THE KING OF ROCK ‘N’ ROLL – ELVIS PRESLEY

Elvis did not invent rock ‘n’ roll and would never have claimed to have done so but he certainly innovated the genre and was one of its most important early exponents.  Those who say that he was merely in the right place and at the right time are missing the point entirely.  Who else could have carried the mantel of The King Of Rock ‘N’ Roll without appearing ridiculous?  Elvis not only had the voice, he also had the look, the charisma, the energy and – what’s more – the sex.  Elvis may have sung the occasionally expurgated lyric (One Night, for example – but even it that case an unexpurgated version exists), but there was never any doubt about what how filthy his mind was and he did nothing to hide it.  Elvis did very little to clean up rock ‘n’ roll for the famous ‘white audience’ of the 1950s, even on television.

One of the first mistakes many make when analysing Elvis’s music is to approach it from the standard ‘rock’ critic’s point of view.  ‘Rock’ didn’t exist when Elvis began releasing records and so many ways one has to approach his work in a similar way to Mario Lanza, Sinatra, Dean Martin and other pre-rock artists.  Elvis himself was a ardent fan of some of these singers (particularly Dean Martin) and loved them just as much as he loved country music, gospel and rhythm and blues.  To him it was all simply music.  The whole ‘rock authenticity’ was inherited from folk music and jazz, it didn’t start getting applied popular music until the mid to late 60s and so we can’t really apply it to Elvis.

The first criticism rock fundamentalists level at Elvis is that he didn’t write his own songs but that wasn’t expected when he began his career.  Such artists were extremely rare and in many ways the music industry actively discouraged artists from writing their own songs.  He was a brilliant interpreter of other people’s songs, however and that was one of main facets of his genius.  He had an amazing facility to make his audience believe every word he was singing, even on the extremely trite material in his films.  Admittedly Elvis did record a great deal of silly songs, particularly during the 1960s but he never stopped making good records either.  Rock criticism is based on the analysis on ‘the album’ but when Elvis began his career the LP record was a relatively new development and very few were doing very much with it.  There were exceptions to this but very few.  Elvis’ first two LPs are two of these and vitally important examples of early rock.

Elvis Presley’s improved throughout his life despite his later health problems.  It became richer, widened in range and matured into one of the greatest instruments of the twentieth century.   It only began to flag during the very last months of his life.  Academics admit that they have a hard time classifying his voice because he was not only a baritone but also a tenor, depending on what he was singing. There have been remarkably few singers in popular music who could manage this.

Rock critics also like to remind us that despite Elvis’ wild behaviour onstage he was never really a rebel.  However, when Elvis was barely into his teens he had to work to support his penniless family and so he couldn’t afford to be a rebel, I suppose.  These early struggles haunted him for the rest of his life and stopped him from taking too many chances later in his career.

Elvis biggest sin – if it can be called that – was to be the first rock-star.  There was no blueprint for rock stardom when he came along and he paid dearly for it.  His sociopathic crook of a manager prevented him from socialising with people who may have helped his career develop and thrive, as well as coping with such a high level of fame.  Not that Elvis was ever the wimp that many have claimed he was; he fought back against his manager’s lack of vision many times.  The famous 1968 TV Special would never have happened without Elvis pushing for it every step of the way.

The final myth is that Elvis was a purely instinctual artist.  That is born out of snobbery.  Elvis may have been a poor, uneducated country-boy but he was smarter than most are willing to give him credit for.  If he hadn’t been his career would have hit the skids by the early 1960s – this happened to a great practically all of his contemporaries.  Elvis always wanted to be an all-round entertainer and knew that would help sustain his career.  His problems came from outside; the constant interference from his manager and his cheap-skate record label, which seemed determined to bury his legacy in a heap of dire compilation albums packaged in even more horrific artwork.  The legacy won out in the end though.

I’m thankful that his estate finally managed to gain control of work and give it back the respect it deserves.