Word: presleys
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...Presley was talented, yes, but he was influenced by the black musicians who came before him, and those trailblazers should not have their milestones taken away. Black performers were performing Presley's style of music long before it was Presley's style. Big Bill Broonzy, a blues guitarist who launched his career in the 1920s and who has been acknowledged by such rock greats as Eric Clapton as a major influence, once said of Presley, "He's singing the same thing I'm singing now. And he knows it. 'Cause really, the melody and the tune...
...Phillips would discover in the wake of Rocket 88, Elvis Presley, was one of a long line of people that helped shaped rock. Memphis Minnie, Louis Jordan, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and many others also played important roles. One of Presley's most significant contributions was this: he was able to make more of a commercial impact in rock than the black performers who pioneered the field. In fact, before he signed Presley, Phillips famously declared that "If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound...
...that's not what some folks think in Memphis. This month the city is celebrating what officials bill as the "50th Anniversary of Rock 'n' Roll," pegging it not to Rocket 88 but to one made three years later: Elvis Presley's July 5th, 1954 recording of That's All Right, a cover of a song previously released by its composer, bluesman Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, in 1946. This is certainly not all right...
...wife Tina) and his clashes (again, with Tina, as portrayed in the 1993 movie that was made about their stormy marriage and breakup, What's Love Got to Do With It). Rocket 88 was a product of Turner's collaborative side. The song explored the major sonic themes that Presley would revisit years later on That's All Right and then some - Rocket 88 was brash and it was sexy; it took elements of the blues, hammered them with rhythm and attitude and electric guitar, and reimagined black music into something new. If the blues seemed to give voice...
...Presley was not unaware of black music. In fact, he was a fan. "The colored folks been singing it and playing it just like I'm doing now, man, for more years than I know," Elvis told reporters in 1956. "I got it from them. Down in Tupelo, Mississippi, I used to hear old Arthur Crudup bang his box the way I do now, and I said if I ever got to the place where I could feel all old Arthur felt, I'd be a music man like nobody ever saw." (One could reasonably argue that Crudup's original...