Remembering Elvis Presley on the anniversary of his death
Today marks the anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley.
Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, Presley moved to Memphis, Tennessee with his family when he was 13 years old. In 1954, his music career took off when he recorded a song with producer Sam Phillips at Sun Records. Presley worked with guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, to popularize the rockabilly genre of music -- an uptempo, backbeat-driven fusion of R&B and country music.
Presley's first single "Heartbreak Hotel" was released in January of 1956 on RCA and became a No.1 hit in the United States. After a series of successful TV appearances and chart-topping records, he became widely regarded as the leading figure of rock and roll.
His music and persona as an artist made him enormously popular and eventually controversial -- pushing boundaries on the horizon of the Civil Rights Movement. His sexually provocative performance style and energized interpretations raised a lot of eyebrows amongst early adapters of popular music.
Presley became on the most influential (and eventually celebrated) musicians of the 20th century. He was wildly successful across multi-genre formats including pop, R&B, country, blues, and gospel. To this day, he is the best-selling solo artist in the history of recorded music with an estimated 600 million records sold worldwide. He has also won three Grammys and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
After several years of prescription drug abuse, Elvis Presley died in 1977. He was 42 years old.
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