Elvis Presley!
Discussion
Ok, so I'm a 47 year old white boy from Sarf London, I've spent the last 27 years Djing at warehouse raves, selling imported Hip-Hop 12" records to Soho record shops as well as DJ'ing at various radio stations and weekenders, working for various record companies and producing house music for a living. However, Elvis Presley was GOD to me when I was a kid, I used to go to infant school when I was 6 years old and I sung G.I Blues & Blue Hawaii songs to my classmates. He was SO special and influential....he really was the king and today it seems strange to say that one man could have so much influence in musical history but he really did. Elvis was and still is a f
king unique legend in music that no one has even got close to over the last 40 years!
Just thought i'd share that with y'all!
king unique legend in music that no one has even got close to over the last 40 years! Just thought i'd share that with y'all!
Pothole said:
An odd phenomenon, really. Not a fabulous voice, didn't write any songs, didn't rock very hard (compared to contemporaries like Cash, Lewis etc.) wasted his (undoubted) talent and yet is hailed as a demi-god.
Id disagree on the voice completely, although that has small amount to do with personal taste. He may not have written, but added to/altered songs in the recording phase (and many great singers in bands cant even claim credit for writing there own lyrics or melodies solely, in all truth).
And Elvis Rocked, he rocked hard, easily the same as the likes of Vincent, Little Richard, heads and shoulders more than stand and sing Cash.
Or do you mean drug taking by 'rocked hard'? Because I mean musically/stage wise in the 50s.
Elvis was ace, particularly his early rockabilly stuff. He might not have written the songs or even been the original performers of some of them, but Hound Dog, Jailhouse Rock, Blue Suede Shoes, That's All Right, Hard-Headed Woman, etc. pretty much define the genre.
Elvis had a charisma that appealed to thousands of teens which is probably why so many of his songs are well-known. The reason why everyone's heard of Elvis but not so many have heard of Holly, Cochran, Lewis, etc. is because their careers met an untimely end so they weren't able to expand their audiences, although they might not have done that anyway.
I think his country stuff is quite good, too.
Elvis had a charisma that appealed to thousands of teens which is probably why so many of his songs are well-known. The reason why everyone's heard of Elvis but not so many have heard of Holly, Cochran, Lewis, etc. is because their careers met an untimely end so they weren't able to expand their audiences, although they might not have done that anyway.
I think his country stuff is quite good, too.
Only on Pistonheads would you find such words.Same age as you here, love the guy, have since I was a kid, remember where I was when I was told he had died.
As a musician and having been in many covers bands over the years, never have I done Elvis covers. mainly because it seems naff to do so as far as other band members were concerned.
I'd love to do Elvis covers and be a Scotty Moore.
As a musician and having been in many covers bands over the years, never have I done Elvis covers. mainly because it seems naff to do so as far as other band members were concerned.
I'd love to do Elvis covers and be a Scotty Moore.
I think to assess the impact he had, you had to be around in 1956, especially here in the UK - my dad who was born in 1939 used to say about this sudden bolt of lightning coming from the U.S. Compared to what else had been going on around that time; Jimmy Young, Perry Como, Guy Mitchell, Johnny Ray, he was dangerously sexualised. the very early music was stripped down and raw, absolutely perfect for a postwar generation sick of rationing and the blanket of '50's greyness.. He was perfect catalyst for the evolution of popular music - and before RCA got their hands on him in 1956, he rocked very hard for the time. Fusing black blues and white hillbilly in a frenzied way - that was brand new - his Sun records material between '54 and '55 is uncompromised no bullst energetic music
Love him or hate him, he really kicked things into action like no one else. I doubt the following years would have been quite the same.
t energetic musicLove him or hate him, he really kicked things into action like no one else. I doubt the following years would have been quite the same.
Dawg said:
Love him or hate him, he really kicked things into action like no one else. I doubt the following years would have been quite the same.
This.As Lennon famously said, before Elvis, there was nothing.
He was the first global music superstar, and effectively kickstarted the 'pop' industry as it is today, with an enormous amount of help from the legendary Sam Phillips who deserves equal legendary status for starting it all. Sam, Elvis, Scotty and Bill just happened to be all the right gears in the wheel at the right moment in time on that July day in 1954 in a tiny studio in Memphis and the rest as they say is history.
He may not have written his own material and his lifestyle as a result of that instant fame was immensely weird to put it mildly, but he certainly had charisma and a pretty good vocal range to sing pretty much any style of music. Not many, if any, other artist has successfully recorded the enormously varied range of material he did.
Before Elvis there was certainly more than 'nothing' - however, it was largely thanks to Elvis that the world got to know about it.
As for his influence - just about every record label in America was, for a few short years, desperate to sign anyone with the faintest similarity - and that is what drove the explosion of Rock'n'Roll among white people.
As for his influence - just about every record label in America was, for a few short years, desperate to sign anyone with the faintest similarity - and that is what drove the explosion of Rock'n'Roll among white people.
The Nur said:
My Nan met Elvis when he was serving in Germany. I've seen the pictures of them together and everything. Very surreal.
Surreal for Elvis or your nan?:-)I grew up with Elvis playing in the house all the time when i was growing up(couldn't move for his band's PA equipment,nightmare!)so it sort of seeped into my pours.I like this cheesy little song my mother played one day and it stuck in my head,so 60,s but the lyrics mean a lot to us men,how many times have you sat in a public place and thought like this!I like the quality of his voice in this one,i'll probably be alone here but here goes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QUMsGWIb2M
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