Elvis descriptions

[ehollier]

Since arriving on the scene in the mid-50's, there has been no shortage of written accounts of Elvis, whether it be his unique stage presence and mannerisms, his musical ability to deliver a lyric or move a person to tears, abundant charisma, or complex personality.

List some of your favorite articles here.

[ehollier]

I just read this today from Yahoo's "Best of" Album List:

"This dude is majorly famous."

Truer words were never written!!!

[Ronn]

Here's one of my favorites. It's part of a long article which I came across before. It describes the uniqueness of Elvis' voice:


Presley's range, though impressive in its own right, did not in itself make his voice that remarkable, at least in terms of how it measured against musical notation. What made it extraordinary, was where its center of gravity lay. By that measure, and according to Gregory Sandows, Music Professor at Columbia University, Presley was at once a bass, a baritone, and a tenor, most unusual among singers in either classical or popular music.

His voice, which developed into many voices as his career progressed, had always a unique tonality and an extraordinary unusual center of gravity, leading to his ability to tackle a range of songs and melodies which would be nearly impossible for most other popular singers to achieve.

[illona]

This one is my favorite : Leonard Bernstein said about him :

Elvis is the greatest cultural force in the twentieth century. He introduced the beat to everything, music, language, clothes, it's a whole new social revolution… the 60's comes from it.

[mistymorning]

a lot has been said and written about his personality, his voice, his beauty,....... No need to mention that elvis is really admirable for all of his special qualities. But I want to emphasis on his spirituality , a quality rarely discussed about elvis. He was so knowlegeable in spritualism and he practiced meditation , he could numb herself for his tooth surgery without medicine http://www.elvis.com.au/presley/inte..._hoffman.shtml
And he read alot of books about this subject.

" the higher level of sprituality is what I've been seeking my whole life.Now that i know where it is and how to reach it , I want to teach it to all my fans -to the whole world." elvis presley

[KPM]

"I spoke to over 140 songwriters whose work was recorded and most remarked about the uncanny ability of Elvis Presley to capture the essence and make it his own; like a musical geneticist, he drew from every strand of DNA in a songwriter's work, which ultimately helped shape his own distinctive personal interpretation; just listen to the wide stylistic swath of genre-hopping material he recorded during his career - from Junior Parker's amphetamine-paced rockabilly classic "Mystery Train" and the poppin-perfect panache of Otis Blackwell's "All shook up", to the down and dirty blues swagger of "Reconsider baby" and the operatic grandeur of "It's now or never"-; and then there were more controversial and socially conscious anthems ("If I can dream" and "In the guetto"), and introspective 70's fare like "Separate ways" and "Always on my my mind"; right away, you can hear the breath of a master stylist who breathed new life into every song he cut"
Author Ken Sharp, in the introduction to his book, "Writing for the King: The songs and writers behind them", as published in American Songwriter.com

[ehollier]

"He broke upon the world like your mother's worst fears, strutting on stage with long hair and black leather, singing songs from the wrong side of town. If the squeaky-clean '50's was the nation's most conforming decade of the century, Elvis was its flip side. Wearing enough grease in his blonde hair to turn it black, Elvis made love to his microphone and rasped a hybrid of southern gospel, rhythm and blues, and that new beat soon to be known as rock 'n roll. He was just expressing himself, but his idiom would be adopted by a generation."

Jim Curtin

[ehollier]

"Elvis, for all of his control issues, his sexual double standard and his occasional egomania, when Elvis focused his attention on someone, he was magic: hysterically funny, with a sharp, incisive wit and flashes of brilliance. He was the most charismatic human being that countless people had ever met. His endearing traits, in many instances, were the mirror images of the characteristics that made him so difficult to bear at times. His need to control, for example, manifested itself positively in his tenderly protective and nurturing side; the exaggerated self-gratification brought on by his stardom and power was equaled, and possible surpassed, by his legendary generosity; his double standard reflected the southern tendency to place a woman on a pedestal as a creature to be revered, almost worshiped; his egocentricity, when reversed, gave Elvis an almost supernatural ability to empathize. Elvis Presley was a man of many paradoxes - alternately megalomaniacal and humble, oversexed yet strangely prudish."

S. Finstrad

[Merry]

I just read this today from Yahoo's "Best of" Album List:

"This dude is majorly famous."

Truer words were never written!!!

I love this one! lol

[marijaep]

" Elvis was the ultimate example of rare breed, an irrefutable, undeniable superstar. He was a legend as well as a prototype much the same as Rudolph Valentino and Marylin Monroe.
Yet - and this is so terribly important - he was more. Before bad health and personal problems encapsulated him so completely that he could scarcely see the sun, so that his days became black and frightening, Elvis was a warm, funny outgoing man with so much innate gallantry, that a woman felt protected in is presence.
He was impulsively generous as the many stories about his spur-of-the-moment gifts to strangers attest. He was a romantic who wanted to live in a world peopled by beautiful women and heroic men "

Nancy Anderson

[SleepyJack]

One of my favourites is a review of Elvis in vegas in `69 by David Dalton...for Rolling Stone magazine.........It`s a bit long to copy down here....but, if you can find it,it is a good read....brings Elvis to life on the written page.

[ehollier]

One of my favourites is a review of Elvis in vegas in `69 by David Dalton...for Rolling Stone magazine.........It`s a bit long to copy down here....but, if you can find it,it is a good read....brings Elvis to life on the written page.

I found a copy of the article at this site, but it is on various sites around but is entitled Elvis Presley: Wagging His Tail in Las Vegas

http://www.elvis.com.au/presley/revi...t21_1969.shtml

[Lisarose]

I found a copy of the article at this site, but it is on various sites around but is entitled Elvis Presley: Wagging His Tail in Las Vegas

http://www.elvis.com.au/presley/revi...t21_1969.shtml

Great article [and photos], Liz, thanks for posting it!

[ehollier]

Great article [and photos], Liz, thanks for posting it!

You are welcome. I figure every girl needs to read about Elvis 'wagging his tail' so to speak............lol

[ehollier]

"(Peter)Guralnick hits on something essential about Elvis in his analyses of "If I Can Dream," the inspirational song that closed the '68 special (and "In the Ghetto," the final track of "From Elvis in Memphis"). He understands the conventionality of these songs, both of them attempts to make Elvis "topical": "The song is a well-intentioned liberal statement about peace and brotherhood and universal understanding," Guralnick writes of "If I Can Dream." Guralnick understands that Elvis was one of those artists able to invest the conventional with so much emotion that convention is transcended. What matters in the performance, Guralnick writes, "is the pain and conviction and raw emotion in Elvis' voice." That is what lifts these songs from the generalized to the urgent. They are refusals of barriers, and refusing barriers -- musical, racial, class -- is what Elvis' best music is all about.


Elvis can't be given any one meaning because he is about the freedom of inventing yourself, of finding your own meanings. His tragedy is that he denied himself the freedom that his own example encouraged others to demand. When you burst upon the world with the unabashed energy of Elvis, compromise seems a sellout. Even though he knew he'd made that compromise, Elvis continued to present himself as if he embodied that energy, and that pose became a kind of prison."

Charles Taylor

[mistymorning]

"(Peter)Guralnick hits on something essential about Elvis in his analyses of "If I Can Dream," the inspirational song that closed the '68 special (and "In the Ghetto," the final track of "From Elvis in Memphis"). He understands the conventionality of these songs, both of them attempts to make Elvis "topical": "The song is a well-intentioned liberal statement about peace and brotherhood and universal understanding," Guralnick writes of "If I Can Dream." Guralnick understands that Elvis was one of those artists able to invest the conventional with so much emotion that convention is transcended. What matters in the performance, Guralnick writes, "is the pain and conviction and raw emotion in Elvis' voice." That is what lifts these songs from the generalized to the urgent. They are refusals of barriers, and refusing barriers -- musical, racial, class -- is what Elvis' best music is all about.


Elvis can't be given any one meaning because he is about the freedom of inventing yourself, of finding your own meanings. His tragedy is that he denied himself the freedom that his own example encouraged others to demand. When you burst upon the world with the unabashed energy of Elvis, compromise seems a sellout. Even though he knew he'd made that compromise, Elvis continued to present himself as if he embodied that energy, and that pose became a kind of prison."

Charles Taylor

what an intereting analysis about the reation between his songs and his personality ! thanks for this great info.

[utmom2008]

You are welcome. I figure every girl needs to read about Elvis 'wagging his tail' so to speak............lol

I didn't realize that Elvis had wagged HIS tail, but I knew he had made me wag MY tail.!!

[ehollier]

I didn't realize that Elvis had wagged HIS tail, but I knew he had made me wag MY tail.!!

details, details...........

[ehollier]

“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.”

Time Magazine,
May 15, 1956

[ehollier]

“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.”

Time Magazine,
May 15, 1956