Saturday, January 8, 2011

Happy Birthday Elvis P.

Happy Birthday to the late, great, Elvis who requires no last name. He would have been 76 years old today. So I got to thinking about him.

Elvis has always been under rated for the pure eclectic nature of his musical choices. You might like his music, some of it, or none of it, but his contribution to our country's fiber is undeniable. Elvis provided the perfect channel for song writers from every walk of life.

The social implications of this created more than just good listening. Elvis, while a boy from the old south, was the first of the equal opportunity employers. When it came to music, he didn't care where the song writer came from, color, creed, or politics, just that it sounded good.

While the Beatles may have brought some social change to America, it was Elvis that paved the road of social change that they traveled on. In pure American style, Elvis sewed together all the best pieces of society that all Americans could agree on, into one huge blanket. And they named that blanket "Rock-n-Roll".

Everybody has a favorite Elvis song. Mine is "Suspicious Minds", which I consider one of the greatest songs ever written/performed. Of course, on YouTube, I had 5 million choices of concert footage for this one. I choose the one below because I loved the pictures of him and Priscilla. I'll bet it was some of the happiest years of Elvis Presley's life.