Elvis Presley

Often happens. To be a star you simply have to stand out above the rest, but for someone to become a myth it seems inevitable that they leave before they were expected, that they vanish while we still have the applause ready. This is what happened with Marilyn, James Dean or John Lennon. And that was also the path that Elvis Presley had to follow. His fame spread very quickly and until his death he was at the top. And what’s more: his music, a perfect mix of ‘country’, ‘rithm’, ‘blues’ and ‘gospel’, continues to be unique, a demonstration of audacity that still surprises and that back in the 50s meant the birth of of modernity, that which later came to prop up the Rolling Stones or the Beatles. Elvis had an unusually deep, silky voice, but he was able to do real stunts with it: “It’s not so much my voice, but what I do with it,” he explained.

Elvis was born on January 8, 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi, to farm parents. He had a twin brother who did not survive the birth and perhaps for this reason he was always a child especially loved by his parents, a sentiment to which he fully responded. The family soon moved to Memphis and at the age of ten, they gave him his first guitar, although he would have preferred a bicycle. Little Elvis had to settle and began to learn the first chords on his own. At the age of 19, he recorded his first song, “My Happiness”, as a birthday present to his mother. It cost him four dollars and took place at the Sun Records Company. That same year of 1954 and with the same record label, he released his first commercial album and the following year, advised by who would become his mentor, Andrew Parker (alias “El Coronel”), He signed for RCA and released “Heartbreak Hotel”, which would be the first number one of his early career. After takeoff, he began a brilliant ascent and became the idol of American youth. A lot had to do with it his self-confidence on stage, with never-before-seen contortions and hip movements, and a handful of unforgettable songs, such as “Love Me Tender”, “Jailhouse Rock”, “King Creole”, “Houng Dog ”.

It was inevitable that such a great success would also extend to the cinema. Hollywood welcomed him in 1956 and Elvis would go on to make 32 movies. Despite his words, “people asked me if I was going to sing in the movies, and I told them no, that I had no interest in singing in the movies,” Elvis never managed to separate himself from his music and be the dramatic actor. what i wanted His acting talent, however, was considerable, but, with few exceptions, the producers saw him more with a guitar than reciting Shakespeare. Among his films, the following stand out: Love Me Tenderly (1956); Prison Rock (1957), by Richard Thorpe ; The Neighborhood Against Me (1958), by Michael Curtiz ; the globetrotter(1964), with veteran Barbara Stanwyck ; and Rendezvous in Las Vegas (1964), directed by George Sidney and accompanied by Ann-Margret .

The King of Rock’n Roll’s life came to an end in 1977, but his existence had already taken a turn for the worse in 1973, when he divorced his wife, Priscilla, after only five years of marriage, a fact from which he never recovered. And it is that on stage Elvis was king, but in his private life he always remained a discreet boy, even shy, who adored his mother above all. It was he who gave the best definition of himself: “I consider myself a normal person who has been very lucky in life. But I’m just human, I’m not supernatural or better than others.