Elvis Presley is known around the world as the King of Rock ‘n Roll. However, he transcended that genre, his musical genius and his magical voice conquering gospel, rhythm and blues, country, rockabilly and even pop. As if that wasn’t enough, he was also a huge movie star. But Elvis always shied away from that title the world gave him: the fans and the media.
One night in 1965, while doing his hair upstairs at Graceland, Elvis and I were talking about certain aspects of his singing career and all the styles and categories of music for which he is known. Suddenly Elvis leaned forward in his chair and said, “You know Larry, people call me the king, like I invented rock n ‘roll or something. No way, man, no way. ; that’s not the way it really is. Rock n ‘roll goes back to the days when it all started in the deep south when old blacks worked the fields, enslaving their whole lives. I mean those poor people; really They knew what pain and suffering was. It was everything. They used to sing and pour out their hearts to God just to get through the day. I mean, it was their souls that sang, screamed. When the sun rose until it went down, everyone sang , making up the words as they went, in the cotton fields and plantations.
“Listen, that’s where most of our true gospel music comes from. What the whites did was copy them. Their slave music went straight to their own churches, then the whites picked it up and started singing the slave songs on their own. way in the white churches. Then his music started to change and it went beyond the churches and it became honky-tonk and Dixieland. It all happened around here in the old Mississippi delta, then downtown Memphis in Beale. Street, and New Orleans. Then it spread north to St. Louis and Chicago, where blues, ragtime, and jazz first took off, then to our time, when it all became rhythm n ‘blues, then rock ‘n roll. Actually, Larry, I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time, and all I did was take his music and present it to a white audience. “
I remember one night in Las Vegas in December 1976. We had just gotten out of Elvis’s dressing room and got in the elevator on our way to his penthouse at the Hilton International. Two girls rushed up and yelled excitedly, “Elvis, Elvis, you are the king!” As the doors closed, he smiled and pointed upward. “There is only one King. He may be in the chair, but not on the throne.”