His father, Vernon Presley worked at whatever jobs he could find, including sharecropping and truck driving. His mother, Gladys worked as a seamstress. The Presleys lived just above the poverty line most of the time. In 1938, Vernon was sent to jail for eight months on a check forgery charge. During that eight months, the Presleys lost their home and moved in with relatives.

In September 1942, Elvis entered the first grade at Lawhorn School in Tupelo. At that age, he was quite shy and stuttered, causing him to be different in the eyes of other students.

By the time he was ten years of age, he overcame much of his shyness and stuttering. It was at that age that his teacher, Mrs. J.C. Grimes, suggested that he make his first public appearance by competing in a singing contest at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show on October 3, 1945. He came in fifth place and won five dollars.

He received his first guitar on his eleventh birthday. His uncle, Vester Presley, gave him guitar lessons. After learning to play several songs on his guitar, family friend, “Mississippi Slim” Ausborn, a local radio celebrity, invited Elvis to play a few songs on his Saturday morning radio show, Singin’ and Pickin’ Hillbilly.

In September, 1948, Vernon had run afoul of the law again. This time he was allegedly wanted for running bootleg whiskey. Vernon moved the family to Memphis in hopes of finding work in a state that wasn’t looking to incarcerate him. While living in Lauderdale Courts, a public housing complex, Elvis practiced guitar in the laundry room. He also joined a five piece band comprised of tenants. Another resident at Lauderdale Courts would also achieve Rock N Roll fame, he was Johnny Burnette. Burnette recalled that Elvis had his guitar strapped on him where ever he went and was frequently asked to play.

Elvis attended L.C. Humes High School, where many students did not seem to like his performances. They said he was trashy and that his music was trashy hillbilly music. Other students however would beg him to sing, but his shyness would usually cause him to decline.

At some point, Elvis began to grow his sideburns long and dress in flashier clothes. This made him stand out from the crowd and it also made him quite unpopular with bullies at school. Childhood friend, Red West said “In a sea of 1600 pink-scalped kids at school, Elvis stood out like a camel in the Arctic”. Regardless, Elvis did not change! In fact, he faced his own shyness and unpopularity by entering the school’s Annual Minstrel Show in 1952. The loud applause following his performance clearly indicated his standing, he took first place!

After high school, he took a job as a truck driver for the Crown Electric Company. It was during this time that he grew his hair longer and wore it in a ducktail.

On July 18, 1953, Elvis paid for and recorded two songs at Sun Records for his mother. On January 4, 1954, he returned to cut another record.

On June 26, 1954, Elvis received a call from Marion Keisker at Sun Records. She and her boss, Sam Phillips had been trying to locate him. An audition date with musicians Scotty Moore and Bill Black was set. Neither Moore nor Black was terribly impressed with Elvis, but a recording date was set anyway.

The recording session did not go well for Elvis at first. He was extremely nervous, delivering lyrics in a straight forward manner that lacked style and it was that way until they took a break. Elvis had begun to relax and became comfortable around the musicians. The musicians were simply playing around in the recording room when Elvis finally relaxed enough to “act the fool” with an Arthur Crudup song called, That’s Alright Mama. Phillips heard it and immediately had the musicians start over and asked Elvis to “act the fool” again through the entire song. That day they recorded That’s Alright Mama and the old Bill Monroe song, Blue Moon of Kentucky. The bashful kid behind the microphone had the exact sound that Sam Phillips had been searching for and the music world was about to change!

It is reported that following the session, Bill Black commented, “Damn, put that on the radio and they‘ll run us out of town!”

On July 8, 1954, disc jockey Dewey Phillips made history by being the first DJ to play an Elvis Presley record on the air. It was That’s Alright Mama and the phone starting ringing. Listeners wanted to know more about the singer; who was he and where could they buy his records? Many were surprised to learn that he was a white man. To appease his listeners, Dewey Phillips played that song fourteen times during the course of his radio show that day!

In the weeks that followed, both songs made the charts across the South, with Blue Moon of Kentucky being the more popular of the two. Scotty Moore and Bill Black joined Elvis and they called themselves the Blue Moon Boys. It was while performing at the Overton Park Shell that Elvis began to move his legs and pelvis in the manner that would become a trademark. The girls went crazy!

In his early days, many white disc jockeys wouldn’t play his records because they thought he was black. The black disc jockeys wouldn’t play them if they knew he was white. In spite of it all, Elvis finally made the national charts in 1956. In doing so, he was met with a wide barrage of criticism, especially from the churches. According to them, he was the purveyor of sin, sex and Negro music, distributed to the white youth of America. A critic working for the New York Times said of his music, “music has reached an all time low.” The Jesuits denounced him in their publication, America. Jet magazine tried to accuse him of making a racist remark in Boston. The only problem with that story was the fact that Elvis at that point, had never been to Boston. So Jet hounded his acquaintances in hopes of proving him a racist. They failed! Frank Sinatra criticized him.

In Lubbock, Texas, a gang of teens bombed his car. At the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show, the national guard was present to control the crowd. At one time, due to what appeared to be an undermining of the youth of America, he was considered by the FBI to be a threat to the national security of the U.S. A judge in Florida called Elvis a savage and threatened to arrest him if he moved his body during a performance in Jacksonville.

Elvis survived it all to become a household name around the world. In the years that followed, he appeared in movies and served his time in the army. He had reached the point that his life was covered in the press and it remained that way until his death on August 16, 1977 at Graceland in Memphis.

Elvis Presley is considered the King of Rock N Roll.

©Copyright 2009 Wilson Jay