Elvis Presley Biography

Elvis Presley was the first real Rock & Roll star.  A white southerner singing the blues laced with country and country tinged with gospel, he brought together American music from both sides of the color line and performed it with a natural hip-swiveling sexuality that made him a teen idol and a role model for generations of cool rebels.  He was repeatedly dismissed as vulgar, incompetent and a bad influence, but the force of his music and his image was no mere merchandising feat.  Presley signaled to mainstream culture that it was time to let go.

Presley was born on January 8, 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi, the son of Gladys and Vernon Presley, a sewing-machine operator and a truck driver.  Elvis' twin brother, Jesse Garon, was stillborn, and Presley grew up an only child.  When he was three, his father served an eight-month prison term for writing bad checks, and afterwards Vernon Presley's employment was erratic, keeping the family just above poverty level.   The Presleys attended the first Assembly of God Church, and its Pentecostal services always included singing.

In 1945, Presley won second prize at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show for his rendition of Red Foley's "Old Shep."  The following January, he received a guitar for his birthday.  In 1948, his family moved to Memphis, and while attending L.C. Humes High School there, Presley spent much of his spare time hanging around the black section of town, especially on Beale Street, where bluesmen like Furry Lewis and B.B. King performed.

Upon graduation in June 1953, Presley worked at the Precision Tool Company and then drove a truck for Crown Electric.  He planned to become a truck driver and had begun to wear his long hair pompadoured, the current truck-driver style.  That summer, he recorded "My Happiness" and "That's When Your Heartaches Begin" at the Memphis Recording Service, a sideline Sam Phillips had established in his Sun Records studios where anyone could record a ten-inch acetate for four dollars.

Presley was reportedly curious to know what he sounded like and gravely disappointed by what he heard.  But he returned to the Recording Service again on January 4, 1954, and recorded "Casual Love Affair" and "I'll Never Stand In Your Way."  This time he met Phillips, who called him later that spring to re-record a song that Phillips had received on a demo, "Without You."   Despite numerous takes, Presley failed miserably and a Phillip's request just began singing songs in the studio.  Phillips then began to believe that he had finally found what he had been looking for:  "a white man with the Negro sound and the Negro feel."

Phillips enlisted lead guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, both of whom were then playing country & western music in Doug Pointdexter's Starlight Wranglers.  Though some sources cite the date of their first meeting as July 4, 1954, the three had actually rehearsed for several months, and on July 5, 1954, they recorded three songs:  "I Love You Because," "Blue Moon of Kentucky" and what would become Presley's debut, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup's "That's All Right."

Two days later, Memphis disc jockey Dewey Phillips (no relation to Sam) played the song on his "Red Hot and Blue" show on radio station WHBQ.   Audience response was overwhelming, and that night Presley came to the studio for his first interview.  Scotty Moore became Presley's manager, and "That's All Right" b/w "Blue Moon of Kentucky" became his first local hit.  After playing local shows, Presley made his first and last appearance at the Grand Ole Opry on September 25.  Legend has it that after his performance he was advised by the Opry's talent coordinator to go back to driving trucks.

By October, Presley had debuted on "The Louisiana Hayride," a radio program on which he appeared regularly through 1955.  Meanwhile, "Good Rockin' Tonight" b/w "I Don't Care If The Sun Don't Shine" were hits in the Memphis area.

In early 1955, Moore stopped managing Presley, although he would continue to play in Presley's band for several years.  Presley's new manager was Memphis disc jockey Bob Neal.  Colonel Thomas Parker first entered Presley's career when he helped Neal make some tour arrangements.  Presley, still considered a country act, continued to perform locally, and in April he traveled to New York City, where he auditioned unsuccessfully for Arthur Godfrey's "Talent Scouts" program.  But on May 13, his performance in Jacksonville, Florida, started a riot, Presley's first.   "Baby, Let's Play House" b/w "I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone" was released and hit # 10 on the national country & western charts in July.

That September, Presley had his first # 1 country record, a version of Junior Parker's "Mystery Train" b/w "I Forgot To Remember To Forget."   By this time, Colonel Parker, despite Presley's agreement with Neal, had become increasingly involved in his career.  When RCA purchased Presley's contract from Sun for a then unheard of $25,000, Hill and Range, a music publisher with whom Parker had some connections, purchased Sam Phillips' Hi-Lo Music for another $15,000.  In addition, Presley received a $5,000 advance, with which be bought his mother a pink Cadillac.

Presley became a national star in 1956.  He and Parker traveled to Nashville, where Presley cut his first records for RCA (including "I Got A Woman," "Heartbreak Hotel" and "I Was The One"), and on January 28, 1956, Presley made his national television debut on the Dorsey Brothers' "Stage Show," followed by six consecutive appearances.  In March, Parker signed Presley to a managerial agreement for which he would receive 25 percent of Presley's earnings.

Presley performed on the Milton Berle, Steve Allen and Ed Sullivan shows.   The Colonel arranged Presley's debut at the New Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas that April, but the two-week engagement was canceled after one week of poor audience response.   In August, he began filming his first movie, LOVE ME TENDER, which was released three months later and recouped its cost--$1 million--in three days.  Elvis' hit singles that year were all certified gold:  they included "Heartbreak Hotel" (#1), "Hound Dog" (#1), "Don't Be Cruel" (#1), "Love Me Tender" (#1) and "Anyway You Want Me (That's The Way I'll Be)" (#20).   By early 1957, he was the idol of millions of teens and the perfect target for the wrath of critics, teachers, clergyman and even other entertainers (including many country performers), all of whom saw his style as too suggestive.  Presley repeatedly claimed not to understand what all the criticism was about.  On January 6, when Presley made his last of three appearances on Ed Sullivan's show, he was shown only from the waist up.

In March of 1957, Presley purchased Graceland, a former church that had been converted into a 23-room mansion; the next month, "All Shook Up" began an eight week run at #1.  LOVING YOU was released in July, and "Teddy Bear" from its soundtrack hit #1 on the pop, country and R&B charts, as did "Don't Be Cruel," "All Shook Up" and "Jailhouse Rock," the title song from Presley's next movie, which featured Lieber and Stoller songs.  In December, he received his draft notice, but was granted a sixty-day deferment to complete filming KING CREOLE.

On March 24, 1958, Presley entered the Army.  He took leave a few months later to be with his mother; Gladys Presley died the day after his arrival on August 14, 1958.  In later interviews, Presley would call her death the great tragedy of his life.  He was shipped to Bremerhaven, West Germany, and in January 1960 was promoted to sergeant.  He was discharged in March.

Colonel Parker, meanwhile, released singles Presley had recorded before his departure.  One of them, "Big Hunk O' Love" (1959), hit #1, and in 1958 alone Presley earned over $2 million.  Shortly after his return, he recorded his first stereo record, "Stuck On You" (#1), and later that month he taped a program with Frank Sinatra.

In July, Presley's father remarried.  Also at this time, Presley gathered around him the friends, employees and hangers-on who would become known as the Memphis Mafia and would accompany him almost constantly.

G.I. BLUES and FLAMING STAR were released in 1960, and "It's Now Or Never" hit #1 in both the U.K. and the U.S.  Presley had five #1 U.S. hits:   "Stuck On You," "It's Now Or Never," "Are You Lonesome Tonight" (1960); "Surrender" (1961); and "Good Luck Charm" (1962).  On Christmas 1960, Priscilla Beaulieu, the teenaged daughter of an Army officer whom Presley had met in Germany, visited Graceland.  In early 1961, she moved in to live, it was said, under the supervision of Presley's father and stepmother.

After a live performance on March 25, 1961, at a benefit for the U.S.S. Arizona, Presley left the concert stage and spent the next eight years making movies:   WILD IN THE COUNTRY, BLUE HAWAII (1961); FOLLOW THAT DREAM, KID GALAHAD, GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS! (1962); IT HAPPENED AT THE WORLD'S FAIR, FUN IN ACAPULCO (1963); KISSIN' COUSINS, VIVA LAS VEGAS, ROUSTABOUT (1964); GIRL HAPPY, TICKLE ME, HARUM SCARUM (1965); FRANKIE AND JOHNNY, PARADISE, HAWAIIAN STYLE, SPINOUT (1966); EASY COME, EASY GO, DOUBLE TROUBLE, CLAMBAKE (1967); STAY AWAY JOE, SPEEDWAY, LIVE A LITTLE, LOVE A LITTLE (1968); CHARRO!, THE TROUBLE WITH GIRLS (AND HOW TO GET INTO IT), CHANGE OF HABIT (1969).  By the mid-sixties Presley was earning $1 million per movie plus a large percentage of the gross.  Each of the movies had a concurrently released soundtrack LP, nine of which went gold.

On May 1, 1967, Elvis and Priscilla were wed in Las Vegas; on February 1, 1968, their only child, Lisa Marie, was born.  Over the summer, he taped the surprisingly raw, powerful ELVIS television special that was broadcast on December 3 to high ratings.  Its soundtrack reached #8.  It included his first performance before an audience in over seven years, and with that success behind him, Presley turned to performing in Las Vegas.  His month-long debut at the International Hotel in Las Vegas began on July 26, 1969 and set the course for all of Presley's future performances.   His fee for the four weeks was over $1 million.  That October, "Suspicious Minds" became Presley's first #1 hit in seven and a half years and the last of his career.  He toured the country annually, selling out showrooms, auditoriums and arenas, frequently breaking box-office records.  There were two on-tour documentaries released, ELVIS: THAT'S THE WAY IT IS (1970) and ELVIS ON TOUR (1972), the latter of which won the Golden Globe Award for Best Documentary.

Presley was honored with countless Elvis Presley Days in cities around the country, and the U.S. Jaycees named him on of the ten most outstanding young men of America in 1970.  His birthplace in Tupelo was opened to the public, and on January 18, 1972, the portion of Highway 51 South in Memphis was renamed Elvis Presley Boulevard.   That October, Presley had his last Top Twenty hit when "Burning Love" hit #2.

Meanwhile, Presley's personal life became the subject of countless tabloid headlines.  Priscilla, from whom Presley had been separated since February 1972, refused to return to Graceland, and on his birthday in 1973 he filed for divorce.   Less than a week later, the TV special "Elvis: Aloha From Hawaii" was broadcast via satellite to over a billion viewers in forty countries, and indication of his international appeal, although (with the exception of three dates in Canada in 1957 and an impromptu performance while on leave in Paris in 1959) Presley never performed outside the U.S.  Through it all, his records continued to sell.  During his career, Presley earned 94 gold singles, three gold EPs and over forty gold LPs.  His movies grossed over $180 million, and millions were made by the merchandising of Elvis products that ranged from t-shirts to stuffed hound dogs and bracelets, the rights to which were controlled by Colonel Parker.

Elvis' last live performance was on June 26, 1977, in Indianapolis.

On August 16, 1977, the day before his next scheduled concert, news media from around the world reported that Elvis Presley was discovered by his girlfriend Ginger Alden dead in his bathroom at Graceland.