Elvis Presley

1. Elvis Presley THE MAN THAT CHANGED MUSIC AND INFLUENCED THE WORLD!

2. Elvis Aron Presley born to Vernon and Gladys Presley on January 8, 1935 in a small shotgun house in Tupelo, Mississippi. He was an identical twin and his brother, Jesse Garon was stillborn. • Elvis was extremely close to his mother Gladys, who played an important role in his life. She taught him the love of family and the importance of faith in God. His family attended the Assembly of God, a Pentecostal Holiness church. • He had a hard time in school growing up and was known as a well-mannered and quiet young boy. • He made his first public performance at the age of ten, at a singing contest at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show. He sang Red Foley’s song, “Old Shep.” He came second, winning $5 and a free ticket to all the Fair rides. • For his eleventh birthday, Elvis received his first guitar by his parents. His Uncle Vester gave Elvis his first guitar lessons.

3. In September 1948, the family moved to Memphis, Tennessee and they moved into a public housing development. • He always carried a guitar slung around his back and would be asked to sing, where in high school he received positive and negative reviews. He was given a hard time by his fellow classmates for not fitting in by his unique sense of style in clothing and the way he wore his hair. He was called many unkind words that did not reflect the real person that he was which is a kind and gentle person. • After high school graduation, he took a job working for the Crown Electric Company, it was then he began wearing his hair longer with a “ducktail”. This was the style the truck drivers were wearing at that time. • Elvis’s early musical influences included a diversified background. He was influence by the gospel music from his childhood church and the mix of blues and hillbilly music. He even loved Opera music and symphony music and he would go to hear performances. He looked at singing as a way of release from everyday life. He loved all music and could never get enough of it. Even before he was a teenager, music was already his “consuming passion”.

4. As an adult Elvis Presley went to record stores that had jukeboxes and listening booths, playing old records and new releases for hours. • Elvis was an untrained musician who played guitar and piano entirely by ear. Elvis Presley has been quoted, ‘I don’t read music’. • Elvis went to Sun Studios to record a record for his mother’s birthday. He recorded “My Happiness” with “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin”. He was asked who he sounded like and he was quoted saying, ‘I don’t sound like nobody’. • At this time Sun Records studio owner Sam Phillips was looking for somebody with a new sound and had his secretary call Elvis to come in for a recording. • Sam Phillips had gathered local musicians Scotty Moore and Bill Black to audition Presley. At that time they were not impressed but the studio session went on as planned.

5. During the recording break, Elvis started acting up and singing Arthur Crudup’s“That’s All Right (Mama)” Sam Phillips had them singing the song again and started recording because this was the new sound that Sam Phillips had been looking for. • “That’s All Right” was aired on July 8, 1954, by DJ Dewey Phillips. Listeners began phoning in, eager to find out who the singer was. The interest was so high in the song that Phillips played the demo fourteen times. The song began to climb the charts throughout the South. • DJ and promoter Bob Neal became the trio's manager

6. According to one source, regarding Presley's engagements from that time, "Audiences had never before heard [such] music seen anyone who performed like Presley either. The shy, polite, mumbling boy gained self-confidence with every appearance... People watching the show were astounded and shocked, both by the ferocity of his performance, and the crowd’s reaction to it... By August 1955, Sun Studios had released ten sides credited to "Elvis Presley, Scotty and Bill", all typical of the developing Presley style. On August 15, 1955, “Colonel” Tom Parker became Presley's manager, signing him to a one year contract, plus renewals. Several record labels had shown interest in signing Presley and, by the end of October 1955, three major labels had made offers up to $25,000. On November 21, 1955, Parker and Phillips negotiated a deal with RCA Victor Records to acquire Presley's Sun contract for an unprecedented $40,000, $5,000 of which was a bonus for the singer for back royalties owed to him by Sun Record. (Presley, at 20, was officially still a minor, so his father had to sign the contract).By December 1955, RCA had begun to heavily promote its newest star, and by the month's end had re-released all of his Sun recordings.

7. Tom Parker wanted to increase Elvis’s exposure and booked him on national television. He signed Elvis Presley up for six Dorsey Brothers’Stage Show appearances in New York City for CBS starting January 28, 1956. • On March 23rd, RCA Victor released Elvis Presley, this was his first album. The album went on the top charts for 10 weeks. • On April 1st he had his first screen test for Paramount Pictures which lead into his future successful film career and his first movie Love Me Tender. • He would later on that year appear on the Steve Allen Show with a reluctant Steve Allen agreeing to have him as a guest. It was such a success and the first of Elvis swiveling his hips and shocking the older generations and exciting the young generations, mainly young teenage girls. He claimed that he couldn’t help but move to the music. He was deemed by the press as “shocking and vulgar”. This all sky rocked his career and created a new music forever changed the music industry and known as “Rock and Roll”. A combination of rhythm and blues and hillbilly music.

8. Then Ed Sullivan, who claimed he would never have Elvis Presley on his show, signed Elvis on The Ed Sullivan Show to appear on September 9, 1956 for $50,000. Elvis was filmed performing on the show from the waste up and afterwards Ed Sullivan proclaimed that Elvis Presley was “a real decent, fine boy”. • In 1957, Elvis Presley was sent his draft notice from the U.S. Army. He took service starting on October 1, 1958 to March 2, 1960. In the meantime, his mother’s health started to decline from combination of excessive drinking and Hepatitis. In early August 1958 her hepatitis condition started to worsen and Elvis took leave to visit her bedside. On August 12, 1958 Gladys Presley passed away. Elvis was grief stricken and grieved for days. • Presley was eventually honorably discharged on March 2, 1960 and returned home to Memphis.

9. In 1960 Elvis Presley went back to the recording studio and appeared on The Frank Sinatra Timex Show: Welcome Home Elvis. During the 1960’s Elvis made many films such as Viva Las Vegas and Fun in Acapulco. These films eventually waned in popularity with Elvis. He was very frustrated with the lack of seriousness in them. • In May 1967, Elvis Presley married his longtime girlfriend Pricilla Beaulieu. A year later they had a daughter named Lisa Marie Presley. • In 1968, Elvis Presley was unhappy with his career and Col. Tom Parker signed him up to do a Christmas special. It turned out to be a revitalization of Elvis’s career by becoming the famous ’68 Comeback Special but was aired as Elvis in December 3, 1968. It was filmed in June of 1968 and was not a Christmas special. The show was produced as a jam session between Elvis and the original musicians Scotty Moore and Bill Black and included a couple of people from Elvis’s group known as the “Memphis Mafia”. The show featured Elvis in a black leather outfit and he was backed with a small orchestra and a small audience. It was a huge success and was watched by 42% of the viewing audience and was NBC’s number one rated show that season. • The show had written a song for Elvis called “If I Can Dream” which shot to number 12 on the billboard. This spurred on what eventually became the end of his dismal film career and furthered him onto success on the stage. Elvis Presley returned to do live performing. He signed with the new International Hotel in Las Vegas. He was nervous about performing because a performance in Las Vegas in 1956 was failure and he was nervous about this happening again but just the reverse, it was a huge success. His debut performance generated in the showroom alone over $1.5 million dollars. A 5 year contract was negotiated between Tom Parker and the hotel for Elvis to play February and August at a salary of $1 million a year. • January 1973 Elvis performed two charity concerts in Hawaii for the Kui Lee foundations. One was called “Aloha from Hawaii” and Elvis Presley was the first performer to be broadcast over satellite.

10. In 1973, Elvis and Pricilla Presley divorced based on constant touring and not spending enough time with his wife. They remained on good terms until his death and both still loved each other very much and co-parented raising Lisa Marie. • Elvis continued touring for the rest of his life. The combination of so many prescription drugs had created bad health for Elvis and resulted in weight gain. He died of heart failure at his home in Graceland on August 16, 1977. It was a shock for everyone in the whole world. • Later on Graceland was opened for tours which still is opened to this day. Forbes magazine for the fifth year had named Presley the top-earning deceased celebrity, grossing $45 million for the Presley estate in 2005. • Elvis Presley changed the face of music as we know it today. He has influenced many musicians such as The Beatles to Led Zeppelin. He created a whole new music that has expanded to Metal, Punk, and even other Blues and Country. John Lennon said quote, “Nothing really affected me until I heard Elvis. If there hadn’t been an Elvis, there wouldn’t have been a Beatles.” • Elvis Presley has been inducted into four music ‘Hall of Fame’: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1986), the Rockabilly Hall of Fame (1997), the Country Music Hall of Fame (1998), and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame (2001). He won a Grammy in Gospel Music. Elvis has a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7080 Hollywood Boulevard. • He was a performer that will be remembered long after we are all gone from this earth. He is an original and that there will never be another Elvis Aaron Presley. I am a huge fan and will always be the rest of my days.