GARY PIG GOLD adds up ELVIS at 75...and BEYOND
Why Elvis?
I mean, Why should anybody, anywhere, care anymore?
Well, first of all, if it hadn't been for Elvis, we simply wouldn't be sitting here reading this right now. Really!
Think about it: If you like, write or think about, and/or make rock and roll music, Elvis – indirectly or not – is the reason why.
Prefer those Beatles or their ilk instead? That's just fine. But remember: There would have been no Beatles without John Lennon, and John's on permanent record as admitting to the world that, and I quote, “Before Elvis, there was nothing.”
NOTHING.
Huh! He's right, of course.
Sure, there was Hank and Chuck, not to mention Jimmie Rodgers and Jimmy Reed, Bill Haley and James Brown, lest we ever forget Bill Monroe and Ray Charles. In other words, two mighty musical rivers they called C,W, and R ‘n' B, flowing strongly – but separately – cross their chosen ways o'er this great wide land of ours.
Certainly it was only a matter of time before those waters were foreverafter intermingled to surge forward as one unstoppable force, deep, strong and pure. But for those who simply think it was Elvis' first recordings for the tiny Sun label in A.D.1954 (downright bizarre, and for their time near-blasphemous, readings of Arthur Crudup's “That's All Right” and the aforementioned B. Monroe's “Blue Moon Of Kentucky”) which bridged those two waters – just the inevitable musical accident waiting to happen, as it were – then think again:
Elvis' first record was, in fact, the sweat-soaked, blood-stained result of unimaginably fraught months spent searching for that ever-elusive, brand new, and (this was the scary part) colorless “sound.” A sound that would, given time, somehow change the very world we live in from that moment hence – or, as Sun mastermind Sam Phillips was said to have said, “if I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a million dollars.”
Just listen to how painstakingly Phillips guided Elvis and his brilliant accompanists, Scotty Moore and Bill Black, towards that tantalizing, all-encompassing, hitherto uncharted “sound.” They made recordings which form no less than the blueprint upon which every musical thought of the past half century is inextricably based.
Too bad Sam missed out on his million dollars though.
Then again, something's still missing here, isn't it? Again, you (and I) may well ask: Why Elvis ?
Why not (off the top of our head) Jerry Lee? Johnny Cash? Carl Perkins or even Sid King for that matter? All these were artists possibly the equal of Presley, each also slumming around the American Southlands during the early Fifties, recklessly exploring similar musical hybrids.
But, you see, it was Elvis – and he alone – who ultimately succeeded where these and countless others failed. Or simply became legends as opposed to gods. Because Elvis, like the All American Boy he lived and died as, absolutely slogged and fought – night and day for years , it's now apparent – for his richly deserved fame and fortune. And against every conceivable form of adversity, both musical and social, it's extremely important to remember.
Here was a man who damn well wore his fingers, and his band, to the very bone in order to break out of the South (off of Sun and onto RCA too, by the way) in his quest Upwards and Onwards towards global stardom and damn-near universal immortality. Indeed, here's one boy who unfailingly “yes ma'am”ed and “no sir”ed all the right people, deigned to sing at a hound dog (not to mention kissed Ed Sullivan's black and white ass) in order to get himself, and his wonton moves, onto TV – and in doing so, spread his beautiful madness irreparably and irrevocably around the globe …only to seemingly toss it all away and spend the entire 1960's doing time on the silver screen while his protégés in all their manifest forms (Bob Dylan, the British Invasion, Jimi Hendrix even) took over the public airwaves. For a while anyways, that is: One hour of prime time just before Christmas of '68 was all it took for Presley to forever regain his throne.
Naturally, as all martyrs to their various causes must, Elvis Presley ultimately sacrificed himself and his career upon the unforgiving altar of public opinion, heading way down just as his ex-posse were nailing him to the cross with their sordid little book “Elvis, What Happened?” For most out there, all that soon remained of Our Hero was the bloated, pill-bellied National Enquirer coverboy who seemed content to sweat, mumble, and at times even “moo” his way into the realm of truckstop immortality (witness, if you must, videos of his final concerts of 1977: gut-wretching and ultimately heart-breaking footage of apocalyptic artistic decline).
However, despite this most bitter of ends there's really not that much needed to say when looking at this man's life and career, from Tupelo to Hollywood and all the way back home again. Because, you see. he really was The One. There's never been another like him. There never will be. In fact, there honestly doesn't have to be anymore, does there? He did – and, most importantly sang – it all. For me.
Even for you.
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