Music and Pop Culture: Elvis

Elvis Presley may be the single most significant figure in American 20th century popular music. Not necessarily the best, and certainly not the most unswerving. But no one could dispute with the fact that he was the musician accountable for popularizing rock & roll on an international level. Viewed in cold sales figures, his influence was unparalleled. A continuum of international smashes from the mid-'50s through to the '70s, as well as …

…if cult is the way to describe millions of people) sprang up around his legacy, kept alive by the hundreds of thousands of visitors who make the pilgrimage to Graceland annually. Elvis memorabilia, much of it kitsch, is another industry in his own right. Dozens if not hundreds make a comfortable living by impersonating the King in live performance. And then there are all those Elvis sightings, reported in tabloids on a seemingly weekly basis.