John Lennon once said, “Before Elvis, there was nothing.”
That’s not exactly true, but it sure seems that way.
You can debate the origins of rock ’n’ roll and toss about names such as Louis Jordan, Charles Brown or Ike Turner.
You can argue the placement of Chuck Berry, Little Richard or Jerry Lee Lewis in the pantheon of legends. Bill Haley may have scored the first rock mega-hit with “Rock Around the Clock.”
But there is no doubt:
The King of Rock ’N’ Roll and, 30 years after his death, he is still the King.
“Before Elvis, everything was in black and white. Then came Elvis. Zoom, glorious Technicolor,” said Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones.
Many people only remember the “fat Elvis,” a jumpsuit and cape failing to hide a spreading paunch and slurring or forgetting lyrics. By the time he died Aug. 16, 1977, Elvis had become almost a parody of himself.
But there was a time when he was the baddest man on the planet.
Time magazine ran the following review of an Elvis show 10 days after I was born in May 1956: “Without preamble, the three-piece band cuts loose. In the spotlight, the lanky singer flails furious rhythms on his guitar, every now and then breaking a string. In a pivoting stance, his hips swing sensuously from side to side and his entire body takes on a frantic quiver, as if he had swallowed a jackhammer.”
He exploded the mayonnaise Pleasantville of the 1950s. He was a nice boy with a rebel at his heart.
While sitcoms portrayed couples who slept in separate beds, Elvis’ “One Night With You” left no doubt what he was “prayin’ for.”
At the same time, his gospel music carried the passion of the true believer.
But let’s face it, the man could sing anything with his incredible two and a half octave voice.
When asked whose was the greatest voice she had ever heard, opera star and soprano Kiri Te Kanawa’s answer was “The young Elvis Presley, without any doubt.”
Perhaps a more direct appraisal came from rising Austin country singer Roger Wallace: “On the merit of vocals alone, he had more talent in the barbecue stuck in his teeth than the singers who sell millions of records do today.”
The power of his instrument never really failed him when he tried. When music critic Nik Cohn listed the “25 Greatest Gigs,” one of them was a 1975 Elvis concert on Long Island.
Bloated and sweating, alone at the piano, Elvis delivered a version of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” that still gives the critic chills.
A few months after his death, on his birthday, I saw the Sex Pistols perform in San Antonio. To them, Elvis was everything they stood against. It never occurred to the snarling quartet that without Elvis, there probably wouldn’t have been a punk movement.
If he hadn’t been there to smash down the walls of musical segregation, rap may have never been born.
And for great music from “Mystery Train” to “Suspicious Minds” we will never forget him.
Long live the King.
