Elvis Presley and highbrow are two things that would never come to my mind at the same time. However during 1957 Elvis was accused of becoming just this. His recordings of gospel standards such as Peace in the Valley, where shockingly different from the wild rock and roll he was known for. Many were telling him with these songs he would be alienating his (at that time) mostly teenage audience, who were going wild over Heartbreak Hotel, Don't Be Cruel, Shake Rattle and Roll, Ready Teddy or Hound Dog. However those teenage fans loved these new gospel recordings just as much. These gospel songs were near and dear to Elvis' heart and he sang them with such strong conviction that they became some of his finest work in the field of audio recordings. This was simply great music and his teenage audience felt that just as much as anybody.
Around this time another accusation was being placed upon Elvis. This was that Elvis was selling out. This a shocking accusation once you consider had brief of a time, Elvis had been in the music business (His first recordings were in 1953). What had changed at this time was that Elvis was no longer just a singer, but a movie star. With his 1960's movies in mind many today might agree that this was selling out. However what we must realize is that by this time Elvis had only made 3 movies. These were Love Me Tender (1956), Loving You (1957) and Jailhouse Rock (1957). These are definitely good films, and well above the quality of much of his 1960's cinematic output. I enjoy his 1960's films quite a bit myself, but will admit that they are guilty pleasures and despite how much I enjoy them, I will admit they aren't great. These 1950's films though, are quite good. In fact I'd say that the incredible performance of the title song in Jailhouse Rock ranks as one of the highpoints in Elvis' great career. The storylines are better in these films than in the 1960's output and quite enjoyable on their own. These movies also showed that Elvis' music career was still in good form. From just these three movies had come such amazing Elvis songs as Love Me Tender, Mean Woman Blues, Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear, Loving You, Got a Lot of Living to Do, Jailhouse Rock, Treat Me Nice, You're So Square Baby I Don't Care and Young and Beautiful. No other Elvis movies with the exceptions of King Carole and Viva Las Vegas (even if story wise that is one of his weakest, the songs are fantastic) would feature songs of this high caliber.
The magazine TV Radio Mirror wrote a fantastic article (in 1957) about this period in Elvis' career. To read it click here and if you don't want to flip through too many pages the article continues here.
-Michael J. Ruhland
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