I recommend Peter Guralnick’s comprehensive two-volume biography of Elvis (“Last Train to Memphis” and “Careless Love”) if you’re interested in understanding Elvis and putting him and his career in its proper context. If you have any empathy at all, it’s a heartbreaking read.
From it, I learned that Elvis wasn’t a bigot. That almost all artists of his era recorded songs that other artists had already recorded. That his drug dependency began when he was in Germany in the Army, and they routinely gave soldiers speed so they could function in adverse conditions. And that he loved, lived, and breathed music and performing, and he greatly admired other performers, black and white.
His story reads almost like that of the fictional “Citizen Kane.” It’s not only a Great American Story, it’s almost a metaphor for The Story of America. A cautionary tale. I came away thinking that if you ever wish to destroy your enemies with a curse, curse them with an overabundance of success and fame.
edited to correct the spelling of Peter Guralnick’s name
I’d have to ask, is it a hagiography or a more objective historical account? I’m not saying that it can’t be a good book if it’s an ode to Elvis rather than a more objective historical account, but I’m just curious on that count.
That’s true, but we’re talking about the structure of the industry which pretty systematically disenfranchised black artists, whether they were recording original music (or some other standards) like lots of the blues artists or if they were taking music development primarily in the black community and having white artists record the music.
Cultural appropriation was integral to most of rock music, especially in the 60’s when all the Brits re-discovered and mined American blues. Some of the rockers were very aware that they were doing this and generous about crediting their predecessors (who, however, still never got rock star money, not close to it). Some of them just stole stuff (Led Zeppelin: they got sued by Muddy Waters).
Elvis was a gifted performer, and I love much of his music, but this one doesn’t do it for me. There’s passion and struggle in his voice, but sublime? I’m not hearing that.
When it comes to Elvis, I loved his band even more than him. The cats he had on deck were the hottest ever, man. The TCB Band, and the others that didn’t get the credit… no one else will ever come close.
Thanks. It gets very complex with Elvis, especially during those last 8 years. The biggest problem was that he surrounded himself with awful and incompetent people who fed him pills and his own PR and brought out the worst in him. That section confirms what I’ve read elsewhere, that Elvis wasn’t a bigot and was honest and generous in acknowledging his debt to black music.
I have to wonder, however, if Tom Parker and his Memphis Mafia “friends” were quite as enlightened. When his career shifted as the Beatles gained popularity I’m sure that they, long before Nixon, were telling a hurt Elvis it was the hippies and their “bad drugs” and the Commies that were responsible for the change in America’s tastes.
I tend to feel sad for him because, absent those bad influences in later years that turned him into a karate-chopping caricature, he really did seem to be a good-hearted and down-to-earth guy. A few years ago at a function I chatted with a fellow who worked on movies with Elvis during the early 1960s and who struck up a long friendship with him. Once when they were hanging out between takes he complimented Elvis on having accomplished so much at such a young age, commenting on his work ethic. Elvis responded something to the effect of “I have to use every minute I have. My mama died when she was 46 and that’s just about all the time I expect to have, too.”*
[* this is an attitude I’ve noticed in a lot of successful people who believe for whatever reason they’re destined to die young. A shame it became a self-fulfilling prophecy in this case]
It’s not hagiography, but neither is it a hatchet job. It’s solid. I might even call it “definitive,” as it’s almost a week-by-week account of his life, deeply researched. I’ve read a fair number of biographies (by Meacham, McCullough, Isaacson, etc.), and it compares very well to other such works. Elvis is a surprisingly opaque subject. Since he left no journals or diaries or even letters, Guralnick relies on copious interviews he did with people who knew Elvis (as well as previously published material). I would say it’s a very balanced view of the man – and a window into his times. He comes across as very flawed, but also sympathetic.
It’s true that the system was exceptionally unfair to black artists at that time. A lot of people were taken advantage of, black and white, but certainly people of color exponentially worse so. One of the strengths of the books, and something Guralnick says (in the first volume’s introduction, IIRC) he learned a great deal about and was fascinated by as he did his research, is how the music industry worked in the 1950s. I would recommend the first volume (Last Train to Memphis) for that information alone.
FWIW, I bought these books for my brother last Christmas. He passed away in March, before he got a chance to read them. I read them as sort of a tribute to him. I guess I would say I’m a fan of Elvis, inasmuch as most kids of my generation were, but was never a huge fan.
Maybe the Industry people should be the ones subject to scorn. Some kid, who, to paraphrase John Lee Hooker, has the music in him, and has to get it out, should not be blamed for the times they grew up in.
The number of aspiring musicians who end up making “rock star” money is such a tiny percentage of the whole, it is hardly statistically measurable.
I make that point because if we were to make the statement that “It was easier for White musicians in the 1950s to become millionaires than it was for Black musicians”, you might have to concede that the odds of any talented kid living in those or these times achieving that sort of success are almost zero. Both Elvis and Ray Charles were statistical rarities.
Also, the now-vanished Elvis/Big Mama Thornton comparison did not note that Ms. Thornton was older than Elvis, and her career was peaking as Elvis’s was getting started. Anyone making “rock star money” was much more of a rarity in the 1940s and early 1950s than it was a decade later. So it is a difficult comparison to make.
None of this is meant to minimize the struggles of African Americans in the mid 20th century.
FYI- My mom saw Elvis at one of his early concerts, and we saw him together in 1975. She got his autograph after the earlier concert.
Really is a heck of a performance, thanks for posting this!
When Television was recorded, they were called The Beatnigs. Their single self titled album was pretty good.
I’ve never really understood why that matters. Of course I’ve heard the anti-capitalist/recording labels are evil/cultural appropriation reasoning, but having spent a chunk of my life around musicians and making music, about all that ever made sense was "hey thats a cool song, lets do a version of it2.
The footnote to that whole thing about “rock star money” is also that most bands either arent that good or just are not professional enough about their music. Missed/botched rehearsals, stress of touring, crappy income for years before “making it” and so on and so on.
I’m not saying that Elvis should be necessarily subjected to scorn here. If you like Elvis, then by all means, enjoy him. I’m saying that we should acknowledge that him being white gave him privileges that other artists did not have and that the music industry, like everything else in America, was helping to perpetuate racism.
It’s not just the most talented who rise to the top. It’s a business that was shaped by the time period, which was a time of incredible violent racism and segregation.
And yet, it really feels like that’s what you’re doing here. The pleasure you get out of Elvis (or any artists) doesn’t need to be diminished because of the realities of racism and segregation, but how about at least acknowledge it and how it literally privileges some people in very real ways?
If you hate Elvis, if you think he’s “a joke”, you may profit from seeing the 2-part documentary on HBO.
I certainly gained a new appreciation about him (not really knowing much of his story at all). For example, the whole issue of “the colonel”, his rapacious manager, was astounding. Clips showing Elvis singing the music he enjoyed (as opposed the music that was contractually shoved at him) were quite moving.
I don’t want to get flagged or banned for disagreeing again, but I was thinking about some of the comments here while I was out on the range.
There has certainly been some mention of cultural appropriation linked to Elvis, but my question is: Can he be accused of cultural appropriation for propagating the only culture he knew as a child?
A short summary of his biography:
He was born into poverty in 1935 in Tupelo, living in the “poor” neighborhood, and sang gospel at church, He entered his first music contest at 10. At 11 they moved into public housing in Memphis, and he spent his teenage years hanging out listening to blues on Beale Street.
Anyone can get much more detailed information, but the point is, except for his race, that sounds like a solid foundation for someone who became a famous R&B or Blues musician.
A name that I have not noticed in this discussion is Sister Rosetta Tharpe, who might be the artist who had the largest influence on EP’s musical style.
That’s not why you got flagged. It was for your suggestion that racism is some communist plot, and that the races in the south lived in harmony until those dirty reds got involved. Please educate your self about the violent means by which Jim Crow was maintained as a social, cultural, and economic system giving all whites a set of privileges not enjoyed by people of color.
Are you seriously suggesting that he only knew black culture growing up? I find that highly unlikely. He certainly would have been familiar and engaged with black culture, given where he grew up, but to suggest it’s the only culture he knew is silly. And gospel isn’t just from the black church tradition. There are certainly white gospel traditions, and given the proximity of white and black communities, there is certainly similarities. But like much else, it was still subject to segregation. Much engagement would have come from whites taking the chance to come into black spaces, as black people would most certainly been excluded from all but the most progressive white churches.
On top of that, his whiteness allowed for far more engagement of black culture and moving into black spaces than the other way around. Being black and being in the wrong place would mean death.
Although he was certainly poor and grew up part of his childhood in public housing, that housing was most certainly segregated.
If she’s not mentioned it’s because most people aren’t aware of her, as she was rather systemically ignored until rather recently. This has been a constant problem with the history of rock music, and in the popular imagination, it begins pretty much with Elvis. It’s true that people acknowledge some fore runners prior to Elvis, but for most he was the beginning of the modern rock tradition. He wasn’t, but that’s where most people believe it starts. That in and of itself is a legacy of white supremacy.
I am pretty sure that if someone here claimed that the races in the Jim Crow south lived in harmony until the commies came along, it was not me. If I gave that impression, I expressed myself poorly.
I suppose I should have said “primary” instead of only. But I really am not trying to minimize the plight of Blacks in that era.
Maybe my main message is that we should be able to talk about Elvis and his music without someone always insisting that we only do so while reflecting on the civil rights struggle, and how Elvis was a primary beneficiary of White Supremacy, and guilty of cultural appropriation.
And my question about appropriation was a real question, not a rhetorical one. Assuming Elvis was somewhat of a musical prodigy, could we really fault him for his musical choices, given his background?
Also, considering your personal academic background and expertise, do you think Elvis helped or hindered the civil rights struggle, in the long term?
This topic is a classic Jar of Spiders. Every musical tradition takes from others and essentially so does every musician regardless of their cultural/ethnic heritage.
Distinct styles of music can be associated with particular cultures and time periods but ultimately all particular characteristics of a style can be linked to other styles often from other cultures. At what point does cultural ownership begin and end?
When a person of Culture/Ethnicity A is involved with the musical traditions of Culture/Ethnicity B, what level of involvement qualifies them to participate in that musical culture?
Ultimately the above two are not answerable in any quantifiable way, the argument seems to come down to cui bono? and then picking favorites. That is to say, its ultimately an anti-capitalist idea not a musical one…
Why? Why deny those facts? Why ignore and perpetuate a much more simplistic history instead of the complicated reality? It only keeps people ignorant of how hard that struggle was and how much of daily life in America was shaped by it?
Well, there is an argument that rock music on the radio aided civil rights, as radio was already one of the most integrated spaces, compared to much of the rest of America. That being said, other than making positive comments, do we know what he did? Did he march, send money to the NAACP? At the very least he most certainly acknowledged his influences. But what did he did to help his fellow southerners?
No one is saying that you have to hate Elvis or think he’s racist. You enjoy who you enjoy. But understanding that part of his rise to stardom rested on the fact that he was white is still important to understand, because it gives you the bigger picture.
