Elvis Aaron Presley

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Elivs Presley (1935-77), popular singer and movie actor, was born in Tupelo, Mississippi. An only child (a twin brother was stillborn), he was raised in a religious home. As a boy he sang with his local Assembly of God church choir, which emulated the style of African-American psalm singing. At age ten he won a school singing contest and taught himself the rudiments of the guitar (although he never really could read music).

In 1948 he moved with his family to Memphis, Tennessee, where he graduated from high school in 1953 and began working as a truck driver and studying evenings to be an electrician. Later that year he made a private recording for his mother at the Memphis Sound Studio, where he attracted the attention of proprietor Sam Phillips, who also operated Sun Records, a fledgling blues label.

In July 1954 Phillips had Presley record his first single, "That's All Right, Mama" and "Blue Moon of Kentucky," a synthesis of rhythm-and-blues and country-and-western that was for awhile described as "rockabilly." The record made an immediate impression on local listeners, who were bewildered to learn that Presley was white, but their enthusiasm for his style of dress, bodily movements, and music signaled the beginnings of rock 'n' roll.

He toured the South as the Hillbilly Cat and performed on a Shreveport, Louisiana, radio station, and after releasing his first national hit on Sun Records, he moved to RCA Records under the tutelage of his ambitious personal manager, "Colonel" Tom Parker. His first national television appearance was actually in 1955 on Jackie Gleason's Stage Show, but it was his 1956 appearance on Ed Sullivan's Talk of the Town that made him a national sensation: his pelvic gyrations were considered so scandalous that he was shown only from the waist up.

That same year he released his first million-selling single, "Heartbreak Hotel," and starred in Love Me Tender, the first of 33 relatively bland movies he eventually made. He was forced to interrupt his career while serving in the U.S. Army (1958-60) but he returned to his recording and movie careers with undimmed success and solidified what became virtually an industry.

He scored his last chart-topping single in 1969 but in 1973 his television special, Elvis: Aloha from Hawaii, was broadcast to a potential worldwide audience of over a billion people and he carved out a new career as a flashy nightclub performer even as he broadened his repertoire to include traditional and religious songs.

In 1973, following his divorce from his wife Priscilla Presley, he became increasingly drug-dependent and overweight, and he spent his last years living reclusively at his Memphis home, Graceland. His death at age 42 shocked his many admirers, who have never given up on the music, mementoes, and memory of the man they regard as "the King of rock 'n' roll."

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Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 - August 16, 1977) was an American singer, known as the King of rock and roll. Born to a poor family in Tupelo, Mississippi, Presley was raised both in Tupelo and in Memphis, Tennessee to where his family moved when he was 13. He had a twin brother (Jesse Garon Presley), who died at birth. The young Elvis took up guitar at 11 and, after leaving school, worked for a while as a truck driver. In 1953, however, he recorded a one-off record at Sun Studios as a present for his mother, singing "My Happiness" and "That's When The Heartaches Begin", two popular ballads of the time.

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