The Attention Given to Elvis Presely

[erpowers]

I am one of those people who believe Elvis Presely should not be regarded as the "King of Rock n' Roll". I also think he is given too much attention considering how he gained his music and dances. Nothing about Elvis Presely was original or revolutionary. He was able to steal his music and dances from black people who were not allowed to perform their music in white communities. In addition, I am one of those people who thinks even with the great songs Presely sung he was not all that talented. I would like to see what other people think. That was my main reason for my making this post today. How do other feel about Elvis Presely? Do you think he was great? Do you think he was untalented? Are you somewhere in between?

[johnnie]

"He was able to steal his music and dances from black people"

:rofl:

[edbermac]

1. Early Sun Records Elvis was great.

After getting out of the army and making all those crappy movies and singing in Vegas he went straight downhill.

[RetroLounge]

2. Nothing about Elvis Presely was original or revolutionary

:rofl:

Yeah, nothing revolutionary at all...

again: :rofl:

RL

[WritingIsMyReligion]

3. I'm not an Elvis fan. His music strikes me as incredibly cheesy.

I mean, "Heartbreak Hotel" is pathetic, lyrically.

:crazy:

[johnnie]

4. Here's a bit of background on that song

"Written by Tommy Durden and Mae Axton. The inspiration came in 1955 when Durden spotted a Miami Herald article about a man who had committed suicide and didn't have any identification on him except a note reading, "I walk a lonely street". After having a demo made by Glen Reeves, Axton took it to the DJ convention in Nashville where she played it for Elvis. According to Axton, she offered Elvis a share of the writers' publishing ownership if the song would be his first new single release for RCA, which had bought his recording contract from Sun Records. Elvis recorded "Heartbreak Hotel" on the afternoon of January 10, 1956 at RCA Studio B in Nashville in his first recording session for RCA."

http://www.elvisoncd.com/EIGENECD_a-z/facts/hotel.htm

[Midlodemocrat]

11. Cheesy?

Hardly. :eyes:

[WritingIsMyReligion]

22. Well, I'm sorry my taste doesn't meet your guidelines.

I'm sure he was talented enough, but his music isn't my cup of tea. That's all, man.

[ForrestGump]

25. Forget the lyrics

What, exactly, is "Heartbreak Hotel"? Is it blues? Rock? Country? Pop of the mid-'50s stripe? It's kind of undefinable.

And it's a lot harder to pin down if you transport yourself to early 1956 -- maybe the best way to do this is to listen to lots of Perry Como and "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window" as preparation -- and try, as best you can with your modern ears, to listen to the song as it must have sounded for the very first time then. "Heartbreak Hotel" was an anomaly. In fact, RCA executives did not like it and were not sure about releasing it, and some voiced the opinion that they'd bought the wrong Sun artist (Carl Perkins had just released "Blue Suede Shoes"). It's a very unusual song, the way Elvis sang it. I think much of that is lost on us now, through familiarity and through what has since built on Elvis' legacy (in the same way that the film Psycho didn't do all that much for me when I first saw it because the innovations in it were adopted by everyone who followed), but if you try to get inside that weird little song as it was first heard in 1956 it turns out to be a revelation: welcome to Elvis' world.

[SteppingRazor]

5. Y'know, a critique of Elvis Presley would be weightier if you at least spelled his name right once..

but moving beyond the Spelling Gestapo stuff, I don't think your theory holds water.

If anything, Elvis brought R&B to a larger white audience. Saying he "stole" black music is silly, when the songs he used were old blues and gospel numbers, not copyrighted work. Elvis opened the door for black blues musicians to find a wider audience. Simply saying he appropriated black music for whites is a simplistic view. Hell, Little Richard himself said that Elvis opened the door for black music.

As for him being "The King," well, why not? He had 18 No. 1 hits, a record for a solo artist that has stood to this day, broken only by The Beatles, who had 20.

As for the poster who said only his early Sun stuff is good, I actually prefer his late-60s work, like "Suspicious Minds," "Burnin' Love," etc. It's more definitively "Elvis," rather than Elvis doing rockabilly, or Elvis doing country, or what have you.

[Left Is Write]

8. "Burnin' Love" and "Promised Land" are my two favorite Elvis songs.

[Fran Kubelik]

14. excellent post

>>If anything, Elvis brought R&B to a larger white audience....Hell, Little Richard himself said that Elvis opened the door for black music.<<

You nailed it here.
It's not like Pat Boone, who took hits from the black music charts and rerecorded them in the blandest, whitest way possible to make them palatable for a mass audience.

[erpowers]

15. Other People's Music

It was other people's music. In addition, Little Richard and other black artists of that day have also criticized Elvis Presely (yes I spelled it wrong again). The fact still remains he took other people music. He did not create it. In addition, if Elvis brought Rock n' Roll to a larger white audience it was only because black people were not allowed to perform in front of white audiences.

[SteppingRazor]

16. "black people were not allowed to perform in front of white audiences"

And that's Elvis' fault ... how?

[last_texas_dem]

17. But what makes it "other people's music"?

Are all recording of songs that aren't being done by their original composers illegitimate? If that's the case, the bulk of recordings prior to the late-sixties or early seventies were just singers doing other people's music. Additionally, few of Elvis's hits were covers of songs originally by black artists. I would say the bulk of them were songs written by professional songwriters who didn't record them themselves, as were many if not most of the hit recordings of that era. Also, as I point out in my post below, Elvis was distinctive because of the combination of things he brought to music; I can't think of any black artist of Elvis's era who did what Elvis did.

[SteppingRazor]

18. That's why I didn't address that point. It's silly.

So Elvis wasn't a songwriter. So what? Neither are the vast majority of pop and country artists, and the vast majority of rock artists contemporary with Elvis.

We can certainly debate whether writing ones own songs takes more talent than singing the work of others (and I believe that, ipso facto, it does), but that's not the discussion we're having here.

[ForrestGump]

23. Let's hear from those 'other people'

A few quotes from authentic persons of African heritage and musical fame:

"Elvis was God-given, there's no other explanation. A Messiah comes around every few thousand years, and Elvis was it this time." - Little Richard

"He was an integrator. Elvis was a blessing. They wouldn't let black music through. He opened the door for black music." - Little Richard

"There just ain't no words to describe him. Elvis was the greatest who ever was, is or ever will be." - Chuck Berry

"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." - Jackie Wilson

"Elvis had an influence on everybody with his musical approach. He broke the ice for all of us." - Al Green

"I wasn't just a fan, I was his brother. He said I was good and I said he was good; we never argued about that. Elvis was a hard worker, dedicated, and God loved him. Last time I saw him was at Graceland. We sang Old Blind Barnabus together, a gospel song. I love him and hope to see him in heaven. There'll never be another like that soul brother." - James Brown

"He taught white America how to get down" - James Brown

"That’s my idol, Elvis Presley. If you went to my house, you'd see pictures all over of Elvis. He's just the greatest entertainer that ever lived. And I think it's because he had such presence. When Elvis walked into a room, Elvis Presley was in the f***ing room. I don't give a f*** who was in the room with him, Bogart, Marilyn Monroe. - Eddie Murphy

"Elvis was the greatest entertainer of all time" - Eddie Murphy

"I remember Elvis as a young man hanging around the Sun studios. Even then, I knew this kid had a tremendous talent. He was a dynamic young boy. His phraseology, his way of looking at a song, was as unique as Sinatra's. I was a tremendous fan, and had Elvis lived, there would have been no end to his inventiveness." - B.B. King

"I liked Elvis a lot. I saw him as a fellow Mississippian and I was impressed by his sincerity. I thought he was honorable when he came to play The Goodwill Revue, a yearly benefit in our hometown for needy black kids. When Elvis appeared he was already a big, big star, Remember this was the fifties, so for a young white boy to show up at an all-black function took guts. I believe he was showing his roots. After the show, he made a point of posing for pictures with me, treating me like royalty. He'd tell people I was one of his influences." - BB KING

"It was a Wednesday night in May 1960 that changed my life. I went to bed, sank into my bunk, when all of a sudden out of the bleak stone-block nowhere down the hall from some other inmate's radio I started to hear this song. I'd heard it before, I don't know, twenty-five, thirty times, but it never hit me like it did that night. It was, of all people, Elvis Presley! The song? "It's Now or Never". It became my personal message, meant only for me. "Stop wasting your time, Barry," it said. "When you get out you better change your ways. It's Now or Never!" - Barry White

"I'll tell you what it was: Elvis put some grease in rock & roll - some cooking grease, music like bacon drippin's. He was as funky as a white boy could be, and that freaked out some people, and made a lot more people love him." - George Clinton (Parliament/ Funkadelic)

[jobycom]

29. Yeah, but like, who are any of them, really?

:thumbsup: Great list, thanks.

[mitchum]

34. Well, that's all well and good, but those artists, unlike the OP, don't have to prove...

their "liberal credentials" by decrying Presley's "cultural thievery"

[skygazer]

35. Please name an artist who has not taken from other people's music

I await your answer with bated breath.

[Left Is Write]

6. I am an Elvis Presley fan.

I remember where I was and what I was doing 30 years ago today.

He was a fantastic performer.

[bleedingheart]

7. Blasphemer!

[IndianaJones]

9. Elvis not only invented rock n roll, but also the forward pass..little known fact. nt.

[last_texas_dem]

10. Well, I like Elvis

If he's overrated, it's in the same way that all ultra-popular groups/artists are, including my all-time favorite group, the Beatles. I think there are definitely things about him that are original and revolutionary; that combination of his music, his look, and the way he danced is what made him such a phenomenon at the time he broke through. I don't believe there were any black performers who did what Elvis did. He was a country boy who grew up listening to both rhythm and blues and country: that combination is what made him such a distinctive artist. I mean, how many artists in the mid-fifties would have released as their first single a cover of an old blues song ("That's All Right") on one side and a cover of an old country song ("Blue Moon of Kentucky") on the other? I don't believe what Elvis did was in any way some sort of theft of "black" music for his own benefit just to make himself rich and famous. He was a poor white kid who loved some things about black culture, and was influenced by the popular music and clothes of blacks when he was growing up, but I feel that as an artist he made these things his own; to me, what he did does not come across at all as exploitation.

In recent years, I have heard various artists of Elvis's era proposed as "the one who _should_ have made it big instead of Elvis." But generally if you really consider the particular combination of talent, material, and presentation that Elvis brought to rock, for me at least, it's always obvious why Elvis was the one who made it big and not the other artist proposed.

Not all that talented? Well, in terms of the fact that he did not write his own songs and wasn't any sort of guitar God, perhaps you have a point. But writing one's own songs was definitely the exception in the fifties and probably not the norm for a band/artist until the late-sixties and early seventies (and that's only in rock; in pop and especially country, it still isn't really the norm.) And it's rarely been the most technically skilled of artists, whether as singers or instrumentalists, who become the best known. But once again, I think it's a combination of things with Elvis. He definitely has a strong and distinctive voice, had a combination of material that was in no way the norm for a young "country" singer at the time, and at least had a distinctive style of guitar playing even if, at least based on the little I know about judging guitar playing, he wasn't technically any sort of master of the instrument.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

12. Motherfuck him and John Wayne.

Sorry, I was listening to Public Enemy.

[ForrestGump]

26. F*** Chuck

"As a musicologist — and I consider myself one — there was always a great deal of respect for Elvis, especially during his Sun sessions. As a black people, we all knew that...My heroes came before him. My heroes were probably his heroes."

Chuck D

[skygazer]

13. Did you ever see Elvis Presley perform? I mean live

Not on TV. Live on stage.

That man was the greatest performer ever. Amazing. I went to one of his shows when I was a teenager - not remotely an Elvis fan. I left there with nothing but respect and awe for the guy. He put everything he had into what he did. He was the King because he made it popular.

Every single artist from the dawn of time has been influenced by what came before him or her. I would be interested in hearing just who you think is or was original.

[kimsterdemster]

21. I seen him..

1974 & 1976 no other concert has ever come close, my parents divorced around the same time him and Priscilla divorced and the songs he was singing after their break up to this day bring tears to my eyes, songs like Separate Ways, Caught in a Trap and I'm so Hurt. I can remember my Dad listening to these songs and crying at night. Divorce sucks!

[ForrestGump]

19. Not THIS crap again

I think it's been answered very well already, so I won't add my response to this tired old canard except to say that:

(a) you can't steal music (and, if you can -- and define it along racial lines, the very lines that Elvis helped blur -- Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, Charlie Pride and others 'stole' country music)

(b) your post reveals nothing but your ignorance -- even if you don't like the man's creative output (and I highly suspect you've heard very little of it), his legacy and influence are undeniable and overtly confirmed by pretty much every major act that followed him. Elvis did not like being called the King, but if anyone was it was most definitely him, by any standard: Elvis Presley could only have happened once, as a musical force, and his legacy persists in terms of the actual music and the very idea of superstardom and rock iconism as well as an all-pervasive cultural presence around the world. Elvis the man, Elvis the singer and recording artist, and Elvis the stage performer have all been overlooked (especially in the US, for many years) in favor of Elvis the pop-culture hero, but if you go back and actually listen to the recordings, listen to and watch concert recordings and TV shows (try watching an entire Milton Berle show from 1956 to see how thoroughly revolutionary Elvis was in contrast to every other point of reference available to '50s TV audiences), maybe you'll gain a sense of what it's all about. You're looking back through a revisionist, iconoclastic lens and the hipper-than-thou results are neither cute nor particularly insightful...they're entirely false, actually.

[Ava]

20. not a fan and don't really think he should be called the "king of rock n' roll" but...

that is not to say he wasn't talented. he isn't my king of rock n' roll but if others see him as being that then so bit it. i can dig it. ;)

whatever floats everyone's own boat

[gmoney]

24. If it weren't for Elvis...

...we'd have Pat Boone re-interpreting heavy metal hits.

Oh shit, we do.

Curse you Elvis!


Honestly, Elvis was the right guy at the right time and the right circumstances to make a splash and become the face of Rock and Roll and achieve crossover. It was largely about charisma, too, which nobody could argue that Elvis had in spades. Who else would it have been? Bill Haley and his dopey little spitcurl? Nerdy Buddy Holly? The oddball Roy Orbison? Ricky Nelson was just too safe and a product of TV. Those guys all made great music, but none of them could have filled Elvis's shoes.

It was sort of the reverse of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball. Was he the absolute greatest player ever? Probably not, but he was an excellent all-around player, and was handsome and affable and had the backbone to withstand the pressure of the position. Plus they both had good names. If Elvis had been named "Sheldon Pratt" forget about it.

The real tragedy of Elvis's career is how royally and totally ruined and exploited he was by Col. Tom Parker. Hard to say what Elvis might have achieved during the prime of his life while he was cranking out crappy movies with horrendous soundtracks. A few exceptionally good songs escaped, and maybe those hint at his potential, or maybe they were just accidents.

Who knows? Maybe without Sam Phillips and Col. Tom, Elvis would be a retired truck driver by now. But what happened, happened, because all the pieces fell together just right.

[jobycom]

27. Wow, first the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa, now Elvis.

Who will be attacked next on DU? :rofl:

Others have defended The King sufficiently, I'll just nod in agreement with them. His voice was soulful, so passionate and primal. He was the essence of rock and roll. No art form is invented out of thin air--of course he learned from those who came before him. But he was brilliant in what he did.

[ForrestGump]

28. The Gang of Three

Giving Cadillacs away to Calcutta Buddhists.

[jobycom]

30. And feeding the kids enough fat to choke a sacred cow.

[mitchum]

31. Of course, Chuck Berry is the true king of rock and roll, but that does not mean...

that Elvis Presley is not very important. Presley was very talented and actually has more cultural significance.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[skygazer]

33. As usual, Grovelbot hits the nail on the head

A deeper, and more insightful critique I've never read. :rofl:

[ForrestGump]

36. I'll give you the motorcycle, but there's no way in HELL

you're getting my hat, you tin-can sumbitch...

[pinniped]

37. Dude, Elvis is the King.

.