Elvis Presley

Memphis

Elvis Aaron Presley was born on 8 January 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi. He gave his first public performance at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair in 1945, aged ten, and in 1948 his family moved to Memphis. In 1953, after finishing school, he made his first recordings at the Memphis Recording Service. A year earlier he had paid to record an acetate at the Memphis Recording Service, the company Sam Phillips ran before he started Sun Records, and in January 1954 he cut a second.

On 5 July 1954 he cut That's All Right at Sun Studio, a 1946 blues by Arthur Crudup, with Scotty Moore on electric guitar and Bill Black on bass, under the producer Sam Phillips. Two days later the Memphis disc jockey Dewey Phillips played an acetate on the radio. The trio played in public for the first time at the Bon Air club on 17 July 1954, and on 2 October Presley made his only appearance on the Grand Ole Opry. By November he had joined the Louisiana Hayride. The Sun recordings are collected on The Sun Sessions.

RCA and the army

In November 1955 RCA Victor bought his Sun contract for $40,000. Heartbreak Hotel came out on 27 January 1956 and was the best-selling single of that year. His first RCA album, Elvis Presley, followed on 23 March 1956 and was the first rock and roll album to reach number one in the United States.

That year he appeared on the Milton Berle, Steve Allen and Ed Sullivan shows, recorded Hound Dog and Don't Be Cruel, and made his film debut in Love Me Tender. He bought Graceland in March 1957. Three singles of the first half of 1957, Too Much, All Shook Up and Teddy Bear, each went to number one, and Jailhouse Rock followed, one of four songs Leiber and Stoller wrote for the film of that name. His Christmas album became the best-selling Christmas album ever in the United States. Elvis' Golden Records gathered the hits in 1958. A draft notice arrived in December 1957, and he served in the US Army until 1960, leaving as a sergeant.

Return

Elvis Is Back! was his first album after the army. The first session at RCA's Nashville studio was on the night of 20 March 1960, and a second two weeks later added the ballads It's Now or Never and Are You Lonesome Tonight? Most of the 1960s then went to films and their soundtracks. His last public performance for seven years was a Hawaii benefit on 25 March 1961. In 1968 came the NBC comeback special, directed by Steve Binder and aired on 3 December, which drew 42 percent of the viewing audience. In early 1969 he recorded at American Sound Studio in Memphis with producer Chips Moman. Those sessions gave From Elvis in Memphis, In the Ghetto and Suspicious Minds, his last US number one.

From 31 July 1969 he played fifty-seven shows over four weeks at the International Hotel in Las Vegas with a new band led by the guitarist James Burton, and Suspicious Minds was first performed live on opening night. At the press conference afterward a journalist called him the King, and Presley gestured toward Fats Domino and said he was the real king of rock and roll.

Last years

Elvis Country appeared in January 1971, drawn from June 1970 sessions that yielded 35 usable tracks. On 14 January 1973 he played Aloha from Hawaii, the first solo concert broadcast worldwide by satellite, released as Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite. His marriage to Priscilla Beaulieu, begun in 1967, ended in divorce on 9 October 1973.

His version of How Great Thou Art on the 1974 album Elvis Recorded Live on Stage in Memphis won his third and final Grammy, and all three of his Grammy wins were for gospel recordings. His last concert was at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis on 26 June 1977, and he played Heartbreak Hotel for the last time on 29 May 1977 in Baltimore. He died at Graceland in Memphis on 16 August 1977, aged 42.

Billboard credits him with 129 albums on the Billboard 200, far ahead of Frank Sinatra in second place, and the RIAA counts 101 gold albums, nearly double the next artist. He holds the UK record of 21 number-one singles. Little Richard said Presley "opened the door for black music", and Bob Dylan compared first hearing him to busting out of jail. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018.