Elvis Aron Presley, who was born in Tupelo, Mississippi on January 8, 1935 and died in Memphis, Tennessee on August 16, 1977, is still considered "the King of Rock 'n' Roll." According to The Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music Presley is "among the biggest stars of the 20th century, for sociological as well as musical reasons" (Clarke 930).
In the South the young Presley attended Pentecostal churches, Me heard country music and black blues on the radio, and these were to influence him as he started to sing. He won a talent contest singing Red Foley's sentimental song "Old Shep" when he was 10 years old, and he received a guitar for his birthday.
As a teenager he worked as a truck driver, saving up enough money to record himself at Memphis Recording Service. These recordings came to the attention of Sam Phillips at Sun Records. Elvis signed with Sun, making his first commercial sessions with Bill Black on bass and Scotty Moore on guitar.
Presley sang ballads and country tunes, but one day he was fooling around with Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup's "That's All Right (Mama)" and Bill Monroe's "Blue Moon of Kentucky" and he discovered the style that soon made him world famous. Phillips was looking for a white singer who could sing like a,black man, and in Presley he found his ideal.
A number of events helped to solidify Presley as a major star in the mid-1950s. The first was that Colonel Tom Parker became his manager. The second was that RCA Records bought out Phillips' contract for the then-unheard of sum of $35,000. The last key event was that Presley appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show." "On the September 9, 1956 show, Ed was to have introduced Elvis, but Charles Laughton was the substitute host" (Worth 346).
Elvis Presley had been introduced to America on that show, and the country and soon the world would never be the same again. Presley sang his combination of blues, country, and gospel with a sexy delivery ...