In 1994 Ray Charles in an interview with Bob Costas of NBC and harshly criticized Elvis Presley: “To say that Elvis was so great and so great, like he was the king … the king of what?” said Charles. “I know a lot of far superior artists” – singers like Nat King Cole, who was attacked by white audiences for playing rock, while Elvis received widespread acclaim. «He did the our genre of music, ‘said Charles,’ so what the hell am I supposed to get excited about? ‘
This heartbreaking phrase, which went viral in 2020 and twice this year, sums up a long held stance against Presley. For some, he was not an extraordinary musical force, but rather a fortunate vulture of culture who made a name for himself by copying the moves of black artists and covering their songs. Presley, by virtue of his white skin, has profited in ways that the creators of black rock have never been able to do and, over time, has been called the “king” of the genre.
It’s a topic that the new biopic is about Elvis, directed by Baz Luhrmann and played by a hypnotic Austin Butler, faces on the one hand. In the film, Luhrmann highlights artists such as Big Mama Thorntonwho sang the original “Hound Dog“; Little Richarda real rock creator; Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the pioneer of the electric guitar; And BB King, the blues superstar who had a long and close friendship with Presley. In the film, Presley is in harmony with the black community. He goes to black artist shows, leisurely strolls along Beale Street in Memphis, and goes clothing shopping with King. It’s all roses and flowers. In the film, Presley’s only critics are white racist authority figures and white journalists who find his work provocative due to its proximity to black.
But is this the truth of the time? The film Elvis takes care to show the origins of the singer’s musical style, highlighting the black artists who inspired him. It also shows how Presley felt about these musicians (reverent, impressed), but it doesn’t show how they felt about him. Did Big Mama Thornton have an opinion that Presley had become a superstar by covering his song? Likewise, did Sister Rosetta Tharpe or Little Richard care that Presley mimicked their style for the masses? Was BB King really a big supporter of the future superstar?
The truth about these questions, it seems, is very complex. It is true that Presley grew up in a poor and mostly black neighborhood of Tupelo, Mississippi, and who in his youth attended the black churches that inspired his deep love for gospel music. As a teenager, when his family moved to Memphis, Tennessee, he traveled to East Trigg Avenue Baptist Church and he attended the services of Reverend Herbert Brewster, a common pastime for rebellious white teenagers in the areaaccording to writer and music director Nelson George, who he worked as a consultant for Elvis. During his research, George interviewed numerous black people who knew Presley as a young man. What did they say? “That he was a strange white boy”George told Mojo Media with a laugh, “Elvis was a case apart.”
The film also accurately portrays Presley’s relationship with BB King (played by Kelvin Harrison Jr.). In a 1996 interview with Charlie Rose, the blues icon recalled seeing the singer in the studio in the early 1950s, before he became a star. Presley. But when Presley developed, ‘His head began to spin, including mine. She had it all. The appearance, the talent ». The duo became friendly. As success grew, Presley also helped King get gigs. Over the years, King has defended his friend from cultural theft charges: “Music is owned by the entire universe, “King said in a 2010 interview,” it’s not exclusive to the black man or the white man or any other color. “ In his 1996 autobiography, Blues All Around Me, King wrote: “Elvis didn’t steal anyone’s music. He only had his own interpretation of the music he grew up with, and the same goes for everyone. I think Elvis had integrity. “
Little Richard (interpreted by Alton Mason), however, had a different opinion from King’s. In a 1990 interview with Rolling Stone the rock and roll architect spoke openly about how Presley’s white being had helped his career: “If Elvis had been black, he wouldn’t have been that great,” said Richard, “If I had been white, you know how much I would have been great? If I had been white, I would have been able to sit on top of the White House! Many things they would do for Elvis and Pat Boone, they wouldn’t have made them for me. ‘
But Richard acknowledged Presley and Boone, who covered Richard’s hit “Tutti Frutti” with great success, credit for helping to introduce rock music to white audiences, to the benefit of some black artists. He was also Presley’s friend and spoke fondly of him after his death in 1977: “I love him. He’s my friend, my baby, “Richard once said, “Elvis is one of the greatest performers who have ever lived in this world”.
Although in that interview with Rolling Stone Richard has firmly credited himself as the architect of rock and roll, he also paid tribute to Sister Rosetta Tharpe. The gospel singer (played in Elvis from Yola), a pioneer in the use of the electric guitar, was the godmother of rock and exerted an early influence on Presley. “Elvis loved Sister Rosetta,” said Gordon Stoker, lead singer of the Jordanaires, a group who sang for both Tharpe and Presley. Presley was particularly impressed with the way Tharpe played the guitar: “That’s what really attracted Elvis: his pick. He liked her way of singing, but before he liked her way of playing, because it was so different ».
But as Presley has been designated the king of rock and roll, Tharpe’s influence has been obscured in popular culture for decades. Even worse, some critics thought she was copying him, rather than the other way around. In 1970, Tharpe performed at the American Folk, Blues and Gospel Festival in London and was described by one critic as ‘so rhythmically exciting that, when she accompanies herself on guitar, she could be a black Elvis in disguise’, according to Gayle Wald, author of the autobiography Shout, Sister, Shout! the book does not report how Sister Rosetta received that review, nor what she thought of Presley specifically.
But while Tharpe’s opinion is more mysterious, that of Big Mama Thornton it is less. In 1953 the singer (played by Shonka Dukureh in Elvis) published “Hound Dog”, written especially for her by Jerry Leiber e Mike Stoller, who wanted to highlight Thornton’s booming voice and foul-mouthed personality. His final version of the song was a hit and quickly sold half a million records. A few years later, Presley recorded a cover and sold millions of copies, overshadowing Thornton. As if that weren’t enough, Thornton earned next to nothing from the song: “I got a check for $ 500 and haven’t seen any since,” she once said.
According to the biographer Michael Spörkewhich he wrote Big Mama Thornton: The Life and Music. During a 1969 performance at the Newport Folk Festival, he referred to “Hound Dog” as “The record with which I enriched Elvis Presley”; at another concert, he called it “a song that I’ve been robbed of.” In yet another, she threw herself into the song, then stopped, turned and looked at her drummer: “This isn’t an Elvis Presley song, son,” she said, according to Spörke. Then he kicked the drummer out of his seat and showed him the right way to play, giving him a lesson in front of the audience. Apparently this was a regular event, a theatrical way for Thornton to bring the song out of Presley’s shadow.long before Lurhmann, or anyone else, tried to do it for her.
Source: Vanity Fair
