Suspicious minds
Even now, many African-Americans have an ambivalent relationship with Elvis
Presley

By Rene E Graham, Globe Staff, 8/11/2002

MEMPHIS - Ilva Price was about 10 years old the first time she heard Elvis
Presley's voice, pouring from her father's car radio in East St. Louis, Ill. She
can't recall the song, can't recall whether it was a ballad or a rocker. What
she remembers is how his voice, that smoldering rumble of a voice, made her skin
tingle.

''I don't know why, but I just loved his voice,'' Price said. ''His sound just
did something to me.'' It also did something to Price's father, who quickly
turned off the radio and glared at his daughter.

''He got angry, and said I shouldn't be listening to that music,'' Price said.
''And that was that.''

Her father didn't need to say anything more. Long before Price ever heard
Presley, she'd heard relatives talk about the singer. They called him a
''cracker'' who stole his musical style from black people, claimed it as his
own, and then cursed them. Presley, they said, hated black people.

Twenty-five years after his death, that sentiment remains tangible for some
African-Americans who still view with disdain the continued canonization of
Elvis Presley as a cultural savior. For nearly a half-century, Presley has been
hailed as the man who, with a growl and a twitch, shook this nation out of its
conformist 1950s malaise.

Yet there remains a nagging belief that Presley, Mississippi-born and raised in
the segregated South, disliked black people, although he was clearly influenced
and inspired by their music and culture.

''It was something you heard, then it was something you just felt,'' said Price
,who now lives in West Memphis, Ark., just across the Mississippi River from
Memphis. ''And everybody knew about that comment, of course.''

''That comment,'' as Price called it, was attributed to Presley, and has been a
source of racial ill will for more than 40 years. In 1957, the singer was
alleged to have said, ''The only thing a n- can do for me is buy my records and
shine my shoes.'' Problem is, there's never been a shred of evidence proving
Presley ever made such a damning remark. Even an investigation by Jet, a
national magazine with a predominantly black readership, concluded that the
rumor was without merit.

In an interview, Presley told a reporter, ''I never said anything like that, and
people who know me know I wouldn't have said it.''

Still, the erroneous remark's persistence speaks to how a man often called the
''King of Rock 'n' Roll'' is regarded by others as a pretender to the throne
whose only innovation was becoming a marketable white face for a revolutionary
sound black musicians had been shaping for years.

Many of those sounds were born here in Memphis, which bills itself as the ''Home
of the Blues, Birthplace of Rock 'n' Roll.'' Nestled on the Mississippi, this
city is as closely associated with Presley as his hometown, Tupelo, Miss. His
mansion-turned-museum, Graceland, is the biggest tourist attraction in the city,
which will host various events commemorating the anniversary of his death
Friday.

Still, all these years later, one stubborn question has yet to follow him to the
grave - was Presley, an American icon, racist?

''He liked black music enough to sing it, and he liked black dancing enough to
mimic it, and there's no evidence to suggest that he was the hard-core racist we
associate with the South,'' says Patricia A. Turner, an African-American studies
professor at the University of California, Davis. ''But we, as black Americans,
have a certain amount of ambivalence about him because he came to prominence
with a form of music that was influenced by black musicians. And he was very
successful - more successful than any black artist had ever been.''

What created Elvis

John Lennon famously said, ''Before Elvis, there was nothing,'' and it's exactly
that mind-set that makes some black folks' blood boil. What came before Presley
was everything that created Presley, music that swelled from juke joints and
nightclubs long before anyone thought to call it rock 'n' roll. He may well have
spent the rest of his life pushing a rig if not for the music of such black
artists as Arthur ''Big Boy'' Crudup (''That's All Right''), Little Junior Brown
(''Mystery Train''), Roy Brown (''Good Rockin' Tonight''), and Smiley Lewis
(''One Night of Sin,'' which was changed to ''One Night With You'').

Big Mama Thornton first sang ''Hound Dog,'' and Otis Blackwell wrote such
classics as ''All Shook Up,'' ''Don't Be Cruel,'' and ''Return to Sender.'' None
of these musicians received the acclaim afforded Presley.

''When black people were the only ones making this music, a lot of white people
said it was music made by savages for savages,'' said Devon Shays, 36, as he
shopped in Peabody Place mall in downtown Memphis. ''Then this white guy comes
along - doing what black people had been doing for years - and suddenly he's
called the best thing that ever happened. That wasn't right.''

Even more troubling, Presley also received songwriting credits - and fair chunk
of the royalties - on the Blackwell songs he recorded, although it is widely
acknowledged that Presley never wrote his songs.

From this discontent was probably born the most infamous comment Presley never
made.

''I think a lot of it has to do with the '50s and how complicated a society we
were, particularly in terms of race relations,'' said Turner, who wrote
''Whispers on the Color Line: Rumor and Race in America,'' with Gary Alan Fine,
as well as ''I Heard it Through the Grapevine: Rumor in African-American
Culture.''

The comment, she said, represents, ''a real resentment that it took a white
performer dancing with gyrating hips and singing in that sort of deep, throaty,
black blues fashion to become a superstar, to become a multimillionaire, to get
that huge movie contract. ''When black people saw that, they went, ''Hey, wait a
minute. If everything were the same about him except the color of his skin, he
wouldn't have become a superstar.''

That resentment exploded into a Molotov cocktail of a rhyme in 1989 in Public
Enemy's feverish hip-hop classic, ''Fight the Power.'' Chuck D, assisted by
Flavor Flav, dropped a lyric about Presley so lethal, it left exit wounds:

Elvis was a hero to mostBut he never meant [expletive] to me, you see

Straight-up racist, that sucker was simple and plain

[Expletive] him and John Wayne!


In Memphis, that rhyme can get a knowing nod from those who resent how
all-things-Elvis - his omnipresent image can be as stifling as the Southern
summer heat - have almost overshadowed a river-deep musical legacy that includes
W. C. Handy, B. B. King, Isaac Hayes, and Al Green.

Icon overdrive

Raised in Memphis, Jacqueline Smith doesn't much care for her hometown's
handling of its history. For 14 years, she has staged a one-woman protest across
from the Lorraine Motel, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated
in April 1968. In 1988, Smith was the last tenant evicted from the motel, which
is now part of the National Civil Rights Museum.

She would prefer to see that site used for affordable housing - just as she
would like Memphis to be as effusive about its African-American musicians as she
believes it is about Presley.

''Beale Street was one of the most important streets for black history, and now
when you go from Main Street to Beale, there's a big statue of Presley right in
front, and there's that restaurant [Elvis Presley's Memphis] right on the
corner,'' she said. ''That tells you what's happened. It's obvious. With what it
has become, they might as well rename it Elvis Street.''

Though such a change is unlikely, history shows that Presley earned his claim to
Beale Street.

''Elvis was part of a talent show at the Palace Theater, and he was one of the
few white guys who ever performed there,'' said Malcolm Anthony, general manager
of Memphis Music on Beale Street, and a self-described ''blues-

ologist.''

''He was also a delivery boy on Beale,'' Anthony said. and he was able to come
down here during the late-night hours to see performances because he befriended
the bar owners and shopkeepers.''

What he means

to Memphis

Even more important to businessmen like Anthony is Presley's impact on the
city's economy. ''He's meant a significant amount of tourist dollars during the
years when we had several of our manufacturing plants close,'' he said, and
Presley kept ''our economy alive. If you're a businessperson in Memphis, you're
glad Elvis is here.''

Here, Presley isn't so much the King as the Golden Goose. Graceland is now
second only to the White House as the nation's most visited home, and more than
75,000 are expected for this week's Presley-related events.

''We're hoping for a banner year,'' Anthony said. ''I'm noticing the crowds
getting younger each year, so it isn't just the moms, pops, and grandmothers who
grew up listening to Elvis.''

What Anthony doesn't see are young black Elvis fans. At least in Memphis, young
African-Americans are more into hip-hop artists such as Nelly, Ludacris, and Big
Tymers than some old white guy who died long before they were born. Or as
16-year-old Jeffrey Moore Jr. succinctly put it: ''I don't give a [expletive]
about Elvis.''

Black Presley fans visiting Memphis are more like Vannie Morgan and her sister
Mary Baker, who've heard all the race-baiting rumors and have always been fans.
Both in their 60s and visiting from South Carolina, Morgan and Baker recently
spent a rainy Wednesday morning making their first tour of Graceland.

''He never really sounded black to me, but I could tell he was influenced by the
black singers,'' Baker said. ''I really like good singers, and he had a strong,
soulful voice. He could sing blues, rock 'n' roll, gospel. He could sing
anything.''

As for racist comments attributed to Presley, Morgan said she's never given them
much attention.

''How much could he have hated black people when he spent so much time around
them listening to our music?'' she asked as she purchased an Elvis keychain at
the Welcome to My World gift shop at Graceland's Visitors Plaza. ''[The comment]
was one of those things somebody made up out of jealousy or bitterness. I don't
think he was racist. Not at all.''

Still, rumors can prove more durable than the truth, especially when negotiating
the minefield of race and culture in this nation. Memphis Music's Anthony, who
calls himself a Presley fan, believes it's possible that Presley ''may have said
some things that would make people feel he was a racist, but I think we've all
said things we shouldn't have said.''

He says that people should focus on Presley's musicianship and how his success
''played a huge part in putting Memphis on the musical map'' for all races.

''I think a lot of black people may always look at him as someone who took the
music from them,'' Anthony said. ''But he was an awesome, awesome singer, and a
true entertainer who was instrumental in introducing a white audience to black
music. He was the reason record sales grew the way they did for both black and
white musicians, since after Elvis, everybody was loving this music. And isn't
that the most important thing?''


This story ran on page L1 of the Boston Globe on 8/11/2002.
) Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.

)Copyright 2001 CompuServe Interactive Services, Inc.

I am curious if he ever made comments bout Mexicans as I have heard that before n I wonder if it had merit.

Looks like Chuck D did a 180:

http://apnews1.iwon.com/a...RJ300.html


Now:
"As a musicologist - and I consider myself one - there was always a great deal of respect for Elvis, especially during his Sun sessions. As a black people, we all knew that," the rapper said.


Then:
On "Fight the Power," he said of Presley, "Elvis was a hero to most/But he never meant (expletive) to me, you see/Straight up racist that sucker was, simple and plain."

youngworld said:

hmm...that's interesting...I always heard that Elvis was a racist...I wonder why Chuck D changed his mind?

I don't know about Chuck, but I literally cringe everytime I hear an Elvis song.
Much to the kids dismay, i had to boycott LILO & STITCH because his music
figures, so prominently in the movie (Thanks goodness for grandparents!).

Still, as one studies the roots of early r&b and the blues you can't help but acknowledge
Elvis' presence, if not his influence. Sun Studios recorded a lot of this music using Elvis'
backup band of with guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black. He certainly is a good singer,
with many tunes of substance, but the racism of the situation clouds my judgement. I just
not very objective on this subject.


[This message was edited Mon Aug 12 9:18:11 PDT 2002 by PFunkjazz]

youngworld said:

How is that doing a 180 exactly? He says that as a musicologist he knows that Elvis had a lot of respect, and Blacks knew that. It doesn't mean that he respected him. Maybe we're interpreting it in different ways.

Supernova said:

Well, without getting too deep, If musicologits have respect for Elvis and he calls himself a musicologist...

Just usein' transitive(?) property of mathematics, i.e. if a+b=c then c-b=a.

youngworld said:

But that's what I'm saying; it seems he's saying that as a musicologist he and Black folks alike knows that there's a lot of respect for Elvis, I don't know if he's saying he has a lot of respect for him.

I Like Elvis Period.I Respect His Talent&Vibe.He had Personna&Charisma.The Guy had a Very Important Instrument called a Voice&Used it well IMHO.I read some good stuff on His Relationship with Jackie Wilson&it put alot of things into Perspective for me.James Brown,George Johnson from the Brothers Johnson,Michael Jackson among others have had Great things to say about Him as a Artist.Prince has covered His Songs in Shows&I can see a Elvis Influence on him.Elvis was Cool for His time period.He had His issues no doubt but My Family liked His Gospel Records&thought alot of Him.

Elvis was an amazing figure in popular culture and Rock-n-roll. All this "hype" against Elvis is the hypocrisy and lies Chuck n the boyz were rapping against in the first place. I find it a shame...I mean a real shame, that a whole generation of black kids in America grew up hating Elvis because of some stupid lyric in a rap song. My, we're raising some weak minded kids. I mean, they can't even find any evidence that Elvis was a racist!! Only evidence to the contrary. So they propagate a lie. Real nice. In my book that's slander. And why? Because people got all bent out of shape because he took an underground, unknown form of music at the time, gave it a white face,(hello, appeal to the masses in the 50s) and ran with it? C'mon. That is just plain rediculous. He didn't steal anything from anyone. He took a form of music that he loved and made it, not only popular, but opened the way for every black artist from 1955 on. Do you think Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, And the rest of what became popular music in the late 50s-early 60s would have been possible without the likes of Elvis and his white peers?? No Way. That's just how it was. No one's saying it's right. It's just so. The same reason why they had to put white faces on records sung by black artists many times leading up to that. Because white people were the ones buying the records!! It's economics. Demand.

You can make a similar argument for Kurt Cobain & Nirvana. Green Day. They took Punk and Grunge in 1989 and hurled it into mainstream music. Would the likes of Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice In Chains have gained so much popularity without Nirvana & Green Day? I'd have to say no way. They did for that genré what Elvis & Bill Haley did for what became Rock-n-roll. Made it the standard. Opened the way for all the blacks who were making good music back then to an audience they NEVER would have had.

So think about that the next time you glare at your poor little inocent girl or boy who hears Elvis the first time and has the proper reaction...wow. Instead of starting the racist and predjudice early, teach them the real version. How he paved the way for all the great black music we know and love today. So what if he was white. We should all be so past that. If we're not, we should be well on our way.

Bibleteacher89 said:

I Respect Elvis but Little Richard,Chuck Berry,Fats Domino,Bo Diddley Pioneered the Style from what Louis Jordan did.You are Racist Sounding Fool IMHO.to Hell with all that of that.just because somebody is presenting something as it is isn't always the best way to present it.Little Richard is the King Period.Elvis was Good but Little Richard,Chuck Berry are the True Pioneers.of course Elvis took the R&B&Ran with it.because it's Called Cultral bandits&Nobody says Shit about the truth.just Because I like some of Elvis's Stuff&Respect His Talent doesn't mean I Don't Consider Him a Musical Bandit.you can't Compare something that was Created by Black Folks&Given a "WHITE-WASH" to Grunge??Nirvana was all done right before Kurt Cobain Died.Green Day has been done for quite a while.Wake Up Nobody in there Right Mind would Compare Kurt Cobain to Elvis.Kurt still gets Mentioned but Mainly by White Music Critics.Elvis was World-Wide.that isn't equal value there.so what My Ass: of course it matters that in a Country&Industry that feels they Have to "WHITE-WASH" Every DAMN Mother Fucking Thing.if the Shoe was flipped you wouldn't say that Kind of Shit?

Bibleteacher89 said:

Terrible comparison. Green Day, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden and Alice In Chains aren't Black. There was no racism to hinder them.

Whatever. The comparison stands and it illustrates a point. Racism or no. There's always a factor. Racism is just another factor. The punk scene was as or more outlandish and foreign to mainstream America in the late 80s as listening to black music was in the 50s. What was shocking and not accepted became the opposite. It took a transition. Mainstream America's mind had to be made ready for the new phase of pop. In the 50's it was Perry Como to Elvis to Chuck Berry. You can spin it how you like. A way from the old into the new was paved.

Yeah two totally different points.