We've admitted previously: We like Elvis. No, we don't own a velvet Elvis, but we do have some Elvis posters. We bought them mostly for the shock and humor value, but we genuinely enjoy Elvis' music and persona, no matter how shallow and absurd. Perhaps we should be embarrassed, but American Heritage has run an essay that helps vindicate this odd taste of ours. Link. Excerpt:
Presley's innovation wasn't that he sounded either black or like a hillbilly; it was the brilliant way he drew on all three strains of pop music: blues, country, and traditional “classic” pop (that of the crooners, big bands, and Broadway shows). And though the country and blues influences were probably what most attracted the teenagers of 1956, in retrospect Presley is clearly a crooner. He comes out of a very clear tradition of great male singers of the great American songbook, especially Bing Crosby, Al Jolson, Billy Eckstine, Dean Martin, and, to an extent, Frank Sinatra–as well as the leading crooners of the idioms of the blues, like Louis Jordan, and of country, like Eddy Arnold.
Presley's most obvious roots lie in Dean Martin and Bing Crosby. If you start with Crosby, and you add occasional Italian curse words and mannerisms intended to suggest various states of inebriation, then you've got Dean Martin. Take away those Neapolitanisms, replace with a whole lot o' shakin', and essentially you've got Elvis.
