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Elvis Presley's Influence On Rock And Roll

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What can be said for the music artist Elvis Presley, other than he is most undoubtedly the reason that Rock and Roll survived past its start, and grew to the massive popularity that it still grasps onto to this day. Although he may have been born a simple white southerner, he masterfully intertwined country music with the raw emotion of gospel and blues in order to create his own breed of unmatchable music. By him taking two vastly different genres of music from two equally different cultures, he successfully managed to blur the prominent color line that divided all of America up until the 1950s. He did all of this while enthralling the youth of America and singlehandedly caused an idea of teenage rebellion that lasted far past his popularity, …show more content…

The response from listeners was immediately ecstatic, and Dewey demanded that Elvis return to the station for an interview. Soon after that, Scotty Moore became Presley’s manager. With Scotty’s help, “That’s All Right” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky” became Presley’s first ever hit. For a while, Elvis only played local shows, until that fateful night at Grand Ole Opry. Presley played at the Grand Ole Opry on September 25, and was considered by all who attended to be untalented and a major flop. It has even been said Opry’s talent coordinator asked Elvis what his original profession was, and when he replied that he drove trucks, he was told by the coordinator to go back to driving trucks. This time however, Elvis did not become discouraged, if anything, it lit a fire inside him and drove him to prove everyone in the Grand Ole wrong. In October of that same year, his music had begun playing regularly on “The Louisiana Hayride”, which was a popular radio program at the time. He later made his television debut on a televised version of “The Louisiana Hayride” in March of 1955. While this happened, his previous song grew rapidly in popularity in the Memphis …show more content…

Elvis’s next important feat occurred in September of 1955, when Presley released his first Number One country record. This record was his personnel take on Junior Parker’s “Mystery Train” and “I Forgot to Remember to Forget.” At this point in time, Colonel Parker became very involved in Presley’s career, even though Neal was his original manager. The recording company RCA purchased Presley’s contract from Sun for $35,000, a price that was unfathomable for the time period. Colonel Parker had many connections that helped Elvis and really jumpstarted his professional career. One of his connections was Hill and Range, a music publisher that purchased Sam Phillips’ Hi-Lo Music for fifteen thousand dollars, which was still a crazy amount of money during that time. In the midst of this, Presley was given a $5,000 advance. With the advance, he bought his mother a new pink Cadillac to repay her for always ensuring that he was loved and taken care

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