Elvis Presley: To smear a king
With Little Junior and Bobby "Blue" Bland
It has become something of a tradition, albeit a regrettable one. Each year, as the August anniversary of Elvis Presley's 1977 death approaches, self-righteous hectors vilify him as racist.
It is a false claim, though for some, one not requiring that examinable evidence ever be produced. But putting one's hands on contrary testimony is easily done.
In Race, Rock, and Elvis, Michael T. Bertrand found that the April 1957 issue of Sepia magazine contained the article, "How Negroes Feel About Elvis." The piece noted that, "colored opinion about the hydromatically-hipped hillbilly from Mississippi runs the gamut from caustic condemnation to ardent admiration." It then offered views allegedly collected from both celebrities and "people in the street."
This article is considered the source of a contrived quote falsely attributed to Presley: "The only thing Negroes can do for me is shine my shoes and buy my records."
Sepia sought input from African-American Minister Milton Perry. He told the magazine, "I feel that an overwhelming majority of people who know him speak of this boy who practices humility and a love for racial harmony. I learned that he is not too proud or important to speak to anyone and to spend time with his fans of whatever color, wherever and whenever they approach him."
It was not long, though, before the anonymous, fictitious "people in the street" comment was being wrongly laid upon the singer, himself. Myth-busting Snopes once observed that, "The rumor grew and spread throughout 1957."
It mattered not that the story came cloaked in impossible details, such as Elvis supposedly making the statement in Boston (a city he had never visited) or on Edward R. Murrow's Person To Person television program (on which Elvis never appeared)."
Unable to definitively source the rumored comment, Snopes records, Jet magazine sent reporter Louie Robinson to interview Presley on the "Jailhouse Rock" set. ("The 'Pelvis' Gives His Views On Vicious anti-Negro slur" Jet, August 1, 1957)
"I never said anything like that," Presley told Robinson. "And people who know me know I wouldn't have said that."
A number of fellow musicians, whites and blacks, came to Presley's defense at the time. Notable among them was rhythm and blues singer Darlene Love. She had backed Presley with vocal group the Blossoms. "I would never think that Elvis Presley was a racist."
Cox News Service quoted Love in 2002: "He was born in the South, and he probably grew up with that, but that doesn't mean he stayed that way." ("False Rumor Taints Elvis," Cox News Service, August 16, 2002)
Other contradictory direct evidence exists on Charly Records' 2006 "The Million Dollar Quartet, 50th Anniversary Special Edition." Sun Records alum Elvis joined Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash at the Memphis studio for an impromptu 1956 session.
With Billy Ward
Prior to a loose, collective retelling of his then-chart hit, "Don't Be Cruel," Elvis related seeing a Billy Ward and the Dominoes cover performance of it. "Much better than that record of mine," Presley conceded.
He described the lead singer's onstage energy: "He was hittin' it, boy!" Jerry Lee responded, "Oh man, that's classic!"
The 'Elvis was racist' mantra is an offshoot of the larger fiction holding against evidence that Rock'n'Roll is exclusively black in origin.
But Tennessee rockabilly guitar man Carl Perkins did not sound like venerated shouter Big Joe Turner, nor did the frantic storms of Jerry Lee Lewis recall the risible and urbane stylings of Fats Waller -- though all helped develop the music.
With Fats Waller
In his invaluable volume, Unsung Heroes of Rock'n'Roll, veteran music writer Nick Tosches noted that the sound began in regional pockets and was of mixed parentage.
"Rock'n'Roll was not created solely by blacks or whites," wrote Tosches.
"One could make just as strong a case for Jews being the central ethnic group in Rock'n'Roll's early history," he added. "For it was they who produced many of the best songs, cultivated much of the greatest talent, and operated the majority of the pioneering record companies."
Difficult as it would be to construct an exhaustive review of early Rock'n'Roll without citing Doc Pomus, Mort Schuman, Les Bihari, or Syd Nathan, it is telling that many of today's race-as-creative-qualification theorists might not even be able to identify those men, significant though they were to the style's development.
Elvis was one of many talented men and women whose music helped American popular culture become representative of all the country's people. To ignore that today, and instead proffer slanderous myths, is an affront not only to his contributions and the prize of racial unity, but to the intellectual ideals of honesty and reason.
With Mahalia Jackson and Barbara McNair
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