Elvis Presley’s Influence in America
Taking a closer look into the timeline of rock and roll, how it all began, and what it has become is truly amazing. Not to mention, the huge influence that rock and roll has made on American culture and society. Throughout the timeline of rock and roll, one era that easily caught my attention is when Elvis Presley gained his popularity, which was around the 1950's. He specifically stood out to me, due to his extremely influential style, his strong gospel roots, and the controversy of his powerful music. With Elvis Presley’s unique style, he embraced African American music and gave them a bigger audience. This new and bigger audience was white people, and while some white people hated the fact that Elvis created this style, many people became open to this new style of music. For the first time ever in history, an artist had appealed to both, black and white audiences. That information alone shows the huge impact that he had left on music and American culture. In a way, he helped unite these two communities. In addition, many of the musicians he chose to work with were African American and he made sure that they got the recognition that they deserved. Overall, he brought lots of equality to African American artists. Shedding further light on his style, Elvis wore lots of jewlery and flashy outfits, (something foreign to previous artists).
His style has definitely contributed to many of the artists’ style nowadays; once again, making it evident that he was and is very influential. Even on stage, his performance style was completely different and something new to the audience. His performances were considered sensual and sexual by the way he swayed his hips and danced on stage. While his style has left a huge impact on music and American culture, this was obviously very controversial during the 1950’s (a very conservative period of time), making this era even more interesting. Similar to Elvis’s controversy, other artists were also receiving lots of contention. For example, rock and roll songs (sang by Bill Haley) were used for the very first time in a film called “Blackboard Jungle,” causing riots to break out in Europe. This controversy actually helped bring in more popularity to this style of music because it was gaining so much attention.
To further emphasize his unique style, most artists would focus on a particular type of music, yet Elvis’s music was heavily formed by a variety of music types. His music incorporated African-American blues, a Southern style country sound, and Christian gospel music. He had lots of success with singing crossover songs and putting his own touch on them by using different voices and beats. This variety of music genres brought in a new style of music and a wider demographic of rock and roll listeners. Not only did Elvis improve the American culture as far as bringing light to African American music, but he also brought in a wider teenage audience. This younger audience seen Elvis as this “bad boy” fantasy, which later influenced a whole new group of celebrities called teen idols, who also had a large teenage fanbase. By influencing what later became teen idols, he also impacted American culture because there was now teenage audiences who fantasized this “bad boy” image.
At his rise to fame, Elvis gained lots of his popularity by making guest appearances on TV shows and giving very controversial performances. He became very successful and was even the first artist to repeatedly have top hits on all three charts at the same time. However, that all came to an end in March, 1958 when he was drafted to the army. While this day (also known as “Black Monday”) was very upsetting to many of his fans, this allowed bigger
opportunities for other artists. Ultimately, Elvis contributed quite a lot to music, in general and the American culture, as well. His style influenced so many artists after him and the entire rock and roll music.
