Debt to African American music, impact on Black artists
In spite of the facts that Nat King Cole had the #7 song in 1959, and the #1 song in 1961, and Chuck Berry had a major hit with "Maybellene" in 1955, in the United States in the 1950's legal segregation and discrimination against African Americans was common, especially in the Deep South. Presley would nevertheless publicly cite his debt to African American music, pointing to artists such as B. B. King, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, Ivory Joe Hunter, and Fats Domino. The reporter who conducted Presley's first interview in New York City in 1956 noted that he named blues singers who "obviously meant a lot to him. [He] was very surprised to hear him talk about the black performers down there and about how he tried to carry on their music."[7] Later that year in Charlotte, North Carolina, Presley was quoted as saying: "The colored folks been singing it and playing it just like I'm doin' now, man, for more years than I know. They played it like that in their shanties and in their juke joints and nobody paid it no mind 'til I goosed it up. I got it from them. Down in Tupelo, Mississippi, I used to hear old Arthur Crudup bang his box the way I do now and I said if I ever got to a place I could feel all old Arthur felt, I'd be a music man like nobody ever saw."[8] Little Richard said of Presley: "He was an integrator. Elvis was a blessing. They wouldn't let black music through. He opened the door for black music."[9] B. B. King said he began to respect Presley after he did Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup material and that after he met him, he thought the singer really was something else and was someone whose music was growing all the time right up to his death.[10]
Up to the mid-1950s, black artists had sold minuscule amounts of their recorded music relative to the national market potential. Black songwriters had mostly limited horizons and could only eke out a living. But after Presley purchased the music of Otis Blackwell, an African-American singer-songwriter, and had his "Gladys Music" company hire talented black songwriter Claude Demetrius, the industry underwent a dramatic change. In the spring of 1957, Presley invited African American performer Ivory Joe Hunter to visit Graceland and the two spent the day together, singing "I Almost Lost My Mind" and other songs. Of Presley, Hunter commented, "He showed me every courtesy, and I think he's one of the greatest."[11]
Distrust of Elvis, transgression of societal boundaries
"Racists attacked rock and roll because of the mingling of black and white people it implied and achieved, and because of what they saw as black music's power to corrupt through vulgar and animalistic rhythms. ... The popularity of Elvis Presley was similarly founded on his transgressive position with respect to racial and sexual boundaries. ... White cover versions of hits by black musicians ... often outsold the originals; it seems that many Americans wanted black music without the black people in it,"[12] and Elvis had undoubtedly "derived his style from the Negro rhythm-and-blues performers of the late 1940s."[13]
Sam Phillips had anticipated problems promoting Presley's Sun singles. He recalled, "The white disc-jockeys wouldn't touch... Negroes' music and the Negro disc-jockeys didn't want anything to do with a record made by a white man.[14]"
Hillbilly singer Mississippi Slim, one of Presley's heroes, was one of the singer's fiercest critics.[15] Phillips felt Dewey Phillips—a white DJ who did play 'black' music—would promote the new material, but many of the hundreds of listeners who contacted the station when "That's All Right" was played were sure Presley must be black. The singer was interviewed several times on air by the DJ and was pointedly asked which school he had attended, to convince listeners that he was white.[16]
In 1957, Presley had to defend himself from claims of being a racist; he was alleged to have said, "The only thing Negro people can do for me is to buy my records and shine my shoes." The singer always denied saying, or ever wanting to say, such a racist remark. Jet magazine, run by and for African-Americans, subsequently investigated the story and found no basis to the claim. However, the Jet journalist did find plenty of testimony that Presley judged people "regardless of race, color or creed".[17]
Certain elements in American society have dismissed Presley as no more than a racist Southerner who stole black music.[18] The "Elvis stole black music" theme is an enduring one with arguments for and against published in books.[19][20] A southern background combined with a performing style largely associated with African Americans had led to "bitter criticism by those who feel he stole a good thing", as Tan magazine surmised.[21] No wonder that Elvis became "a symbol of all that was oppressive to the black experience in the Western Hemisphere".[22] A black southerner in the late 1980s even captured that sentiment: "To talk to Presley about blacks was like talking to Adolf Hitler about the Jews."[23]
In his scholarly work Race, Rock, and Elvis,[24] Tennessee State University professor Michael T. Bertrand examined the relationship between popular culture and social change in America and these allegations against Presley. Professor Bertrand postulated that Presley's rock and roll music brought an unprecedented access to African American culture that challenged the 1950s segregated generation to reassess ingrained segregationist stereotypes. The American Historical Review wrote that the author "convincingly argues that the black-and-white character of the sound, as well as Presley's own persona, helped to relax the rigid color line and thereby fed the fires of the civil rights movement." The U.S. government report stated: "Presley has been accused of "stealing" black rhythm and blues, but such accusations indicate little knowledge of his many musical influences ... However much Elvis may have 'borrowed' from black blues performers (e.g., 'Big Boy' Crudup, 'Big Mama' Thornton), he borrowed no less from white country stars (e.g., Ernest Tubb, Bill Monroe) and white pop singers, and most of his borrowings came from the church; its gospel music was his primary musical influence and foundation."[citation needed]
Whether or not it was justified, the fact remains that distrust of Presley was common amongst the general African-American population after the accusations of racism were made public.[23] Presley's singles had consistently charted on Billboard's R&B Singles Chart during the 1950s, but during the early 1960s, this became less common; his final chart appearance on Billboard's R&B chart was in 1963.[25] According to George Plasketes, several songs by other performers came out after the singer's death which are a part of a "demystification process as they portray Elvis as a racist."[26] In his book, Colored White: Transcending the Racial Past, David Roediger considers contemporary "w*ggers" in light of the tensions in racial impersonation embodied by Elvis Presley.[27] Chuck D and others have at one point or another publicly condemned Presley for "stealing" black music. However, in 2002, Chuck D, in an interview with the Associated Press in connection with the 25th Anniversary of Presley's death, explained how his feelings for Elvis's legacy were no longer those as originally suggested by the lyrics in "Fight The Power", a song which he had written 12 years earlier. When broadcast as a part of the NBC-produced documentary "Elvis Lives", Chuck D had the following to say about Presley: "Elvis was a brilliant artist. As a musicologist—and I consider myself one—there was always a great deal of respect for Elvis, especially during his Sun sessions. As a black person, we all knew that. (In fact), Eminem is the new Elvis because, number one, he had the respect for black music that Elvis had."
As one writer stated on the controversy, "Music is a universal language, like mathematics and money. It knows few borders. Jazz began in the return of black bands from graveyard interments in New Orleans. But the bands played white hymns out to the above-ground graves."[28]
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