In Before Elvis (Hachette, Jan.), music journalist Preston Lauterbach examines Elvis Presley’s debt to the Black artists who launched the rock ’n’ roll revolution.
When you listen to Arthur Crudup’s “That’s All Right, Mama” or Junior Parker’s “Mystery Train,” what do you hear that shaped Elvis’s hit versions?
With Crudup it’s the emotional power behind the delivery, the little inflections, asides and groans, that really make the performance. You’re not just reading a song off of a page, you’re conveying feelings. With Junior’s “Mystery Train,” there is emotion, but it also has a compelling narrative that pulls you in, which Elvis responded to.
You also write about the impact of Calvin Newborn’s stage routines. What did Elvis pick up there?
People called him Elvis the Pelvis because of his gyrations. That’s what got him so much divisive attention early on: people thought his stage presentation was lewd. I knew Calvin Newborn, who was a guitarist and singer on Beale Street in Memphis in the 1950s. Calvin told me stories about young Elvis studying his act—that’s where Elvis got those iconic wiggles. His style seemed so shockingly original because, when he got on Milton Berle’s show with millions of eyeballs on him, most people tuning in had never seen anything like it. But a lot of Black people had, and they said, well, that’s just Black entertainment. Black artists were not showcased like white artists were on radio and television. So, when Elvis goes on TV and does, essentially, a Black nightclub act, singing a Little Richard song or a Joe Turner song and shaking his pelvis—you could already see that on Beale Street.
Did Black artists benefit from having Elvis showcase their music?
There’s an after-Elvis effect: what does it mean to have him cover your song on national television? Willie Mae Thornton is a great example. She recorded “You Ain’t Nothin’ But a Hound Dog” three years before Elvis did, and hers was a hit in the R&B market. She should have been paid a lot more by the producer, and was almost certainly shorted on her royalties. Because she hadn’t written the song, she wasn’t entitled to a piece of Elvis’s version. But she exploited the publicity—rereleased her version and toured to support it. She made it work for her as best she could.
Beyond the influences he absorbed, was there something unique about Elvis’s ability to make this music mainstream?
Well, of course. He’s maybe the greatest vocal talent in rock ’n’ roll history. He was a tremendous performer, and it was authentic: it was who he was and what he felt. He never outgrew his roots in Black music and that role of, “I’m telling a big American story, and it includes these voices and songs.”
