All i can say is, you just don't get it. The fans named him the King of R&R. They were the ones who bought his records & CD's went and see his movies. So why should he not be the King of R&R ? His movies were not anything to talk about. Maybe a hand full.But his voice, was the best that ever step up to the golden Mic. thank you.

Ron is just about right, in the sense that it was the fans who called him that, namely the King of Rock and Roll, as early as September of 1956. But let us not forget who confirmed that title and what was the reason behind it.

In late November of 1956, the weekly Variety ran a huge article, on its first page, calling him just that. It was not because the editors loved Elvis, or the music he sang, quite to the contrary. And they thought neither Elvis or rock itself would last. But, at the end of the year, they could not help noticing that the entire entertainment industry had been turned upside down, in the last 12 months.

There was a musical idiom which they knew was not new, namely rock and roll, which had been around in various forms, for over a decade, but what they now realized was that it had taken over, completely.

So the medium had to be acknowledged. Variety had to say something about the medium, and the person most responsible for making rock and roll a household word, a menace, a sign of rebellion, call it what you will.

And that person was Elvis, so they did, starting with the statistics.

Five number one singles, for a total of 25 weeks at the top

Two number one albums, the first rocker to penetrate that sanctum. Before any other rocker topped the album charts, Elvis had already two other chart toppers in the album charts. In other words, by the time another rocker topped the album charts, Elvis had already topped the album charts 4 times

Ten million records sold, half the output of RCA, then the biggest record label in the world

In excess of 240 million cumulative viewers, a result of his 11 appearances that year, namely five million in each of the 6 Tommy Dorsey shows at CBS; 25 and 30 million at the two Milton Berle shows at NBC; 40 million at the Steve Allen show at ABC; and 60, and 62 million at the first two of the three Ed Sullivan Shows at CBS. The third was in January 1957, after the publication of the article.

213 sold out shows, not only drawing in excess of 500,000 people to theaters, arenas and stadiums, not only causing REAL hysteria wherever he played, but also causing a huge rift between parents, and teenagers, as well as scandalizing the church, etc, etc.

A clean sellout of twenty million dollars worth of merchandise, bearing his name, thrown across every big store, including Woolworth, Burdines and Jordan Marsh.

Draws 8 million teenagers to theatres on the week after his first movie, Love me tender, opens, making the producers get back their investment on the first day after it opened.

Tenfold increase in the sale of acoustic guitars, televisions and record players. Sales of every other musical instrument increase, vis vis sales in 1955, but only marginally.

So, if you were the editor of Variety, and some reporter, or the Deputy Editor, or anyone elce suggested that to you the headline should ackowledge that rock music was now in, definitively, and that the King of that musical idiom was someone other than Elvis Presley, you would have been fired from that newspaper, and made the laughing stock of the media, especially when the Wall Street Journal, in an article published just a few days before, had called Elvis Presley an industry, all by himself.

Please note that both Variety and the Wall Street Journal were, and probably still are, the most conservative newspapers in America.

But they each acknowledged Elvis impact...

So, why is is difficult for people who were not there, to start with, to understand it, since all they have to do is to go to the source, and read it...

After having gone through the basics as to when, why and how was he called the King of Rock and Roll, we go to the real interesting part, and that is why he has kept it, not just 31 years after he was last able to personally take care of all those things he did, up to August of 1977, but 50 years after getting labelled the King of Rock and Roll in the first place.

The most obvious, yet probably the least known reason is that he has kept it because he did not want to have it in the first place. Yes, that is how it works. When you call yourself something, or all you do is talk about how marvellous you are, in public, or in private, eventually the people reject it.

Which brings me to the people. Any King needs a following. A large one, if the country you are from, happens to dominate the culture of the world when you happen to appear in the scene. And to keep being called the King, even if you do not approve the title, you must have most of the qualities which make a King a loved entity, not just for a year, or a lustrum, or a decade, but for even longer periods. And, to be called a King, across the 5 continents, you have to redeem those qualities to different cultures. And that is not easy.

Moreover, a King, in music, that is, will be replaced, by another, only if the new person outshines not only those features which made the first King a King, but who is as likeable, if not more. That is why, had the Beatles been one, or had someone labelled them The Kings of rock and Roll, I, for one, would have been the first to applaud. The Kings, in plural...

Furthermore, superstars in their own right, like Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Roy Orbison, Tom Jones, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, name any one after Elvis, could not have carried the title only because they either wrote their own songs, or because they played better than Elvis, or because they sang higher, lower, or because they danced better than him.

They had to have meant more, not just as a singer or as an entertainer, but as a soul, as a person with a spirit, to more people than he did and does still, to take the title away.

And no one has...

An admirable summing up Jim Burrows. Bravo!

Mr Richard Marcus needs to look a little deeper.
Elvis dominated the popular music charts from 1956 well into the early 60s.

The momentum generated by massive hits like, "Heartbreak Hotel", Hound Dog", Jailhouse Rock", "All Shook Up", "Big Hunka Love", "One Night", "Mess of the Blues", "It's Now or Never", "Are You Lonesome Tonight", "Surrender" etc., could not be kept up indefinitely. Even the very great composer Ludwig Van Beethoven paused for breath. :-)

In other words, Elvis was great in the 50s, bad in the 60s and now the world has moved on. Richard Marcus has it right.

Well not quite, Christopher Rose.
Marcus should know, if he had bothered to do a little more research, Elvis Presley had some major hits in the mid 60s, "In The Ghetto, and "Crying in the Chapel", proving his astounding versatility in song. At the height of Beatlemania!
Then the Famous 1968 Comeback Special on TV!

The Amazing record breaking satellite broadcast from Hawaii starring the one and only Elvis Presley was to follow!

I'm sure Richard knows full well, as do I, about those hits but they were sentimental schlock. Hit records are a measure of mass appeal not talent or art and every artist is the one and only by definition.

That is just your opinion.
The very great Ludwig Van Beethoven used a simple sentimental Irish Air ("Save Me From the Grave and Wise") for his magnificent 7th Symphony :-)

"It's Now or Never" by Elvis Presley is a work of art by any standard! I was there to see the impact that song had on music lovers of every description back in 1960/61. Even music snobs. They had to admit it was very special indeed. I read somewhere 20 million copies were sold! Some schlock, Huh? :-)
Schmelvisers are being educated on a daily basis.

We're all just trading opinions, Maurice. Yours is that, to you, Elvis was a great artist that you, to me laughably, are trying to compare to Beethoven. I guess the only fact here is that ageing fanboys just never do learn any better.

Elvis did some good work that seemed even more special in the context of his time. These days, he's okay but music, like the world, has moved on and grown.

Well Chris my child, perhaps you would like to discuss Beethoven and Elvis with our classical music trained children (Now adults) They both Played in Orchestras and love the great composers. They, and their children also, love Beethoven's and Elvis's music. They do not differentiate.Music is music.

As Leonard Berstein said,"Elvis was the greatest cultural force of the 20th century". Berstein, like yours truly, greatly admired Beethoven's wonderful music.

The beauty of simplicity is often lost on less discerning listeners. :-) Live and learn.

Maurice, I'd say Leonard Bernstein was better than Elvis, although not as exciting as the 50s Elvis was, but I find his assertion to be way wide of the mark. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of artists who made better work in the last century.

Thanks for the condescending closer though; that and your twice misspelling of Bernstein's name sure made it easier to decide that you are just an old fanboy, rather than a music lover. See ya, Grandad.

Nice try Chris:-) a typo is just a typo. Bernstein's talk on Beethoven's Ninth on youtube is worth a listen. That guy was so right about Elvis. As for music you might like to check out the Beethoven stories on my Irelandtoo blog.

Your "ageing fanboys" is not condescending I suppose.

It's great-grandad to you sunny boy. :-)
You'll be back to read this. It's human nature in action.

No, a typo, especially a repeated typo, is often a sign of a mind that isn't paying attention as it trots out its pet little theories or, in your case, an old codger that doesn't seem to understand anything contemporary.

They just don't make 'em like they used to anymore, eh, Great-Grandpa?

Need I pay much attention when replying to a person obviously out of his depth when it comes to discussing Elvis's unassailable place, still at the top of popular music almost 30 years after his death. A rhetorical question. :-)

I'm a huge fan of the very contempory Kate Bush I'll have you know. Her song about Elvis "King of the Mountain", was high in the UK music charts last year.

Now why would a very intelligent and classy lady like Kate be singing about Elvis? There are hundreds of songs about Elvis Presley!

If he had lived John Lennon, I am sure, would have composed a beauty!

Now I think I'll go and see "Ironman" at our local cinema... the grandkids told me it is full of action! There's not much of that around here :-)