There is a lovely piece in the Telegraph today about Elvis Presley, who died 30 years ago (Christ I feel old as I type those words). A lot of people get very snooty about the Tennessee lad but I do not. I like most of his early material, am not quite so keen on the Vegas year stuff and have not much interest in reading about his later years. But that he had an amazing voice, charisma and impact on the world of music can only be denied by people who have spent the last few years living on Mars.
For nearly a year, I lived at the flat of the late Chris Tame, whom I very much miss both as a friend and intellectual influence. Chris was a massive Elvis fan. His house in Bloomsbury would be either vibrating to the music of the King or some surf guitar dude like Dick Dale (no deep classical music was allowed). Chris was an atheist and no believer in the afterlife, but I bet that if there is one, he is up there, rockin’ to the music of his hero.
Not everyone shares my generally favourable view, such as Tim Luckhurst in the Guardian. He repeats the old, politically-correct crud that Elvis only was important because he “stole” blues from black people, etc. Oh please.
And if I can make a sort of cultural-political “point” here, let’s not forget that Elvis is probably loathed by the sort of people that any self-respecting advocate of the pursuit of happiness would be glad to be loathed by: religious fundamentalists and nanny staters of various persuasions.
Luckhurst does not state that Elvis “stole” the blues, rather:
“The only credible claim that can be made on Elvis Presley’s behalf is that he helped introduce blues influences to a mass audience.”
Best, Sean.
Sean, yes, but he pretty much made that point if you read the general article, which is how I interpreted it.
I disagree. There is no mention of Elvis stealing the blues, nor indeed, is there an indication of such a view. I have just read the article again to check – and while it is a rather poor piece of writing it does raise at least one good point:
“Elvis was no genius. He was a lad with a tremendous voice who found himself packaged and sold in the way thousands of slow-witted pop poppets have been ever since.”
A view reflected no doubt by those who regard the records made for the Sun label as the only credible work. Don’t get me wrong, I like Elvis, and he didn’t steal the blues, but he sure helped to make popular black music of the period, in the same way that madonna brought vougeing to a wider public – which is what Luckhurst states – and there is nothing wrong with that. Nothing about stealing at all.
Best, Sean (typing away at Heartbreak Hotel).
Luckhurst would have produced a much shorter article had he simply made his point directly and said “I am an aesthetic snob so I don’t like Elvis”, rather than wittering on about trailer trash, chavs, anti-intellectualism and so on.
And while he didn’t explicitly say, “Elvis stole the blues from the blacks”, there is this:
The only credible claim that can be made on Elvis Presley’s behalf is that he helped introduce blues influences to a mass audience. But in a less bigoted era that would have been accomplished by authentic blues musicians.
So apparently Elvis produced only “blues influences”; he was not an “authentic blues musician.” But then when he ever claim to be?
When Elvis was first being introduced to American audiences he was billed as a Country act. Those Sun Records releases were rockabilly – a weirdly attractive[1] amalgam of jump-jive and country. And Elvis was good at it. But it wasn’t blues; nor was meant to be.
[1] “weirdly attractive” in the sense that, while it may not be at the top of your IPod playlist, when you do hear it, it’s difficult to resist its charms. There is a curious compulsion to smile (if only inwardly) and to tap your foot. The same is true of doo-wop. And yodelling.
I visited Graceland in ’95. I was stunned and intensely moved. The story of Elvis Presley has been presented in the UK as a joke – the archetype fat yank who didn’t understand the “subtleties” or European culture and got fat and then died.
Yeah, right. I bought tickets for the full Graceland experience and upon entering the vehicle collection (including his Convair 880 jet – first civilian aircraft to have a telephone) they had a 1950s photo-booth picture of him blown-up and he was drop-dead. They had his Stutz Blackhawk with a solid gold gear-stick (out-pimp that…) and then I saw a picture of the memorial he paid for to the sailors who died on the USS Arizona and one of the shack he grew up in and the (in)famous picture of him with Nixon (he wanted to be an undercover DEA agent at the time!)
Elvis was truly a piece of work.
And perhaps he’s the reason I’m typing this in jeans and a T-shirt rather than in tweed. Perhaps that’s also the reason I’m listening to Debbie Harry singing about drugs and not something on the BBC “light programme”.
A cousin of mine has made a reasonable career of impersonating this truly great man. My cousin (he’s been to Graceland three times) knows all the big wheels in the West Midlands music scene. He knows Noddy Holder and Robert Plant. He got me autographs of both of them. “Planty” took some time because as my cousin put it, “it’s difficult to sit on your arse in West Bromwich when you’ve got 40 million in the bank”. Never a truer word…
Elvis was brilliant. No ifs or buts. An ultimately tragic genius who still managed to change vastly more than any number of navel-gazing frogs. One day I shall aspire to entertain in a jungle-room. Don’t you want a waterfall in your living room?
Not so sure about yodelling, though I agree with your other points.
I wish I could remember where I heard it – that if the number of people impersonating Elvis increases at the rate is has done since his death, by some near point in the future 1 in 4 of us with be singing ‘love me tender’ on a professional basis! If Icould curl my lip…
Best, Sean.
I think we are all agreed that Luckhurst is a complete snob, but there is an awful lot of tosh talked about Elvis.
On the plus side, He had a fantastic voice that yes sounded black. The energy and excitement of those early Sun recordings is electric.
But his main asset was his drop dead good looks and that incredible raw sexuality stage performance.
That was what got to the young Lennon, Richards Jagger etc and blew their minds.
But it is really the Beatles and the Stones you have to thank for the way modern pop music sounds and looks.
When I accidentally saw the Beatles live aged 11 in 1963, Elvis was practically forgotten except for the crappy movies.
As for “Black” music, it had moved on to Soul and Tamla Motown. Nobody was listening to blues and rock n roll anymore. Guys like Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker were earning a living painting houses back then not playing the blues. Those guys always put their subsequent careers down to the Beatles and Stones, who basically repackaged rock and sold it back to an American audience that had long lost interest in it.
To quote what John Lennon said on this occasion 30 years ago-
Elvis died the day he joined the Army.
Who the fuck is Luckhurst? How many records did he sell?
The world is full of wankers. I once had a music teacher who swore blind that America had never produced any “new” music – it was all just Euro-African fusion. The fact that that fusion was remarkably fruitful seemed to escape him.
As I may’ve suggested earlier I think that popular music has been an incredibly powerful force for the good.
RAB,
Jagger has a certain regency swagger (I like his coats) but Lennon et al… were just a bunch of scousers with bad haircuts. I hope my parents aren’t reading this…
My Dad, who is from Cheshire, used to watch the Beatles back in the days when they were the Silver Beatles and Priscilla White was working The Cavern cloak-room) and my mum once sat on the stage when they played Sunderland ice-rink and hand-jived while Paul McCartney was vaguely flirting with her… She ended-up having to take her heels off and walk home barefoot so it wasn’t all glamour. But Elvis (I’m currently listening to Jailhouse Rock) was the Daddy.
Thank you Elvis. You have allowed my teenage rebellious streak to (in a different form, admittedly) extend into my thirties.
Viva Las Vegas!
No Nick he was the daddy to the Real daddies.
They took it to where it is today.
Bad haircuts or not, the survival of the Blues and rock n roll owes much more to the Beatles than to Elvis.
As to the “Can blue men sing the Whites?” arguement
Of course they can!
I have sat in rooms with musicians of different nationalities who couldn’t understand a word each other said.
Ah but when they pulled out their instruments, then they were talking!!!
Music is fusion and cross pollination. Like someone said above , the early Elvis was Rockabilly. A hybrid of country and R&B and blues. All of which were amalgams of slave songs and spirituals mixed with old irish and scottish music. All imported and shaken not stirred. Even the instruments.
Banjos (hi Verity!) were an african american invention based on instruments they knew before they were enslaved. The modern Banjo though was tidied up and standardised by white folks to such an extent that that the scene from Deliverence is probably the only one people remember today and associate it with sub normal white hillbillies.
Elvis, feh! Tacky, over the top, bloated has-been by the time he died. A sleazy night club performer, living on the momentum of the money machine created by his earlier career, being fed pills and banana sandwiches by the remora-like sycophants that seem to always school around senescent whales such as he.
Maybe you had to be of a certain age, and in the States to be filled with as deep a loathing as I am for the dead performer. I can recall at age seventeed wondering why I should give a small crap about the expiration of yet another Vegas entertainer.
I’ll listen to a Carl Perkins rendition of “Hound Dog” over Elvis the Jaded any day of the week.
But in his early prime he was brilliant, that’s kind of the point I was making. Your loathing does you no credit.
Nope, no credit to be claimed.
Since my formative years with respect to music (let’s say between the ages of 7 at 17) span the late ’60s to the late ’70s, by the time I was listening to what was then contemporary music, Elvis had long passed his peak and was in the slide toward kitsch and cliche.
So my loathing probably has more to do with my personal recollections of the impact his music of the time on me made at the time. I suppose if I had not lived in the states not too far from Vegas, and if I had not already had a deep dislike of that sort of entertainment venue (a bias approaching bigotry), then maybe I might be more disposed to view Elvis in a way not colored by my feelings at the time.
But I can’t. I can enjoy some earlier music, but I have never been able to call Elvis a “genius”.
I suspect a personal peculiarity on my part – what most people call charisma antagonizes me. I would argue that this is rightly so, since charisma is an evil thing; it’s utility is to sway by force of personality and not by force of reason or by value. Which is kind of like Vegas itself, so there you go.
I’d say hatred of charisma is a mediocre thing.
Mediocre? Why would that be? Distrust, at the very least, would be the sane reaction to any display of charisma.
Letting yourself be swayed by an charismatic performer, particularly when the performer is a politician or a preacher, is one step toward being brainwashed into joining a cult or politcal party.
I hesitate to pursue the thread of argument suggested by the politcal realm, since Godwin’s law would be invoked shortly thereafter. But the dangers should be obvious without naming he-who-must-not-be-mentioned-in-a-blog-thread.
You might be interested by these:
– http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north121.html
– http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north122.html
– http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north560.html
JSinAZ,
The Ricky Hitler band was fantastic.
What has to be remembered is all performers who survive get subsumed into the mainstream of showbusiness.It wasthe way the industry was constructed,even those performers who strive to concoct a none showbiz image are, in fact,merely trying to make themselves stand out.
They all sell out,some of them just try to look as if they aren’t.
To quote LilyTomlin:
“Truth is, I’ve always been selling out. The difference is that in the past, I looked like I had integrity because there were no buyersÄ™
buyersÄ™ = buyers”
keyboard spontaneously changed on me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSboTvPSj7c&mode=related&search=.
That is Elvis’ last song performed in public. It captures what certain types of Americans love about or at least appreciate. He loved to perform and he was, true to the great Southron tradition of demagogery, a lantern for many rednecks’ feet. Elvis never moved from Tenn.. He may have withdrawn from the public eye for years at a time for various reasons, but his public were never uncertain of his ties to the South or working class America. Notice how he breaks out all his gimmicks when he is sure that this song is going to be good: the snarl, the boyish smile and the breathless ‘hang wih me’.
As for the Stones and the Beatles, they may have reached more ears and pocket books, but when they die will anyone care? They are all on their umpteenth wife or settled in London or LA. Sir Paul thank God has stopped playing the Super Bowl. Mick et al are somewhere hunting down models VERY SLOWLY…
Well Bob I saw the whole of that TV special back at the time and I was in tears. Not of joy and admiration but because he was totally and utterly fucked!!
For every Hound dog he would have to do five very slow numbers to get his breath back. He was sweating worse than Lee Evans and Tom Jones put together and on at least half a dozen occasions, couldn’t remember the words.
I like to remember him in his 1968/9 comeback concert.
That really was the business.
“[L]et’s not forget that Elvis is probably loathed by the sort of people that any self-respecting advocate of the pursuit of happiness would be glad to be loathed by: religious fundamentalists and nanny staters of various persuasions.”
Oddly, some of my deeply religious (fundamentalist) friends are big fans of his, out here in middle-America. They recognize that he put his sweet baritone voice to very good use, recording some of the loveliest gospel songs I’ve ever heard (not only “Crying in the Chapel”). The thing was, when you listened, when you watched him sing them, you’d get the sense he felt every word of the faith expressed in them. They were/are beautiful.
Yes, Those Sun Records releases were rockabilly – a weirdly attractive[1] amalgam of jump-jive and country. And Elvis was good at it. But it wasn’t blues; nor was meant to be.