The King of Rock and Roll
Rock and Roll music has come such a long way and it stems from such inspirational, soulful, and important genres of music. Rock and Roll has musical influence and inspiration from blues, rockabilly, R&B, and so much more. Music had and has such a huge impact on human interaction, human socialization, and even human unity. People connect and thrive through music and this is one reason why it has such a huge impact on our society. Music is also a way to express ourselves, to connect with artists and lyrics, and to be reassured that we are not alone in what we feel and go through in life.
Music is so much more than the sound that comes out of our radios, songs that we blast in our cars and in our room while singing along with a hairbrush in hand. Music is medicine for the soul and it is a different level of certainty for the mind and reassurance that we are all human and we all heal and go through things. With that being said, there is one artist that I love the most and that I think made one of the biggest impacts on our society in the 1950s and the 1960s and that is Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll.
Elvis Presley made such a huge impact on teens and young adults. He sang at the Astrodome and when they wouldn’t let a few African American women into the stadium, he said that he wouldn’t perform or sing until all of his fans and people were there to be a part of it, including the few African American women that were previously denied entrance; I believe they were his back-up singers or they were there to play music as well. Presley also incorporated as much unity, acceptance, and equality as he possibly could and he didn’t care about the repercussions that may have arisen because of it. He just cared about his fans, the people, his community, and everyone that wanted to be a part of his musical journey.
Parents were disgusted with his image, what he represented, what he taught younger people, and his influence on teens. Presley had too much jive in dance, danced too sexual for people’s liking, too much pep in his step, and he dressed in a way that parents weren’t happy with because their kids wanted to be just like him. Elvis just wanted everyone to be included and he wanted everyone to be happy.
His impact on society and his community was so extravagant that it made a big change for the better. Another thing that didn’t stop him was the fact that he knew he could lose everything by taking these steps in society that were highly frowned upon. Elvis was real, pure, and had good intentions in everything that he did. He didn’t just use his popularity and growing fame to benefit himself, he used it to also benefit the people. Eventually, his dancing was seen as vulgar and he was blocked out from the hips up on television; he was even banned from late-night shows because people started to see him as a horrible influence and they didn’t like what he was teaching the younger generations. People, mainly adults, started to realize that Elvis was for the people, no matter their race, ethnicity, or religion, and he slowly started to get banned from television because of this. His records were broken on public television, his publicity diminished, and they started to call him “Elvis the Pelvis” because his dancing involved his hips a lot, but they didn’t give him that name out of good graces.
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