Comments on Correcting the Record

Damn, I was hoping the link would bring up something about "It Happened at the World's Fair," the lame Elvis feature film where he visits Seattle and madcap boredom ensues.

Chin up, Josh. Even if you were wrong about Elvis, you can still be an odd-ball.

Thank you, Josh, for the all-too-rare humility.

I was a teenager in a majority black community when Elvis appeared on the scene. Elvis was the King, period. Not only did the black kids think he was black before they saw him, they liked him even after they discovered that he was white.

I can't speak to Guralnick's assertion that the black community somehow now views Elvis as a racist. I'm talking about 1956-1957.

The parts of the article you showed us didn't address how he came to be seen as a racist. A common theme in rock history that Little Richard could bend your ear about is the re-making of black songs as white songs. To what extent did Elvis partake of that thievery? I'm no historian. Just curious. For a long time in music, certain songs were considered "standards" that anyone could play without fear of copyright issues, but I suspect a fair amount of what happened in the 50s was just straight jacking. Again, I'm no historian. Someone knowledgeable please educate me.
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I see you put it on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BEsZMvrq-I

my mom was attending mr. lee's beauty school (formerly downtown) when elvis was filming it happened at the world's fair. she and her fellow students would go to his hotel in the morning and see him off to work.

according to claudia harrop, elvis was a very polite and charming man. over a two week period, he would greet them by name and compliment the gals on their hairstyles or dresses.

no word on whether or not he was a racist, but my mom says, "he was always so kind."

@4, the rest of the article talked about that. Elvis made it very clear that he was indebted to all the great Black artists who had come before him -- and in fact he never liked being called the King, because he was just following in those artists' footsteps, nothing more.

He seemed to be a truly humble man in many ways.

I grew up just after the Elvis era so I had a rather jaundiced idea of his music . . . until I heard the Sun Sessions. Let me tell you, that boy could sure catch your ear. I finally understood what all the fuss was about.

James Brown said Elvis was the only person he'd met who knew more gospel songs than he did.

Eh. Fuck that noise about cultural theft. The proper term for this is cultural efflorescence, when different cultures meet, learn from each other, and create new culture. Rock and roll, manga, Brazilian jiu-jitsu (a Japanese martial art transformed by a Scottish immigrant to Brazil!), the California roll, Native American horse cultures, they're all examples. Get over it.

Josh,
I completely agree. The Sunday NYT will be a work in progress all week as I try to chip away at all the great articles.

Christopher @ 4:

Until I read the op-ed, I didn't even know that a substantial number of black folk (or white folk?) considered Elvis racist. The cultural appropriation that Little Richard referred to was really more about people like Pat Boone. Elvis performed lots of schmaltzy, crappy stuff. But, just take a fresh listen to the Sun Sessions. This is not the work of a cultural appropriator, but someone who truly had this music and at least some of the accompanying cultural traditions deep in his soul. Even many of his recordings from the later 50s and 1960s (his recording of Sonny Till and the Orioles' "Crying in the Chapel" is a great example) show an authenticity and level of sincerity absent from the records of all the hacks like Pat Boone who were quite consciously exploiting the most racist aspects of the radio and record distribution businesses at that time.

Thanks for the 411. Y'know as fans of music, it's a shame we're called on to pick sides in screwy debates sometimes. I like a lot of bands with weird politics, like P.E., for example. They're the first people I think of when the "Elvis-as-Racist" conversation comes up. Chuck D also defends Farrakhan and some other people with nutty-ass ideas. Another band I dig with some odd ideas: Rage. I'm all for giving the US economy a hearty injection of pinko compassion, but violent revolution?... I dunno about that.
Elvis had a hell of a voice and some sweet tunes, but even without racism I have reason to be glad he's dead: Suspicious Minds. Keep on rotting, buddy boy.
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http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/presley1.asp

You learn something new every day. I had never heard that Elvis was considered racist. I grew up listening to his music as my grandmother & mother were huge fans and I always thought it was the opposite.

It's really terrible, I'm racist AND sexist. I didn't want to, but I was advised to file a lawsuit after getting that seizure. They said it was only ethical that I should Fight the Powerpuff company.

The irony of the modern revisionist history of "Elvis as racist" is that the major difference between Elvis Presley and most every white artist is that Elvis had tons of black fans. In the early days, Elvis managed to top the country, R&B and pop charts with the same song three different times. Later in his career, his singles consistently went gold despite middling positions on the pop charts because of his diverse fan base.

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