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| Birth Name(s) : Elvis Presley |
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Full Elvis Presley Biography
Elvis Aaron Presleya was an American singer, musician and actor. He is a cultural icon, often known as "The King of Rock 'n' Roll", or simply "The King".
After graduation, Presley was still a rather shy person, a "kid who had spent scarcely a night away from home". His third job was driving a truck for the Crown Electric Company. He began wearing his hair longer with a "ducktail"—the style of truck drivers at that time.
When Phillips acquired a demo recording of "Without Love (There Is Nothing)" and was unable to identify the vocalist, his assistant, Marion Keisker, reminded him about the young truck driver. She called him on June 26, 1954. Presley was not able to do justice to the song (though he would record it years later), but Phillips asked the young singer to perform some of the many other songs he knew, and he invited local Western swing musicians Winfield "Scotty" Moore (electric guitar) and Bill Black (slap bass) to audition Presley. They did so on Sunday, July 4, 1954, at Moore's house. Neither musician was overly impressed with the young singer, but they agreed a studio session—on July 5-6—would be useful to explore his potential. During a recording break, Presley began "acting the fool" with Arthur Crudup's "That's All Right (Mama)," a blues song. When the other two musicians joined in, Phillips got them to restart and began taping. This was the bright, upbeat sound he had been looking out for. Black remarked, "Damn. Get that on the radio and they'll run us out of town." The group recorded four songs during that session, including Bill Monroe's Blue Moon of Kentucky, a bluegrass waltz. After an early take, Phillips can be heard on tape saying: "Fine, man. Hell, that's different—that's a pop song now, just about."
On August 15, 1955, he was signed to a one-year contract with "Hank Snow Attractions", a company owned by Hank Snow and "Colonel" Tom Parker. Parker became Presley's manager thereafter. By August 1955, Sun Studios had released ten sides credited to "Elvis Presley, Scotty and Bill", all typical of the developing Presley style.
Several major record labels had shown interest in signing Presley. On November 21, 1955, Parker and Phillips negotiated a deal with RCA Victor Records to acquire Presley's Sun contract for an unprecedented $35,000.
On January 27, Presley's first RCA single, "Heartbreak Hotel", was released. By April it reached number one in the U.S., and sold a million copies. On March 23, RCA released the first Presley album: Elvis Presley. As with the Sun recordings, the majority of the tracks were songs by or from country artists.
In 1957, Presley had to defend himself from claims of being overtly racist: he was alleged to have said: "The only thing Negro people can do for me is to buy my records and shine my shoes." The singer always denied saying, or ever wanting to say, such a racist remark. Jet magazine, run by and for African-Americans, subsequently investigated the story and found no basis to the claim. However, the Jet journalist did find plenty of testimony that Presley saw people as people "regardless of race, color or creed".
His parents moved into a new house in Memphis, but the singer lived there briefly. With increased concerns over privacy and security, Graceland was bought in 1957, a mansion with several acres of land. This was Presley's primary residence until his death.Presley in a promotional photo for Jailhouse Rock released by MGM on November 8, 1957.
As time progressed, Presley became even more obese—he would diet excessively and then binge eat. "e no longer had the motivation to lose his extra poundage... he became self-conscious of his appearance, his self-confidence before the audience declined. Headlines such as 'Elvis Battles Middle Age' and 'Time Makes Listless Machine of Elvis' were not uncommon." According to Professor Marjorie Garber, when Presley made his later appearances in Las Vegas, he appeared "heavier, in pancake makeup, wearing a white jumpsuit with an elaborate jeweled belt and cape, crooning pop songs to a microphone ... had become Liberace. Even his fans were now middle-aged matrons and blue-haired grandmothers, who praised him as a good son who loved his mother; Mother's Day became a special holiday for Elvis' fans."
In 1971, Presley was named 'One of the Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Nation' by the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce (The Jaycees). That summer, the City of Memphis changed the name of the section of Highway 51 South in front of Graceland to Elvis Presley Boulevard, and he won the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (the organization that presents Grammy awards).
In the UK charts in January 2005, three re-issued singles again went to number one ("Jailhouse Rock", "One Night"/"I Got Stung" and "It's Now or Never"). Throughout the year, twenty singles were re-issued—all making the top five. |
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