When Elvis Presley exploded onto the TV stage of the Ed Sullivan Show in 1956, my age was 14. The world had never seen a performer comparable to Elvis the Pelvis. As I recall, it was his second appearance where the cameras were restricted to showing him from the waist up only. (A major disappointment, I might add for returning teen viewers.)
Elvis was not the first rock ‘n roll artist Canadian audiences popularized. Preceding his appearance by a few months was Bill Haley and the Comets performing in Rock Around the Clock. The beat of Haley’s exhilirating, music and the instruments used, propelled normally, obedient teen movie goers such as myself, from their audience chairs to dancing in the aisles. The Ed Sullivan Show not only launched Presley’s career, it also ushered in the Beatles a decade later.
Bill Haley & the Comets
(Sorry, the video quality is poor—seems there are few videos that focus properly.)
Elvis appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, circa, September/October 1956.
Douglas Kellner in his article, The Elvis Spectacle and the Cultural Industries, identifies strongly with the “Young Elvis, my Elvis, the Elvis of my generation,”1 and for teens of that period, Elvis the Pelvis, represented repressed sexuality, energy, freedom, youth, defiance, individuality, and oddly enough respect for elders. His usage of “Sir” when addressing Ed Sullivan marked him as a mannerly person consistent with 50s values. When I watched Elvis’s performance in 1956 at a neighbour’s television set, he came across as being a conundrum of personalities—a shy, handsome young man with brooding eyes, a lopsided grin, and long hair with sideburns, but when he played his guitar and sang, he metamorphosed himself into being a dynamic, cross-cultural singer like none heard in the world preceding him along with a never before public display of body-riveting movements! Boys shortly after his appearance emulated him by growing their hair long, coming the sides back, slicking their duck-tail haircut down with Brylcreem, adopting long sideburns and wearing shirts with high pointed collars. I’m wondering what the tolerance level of audiences would have been had Elvis not been "keenly encouraged" to wear a jockstrap?
“Don’t Be Cruel,” was my favourite song which I used for developing dance skills. On the flip side of the recording was, “Hound Dog” which must have cost Sun Records a small fortune for releasing those two songs on the same 45 record. Both songs were instant successes that stayed at the top of the record charts for months.
Love Me Tender launched Elvis’s first movie that had his career depended on his acting talents, his time on the world stage would have been abruptly shortened.
Elvis threatened establishment with his sultry, good looks, but more so his gyrations. His music was banned on several stations by the ‘good folks’ protecting their offspring from the sensuality parents believed he represented. He was a combination of complex emotions/images not stirred in youth cultures before his arrival.
Please compare this performance of Hound Dog, by black artist, “Big Mama Thornton,” and you’ll see the roots of some of his rhythm, movement, and sound that combines blackness whilst being white.
The combination of black and white attracted white, youth cultures around the world and made Elvis the popular singer he eventually became in a short space of time. His recordings during the 50s, Douglas Keller and myself, deeply admire.
Pity Elvis was turned into a cash machine, dressing akin to Las Vegas showman, pianist Liberace, than the artist he could have been with different management. His talent was corrupted by greed and consumerism and he paid with his life for the lack of gift development which left his soul barren. Elvis was a people pleaser and easily persuaded that dressing like a clown enhanced his performances in glitter, palace societies like Los Vegas. Elvis Presley gained fame and fortune without accoutrements during the 50s—his voice and natural performing style, coupled with finding good songwriters would have more than sufficed. As Douglas Kellner observed, “Elvis never moved far from his, “working class, humble origins.”2 I further agree with Kellner that his fall from grace was prompted by, “The culture industry consuming its own.”3 Whenever I watched Elvis, he never seemed to be at home with himself unless his internal singing switch was engaged in the on position. He appeared to remain an uncomplicated person needing only affection. In movies, he always looked stiff when not performing the activity he did so well naturally.
The public’s fascination with Elvis continues beyond his death. During his career, Elvis sold, “more than 500 million records and grossed over $180 million at the box office—a record no other singer duplicated before or after his time. Since his death in 1977, the star’s sales have actually increased.”4 Tragically, consumerism lived beyond Elvis’s time on planet Earth. People continue to make money off his talent that was reduced by becoming a Colonel Parker cash cow.
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1 Douglas Kellner, The Elvis Spectacle and the Cultural Industries, page 1, Retrieved Friday, February 29, 2008 (http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/essays/elvisspectacle.pdf).
2 Ibid, page 2.
3 Ibid, page 14.
4 Mark Duffett, "Transcending Audience Generalizations: Consumerism Reconsidered in the Case of Elvis Presley Fans". Popular Music and Society. Summer 2000, page 1, Retrieved Saturday, March 8, 2008 (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2822/is_2_24/ai_79573846/pg_13).
