Elvis’ baritone blurred racial lines, combined genres created the template for modern rock

In #TheMusicThatMadeUs_, senior journalist Lakshmi Govindrajan Javeri chronicles the impact that musicians and their art have on our lives, how they mould the industry by rewriting its rules and how they shape us into the people we become: their greatest legacies_ He’s widely and rightfully considered the King of Rock n’ Roll, whose all three competitive Grammys have come for gospel offerings. Despite spanning bluegrass, country, rock and pop, and selling more than 500 million records since the start of his career to this date, Elvis Presley hasn’t written any of them. Certified as the best-selling solo artist of all time by the Guinness Book of World Records, Presley gave the world the template for modern rock. With his trademark swag, puffed up slick hair and exaggerated sideburns, Elvis had a presence that went beyond his music and his caped eagle jackets. As Baz Luhrrman’s newly released film Elvis (starring Austin Butler in the titular role and Tom Hanks as his manager Colonel Parker) chronicles the legend’s success story and his complicated dynamics with Col. Parker, now is a great time to look back at how the music of Elvis Presley has made generations of us who we are today. A self-taught performer who couldn’t read sheet music, Elvis relied entirely on his ear and his ability to replicate on the guitar. Blessed with a soothing baritone and an ironically rich falsetto, the power of his early works lay in his penchant for emotive music that could be both happy and sombre, foot-tapping and melancholic, wild and subdued. With oodles of self-confidence, a reservoir of charisma, and unmissable gyrations, Elvis defined the coolness of youth and defiance. The cover of his self-titled debut featured a wide mouthed Elvis with a guitar in hand, codifying it as the instrument of this new genre, one that has evolved from rockabilly and is far removed from the piano-based melodies. His influences were aplenty as Elvis enjoyed his gospel as much as he soaked in the blues. He drew from both white and African-American musical cultures, and created his own sonic and onstage personality that finds resonance in musicians even today. From Bruce Springsteen, Jimi Hendrix, Freddie Mercury, and John Lennon, to Madonna, Beyonce and even The Killers, the spirit of Elvis is very much alive through their onstage performances or their ability to sing a song so intimately even if it’s a stadium gig. Unlike most white musicians, Elvis embraced R&B with all its rough edges, refining it when he needed to and allowing it to breathe when the song commanded it. Of course, in his time, Elvis being a white man who popularised an African-American sound, came with its own complications. His sexually charged moves didn’t help, and the legions of screaming female fans meant that his music initially didn’t find many takers on radio. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights movement in the United States to abolish racial discrimination, segregation and disenfranchisement particularly in the Southern states, we can now understand how truly meteoric his rise has been. So much rode on Elvis’ voice and onstage personality, yet his career was also a construct of the people who tirelessly helped him define his sound. Early Elvis numbers that heralded him to superstardom, will still resonate with the booming bass and sometimes 12-bar blues lines of Bill Black’s upright bass. Think of Such a Night, Fever, I Got Lucky, Good Luck Charm, Heartbreak Hotel, Jailhouse Rock and so many more, and you’ll realise it’s actually the bass that brings a spring to your step. If Black hit double licks and created the wild sound for Elvis to flourish, then it’s actually guitarist Scotty Moore’s finger-picking Gibson work that powered the melody for the King. The man behind the Blue Moon Boys backing band, Moore took the power chord mainstream with Jailhouse Rock. Drummer DJ Fontana employed drumming techniques he learnt at a strip club and complemented Elvis with accentuated beats to help his swagger-infused moves on stage. These musicians in his early days gave Elvis the basis from which to spring out his talent. A whole team of songwriters who have written Elvis’ music over the years and with whom the singer shares credits largely due to a contractual clause and not creativity, have played an enormous role in supporting his genius. As a pioneer of rockabilly that then went on to become a predecessor of modern rock, Elvis and his overall hair-clothes-shoes-shades presence towered over his contemporaries and gave the subsequent generations the confidence to sing in their own voice. His ability (largely guided by manager Col. Parker) to bounce back, whether from Army duty or a spate of Hollywood flops, is noteworthy. Beyond all the other trappings of his image, Elvis always remained a singer with a decisive command over his voice. Knowing when to resort to his vocal tricks and when to allow genuine emotion to come to fore, or when to dial up his vibrato and when to showcase his falsetto, were all part of his arsenal. Even when he was acting in a steady stream of grotesquely banal films, his music for the soundtracks could not be faulted for his sincerity despite the songs themselves being often sub-par. All things said and done, when we think about how most of the pop and rock musicians today enjoy six degrees of separation from the King, we recognise that above everything else Elvis has given the world of music, this has been his greatest legacy.