Buy essay on Elvis Presley’s Effect on Race Relations

Elvis Presley was a man who changed the popular music of the twentieth century. He managed to realize the great American dream, a guy from the slums became a millionaire, and most people saw only a beautiful image in Presley, not realizing what the influence he will made on the music, what a great contribution he will made. Elvis was the greatest cultural phenomenon of the twentieth century, it was he who introduced the rhythm in all – in music, in language, in style… He was a cultural revolution of the 60th, having made a great breakthrough in the world of music.
Presley had a strong and unusually expressive “hypnotic” voice and successfully worked in a variety of vocal genres. This is evidenced not only classic rock and pop hits, but the records of religious hymns and Christmas ballads. Presley brought into the European pop-music afro-american spirituals, african blues and soul melodies. His singing career was closely connected with the afro-american culture, that had a certain position of “music out of culture” and without any respect to. But despite this fact jazz and blues was rather popular among some Americans, but Elvis Presley has made this music really international and well-known out of the negro’s culture.
So what was this “black” music, and why it was connected with racism? North American Negro singing, so-called “spirituals,” emerged in the U.S. in the second half of the 18th century as a result of treatment of blacks in Christianity. Their original sources were religious hymns and psalms were brought to America with white settlers and missionaries. Spiritual combine the distinctive elements of African performing traditions (collective improvisation, the characteristic rhythm glissandos, chords, special emotional) with the stylistic features of the Puritan hymns. At the same time, they are less African and more – the European than the rest of the Afro-American music.
These so-called “spirituals”, blues and soul melodies were introduced in the American pop culture by Elvis Presley, and he made this music neither “black” nor “white”. Elvis also blew up the existing order of things: for white his voice was completely as black, and negro musicians considered him strange though but white.
In the second half of the 50’s world-renowned musicologist, president and director of the New York Institute of Jazz Studies Marshall Stearns in his excellent textbook “A History of Jazz”, first published in 1956, gave his definition of this music from a purely historical point of view.
Stearns wrote: “First of all, no matter where you hear jazz, it is always easier to see than to describe in words. But in the first approximation we can define jazz as an improvised music that has arisen as a result of 300 years of mixing in the North American land of two great music traditions – Western European and West African – that is, the actual merger of white and black culture. And although the music on the predominant role is played by the European tradition, but the rhythmic qualities that make jazz so typical, unusual and easily recognizable music, of course, lead originated from Africa. Therefore, the main components of this music are European harmony, the Euro-African melody and African rhythm.” (Marshall W. Stearns, 1970)
Besides the fact that Presley made the first “crossover” of such seemingly different musical styles as gospelz, blues, rock ‘n’ roll and country music,
The importance of Presley music was evident. Though his influence on white music, as well as on black one, was a topic of many discussions and argues. For about half a century we can find a lot of critical views on Elvis Presley’s contribution to the world music.
A lot of critics say that Presley didn’t find any new style in the music, also he didn’t bring anything new to the music, but just picked something from black music and something from white, having made a very good mix.
“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, he borrowed no less from white country stars and white pop singers, and most of his borrowings came from the church; its gospel music was his primary musical influence and foundation.” (Martha Bayles, p. 22)
But also many people don’t like the fact that Elvis has combined two opposite cultures, and so his name is connected with the problems of racism. Critics argue that “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.” (Robert Walser, p.358)
But despite all the argues most critics try to defend Presley, saying that his music was made for people, “regardless of race, color or creed.” (Michael T. Bertrand, 2000)
Works cited:
Marshall W. Stearns. “The story of jazz”. Oxford University Press, 1970
Robert Walser. “The rock and roll era”. The Cambridge History of American. Cambridge University Press, 1998, p.358.
Martha Bayles. “Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music”. University of Chicago Press, 1996, p.22.
Michael T. Bertrand. “Race, Rock, and Elvis”. University of Illinois Press, 2000