The King of Rock and Roll
Dubbed as the King of Rock and Roll and regarded as of one of the most significant figures of the 20th century, Elvis Presley's energized interpretation of songs and sexually provocative performance style, led him to great success between the 50s and 70s. Elvis Aaron Presley, was born in Tupelo, Mississippi and relocated to Memphis with his family at age 13. In 1955, Presley started working with Colonel Tom Parker, and completed his lineup of quartet, having on board lead guitarist Scotty Moore, Bassist Bill Black, and drummer D. J. Fontana. A year later, Presley released his first single "Heartbreak Hotel", which became the number one hit in the United States, selling ten million records in the first year, making Elvis Presley the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll.
Failing Music in High School
After moving to Memphis Tennessee, the Presleys were so poor that they had to live for nearly a year in rooming or boarding houses, before being granted a two-bedroom apartment in the public housing complex at the Lauderdale Courts. Elvis went to L. C. Humes High School, where he received a C in Music in eighth grade, being told by his teacher that he had no aptitude for singing or music. To prove his teacher wrong, Elvis brought his guitar the next day and sang a recent hit titled "Keep Them Cold Icy Fingers Off Me" which the teacher still didn't appreciate because of the style of singing. Presley had become too shy to perform in his highschool years and was occasionally bullied by his classmates who viewed him as mama's boy.
Rubber Legs
Even though Presley had not received any formal music training, and could not even read music, he persistently studied and played by ear, constantly frequenting record stores that provided jukeboxes and listening booths to customers. He soon started to stand out more among his classmates after growing his sideburns and styling his hair with rose oil and vaseline, on top of wearing wild and flashy blues style clothes he got from the shop Lansky Brothers. Along with guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, Presley played publicly for the first time on July 30, 1954 at the Overton Park Shell, pioneering his signature style dance movement called "Rubber Legs", where he shaked his legs as he performed as a response to rhythm and nervousness playing before a large crowd. Moore recalled that during the instrumental parts, Presley would back off from the mic and be playing and shaking, and the crowd would just go wild.
Years in the Army
On January 28, 1956, Presley made his first appearance of national television on the CBS program called Stage Show, finally bringing rock and roll into the mainstream of popular culture. As Presley rose to fame, he also inspired and ignited a new generation of pop craze culture since Glenn Miller and Frank Sinatra and set a new artistic pace, giving the younger generation a belief in themselves as a distinct and unified generation. On March 24, 1958, Presley was drafted into the United States Army at Fort Chaffee, where he eventually served as an armor intelligence specialist, being promoted to specialist fourth class by the end of 1959. Presley was honorably discharged from the army and returned home on March 2, 1960, where he rode a mobbed train from New Jersey to Tennessee and was called upon to appear at numerous scheduled stops to please his fans.
The Comeback Special
On December 3, 1968, the Elvis' '68 Comback Special aired on national television, featuring Presley dressed in tight black leather, singing and playing guitar in an uninhibited style reminiscent of his early rock and roll days. Presley was keen to resume regular live performances after the success of his Comeback Special, receiving offers from around the world, jumpstarting the advent of his intensive concert tours. Having sold over 500 million records worldwide, Presley is recognized as the best-selling solo music artist of all time by Guiness World Records. On the afternoon of Tuesday, August 16, 1977, Elvis was found unresponsive in his hotel room, and was pronounced dead from cardiac arrest at the Baptist Memorial Hospital, the cost of which was heavily implicated on drugs.
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