Elvis Presley was onThe Ed Sullivan Show, and the kids did not understand what the fuss was about. If they had even heard of Elvis (â??Elvis Pretzel singing â??Heartburn Hotel,â??â? some of them thought the deejay said on their little plastic radios), they knew he was a singer whose voice attracted them. They had never heard anything like it. Now, seeing him for the first time playfully blub blub blubbing his way through â??Donâ??t Be Cruel,â? they saw he was grown-up, sort of, but a kid like them, too. They could tell by the way he looked at themâ??he knew them, knew what they were thinking. Elvis . . . Elvis. They said his name and felt the first stirrings of love. He knew what was in their hearts and spoke directly to them.
The adults saw Presley and thought, What the hell was that? If they were particularly threatened, they might shoo the kids back away from the television set, as if he were contagious and could somehow teach them about sex through the fuzzy black-and-white image. But since this was 1956, Dad probably just cleared his throat and left the room shaking his head, These crazy kids . . .
Elvis was the first. Before the Beatles, before the Rolling Stones, before U2, before Eminem, there was Elvis. The original Slim Shady, he was black and white, rhythm and country, hot and cool. His appearance on Ed Sullivan ripped the 1950s in half, and America was never the same. He could not have seen what was comingâ??the Colonel, who wanted to make him into sort of a hip Perry Como (if such a thing can be imagined) certainly did not. And for himself, his wildest dream, the one beyond imagining, was to be in the movies like Tony Curtis. But whatever happened, he was game.
In the beginning, Elvis did not understand the audienceâ??s ferocious response to him. But he quickly learned to harness it, toying with his screaming fans like a lover. Onstage, something came over him. He was a different personâ??freer, able to express himself, musically articulate as he never was in conversation. People loved him and he gave their love back to them in kind.
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