Elvis turns 75

Elvis Presley, 1970 [photo public domain]

Elvis Aron Presley was born January 8, 1935.  32 years after his death, the love the public has for him remains and is demonstrated by such things as Friday's all-day Elvis movie marathon on Turner Classic Movies;  Elvis Birthday Bash...On Ice  in Brantford, Ontario, Canada; Elvis-Only Radio Show on United Stations Radio Network; "75 Years of Elvis" exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland; and, of course, a special display and blog entry from Fogelson Library at the College of Santa Fe.



From his national musical debut in 1956, Elvis Presley provided a field day for music critics, social commentators, photographers, song writers, and movie makers.

Fogelson Library has a CD and a few vinyl albums by Elvis, biographies under call number ML 420 .P96, and numerous articles from contemporary sources in our periodicals collection.

From the June 23, 1956 issue of America magazine,  this letter is in the editorial comment section:

Beware Elvis Presley

     Does the name Elvis Presley mean anything to you? If it doesn't the chances are that it does to your children.  He is a "singer" of rock-'n-roll songs and his recoreds are top favorites with the juke-box audience.  If his "entertainment" could be confined to records, it might not be too bad an influence on the young, but unfortunately Presley makes personal appearances. 

     He recently appeared in two shows in the Municipal Auditorium of La Crosse, Wisconsin.  According to a La Crosse paper, his movements and motions during his performance, described as a "strip-tease with clothes on," were not only suggestive, but downright obscene.  The youngsters at the shows--4,000 at one, about 1,200 at the second--literally "went wild," some of them actually rolling in the aisles.  Citizens groups of La Crosse were so concerned that Lyons Associates, who had billed Presley, said they would never again bring him or anyone like him to town.

     Yet the National Broadcasting Company wasn't loathe to bring Presley into the living-rooms of the nation on the evening of June 5.  Appearing on the Milton Berle show, Presley fortunately didn't go so far as he did in La Crosse, but his routine was "in appalling taste" (said the San Francisco Chronicle) and "his one specialty is an accented movement of the body that hitherto has been primarily identified with the repertoire of the blond bombshells of the burlesque runway"  (the judgment of the New York Times).

     If the agencies (TV and other) would stop handling such nauseating stuff, all the Presleys of our land would soon be swallowed up in the oblivion they deserve.

Come by the library and take a look at some of the other articles about Elvis from the late 1950's published in magazines like Time, Newsweek, Colliers, and The Saturday Evening Post.  Some of these articles are reproduced and included in the display on the main floor near the stairs.