Elvis at 75

Today would be Elvis Presley's 75th birthday.

For some, it's hard to imagine a 75 year old Elvis. Paul McCartney, Neil Young, and especially Bruce Springsteen can pull off the superannuated rocker thing, but Elvis was more than that to them. There's even a TV commercial running now showing a young, black leather jacket-clad Elvis doing "Jailhouse Rock" and claiming that he changed the face of music just like Richard Pryor changed the face of comedy and Company X is changing the face of financial services or whatever.

I beg to differ. Elvis sold out and I can't forgive him for it. Elvis's first hits, "Hound Dog", "Don't Be Cruel", and "Heartbreak Hotel" came out in 1955 when I was all of 7 years old. Even at that age, I knew that here was music I could believe in. I didn't know that Elvis was plagiarizing black music which no self-respecting radio station in Scranton would even consider playing.. I just knew that "Jailhouse Rock" spoke to me better than "Three Coins in a Fountain".

I loved Elvis and despised his squeaky-clean rival for the airwaves, Pat Boone. White buck shoes and a cardigan sweater, come on now! Give me tight jeans, a biker jacket, and sideburns (as soon as I could grow them).

Before I could grow sideburns though, Elvis went mainstream. For a decade and a half, he put out execrable movies, "Kid Galahad", "It Happened at the World's Fair", "Girls! Girls! Girls!" and the like. He became a slightly-soiled Pat Boone, now palatable to America. He kept the sideburns and the DA haircut, but wore the cardigan sweater when he belted out "Do The Clam" to woo Shelley Fabares in "Clambake". I'll never forget those stirring lyrics:

"You can't get your heart to swim
On the outside looking in.
Aren't you glad that you found out
What the Clam is all about?"

Elvis sold out, indeed. Maybe if it hadn't been for Elvis, America would never have opened itself to Chuck Berry or Otis Redding. I like to think that even if Pat Boone had been the Original King of Rock 'n Roll, Chuck and Otis would have eventually found their way onto the airwaves.