Off The Record
5 Ways Elvis Presley Changed The Music Business Forever, From Living In Las Vegas To Blending Different Cultures
Presley didn’t come out as a king or an idol that was seen as normal, even though he rose from nothing to become one of the most well-known people of the 20th century and posthumously endured periods of misguided associations, from “fat Elvis” to accusations of racism. Today, thinking of him as an inventor is more enlightening.
That’s the attitude of Recording Academy co-president Panos A. Panay toward the 14-time nominee and three-time Grammy winner. Panay describes Presley as “a multi-faceted superstar” who, along with his astute but misunderstood manager, Colonel Tom Parker, sketched the pattern of the multifaceted pop titan of today, rather than as a figurehead controlling the evolution of rock.
“I think people forget that this is a kid who grew up dirt-poor in the heart of the old south,” Panay, who co-authored the 2021 book Two Beats Ahead, about the intersection of business acumen and musical artistry, tells GRAMMY.com. “He fused all the different things around him — from styles to music — to create something that literally took the world by storm.”
Do you need a reminder of Presley’s profound influence? You can discover the musician as a young man or woman hearing “Heartbreak Hotel,” “That’s All Right,” or “Jailhouse Rock” for the first time in the first few pages of nearly every rock biography. It’s likely that they used the vocabulary of natural phenomena—a thunderclap, a tsunami, or a meteor strike—to describe that moment.
Every celebrity that followed him, from the Beatles to Beyoncé, from Michael Jackson to Lady Gaga, owes Presley a debt of gratitude for constantly revamping their image, staking claims in wildly disparate media venues, and fusing disparate cultural signifiers.
Presley wasn’t the first rock star, of course. He didn’t create the music, and it might be said that he walked so that others, like the Beatles, who looked up to him, could run. However, the reality is that there has never been another Presley, either before or since. Here are five ways that he permanently altered the music industry.
He Helped Braid Disparate Cultural Threads
Of course, years before Presley appeared, rock ‘n’ roll was a colorless cultural exchange.
For decades before, black and white performers from what we may call the “country” and “R&B” and “gospel” and “rock ‘n’ roll” spheres—who were actually components of the same primordial soup—were constantly influencing and inspiring one another.
However, Presley was the one who brought that fusion to the global scene, and his widespread rejection of simple racial and sexual classification was extremely startling to buttoned-up America in the 1950s.
Aside from the shock factor of his hip-swiveling, what would pop music sound like without his energized blend of R&B, country, blues, and gospel? Without his tangled face, unkempt hair, and skin-tight black leather, how would it appear?
Who knows what a world without Elvis would look like, but it wouldn’t have any followers like the Stones, the Beatles, or countless other greats. To put it another way, it would be unbelievably tedious.
He Galvanized A Nascent Teenage Market
Journalist David Halberstram, who won the Pulitzer Prize, said that Presley could hardly have come at a more opportune moment.
“A new young generation of Americans was breaking away from the habits of its parents and defining itself by its music,” Halberstram wrote in his 1993 book The Fifties. And with the advent of new technology—namely the transistor radio—came a paradigm shift in authority.
“The important figures of authority were no longer mayors and selectmen or parents,” the author continued. “They were disc jockeys, who reaffirmed the right to youthful independence and guided teenagers to their new rock heroes.”
For this new market, who was the best leader? James Dean and Marlon Brando were aloof representations of the post-1945 cultural landscape in the film industry.
In music, Presley arrived like an ambassador from Andromeda, poised to guide adolescent refugees from suburban tedium to wild, exuberant happiness.
He Activated Film & TV Spaces Like Never Before…
Panay looks to Presley’s career accomplishments on both small and large screens when he thinks about how to lead the Recording Academy into the 2020s.
“If you want to know the future of the business, man, look at Elvis Presley,” he says. “Look at all the artists that followed the guy. He set the mold for what a prototypical superstar is.”
According to Panay, one way Presley accomplished this was by stepping outside the confines of a record or concert and appearing on your television screen in a variety of movies. This was particularly true in the 1960s, when he concentrated on that aspect of his career with films like Girl Happy, Blue Hawaii, and G.I. Blues.
Presley did have genuine aspirations as an actor, and his presence in that realm was crucial to the multimedia development of pop, despite the fact that his films are sometimes condemned as predictable dreck that stopped his creative evolution.
…And Paved The Way For The Modern Music Video
Presley’s role in the movie wasn’t merely evidence that musicians could act, as Panay points out. Presley’s films encapsulate the whole purpose of a music video, which is to sell a record while making an artistic statement.
From Prince’s Purple Rain and the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night to Love Me Tender and Jailhouse Rock, there is a clear connection when viewed through that lens.
However, Presley’s innovations on screen go beyond the movie theater: “Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite” (1973) was groundbreaking since it was the first live satellite broadcast to include a single performer.
Given the iconic “Jailhouse Rock” music video and the “’68 Comeback Special,” it may be argued that Presley’s DNA is deeply ingrained in this contemporary art form.
Thank Elvis For The Las Vegas Residency, Too
Do you believe that wash-ups are common in the Las Vegas residency format? Don’t believe it. Lady Gaga, Silk Sonic, and BTS, all 2022 GRAMMY winners, will be entertaining Sin City audiences this month alone. (It also hosted the 2022 Grammys.)
“People used to make fun of the Las Vegas residency,” Panay says. “But name an artist right now who doesn’t want a Las Vegas residency.”
According to Richard Zoglin’s 2019 book Elvis in Vegas: How the King Reinvented the Las Vegas Show, Presley’s 1969 debut in Vegas and the more than 600 subsequent performances there paved the way for grander, more glitzy events.
This was a marked turn from the era’s typical, intimate nightclub shows featuring older performers, like Nat “King” Cole or Judy Garland. “It opened the door to big shows,” Zoglin told The New York Post. “All the modern residencies in Vegas, from Celine Dion to Lady Gaga — Elvis was the first of those kinds of shows.”
Therefore, just listen his best songs the next time Presley looks hopelessly stuck in the past, a frozen face on a lunchbox. They’ll help you get your bearings.
“He sang from his heart,” Panay says, summarizing Presley’s genius. “He was an amazing interpreter of songs in a way that, frankly, few people before and after have ever been.”
After that, think about how the pop world would be completely different without Presley, replete with the artists who consistently transform everyday life into something more lively, vivid, and significant.
Yes, he was the King. However, he was more than that.
Bonus
“Elvis was asked to leave his black girls at home when he was asked to perform at the Houston Astro Dome. “I’m sorry, but I don’t come if my girls don’t come,” Elvis said. So we set off.
Elvis made sure we had our own jeep and a young blonde girl driving it when he drove around the arena in one that evening. He saw to it that we were noticed!
The Sweet Inspirations’ Myrna Smith discusses her 1974 tour with Elvis. The R&B girl group The Sweet Inspirations is best known for backing up other R&B and rock singers on studio recordings.
It should be noted that Dionne Warwick was one of the group’s original members. Her aunt, Cissy Houston, Whitney Houston’s mother, eventually took her position.
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