roles but when two films in a more dramatic vein—Flaming Star and Wild in the Country —were less commercially successful he reverted to the formula Among the movies he made during the s there were few further exceptions His films were almost universally panned one critic dismissed them as a pantheon of bad taste Nonetheless they were virtually all profitable Hal Wallis who produced nine of them declared A Presley picture is the only sure thing in Hollywood Of Presley s films in the s were accompanied by soundtrack albums and another by soundtrack EPs The movies rapid production and release schedules—he frequently starred in three a year—affected his music According to Jerry Leiber the soundtrack formula was already evident before Presley left for the Army three ballads one medium tempo number one up tempo and one break blues boogie As the decade wore on the quality of the soundtrack songs grew progressively worse Julie Parrish who appeared in Paradise Hawaiian Style says that he hated many of the songs chosen for his films The Jordanaires Gordon Stoker describes how Presley would retreat from the studio microphone The material was so bad that he felt like he couldn t sing it Most of the movie albums featured a song or two from respected writers such as the team of Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman But by and large according to biographer Jerry Hopkins the numbers seemed to be written on order by men who never really understood Elvis or rock and roll Regardless of the songs quality it has been argued that Presley generally sang them well with commitment Critic Dave Marsh heard the opposite Presley isn t trying probably the wisest course in the face of material like No Room to Rumba in a Sports Car and Rock a Hula Baby In the first half of the decade three of Presley s soundtrack albums hit number one on the pop charts and a few of his most popular songs came from his films such as Can t Help Falling in Love and Return to Sender Viva Las Vegas the title track to the film was a minor hit as a B side and became truly popular only later But as with artistic merit the commercial returns steadily diminished During a five year span— through —Presley had only one top ten hit Crying in the Chapel a gospel number recorded back in As for non movie albums between the June release of Pot Luck and the November release of the soundtrack to the television special that signaled his comeback only one LP of new material by Presley was issued the gospel album How Great Thou Art It won him his first Grammy Award for Best Sacred Performance As Marsh described Presley was arguably the greatest white gospel singer of his time and really the last rock roll artist to make gospel as vital a component of his musical personality as his secular songs Shortly before Christmas more than seven years since they first met Presley proposed to Priscilla Beaulieu They were married on May in a brief ceremony in their suite at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas The flow of formulaic movies and assembly line soundtracks rolled on It was not until October when the Clambake soundtrack LP registered record low sales for a new Presley album that RCA executives recognized a problem By then of course the damage had been done as historians Connie Kirchberg and Marc Hendrickx put it Elvis was viewed as a joke by serious music lovers and a has been to all but his most loyal fans Comeback – Elvis the Comeback SpecialMain article Elvis TV program The Comeback Special produced one of the most famous images of Presley Taken on June it was adapted for the cover of Rolling Stone in July Presley s only child Lisa Marie was born on February during a period when he had grown deeply unhappy with his career Of the eight Presley singles released between January and May only two charted in the top and none higher than number His forthcoming soundtrack album Speedway would die at number on the Billboard chart Parker had already shifted his plans to television where Presley had not appeared since the Sinatra Timex show in He maneuvered a deal with NBC that committed the network to both finance a theatrical feature and broadcast a Christmas special Recorded in late June in Burbank California the special called simply Elvis aired on December Later known as the Comeback Special the show featured lavishly staged studio productions as well as songs performed with a band in front of a small audience—Presley s first live performances since The live segments saw Presley clad in tight black leather singing and playing guitar in an uninhibited style reminiscent of his early rock and roll days Bill Belew who designed this outfit gave it a Napoleonic standing collar Presley customarily wore high collars because he believed his neck looked too long a design feature that he would later make a major trademark of the outfits Presley wore on stage in his later years Director and coproducer Steve Binder had worked hard to reassure the nervous singer and to produce a show that was far from the hour of Christmas songs Parker had originally planned The show NBC s highest rated that season captured percent of the total viewing audience Jon Landau of Eye magazine remarked There is something magical about watching a man who has lost himself find his way back home He sang with the kind of power people no longer expect of rock n roll singers He moved his body with a lack of pretension and effort that must have made Jim Morrison green with envy Dave Marsh calls the performance one of emotional grandeur and historical resonance By January the single If I Can Dream written for the special reached number The soundtrack album broke into the top ten According to friend Jerry Schilling the special reminded Presley of what he had not been able to do for years being able to choose the people being able to choose what songs and not being told what had to be on the soundtrack He was out of prison man Binder said of Presley s reaction I played Elvis the minute show and he told me in the screening room Steve it s the greatest thing I ve ever done in my life I give you my word I will never sing a song I don t believe in From Elvis In Memphis and the International Power of My Love Sorry your browser either has JavaScript disabled or does not have any supported player You can download the clip or download a player to play the clip in your browser Beginning with his American Sound recordings soul music became a central element in Presley s fusion of styles Here he revels in lyrics full of sexual innuendo Problems playing this file See media help Buoyed by the experience of the Comeback Special Presley engaged in a prolific series of recording sessions at American Sound Studio which led to the acclaimed From Elvis in Memphis Released in June it was his first secular non soundtrack album from a dedicated period in the studio in eight years As described by Dave Marsh it is a masterpiece in which Presley immediately catches up with pop music trends that had seemed to pass him by during the movie years He sings country songs soul songs and rockers with real conviction a stunning achievement Presley was keen to resume regular live performing Following the success of the Comeback Special offers came in from around the world The London Palladium offered Parker for a one week engagement He responded That s fine for me now how much can you get for Elvis In May the brand new International Hotel in Las Vegas boasting the largest showroom in the city announced that it had booked Presley scheduling him to perform shows over four weeks beginning July Moore Fontana and the Jordanaires declined to participate afraid of losing the lucrative session work they had in Nashville Presley assembled new top notch accompaniment led by guitarist James Burton and including two gospel groups The Imperials and Sweet Inspirations Nonetheless he was nervous his only previous Las Vegas engagement in had been dismal and he had neither forgotten nor forgiven that failure To revise his approach to performances Presley visited Las Vegas hotel showrooms and lounges at one of which that of the Flamingo he encountered Tom Jones whose aggressive style was similar to his own s approach the two became friends Already studying karate at the time Presley recruited Bill Belew to design variants of karatekas s gis for him these in jumpsuit form would be his stage uniforms in his later years Parker who intended to make Presley s return the show business event of the year oversaw a major promotional push For his part hotel owner Kirk Kerkorian arranged to send his own plane to New York to fly in rock journalists for the debut performance Presley took to the stage without introduction The audience of including many celebrities gave him a standing ovation before he sang a note and another after his performance A third followed his encore Can t Help Falling in Love a song that would be his closing number for much of the s At a press conference after the show when a journalist referred to him as The King Presley gestured toward Fats Domino who was taking in the scene No Presley said that s the real king of rock and roll The next day Parker s negotiations with the hotel resulted in a five year contract for Presley to play each February and August at an annual salary of million Newsweek commented There are several unbelievable things about Elvis but the most incredible is his staying power in a world where meteoric careers fade like shooting stars Rolling Stone called Presley supernatural his own resurrection In November Presley s final non concert movie Change of Habit opened The double album From Memphis To Vegas From Vegas To Memphis came out the same month the first LP consisted of live performances from the International the second of more cuts from the American Sound sessions Suspicious Minds reached the top of the charts—Presley s first U S pop number one in over seven years and his last Cassandra Peterson later television s Elvira met Presley during this period in Las Vegas where she was working as a showgirl She recalls of their encounter He was so anti drug when I met him I mentioned to him that I smoked marijuana and he was just appalled He said Don t ever do that again Presley was not only deeply opposed to recreational drugs he also rarely drank Several of his family members had been alcoholics a fate he intended to avoid Back on tour and meeting Nixon mug shot of Presley This is likely a routine security record since Presley was never arrested Presley returned to the International early in for the first of the year s two month long engagements performing two shows a night Recordings from these shows were issued on the album On Stage In late February Presley performed six attendance record–breaking shows at the Houston Astrodome In April the single The Wonder of You was issued—a number one hit in Great Britain it topped the U S adult contemporary chart as well MGM filmed rehearsal and concert footage at the International during August for the documentary Elvis That s the Way It Is Presley was by now performing in a jumpsuit which would become a trademark of his live act During this engagement he was threatened with murder unless was paid Presley had been the target of many threats since the s often without his knowledge The FBI took the threat seriously and security was stepped up for the next two shows Presley went onstage with a Derringer in his right boot and a pistol in his waistband but the concerts went off without incident The album That s the Way It Is produced to accompany the documentary and featuring both studio and live recordings marked a stylistic shift As music historian John Robertson notes The authority of Presley s singing helped disguise the fact that the album stepped decisively away from the American roots inspiration of the Memphis sessions towards a more middle of the road sound With country put on the back burner and soul and R B left in Memphis what was left was very classy very clean white pop—perfect for the Las Vegas crowd but a definite retrograde step for Elvis After the end of his International engagement on September Presley embarked on a week long concert tour largely of the South his first since Another week long tour of the West Coast followed in November Presley meets U S President Richard Nixon in the White House Oval Office December On December Presley engineered a meeting with President Richard Nixon at the White House where he expressed his patriotism and his contempt for the hippies the growing drug culture and the counterculture in general He asked Nixon for a Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs badge to add to similar items he had begun collecting and to signify official sanction of his patriotic efforts Nixon who apparently found the encounter awkward expressed a belief that Presley could send a

positive message to young people and that it was therefore important he retain his credibility Presley told Nixon that the Beatles whose songs he regularly performed in concert during the era exemplified what he saw as a trend of anti Americanism and drug abuse in popular culture Presley and his friends had had a four hour get together with the Beatles five years earlier On hearing reports of the meeting Paul McCartney later said he felt a bit betrayed and commented The great joke was that we were taking illegal drugs and look what happened to him a reference to Presley s death hastened by prescription drug abuse The U S Junior Chamber of Commerce named Presley one of its annual Ten Most Outstanding Young Men of the Nation on January Not long after the City of Memphis named the stretch of Highway South on which Graceland is located Elvis Presley Boulevard The same year Presley became the first rock and roll singer to be awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award then known as the Bing Crosby Award by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences the Grammy Award organization Three new non movie Presley studio albums were released in as many as had come out over the previous eight years Best received by critics was Elvis Country a concept record that focused on genre standards The biggest seller was Elvis Sings the Wonderful World of Christmas the truest statement of all according to Greil Marcus In the midst of ten painfully genteel Christmas songs every one sung with appalling sincerity and humility one could find Elvis tom catting his way through six blazing minutes of Merry Christmas Baby a raunchy old Charles Brown blues If Presley s sin was his lifelessness it was his sinfulness that brought him to life Marriage breakdown and Aloha from HawaiiSee also Aloha from Hawaii Via Satellite MGM again filmed Presley in April this time for Elvis on Tour which went on to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Documentary Film that year His gospel album He Touched Me released that month would earn him his second Grammy Award for Best Inspirational Performance A date tour commenced with an unprecedented four consecutive sold out shows at New York s Madison Square Garden The evening concert on July was recorded and issued in LP form a week later Elvis As Recorded at Madison Square Garden became one of Presley s biggest selling albums After the tour the single Burning Love was released—Presley s last top ten hit on the U S pop chart The most exciting single Elvis has made since All Shook Up wrote rock critic Robert Christgau Who else could make It s coming closer the flames are now licking my body sound like an assignation with James Brown s backup band Presley in Aloha from Hawaii broadcast live via satellite on January The singer himself came up with his famous outfit s eagle motif as something that would say America to the world Presley and his wife meanwhile had become increasingly distant barely cohabiting In an affair he had with Joyce Bova resulted—unbeknownst to him—in her pregnancy and an abortion citation needed He often raised the possibility of her moving into Graceland saying that he was likely to leave Priscilla The Presleys separated on February after Priscilla disclosed her relationship with Mike Stone a karate instructor Presley had recommended to her Priscilla relates that when she told him Presley grabbed and forcefully made love to her declaring This is how a real man makes love to his woman Five months later Presley s new girlfriend Linda Thompson a songwriter and one time Memphis beauty queen moved in with him Presley and his wife filed for divorce on August According to Joe Moscheo of the Imperials the failure of Presley s marriage was a blow from which he never recovered In January Presley performed two benefit concerts for the Kui Lee Cancer Fund in connection with a groundbreaking TV special Aloha from Hawaii The first show served as a practice run and backup should technical problems affect the live broadcast two days later Aired as scheduled on January Aloha from Hawaii was the first global concert satellite broadcast reaching millions of viewers live and on tape delay Presley s costume became the most recognized example of the elaborate concert garb with which his latter day persona became closely associated As described by Bobbie Ann Mason At the end of the show when he spreads out his American Eagle cape with the full stretched wings of the eagle studded on the back he becomes a god figure The accompanying double album released in February went to number one and eventually sold over million copies in the United States It proved to be Presley s last U S number one pop album during his lifetime At a midnight show the same month four men rushed onto the stage in an apparent attack Security men leapt to Presley s defense and the singer s karate instinct took over as he ejected one invader from the stage himself Following the show he became obsessed with the idea that the men had been sent by Mike Stone to kill him Though they were shown to have been only overexuberant fans he raged There s too much pain in me Stone must die His outbursts continued with such intensity that a physician was unable to calm him despite administering large doses of medication After another two full days of raging Red West his friend and bodyguard felt compelled to get a price for a contract killing and was relieved when Presley decided Aw hell let s just leave it for now Maybe it s a bit heavy Health deterioration and death – Medical crises and last studio sessionsPresley s divorce took effect on October He was now becoming increasingly unwell Twice during the year he overdosed on barbiturates spending three days in a coma in his hotel suite after the first incident Toward the end of he was hospitalized semicomatose from the effects of Demerol addiction According to his main physician Dr George C Nichopoulos Presley felt that by getting drugs from a doctor he wasn t the common everyday junkie getting something off the street Since his comeback he had staged more live shows with each passing year and saw concerts his busiest schedule ever Despite his failing health in he undertook another intensive touring schedule Presley s condition declined precipitously in September Keyboardist Tony Brown remembers the singer s arrival at a University of Maryland concert He fell out of the limousine to his knees People jumped to help and he pushed them away like Don t help me He walked on stage and held onto the mike for the first thirty minutes like it was a post Everybody s looking at each other like Is the tour gonna happen Guitarist John Wilkinson recalled He was all gut He was slurring He was so fucked up It was obvious he was drugged It was obvious there was something terribly wrong with his body It was so bad the words to the songs were barely intelligible I remember crying He could barely get through the introductions Wilkinson recounted that a few nights later in Detroit Michigan I watched him in his dressing room just draped over a chair unable to move So often I thought Boss why don t you just cancel this tour and take a year off I mentioned something once in a guarded moment He patted me on the back and said It ll be all right Don t you worry about it Presley continued to play to sellout crowds As cultural critic Marjorie Garber describes he was now widely seen as a garish pop crooner in effect he had become Liberace Even his fans were now middle aged matrons and blue haired grandmothers On July Vernon Presley—who had become deeply involved in his son s financial affairs—fired Memphis Mafia bodyguards Red West Presley s friend since the s Sonny West and David Hebler citing the need to cut back on expenses Presley was in Palm Springs at the time and some suggest the singer was too cowardly to face the three himself Another associate of Presley s John O Grady argued that the bodyguards were dropped because their rough treatment of fans had prompted too many lawsuits However Presley s stepbrother David Stanley has claimed that the bodyguards were fired because they were becoming more outspoken about Presley s drug dependency RCA which had enjoyed a steady stream of product from Presley for over a decade grew anxious as his interest in spending time in the studio waned After a December session that produced songs enough for almost two albums he did not enter the studio in Parker sold RCA on another concert record Elvis As Recorded Live on Stage in Memphis Recorded on March it included a version of How Great Thou Art that would win Presley his third and final competitive Grammy Award All three of his competitive Grammy wins—out of total nominations—were for gospel recordings Presley returned to the studio in Hollywood in March but Parker s attempts to arrange another session toward the end of the year were unsuccessful In RCA sent a mobile studio to Graceland that made possible two full scale recording sessions at Presley s home Even in that comfortable context the recording process was now a struggle for him Hurt Sorry your browser either has JavaScript disabled or does not have any supported player You can download the clip or download a player to play the clip in your browser An R B hit for Roy Hamilton in and a pop hit for blue eyed soul singer Timi Yuro in Presley s deep soul version was picked up by country radio in Problems playing this file See media help For all the concerns of his label and manager in studio sessions between July and October Presley recorded virtually the entire contents of six albums Though he was no longer a major presence on the pop charts five of those albums entered the top five of the country chart and three went to number one Promised Land From Elvis Presley Boulevard Memphis Tennessee and Moody Blue The story was similar with his singles—there were no major pop hits but Presley was a significant force in not just the country market but on adult contemporary radio as well Eight studio singles from this period released during his lifetime were top ten hits on one or both charts four in alone My Boy was a number one adult contemporary hit in and Moody Blue topped the country chart and reached the second spot on the adult contemporary chart in Perhaps his most critically acclaimed recording of the era came that year with what Greil Marcus described as his apocalyptic attack on the soul classic Hurt If he felt the way he sounded Dave Marsh wrote of Presley s performance the wonder isn t that he had only a year left to live but that he managed to survive that long Final year and deathPresley and Linda Thompson split in November and he took up with a new girlfriend Ginger Alden He proposed to Alden and gave her an engagement ring two months later though several of his friends later claimed that he had no serious intention of marrying again Journalist Tony Scherman writes that by early Presley had become a grotesque caricature of his sleek energetic former self Hugely overweight his mind dulled by the pharmacopoeia he daily ingested he was barely able to pull himself through his abbreviated concerts In Alexandria Louisiana the singer was on stage for less than an hour and was impossible to understand Presley failed to appear in Baton Rouge he was unable to get out of his hotel bed and the rest of the tour was cancelled Despite the accelerating deterioration of his health he stuck to most touring commitments In Rapid City South Dakota he was so nervous on stage that he could hardly talk according to Presley historian Samuel Roy and unable to perform any significant movement Guralnick relates that fans were becoming increasingly voluble about their disappointment but it all seemed to go right past Elvis whose world was now confined almost entirely to his room and his spiritualism books A cousin Billy Smith recalled how Presley would sit in his room and chat for hours sometimes recounting favorite Monty Python sketches and his own past escapades but more often gripped by paranoid obsessions that reminded Smith of Howard Hughes Way Down Presley s last single issued during his lifetime came out on June His final concert was held in Indianapolis Indiana at Market Square Arena on June Presley s gravestone at GracelandThe book Elvis What Happened cowritten by the three bodyguards fired the previous year was published on August It was the first exposé to detail Presley s years of drug misuse He was devastated by the book and tried unsuccessfully to halt its release by offering money to the publishers By this point he suffered from multiple ailments glaucoma high blood pressure liver damage and an enlarged colon each aggravated—and possibly caused—by drug abuse Recent genetic analysis of his DNA suggests genetic variants that could have caused his glaucoma migraines and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy Presley was scheduled to fly out of Memphis on the evening of August to begin another tour That afternoon Ginger Alden discovered him unresponsive on his bathroom floor Attempts to revive him failed and death was officially pronounced at pm at Baptist Memorial Hospital President Jimmy Carter issued a statement that credited Presley with having permanently changed the face of American popular culture Thousands of people gathered outside Graceland to view the open casket One of Presley s cousins Billy Mann accepted to secretly photograph the corpse the picture appeared on the cover of the National Enquirer s biggest selling issue ever Alden struck a deal with the Enquirer for her story but settled for less when she broke her exclusivity agreement Presley left her nothing in his will Presley s funeral was held at Graceland on Thursday August Outside the gates a car plowed into a group of fans killing two women and critically injuring a third Approximately people lined the processional route to Forest Hill Cemetery where Presley was buried next to his mother Within a few days Way Down topped the country and UK pop charts Following an attempt to steal the singer s body in late August the remains of both Presley and his mother were reburied in Graceland s Meditation Garden on October Since his death there have been numerous alleged sightings of Presley A long standing theory among some fans is that he faked his death page needed Fans have noted alleged discrepancies in the death certificate reports of a wax dummy in his original coffin and numerous accounts of Presley planning a diversion so he could retire in peace page needed Questions over cause of death Drug use was heavily implicated in Presley s death writes Guralnick No one ruled out the possibility of anaphylactic shock brought on by the codeine pills to which he was known to have had a mild allergy A pair of lab reports filed two months later each strongly suggested that polypharmacy was the primary cause of death one reported fourteen drugs in Elvis system ten in significant quantity Forensic historian and pathologist Michael Baden views the situation as complicated Elvis had had an enlarged heart for a long time That together with his drug habit caused his death But he was difficult to diagnose it was a judgment call The competence and ethics of two of the centrally involved medical professionals were seriously questioned Before the autopsy was complete and toxicology results known medical examiner Dr Jerry Francisco declared the cause of death as cardiac arrhythmia a condition that can be determined only in someone who is still alive Allegations of a cover up were widespread While Presley s main physician Dr Nichopoulos was exonerated of criminal liability for the singer s death the facts were startling In the first eight months of alone he had prescribed more than doses of sedatives amphetamines and narcotics all in Elvis s name His license was suspended for three months It was permanently revoked in the s after the Tennessee Medical Board brought new charges of over prescription Amidst mounting pressure in the Presley autopsy was reopened Coroner Dr Joseph Davis declared There is nothing in any of the data that supports a death from drugs In fact everything points to a sudden violent heart attack Whether or not combined drug intoxication was in fact the cause there is little doubt that polypharmacy contributed significantly to Presley s premature death Since Between and six posthumously released singles by Presley were top ten country hits Graceland was opened to the public in Attracting over half a million visitors annually it is the second most visited home in the United States after the White House It was declared a National Historic Landmark in Presley has been inducted into five music halls of fame the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame the Country Music Hall of Fame the Gospel Music Hall of Fame the Rockabilly Hall of Fame and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame In he received the W C Handy Award from the Blues Foundation and the Academy of Country Music s first Golden Hat Award In he received the American Music Awards Award of Merit A Junkie XL remix of Presley s A Little Less Conversation credited as Elvis Vs JXL was used in a Nike advertising campaign during the FIFA World Cup It topped the charts in over countries and was included in a compilation of Presley s number one hits ELV S that was also an international success In a remix of Rubberneckin a recording of Presley s topped the U S sales chart as did a th anniversary re release of That s All Right the following year The latter was an outright hit in Great Britain reaching number three on the pop chart In another three reissued singles Jailhouse Rock One Night I Got Stung and It s Now or Never went to number one in the United Kingdom A total of Presley singles were reissued during the year all made the British top five For the fifth straight year Forbes named Presley the top earning deceased celebrity with a gross income of million He placed second in returned to the top spot the next two years and ranked fourth in The following year he was ranked second with his highest annual income ever— million—spurred by the celebration of his th birthday and the launch of Cirque du Soleil s Viva Elvis show in Las Vegas In November Viva Elvis The Album was released setting his voice to newly recorded instrumental tracks As of mid there were an estimated licensed Presley products He was again the second highest earning deceased celebrity Presley holds the records for most songs charting in Billboard s top and top chart statistician Joel Whitburn calculates the respective totals as and Presley historian Adam Victor gives and Presley s rankings for top ten and number one hits vary depending on how the double sided Hound Dog Don t Be Cruel and Don t I Beg of You singles which precede the inception of Billboard s unified Hot chart are analyzed e According to Whitburn s analysis Presley and Madonna share the record for most top ten hits with per Billboard s current assessment he ranks second with Whitburn and Billboard concur that the Beatles hold the record for most number one hits with and that Mariah Carey is second with Whitburn has Presley also with and thus tied for second Billboard has him third with Presley retains the record for cumulative weeks at number one alone at according to Whitburn and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame tied with Carey at according to Billboard He holds the records for most British number one hits with and top ten hits with In an year old Roman bust described as bearing a striking resemblance to Elvis was displayed ahead of an intended auction A spokesman for the auctioneers said that fans could be forgiven for thinking that their idol may well have lived a previous life in Rome On the anniversary date of his death every year since thousands of people gather at his home in Memphis to celebrate his memory during a candlelight ritual Musical styleInfluencesPresley s earliest musical influence came from gospel His mother recalled that from the age of two at the Assembly of God church in Tupelo attended by the family he would slide down off my lap run into the aisle and scramble up to the platform There he would stand looking at the choir and trying to sing with them In Memphis Presley frequently attended all night gospel singings at the Ellis Auditorium where groups such as the Statesmen Quartet led the music in a style that Guralnick suggests sowed the seeds of Presley s future stage act The Statesmen were an electric combination featuring some of the most thrillingly emotive singing and daringly unconventional showmanship in the entertainment world dressed in suits that might have come out of the window of Lansky s Bass singer Jim Wetherington known universally as the Big Chief maintained a steady bottom ceaselessly jiggling first his left leg then his right with the material of the pants leg ballooning out and shimmering He went about as far as you could go in gospel music said Jake Hess The women would jump up just like they do for the pop shows Preachers frequently objected to the lewd movements but audiences reacted with screams and swoons As a teenager Presley s musical interests were wide ranging and he was deeply informed about African American musical idioms as well as white ones see Teenage life in Memphis Though he never had any formal training he was blessed with a remarkable memory and his musical knowledge was already considerable by the time he made his first professional recordings in at the age of When Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller met him two years later they were astonished at his encyclopedic understanding of the blues At a press conference the following year he proudly declared I know practically every religious song that s ever been written GenresPresley was a central figure in the development of rockabilly according to music historians Katherine Charlton even calls him rockabilly s originator though Carl Perkins has explicitly stated that Sam Phillips Elvis and I didn t create rockabilly and according to Michael Campbell Bill Haley recorded the first big rockabilly hit It had been there for quite a while says Scotty Moore Carl Perkins was doing basically the same sort of thing up around Jackson and I know for a fact Jerry Lee Lewis had been playing that kind of music ever since he was ten years old However Rockabilly crystallized into a recognizable style in with Elvis Presley s first release on the Sun label writes Craig Morrison Paul Friedlander describes the defining elements of rockabilly which he similarly characterizes as essentially an Elvis Presley construction the raw emotive and slurred vocal style and emphasis on rhythmic feeling of the blues with the string band and strummed rhythm guitar of country In That s All Right the Presley trio s first record Scotty Moore s guitar solo a combination of Merle Travis–style country finger picking double stop slides from acoustic boogie and blues based bent note single string work is a microcosm of this fusion At RCA Presley s rock and roll sound grew distinct from rockabilly with group chorus vocals more heavily amplified electric guitars and a tougher more intense manner While he was known for taking songs from various sources and giving them a rockabilly rock and roll treatment he also recorded songs in other genres from early in his career from the pop standard Blue Moon at Sun to the country ballad How s the World Treating You on his second LP to the blues of Santa Claus Is Back In Town In his first gospel record was released the four song EP Peace in the Valley Certified as a million seller it became the top selling gospel EP in recording history Presley would record gospel periodically for the rest of his life Run On Sorry your browser either has JavaScript disabled or does not have any supported player You can download the clip or download a player to play the clip in your browser From How Great Thou Art a traditional song popular in the black gospel tradition The arrangement evokes the percussive style of the s Golden Gate Quartet Problems playing this file See media help After his return from military service in Presley continued to perform rock and roll but the characteristic style was substantially toned down His first post Army single the number one hit Stuck on You is typical of this shift RCA publicity materials referred to its mild rock beat discographer Ernst Jorgensen calls it upbeat pop The modern blues R B sound captured so successfully on Elvis Is Back was essentially abandoned for six years until such – recordings as Down in the Alley and Hi Heel Sneakers The singer s output during most of the s emphasized pop music often in the form of ballads such as Are You Lonesome Tonight a number one in While that was a dramatic number most of what Presley recorded for his movie soundtracks was in a much lighter vein While Presley performed several of his classic ballads for the Comeback Special the sound of the show was dominated by aggressive rock and roll He would record few new straight ahead rock and roll songs thereafter as he explained they were hard to find A significant exception was Burning Love his last major hit on the pop charts Like his work of the s Presley s subsequent recordings reworked pop and country songs but in markedly different permutations His stylistic range now began to embrace a more contemporary rock sound as well as soul and funk Much of Elvis In Memphis as well as Suspicious Minds cut at the same sessions reflected his new rock and soul fusion In the mid s many of his singles found a home on country radio the field where he first became a star Vocal style and rangeMusic critic Henry Pleasants observes that Presley has been described variously as a baritone and a tenor An extraordinary compass and a very wide range of vocal color have something to do with this divergence of opinion He identifies Presley as a high baritone calculating his range as two octaves and a third from the baritone low G to the tenor high B with an upward extension in falsetto to at least a D flat Presley s best octave is in the middle D flat to D flat granting an extra full step up or down In Pleasants view his voice was variable and unpredictable at the bottom often brilliant at the top with the capacity for full voiced high Gs and As that an opera baritone might envy Scholar Lindsay Waters who figures Presley s range as ¼ octaves emphasizes that his voice had an emotional range from tender whispers to sighs down to shouts grunts grumbles and sheer gruffness that could move the listener from calmness and surrender to fear His voice can not be measured in octaves but in decibels even that misses the problem of how to measure delicate whispers that are hardly audible at all Presley was always able to duplicate the open hoarse ecstatic screaming shouting wailing reckless sound of the black rhythm and blues and gospel singers writes Pleasants and also demonstrated a remarkable ability to assimilate many other vocal styles Racial issuesWhen Dewey Phillips first aired That s All Right on Memphis radio many listeners who contacted the station by phone and telegram to ask for it again assumed that its singer was black From the beginning of his national fame Presley expressed respect for African American performers and their music and disregard for the norms of segregation and racial prejudice then prevalent in the South Interviewed in he recalled how in his childhood he would listen to blues musician Arthur Crudup—the originator of That s All Right — bang his box the way I do now and I said if I ever got to the place where I could feel all old Arthur felt I d be a music man like nobody ever saw The Memphis World an African American newspaper reported that Presley the rock n roll phenomenon cracked Memphis s segregation laws by attending the local amusement park on what was designated as its colored night Such statements and actions led Presley to be generally hailed in the black community during the early days of his stardom By contrast many white adults according to Billboard s Arnold Shaw did not like him and condemned him as depraved Anti negro prejudice doubtless figured in adult antagonism 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 Despite the largely positive view of Presley held by African Americans a rumor spread in mid that he had at some point announced The only thing Negroes can do for me is buy my records and shine my shoes A journalist with the national African American weekly Jet Louie Robinson pursued the story On the set of Jailhouse Rock Presley granted him an interview though he was no longer dealing with the mainstream press He denied making such a statement or holding in any way to its racist view Robinson found no evidence that the remark had ever been made and on the contrary elicited testimony from many individuals indicating that Presley was anything but racist Blues singer Ivory Joe Hunter who had heard the rumor before he visited Graceland one evening reported of Presley He showed me every courtesy and I think he s one of the greatest Dudley Brooks an African American composer and studio musician who worked with Presley during the s and s also disputed allegations that Presley was a racist Though the rumored remark was wholly discredited at the time it was still being used against Presley decades later The identification of Presley with racism—either personally or symbolically—was expressed most famously in the lyrics of the rap hit Fight the Power by Public Enemy Elvis was a hero to most But he never meant shit to me Straight up racist that sucker was Simple and plain The persistence of such attitudes was fueled by resentment over the fact that Presley whose musical and visual performance idiom owed much to African American sources achieved the cultural acknowledgment and commercial success largely denied his black peers Into the st century the notion that Presley had stolen black music still found adherents Notable among African American entertainers expressly rejecting this view was Jackie Wilson who argued A lot of people have accused Elvis of stealing the black man s music when in fact almost every black solo entertainer copied his stage mannerisms from Elvis And throughout his career Presley plainly acknowledged his debt Addressing his Comeback Special audience he said Rock n roll music is basically gospel or rhythm and blues or it sprang from that People have been adding to it adding instruments to it experimenting with it but it all boils down to that Nine years earlier he had said Rock n roll has been around for many years It used to be called rhythm and blues Influence of Colonel Parker and othersParker and the AberbachsFurther information Colonel Tom Parker Once he became Presley s manager Colonel Tom Parker insisted on exceptionally tight control over his client s career Songwriter Robert B Sherman of the Sherman Brothers bore witness to the deal being forged between Hill and Range co owner Jean Aberbach and The Colonel in Early on The Colonel and his Hill and Range allies the brothers Jean and Julian Aberbach perceived the close relationship that developed between Presley and songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller as a serious threat to that control Parker effectively ended the relationship deliberately or not with the new contract he sent Leiber in early Leiber thought there was a mistake—the sheet of paper was blank except for Parker s signature and a line on which to enter his There s no mistake boy just sign it and return it Parker directed Don t worry we ll fill it in later Leiber declined and Presley s fruitful collaboration with the writing team was over Other respected songwriters lost interest in or simply avoided writing for Presley because of the requirement that they surrender a third of their usual royalties By Parker s contracts with Presley gave him percent of most of the singer s earnings from recordings films and merchandise Beginning in February he took a third of the profit from live appearances a January agreement entitled him to half of that as well Priscilla Presley noted that Elvis detested the business side of his career He would sign a contract without even reading it Presley s friend Marty Lacker regarded Parker as a hustler and a con artist He was only interested in now money —get the buck and get gone Lacker was instrumental in convincing Presley to record with Memphis producer Chips Moman and his handpicked musicians at American Sound Studio in early The American Sound sessions represented a significant departure from the control customarily exerted by Hill and Range Moman still had to deal with the publisher s staff on site whose song suggestions he regarded as unacceptable He was on the verge of quitting until Presley ordered the Hill and Range personnel out of the studio Although RCA executive Joan Deary was later full of praise for the producer s song choices and the quality of the recordings Moman to his fury received neither credit on the records nor royalties for his work Throughout his entire career Presley performed in only three venues outside the United States—all of them in Canada during brief tours there in Rumors that he would play overseas for the first time were fueled in by a million dollar bid for an Australian tour Parker was uncharacteristically reluctant prompting those close to Presley to speculate about the manager s past and the reasons for his apparent unwillingness to apply for a passport Parker ultimately squelched any notions Presley had of working abroad claiming that foreign security was poor and the venues unsuitable for a star of his magnitude Parker arguably exercised tightest control over Presley s movie career In Robert Mitchum asked Presley to costar with him in Thunder Road on which Mitchum was writer and producer According to George Klein one of his oldest friends Presley was offered starring roles in West Side Story and Midnight Cowboy In Barbra Streisand approached Presley to star with her in the remake of A Star is Born In each case any ambitions the singer may have had to play such parts were thwarted by his manager s negotiating demands or flat refusals In Lacker s description The only thing that kept Elvis going after the early years was a new challenge But Parker kept running everything into the ground The operative attitude may have been summed up best by the response Leiber and Stoller received when they brought a serious film project for Presley to Parker and the Hill and Range owners for their consideration In Leiber s telling Jean Aberbach warned them to never again try to interfere with the business or artistic workings of the process known as Elvis Presley Memphis MafiaMain article Memphis Mafia In the early s the circle of friends with whom Presley constantly surrounded himself until his death came to be known as the Memphis Mafia Surrounded by the ir parasitic presence as journalist John Harris puts it it was no wonder that as he slid into addiction and torpor no one raised the alarm to them Elvis was the bank and it had to remain open Tony Brown who played piano for Presley regularly in the last two years of the singer s life observed his rapidly declining health and the urgent need to address it But we all knew it was hopeless because Elvis was surrounded by that little circle of people all those so called friends In the Memphis Mafia s defense Marty Lacker has said Presley was his own man If we hadn t been around he would have been dead a lot earlier Larry Geller became Presley s hairdresser in Unlike others in the Memphis Mafia he was interested in spiritual questions and recalls how from their first conversation Presley revealed his secret thoughts and anxieties I mean there has to be a purpose there s got to be a reason why I was chosen to be Elvis Presley I swear to God no one knows how lonely I get And how empty I really feel Thereafter Geller supplied him with books on religion and mysticism which the singer read voraciously Presley would be preoccupied by such matters for much of his life taking trunkloads of books with him on tour Sex symbol The title and marketing of Girls Girls Girls took advantage of Presley s sex symbol status Presley s physical attractiveness and sexual appeal were widely acknowledged He was once beautiful astonishingly beautiful in the words of critic Mark Feeney Television director Steve Binder no fan of Presley s music before he oversaw the Comeback Special reported I m straight as an arrow and I got to tell you you stop whether you re male or female to look at him He was that good looking And if you never knew he was a superstar it wouldn t make any difference if he d walked in the room you d know somebody special was in your presence His performance style as much as his physical beauty was responsible for Presley s eroticized image Writing in critic George Melly described him as the master of the sexual simile treating his guitar as both phallus and girl In his Presley obituary Lester Bangs credited him as the man who brought overt blatant vulgar sexual frenzy to the popular arts in America Ed Sullivan s declaration that he perceived a soda bottle in Presley s trousers was echoed by rumors involving a similarly positioned toilet roll tube or lead bar While Presley was marketed as an icon of heterosexuality some cultural critics have argued that his image was ambiguous In Sight and Sound s Peter John Dyer described his onscreen persona as aggressively bisexual in appeal Brett Farmer places the orgasmic gyrations of the title dance sequence in Jailhouse Rock within a lineage of cinematic musical numbers that offer a spectacular eroticization if not homoeroticization of the male image In the analysis of Yvonne Tasker Elvis was an ambivalent figure who articulated a peculiar feminised objectifying version of white working class masculinity as aggressive sexual display Reinforcing Presley s image as a sex symbol were the reports of his dalliances with various Hollywood stars and starlets from Natalie Wood in the s to Connie Stevens and Ann Margret in the s to Candice Bergen and Cybill Shepherd in the s June Juanico of Memphis one of Presley s early girlfriends later blamed Parker for encouraging him to choose his dating partners with publicity in mind Presley never grew comfortable with the Hollywood scene and most of these relationships were insubstantial LegacyFurther information Cultural impact of Elvis Presley Cultural depictions of Elvis Presley Elvis has left the building I know he invented rock and roll in a manner of speaking but that s not why he s worshiped as a god today He s worshiped as a god today because in addition to inventing rock and roll he was the greatest ballad singer this side of Frank Sinatra—because the spiritual translucence and reined in gut sexuality of his slow weeper and torchy pop blues still activate the hormones