140 Facts About Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and relocated to Memphis, Tennessee, with his family when he was aged 13.

Elvis Presley, on rhythm acoustic guitar, and accompanied by lead guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, was a pioneer of rockabilly, an uptempo, backbeat-driven fusion of country music and rhythm and blues.

In November 1956, Elvis Presley made his film debut in Love Me Tender.

Elvis Presley held few concerts and guided by Parker, proceeded to devote much of the 1960s to making Hollywood films and soundtrack albums, most of them critically derided.

In 1968, following a seven-year break from live performances, he returned to the stage in the acclaimed television comeback special Elvis Presley, which led to an extended Las Vegas concert residency and a string of highly profitable tours.

In 1973, Elvis Presley gave the first concert by a solo artist to be broadcast around the world, Aloha from Hawaii.

However, years of prescription drug abuse and unhealthy eating habits severely compromised his health, and Elvis Presley died suddenly in 1977 at his Graceland estate at the age of 42.

Elvis Presley won three Grammy Awards, received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36, and has been inducted into multiple music halls of fame.

Elvis Presley holds several records, including the most RIAA-certified gold and platinum albums, the most albums charted on the Billboard 200, the most number-one albums by a solo artist on the UK Albums Chart, and the most number-one singles by any act on the UK Singles Chart.

In 2018, Elvis Presley was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Elvis Aaron Presley was born on January 8,1935, in Tupelo, Mississippi, to Vernon Presley and Gladys Love Presley in a two-room shotgun house that his father built for the occasion.

Elvis Presley became close to both parents and formed an especially close bond with his mother.

Elvis Presley was jailed for eight months while Gladys and Elvis moved in with relatives.

In September 1941, Elvis Presley entered first grade at East Tupelo Consolidated, where his teachers regarded him as "average".

Elvis Presley was encouraged to enter a singing contest after impressing his schoolteacher with a rendition of Red Foley's country song "Old Shep" during morning prayers.

The ten-year-old Elvis Presley stood on a chair to reach the microphone and sang "Old Shep".

In September 1946, Elvis Presley entered a new school, Milam, for sixth grade; he was regarded as a loner.

Elvis Presley played and sang during lunchtime and was often teased as a "trashy" kid who played hillbilly music.

Elvis Presley was a devotee of Mississippi Slim's show on the Tupelo radio station WELO.

Elvis Presley was described as "crazy about music" by Slim's younger brother, who was one of Presley's classmates and often took him into the station.

Elvis Presley was overcome by stage fright the first time but succeeded in performing the following week.

Elvis Presley was usually too shy to perform openly and was occasionally bullied by classmates who viewed him as a "mama's boy".

In 1950, Elvis Presley began practicing guitar regularly under the tutelage of Lee Denson, a neighbor two and a half years his senior.

Elvis Presley helped Jewish neighbors, the Fruchters, by being their shabbos goy.

Elvis Presley, who received no formal music training and could not read music, studied and played by ear.

Elvis Presley visited record stores that provided jukeboxes and listening booths to customers.

Elvis Presley knew all of Hank Snow's songs, and he loved records by other country singers such as Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb, Ted Daffan, Jimmie Rodgers, Jimmie Davis, and Bob Wills.

Elvis Presley was a regular audience member at the monthly All-Night Singings downtown, where many of the white gospel groups that performed reflected the influence of African American spiritual music.

Elvis Presley adored the music of black gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

Elvis Presley listened to regional radio stations, such as WDIA, that played what were then called "race records": spirituals, blues, and the modern, backbeat-heavy sound of rhythm and blues.

Elvis Presley aimed to pay for a few minutes of studio time to record a two-sided acetate disc: "My Happiness" and "That's When Your Heartaches Begin".

Elvis Presley later claimed that he intended the record as a birthday gift for his mother, or that he was merely interested in what he "sounded like", although there was a much cheaper, amateur record-making service at a nearby general store.

Biographer Peter Guralnick argued that Elvis Presley chose Sun in the hope of being discovered.

Bond rejected him after a tryout, advising Elvis Presley to stick to truck driving "because you're never going to make it as a singer".

Elvis Presley was sufficiently affected by what he heard to invite two local musicians, guitarist Winfield "Scotty" Moore and upright bass player Bill Black, to work something up with Presley for a recording session.

When Elvis Presley played his fifteen-minute sets, teenagers rushed from the pool to fill the club, then left again as the house western swing band resumed.

Elvis Presley had another attack of nerves during the first set, which drew a muted reaction.

Many fledgling performers, like Minnie Pearl, Johnny Horton, and Johnny Cash, sang the praises of Louisiana Hayride sponsor Southern Maid Donuts, including Elvis Presley, who developed a lifelong love of donuts.

Elvis Presley made his singular product endorsement commercial for the donut company, which was never released, recording a radio jingle "in exchange for a box of hot glazed doughnuts".

Elvis Presley made his first television appearance on the KSLA-TV television broadcast of Louisiana Hayride.

Elvis Presley renewed Neal's management contract in August 1955, simultaneously appointing Parker as his special adviser.

Haley observed that Elvis Presley had a natural feel for rhythm, and advised him to sing fewer ballads.

Songwriters were obliged to forgo one-third of their customary royalties in exchange for having Elvis Presley perform their compositions.

On January 10,1956, Elvis Presley made his first recordings for RCA in Nashville.

Amid his Vegas tenure, Elvis Presley, who had serious acting ambitions, signed a seven-year contract with Paramount Pictures.

Elvis Presley had attended several shows by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys in Vegas and was struck by their cover of "Hound Dog", a hit in 1953 for blues singer Big Mama Thornton by songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.

Elvis Presley sang "Hound Dog" for less than a minute to a basset hound wearing a top hat and bow tie.

I'm gonna show you what the real Elvis Presley is like tonight.

Allen's show with Elvis Presley had, for the first time, beaten CBS's The Ed Sullivan Show in the ratings.

Elvis Presley appeared in two segments that night from CBS Television City in Los Angeles.

Elvis Presley would receive top billing on every subsequent film he made.

Two days later, the Memphis draft board announced that Elvis Presley would be classified 1-A and would probably be drafted sometime that year.

Between film shoots and recording sessions, Elvis Presley purchased an 18-room mansion, Graceland, on March 19,1957, for the amount of $102,500.

The songwriting team effectively produced the Jailhouse sessions and developed a close working relationship with Elvis Presley, who came to regard them as his "good-luck charm".

Elvis Presley undertook three brief tours during the year, continuing to generate a crazed audience response.

Elvis Presley has a right to say what he wants to say.

Elvis Presley is a great success and a fine actor, but I think he shouldn't have said it.

Elvis Presley was granted a deferment to finish the forthcoming film King Creole, in which $350,000 had already been invested by Paramount and producer Hal Wallis.

On March 24,1958, Elvis Presley was drafted into the United States Army at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas.

Between March 28 and September 17,1958, Elvis Presley completed basic and advanced military training at Fort Hood in Texas, where he was temporarily assigned to Company A, 2d Medium Tank Battalion, 37th Armor.

On October 1,1958, Elvis Presley was assigned to the 1st Medium Tank Battalion, 32d Armor, 3d Armored Division, at Ray Barracks, West Germany, where he served as an armor intelligence specialist.

Elvis Presley became "practically evangelical about their benefits", not only for energy but for "strength" and weight loss, and many of his friends in the outfit joined him in indulging.

Elvis Presley donated his Army pay to charity, purchased television sets for the base, and bought an extra set of fatigues for everyone in his outfit.

Elvis Presley returned to the US on March 2,1960, and was honorably discharged three days later.

The train that carried him from New Jersey to Tennessee was mobbed all the way, and Elvis Presley was called upon to appear at scheduled stops to please his fans.

In February 1961, Elvis Presley performed two shows for a benefit event in Memphis, on behalf of twenty-four local charities.

Elvis Presley's films were almost universally panned; critic Andrew Caine dismissed them as a "pantheon of bad taste".

Julie Parrish, who appeared in Paradise, Hawaiian Style, says that Elvis Presley disliked many of the songs chosen for his films.

Regardless of the songs' quality, it has been argued that Elvis Presley generally sang them well, with commitment.

Shortly before Christmas 1966, more than seven years since they first met, Elvis Presley proposed to Priscilla Beaulieu.

Elvis Presley's only child, Lisa Marie, was born on February 1,1968, during a period when he had grown deeply unhappy with his career.

Elvis Presley's forthcoming soundtrack album, Speedway, would rank at number 82 on the Billboard chart.

Parker had already shifted his plans to television, where Elvis Presley had not appeared since the Sinatra Timex show in 1960.

Elvis Presley maneuvered a deal with NBC that committed the network to both finance a theatrical feature and broadcast a Christmas special.

The live segments saw Elvis Presley dressed in tight black leather, singing and playing guitar in an uninhibited style reminiscent of his early rock and roll days.

Elvis Presley sang with the kind of power people no longer expect of rock 'n' roll singers.

Elvis Presley moved his body with a lack of pretension and effort that must have made Jim Morrison green with envy.

Elvis Presley assembled new, top-notch accompaniment, led by guitarist James Burton and including two gospel groups, The Imperials and Sweet Inspirations.

Costume designer Bill Belew, responsible for the intense leather styling of the Comeback Special, created a new stage look for Elvis Presley, inspired by his passion for karate.

Nonetheless, Elvis Presley was nervous: his only previous Las Vegas engagement, in 1956, had been dismal.

At a press conference after the show, when a journalist referred to him as "The King", Elvis Presley gestured toward Fats Domino, who was taking in the scene.

Elvis Presley returned to the International early in 1970 for the first of the year's two-month-long engagements, performing two shows a night.

Elvis Presley was performing in a jumpsuit, which would become a trademark of his live act.

Elvis Presley had been the target of many threats since the 1950s, often without his knowledge.

On December 21,1970, Elvis Presley engineered a meeting with US President Richard Nixon at the White House, where he expressed his patriotism and explained how he believed he could reach out to the hippies to help combat the drug culture he and the president abhorred.

Elvis Presley asked Nixon for a Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs badge, to add to similar items he had begun collecting and to signify official sanction of his patriotic efforts.

Nixon, who apparently found the encounter awkward, expressed a belief that Elvis Presley could send a positive message to young people and that it was, therefore, important that he "retain his credibility".

Elvis Presley told Nixon that the Beatles, whose songs he regularly performed in concert during the era, exemplified what he saw as a trend of anti-Americanism.

Elvis Presley often raised the possibility of Joyce moving into Graceland, saying that he was likely to leave Priscilla.

Elvis Presley later stated in an interview that she regretted her choice of words in describing the incident, and said it had been an overstatement.

In January 1973, Elvis Presley performed two benefit concerts for the Kui Lee Cancer Fund in connection with a groundbreaking television special, Aloha from Hawaii, which would be the first concert by a solo artist to be aired globally.

Elvis Presley patted me on the back and said, 'It'll be all right.

Elvis Presley was in Palm Springs at the time, and some suggested that he was too cowardly to face the three himself.

RCA, which had always enjoyed a steady stream of product from Elvis Presley, began to grow anxious as his interest in the recording studio waned.

Parker delivered RCA another concert record, Elvis Presley Recorded Live on Stage in Memphis.

Elvis Presley returned to the recording studio in Hollywood in March 1975, but Parker's attempts to arrange another session toward the end of the year were unsuccessful.

Elvis Presley proposed to Alden and gave her an engagement ring two months later, though several of his friends later said he had no serious intention of marrying again.

Elvis Presley was devastated by the book and tried unsuccessfully to halt its publication by offering money to the publishers.

President Jimmy Carter issued a statement that credited Elvis Presley with having "permanently changed the face of American popular culture".

About 80,000 people lined the processional route to Forest Hill Cemetery, where Elvis Presley was buried next to his mother.

Elvis Presley is buried alongside his parents, daughter, grandson and his paternal grandmother in the Meditation Garden at Graceland.

DNA analysis in 2014 of a hair sample, purported to be Elvis Presley's, found evidence of genetic variants that can lead to glaucoma, migraines, and obesity; a crucial variant associated with the heart muscle disease hypertrophic cardiomyopathy was identified.

Between 1977 and 1981, six of Elvis Presley's posthumously released singles were top-ten country hits.

Elvis Presley has been inducted into five music halls of fame: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.

In 2003, a remix of "Rubberneckin'", a 1969 recording of Elvis Presley's, topped the US sales chart, as did a 50th-anniversary re-release of "That's All Right" the following year.

Elvis Presley was placed second in 2006, returned to the top spot the next two years, and ranked fourth in 2009.

Elvis Presley is portrayed by Austin Butler and Parker by Tom Hanks.

Elvis Presley played guitar, bass, and piano; he received his first guitar when he was 11 years old.

Elvis Presley often played an instrument on his recordings and produced his own music.

Elvis Presley played rhythm acoustic guitar on most of his Sun recordings and his 1950s RCA albums.

Elvis Presley played electric bass guitar on " Baby I Don't Care" after his bassist Bill Black had trouble with the instrument.

Elvis Presley is credited with playing piano on later albums such as From Elvis in Memphis and "Moody Blue", and on "Unchained Melody", which was one of the last songs that he recorded.

Elvis Presley played lead guitar on one of his successful singles called "Are You Lonesome Tonight".

Elvis Presley was a central figure in the development of rockabilly, according to music historians.

Elvis Presley recorded few new straight rock and roll songs thereafter; as he explained, they had become "hard to find".

Such statements and actions led Elvis Presley to be generally hailed in the black community during the early days of his stardom.

Into the 21st century, the notion that Elvis Presley had "stolen" black music still found adherents.

Ed Sullivan's declaration that he perceived a soda bottle in Elvis Presley's trousers was echoed by rumors involving a similarly positioned toilet roll tube or lead bar.

Elvis Presley never grew comfortable with the Hollywood scene, and most of these relationships were insubstantial.

Elvis Presley kept several horses at Graceland, and horses remain important to the Graceland estate.

Elvis Presley is one of three of the original staff members still working at the estate.

Elvis Presley was on the verge of quitting until Presley ordered the Hill and Range personnel out of the studio.

Parker was uncharacteristically reluctant, prompting those close to Elvis Presley to speculate about the manager's past and the reasons for his evident unwillingness to apply for a passport.

Parker ultimately rejected any notions Elvis Presley had of working abroad, claiming that foreign security was poor and the venues unsuitable for a star of his magnitude.

Elvis Presley would be preoccupied by such matters for much of his life, taking trunkloads of books on tour.

Elvis Presley's rise to national attention in 1956 transformed the field of popular music and had a huge effect on the broader scope of popular culture.

Elvis Presley's following was immense, and he was a symbol to people the world over of the vitality, rebelliousness, and good humor of his country.

In particular, his love of fried peanut butter, banana, and bacon sandwiches, now known as "Elvis Presley sandwiches", came to symbolize this characteristic.

Adherents cite alleged discrepancies in the death certificate, reports of a wax dummy in his original coffin, and accounts of Elvis Presley planning a diversion so he could retire in peace.

Elvis Presley' breakthroughs are underappreciated because in this rock-and-roll age, his hard-rocking music and sultry style have triumphed so completely.

Elvis Presley is a supreme figure in American life, one whose presence, no matter how banal or predictable, brooks no real comparisons.

Elvis Presley has emerged as a great artist, a great rocker, a great purveyor of schlock, a great heart throb, a great bore, a great symbol of potency, a great ham, a great nice person, and, yes, a great American.

Elvis Presley holds the records for most songs charting in Billboards top 40 and top 100, according to chart statistician Joel Whitburn, 139 according to Elvis Presley historian Adam Victor.

Elvis Presley holds the records for most number-one singles on the UK chart with 21 and singles reaching the top ten with 76.

Elvis Presley holds the record for most time spent at number one on the Billboard 200: 67 weeks.

Elvis Presley holds the records for most gold albums, and most platinum albums.

Elvis Presley has the 9th-most gold singles, and the 16th-most platinum singles.

Elvis Presley worked with many bands and studio musicians over the course of his career.

Elvis Presley's career began and he was most successful during an era when singles were the primary commercial medium for pop music.

In 1966, Elvis Presley expressed the desire to his father that the more traditional biblical rendering, Aaron, be used henceforth, "especially on legal documents".