that isn't fun... :dozey:

RUDY

IN YOUR SIG

GUY LOOKS LIKE MATT BELLAMY SORT OF

A MORE BUTCH VERSION

:D

 

yeah

AMAZING STUFF

ahem...

WAS IT EVER WORTH IT?

WAS THERE ALL MUCH TO GAIN?

WELL WE'D NEW WE MISSED THE BOAT

AND WE'D ALREADY MISSED THE PLANE

yeah, i would think that's what the lounge is for. "random chatter, have a natter..." all that stuff.

 

all the same:

 

that is more frightening than funny, methinks.

 

:stunned: Holy crap! That pic just sent me into a fit of giggles/horror! SCARRRRRRY :laugh3:

It's more funny than scary to me

its more of nothing than anything to me

 

(if you can figure that one out, you're good - not that good, but good)

Was just listening to Violet Hill, looked at rudy_o's signature during the very last verse, and read the exact words Chris was singing as he sang them ("if you love me, won't you let me know"). Unintentionally of course. :shocked2:

 

I think that qualifies as spam, doesn't it?

Spam yay!

spamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspamspam

:dozey:

ITS A THRILLLLAH! THRILLA NIGHT! :dance:

all this noise and all this spam

All the spaces i haven't spammed yet >;]

Oprah Gail Winfrey (born January 29, 1954), often referred to simply as Oprah, is an American television host, media mogul, and philanthropist. Her internationally-syndicated talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, has earned her multiple Emmy Awards and is the highest-rated talk show in the history of television.[2] She is also an influential book critic, an Academy Award-nominated actress, and a magazine publisher. She has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century,[3] the most philanthropic African American of all time,[4] and the world's only black billionaire for three straight years.[5][6][7][8][9] She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world.[10][11][12]

 

Born in rural Mississippi to a poor unwed teenaged mother, and later raised in an inner city Milwaukee neighborhood, Winfrey was raped at the age of nine, and at fourteen, gave birth to a son who died in infancy.[13] Sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee, Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19.[14] Her emotional ad-lib delivery eventually got her transferred to the daytime talk show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place,[6] she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated.

 

Credited with creating a more intimate confessional form of media communication,[15] she is thought to have popularized and revolutionized[16][17][18][19] the tabloid talk show genre pioneered by Phil Donahue,[18] which a Yale study claimed broke 20th century taboos and allowed gays, transsexuals, and transgender people to enter the mainstream.[20] By the mid 1990s she had reinvented her show with a focus on literature, self-improvement, and spirituality. Though criticized for unleashing confession culture[19] and promoting controversial self-help fads, she is generally admired for overcoming adversity to become a benefactor to others.[21]

Contents

[hide]

 

* 1 Early life

* 2 Career and success

o 2.1 Television

o 2.2 Film

o 2.3 Books and magazines

o 2.4 Online

o 2.5 Radio

o 2.6 Future projects

* 3 Personal life

o 3.1 Homes

o 3.2 Family

+ 3.2.1 Relatives

o 3.3 Romantic history

o 3.4 Close Friends

o 3.5 Health

* 4 Wealth

* 5 Influence

o 5.1 Rankings as world's most influential woman

o 5.2 Media counterculture

o 5.3 Communication style

o 5.4 Oprah's Book Club

o 5.5 Spiritual icon

o 5.6 Fan base

o 5.7 Philanthropy

+ 5.7.1 South Africa

o 5.8 Political advocacy

* 6 Criticisms and controversies

* 7 Footnotes

* 8 See also

* 9 External links

 

Early life

 

Oprah Winfrey (originally Orpah after the Biblical character in the Book of Ruth), was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi, to unmarried parents. She later explained that her conception was due to a single sexual encounter that her two teenaged parents had; they quickly broke up not long after. (see Jill Nelson, "The Man Who Saved Oprah Winfrey," Washington Post, 14 December 1986; p. W30) There are conflicting reports as to how her name became “Oprah.” According to a 1991 interview with the Academy of Achievement, Winfrey claimed that her family and friends' inability to pronounce “Orpah” caused them to put the “P” before the “R” in every place else other than the birth certificate.[22] However, there is the account that the midwife transposed letters while filling out the newborn's birth certificate.[23] Her parents were unmarried teenagers.[24] Her mother, Vernita Lee, was a housemaid, and her father, Vernon Winfrey, was a coal miner and later worked as a barber before becoming a city councilman. Winfrey's father was in the Armed Forces when she was born. After her birth, Winfrey's mother traveled north and Winfrey spent her first six years living in rural poverty with her grandmother, Hattie Mae Lee who was so poor that Winfrey often wore dresses made of potato sacks, causing the local children to make fun of her. (Paul Harris. "The Observer Profile: Oprah Winfrey." The Observer (London, UK), 20 November 2005, p.27) On the other hand, it was her grandmother who taught her to read before the age of three and took her to the local church, where she was nicknamed "The Preacher" for her ability to recite Bible verses. When Winfrey was a child, her grandmother would take a switch and would hit her with it when she didn't do chores or if she misbehaved in any way.[25]

 

At age six, Winfrey moved to an inner-city neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with her mother, who was less supportive and encouraging than her grandmother had been, due in large part to the long hours Vernita Lee worked as a maid. (Jill Nelson. "The Man Who Saved Oprah Winfrey." Washington Post, 14 December 1986, p. W30) Winfrey has stated that she was molested by her cousin, uncle, and a family friend, starting when she was nine years old (Lee Winfrey, "Praise from All Corners for New Talk Show Host," Syracuse Herald Journal, 9 September 1986, p. 44), something she first revealed to her viewers on a 1986 episode of her TV show, when sexual abuse was being discussed. (Thomas Morgan. "Troubled Girl's Evolution into an Oscar Nominee." New York Times, 4 March 1986, p. C17)

 

Despite her dysfunctional home life, Winfrey skipped two of her earliest grades, became the teacher's pet, and by the time she was 13 received a scholarship to attend Nicolet High School in the Milwaukee suburb of Glendale, Wisconsin[citation needed]. Although Winfrey was very popular, she could not afford to go out on the town as frequently as her better-off classmates[citation needed]. Like many teenagers at the end of the 1960s, Winfrey rebelled, ran away from home and ran to the streets[26]. When she was 14, she became pregnant, but the baby died shortly after birth.[23]Also at that age, her frustrated mother sent her to live with her father in Nashville, Tennessee. Vernon was strict, but encouraging and made her education a priority. Winfrey became an honors student, was voted Most Popular Girl, joined her high school speech team at East Nashville High School, and placed second in the nation in dramatic interpretation. She won an oratory contest, which secured her a full scholarship to Tennessee State University, a historically black institution, where she studied communication. At age 18, Winfrey won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant. She also attracted the attention of the local black radio station, WVOL, which hired her to do the news part-time. (Lee Winfrey, "Praise from All Corners for New Talk Show Host," Syracuse Herald Journal, 9 September 1986, p. 44) She worked there during her senior year of high school, and again while in her first two years of college.

 

That Oprah Winfrey chose a career in media did not surprise her grandmother, who once said that ever since Winfrey could talk, she was on stage. As a child she played games interviewing her corncob doll and the crows on the fence of her family's property. Winfrey later acknowledged her grandmother's influence, saying it was Hattie Mae who had encouraged her to speak in public and "gave me a positive sense of myself." (Mel Novit. "Oprah: Talk Show Dynamo Treats the Audience Like a Friend." Syracuse Post-Standard, 14 September 1986, p. A9)

 

Working in local media, she was both the youngest news anchor and the first black female news anchor at Nashville's WLAC-TV. She moved to Baltimore's WJZ-TV in 1976 to co-anchor the six o'clock news. She was then recruited to join Richard Sher as co-host of WJZ's local talk show People Are Talking, which premiered on August 14, 1978. She also hosted the local version of Dialing for Dollars there as well.[27]

 

Career and success

 

Television

 

In 1983, Winfrey relocated to Chicago to host WLS-TV's low-rated half-hour morning talk-show, AM Chicago. The first episode aired on January 2, 1984. Within months after Winfrey took over, the show went from last place in the ratings to overtaking Donahue as the highest rated talk show in Chicago. It was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show, expanded to a full hour, and broadcast nationally beginning September 8, 1986.[28] On her 20th anniversary show, Oprah revealed that movie critic Roger Ebert was the one who persuaded her to sign a syndication deal with King World. Ebert predicted that she would generate 40 times as much revenue as his television show, At the Movies.[29] Already having surpassed Donahue in the local market, Winfrey's syndicated show quickly doubled his national audience, displacing Donahue as the number one day-time talk show in America. Their much publicized contest was the subject of enormous scrutiny.

 

Time magazine wrote, "Few people would have bet on Oprah Winfrey's swift rise to host of the most popular talk show on TV. In a field dominated by white males, she is a black female of ample bulk. As interviewers go, she is no match for, say, Phil Donahue...What she lacks in journalistic toughness, she makes up for in plainspoken curiosity, robust humor and, above all empathy. Guests with sad stories to tell are apt to rouse a tear in Oprah's eye...They, in turn, often find themselves revealing things they would not imagine telling anyone, much less a national TV audience. It is the talk show as a group therapy session."

Winfrey on the first national broadcast of The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1986.

Winfrey on the first national broadcast of The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1986.

 

TV columnist Howard Rosenberg said, "She's a roundhouse, a full course meal, big, brassy, loud, aggressive, hyper, laughable, lovable, soulful, tender, low-down, earthy and hungry. And she may know the way to Phil Donahue's jugular."

 

Newsday's Les Payne observed, "Oprah Winfrey is sharper than Donahue, wittier, more genuine, and far better attuned to her audience, if not the world."

 

Martha Bayles of The Wall Street Journal wrote, "It's a relief to see a gab-monger with a fond but realistic assessment of her own cultural and religious roots."

 

In the mid-1990s, Winfrey adopted a less tabloid-oriented format, doing shows about heart disease in women, geopolitics with Lisa Ling, spirituality and meditation, and gift-giving and home decorating shows. She often interviews celebrities on issues that directly involve them in some way, such as cancer, charity work, or substance abuse. In addition, she interviews ordinary people who have done extraordinary things or been involved in important current issues.

 

In 1993, Winfrey hosted a rare prime-time interview with Michael Jackson which became the fourth most watched event in American television history as well as the most watched interview ever, with an audience of one hundred million. Perhaps Winfrey's most famous recent show was the first episode of the nineteenth season of The Oprah Winfrey Show in the autumn of 2004. During the show each member of the audience received a new G6 sedan; the 276 cars were donated by Pontiac as part of a publicity stunt. The show received so much media attention that even the taxes on the cars became controversial.

 

During a lawsuit against Winfrey (see Influence), she hired Dr. Phil McGraw's company Courtroom Sciences, Inc. to help her analyze and read the jury. Dr. Phil made such an impression on Winfrey that she invited him to appear on her show. He accepted the invitation and was a resounding success. McGraw appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show for several years before launching his own show, Dr. Phil, in 2002, which was created by Winfrey's production company, Harpo Productions in partnership with Paramount which produced the show.

 

Winfrey recently made a deal to extend her show until the 2010–2011 season, by which time it will have been on the air for twenty-five years. She plans to host 140 episodes per season, until her final season, when it will return to its current number, 130.[2]

 

The 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Concert was hosted by Oprah and Tom Cruise. There were musical performances by Cyndi Lauper, Andrea Bocelli, Joss Stone, Chris Botti, Diana Krall, Tony Bennett and others. The concert was broadcasted in the United States on December 23, 2004, by E!.

 

As well as hosting and appearing on television shows, Winfrey co-founded the women's cable television network Oxygen. She is also the president of Harpo Productions (Oprah spelled backwards).

 

Film

Oprah Winfrey as Sofia in The Color Purple.

Oprah Winfrey as Sofia in The Color Purple.

 

In 1985, Winfrey co-starred in Steven Spielberg's epic film adaptation of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Color Purple. She earned immediate acclaim as Sofia, the distraught housewife. The following year Winfrey was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, but she lost to Anjelica Huston. The Color Purple has now been made into a Broadway musical and opened late 2005, with Winfrey credited as a producer.

 

In October 1998, Winfrey produced and starred in the film Beloved, based upon Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same name. To prepare for her role as Sethe, the protagonist and former slave, Winfrey experienced a 24-hour simulation of the experience of slavery, which included being tied up and blindfolded and left alone in the woods. Despite major advertising, including two episodes of her talk show dedicated solely to the film, and moderate to good critical reviews, Beloved opened to poor box-office results, losing approximately $30 million. Working with delicate subjects, Winfrey managed to keep the cast motivated and inspired. "Here we were working on this project with the heavy underbelly of political and social realism, and she managed to lighten things up", said costar Thandie Newton. "I've worked with a lot of good actors, and I know Oprah hasn't made many films. I was stunned. She's a very strong technical actress and it's because she's so smart. She's acute. She's got a mind like a razor blade."[30]

 

In 2005, Harpo Productions released another film adaptation of a famous American novel, Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). The made-for-television film Their Eyes Were Watching God was based upon a teleplay by Suzan-Lori Parks, and starred Halle Berry in the lead female role.

 

She has voiced for Charlotte's Web, the 2006 film as Gussie the goose.

 

Winfrey is also the voice of Judge Bumbleden in Bee Movie released in November 2007.

 

Books and magazines

Winfrey on the cover of O, The Oprah Magazine.

Winfrey on the cover of O, The Oprah Magazine.

 

Winfrey publishes two magazines: O, The Oprah Magazine and O at Home. She has co-authored five books; at the announcement of her future weight loss book (to be co-authored with her personal trainer Bob Greene), it was said that her undisclosed advance fee had broken the record for the world's highest book advance fee, previously held by former U.S. President Bill Clinton for his autobiography My Life.[31] In 2002 Fortune called O, the Oprah Magazine the most successful start-up ever in the industry.[32]

 

Online

 

Oprah.com is a website created by Winfrey's company to provide resources and interactive content relating to her shows, magazines, book club, and public charity.

 

Oprah.com averages more than 70 million page views and more than six million users per month, and receives approximately 20,000 e-mails each week.[33]

 

Winfrey initiated “Oprah’s Child Predator Watch List,” through her show and website, to help track down accused child molesters. Within the first 48 hours, two of the featured men were captured.[34][35]

 

Radio

 

On February 9, 2006 it was announced that Winfrey signed a three-year, $55 million contract with XM Satellite Radio to establish a new radio channel. The channel, Oprah & Friends, features popular contributors to The Oprah Winfrey Show and O, The Oprah Magazine including Nate Berkus, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Bob Greene, Dr. Robin Smith and Marianne Williamson. Oprah & Friends began broadcasting at 11:00 AM ET, September 25, 2006, from a new studio at Winfrey's Chicago headquarters. The channel broadcasts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on XM Radio Channel 156. Winfrey's contract requires her to be on the air 30 minutes a week, 39 weeks a year. The 30-minute weekly show will feature Winfrey with friend Gayle King. Winfrey's audience is extremely loyal and XM hopes that the "Oprah Effect" can have the same effect on XM subscription sales that she does on the New York Times Best Seller list, thanks to her book club.

 

Future projects

 

In late 2006 Winfrey’s Harpo production and ABC revealed plans to bring two new reality TV shows to the air. One of the series is tentatively titled Oprah Winfrey's The Big Give, and presents 10 people with large sums of money and resources and they must compete to find "the most powerful, sensational, emotional and dramatic ways to give to others." The second show, tentatively titled Your Money or Your Life, will unleash an "expert action team" every week to aid a family in overcoming a crisis through a "total money and life makeover."[36]

 

On January 15, 2008 Winfrey and Discovery Communications announced plans to transition the current channel Discovery Health Channel into a new network called OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network. OWN will debut at an unspecified time in 2009. It will be available in more than 70 million homes because of the current position of Discovery Health Channel. This was a non-cash deal with Winfrey turning control of her website Oprah.com to Discovery Communications.[37]

 

Personal life

 

Homes

 

Winfrey currently lives on “The Promised Land”, her 42-acre (170,000 m²) estate with ocean and mountain views in Montecito, California, outside of Santa Barbara. Winfrey also owns a house in Lavallette, New Jersey, an apartment in Chicago, an estate on Fisher Island off the coast of Miami, a ski house in Telluride, Colorado, and property on the island of Maui, Hawaii. She also owns a home on the island of Antigua. Winfrey's show is based in Chicago, so she spends time there, specifically in the neighborhood of Streeterville, but she otherwise resides in California. Her Hawaii property was featured on the cover of O at Home and on her TV show. Winfrey also owns a home in the exclusive town of Avalon, New Jersey.[citation needed]

 

Family

 

Winfrey and her partner Stedman Graham have been together since 1986. They were engaged to be married in November 1992, but the ceremony never took place.[38] Winfrey believes that the reason she never had children was because her students at South Africa’s Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls were meant to be her daughters:

“ I never had children, never even thought I would have children. Now I have 152 daughters; expecting 75 more next year. That is some type of gestation period![39]…I said to the mothers, the family members, the aunts, the grannies — because most of these girls have lost their families, their parents — I said to them, “Your daughters are now my daughters and I promise you I'm going to take care of your daughters. I promise you.[40] ”

 

“When I watched Oprah with those girls,” observed best friend Gayle King, “I kept thinking she was meant to be a mother, and it would happen one way or another.”[41] Newsweek described a student named Thelasa Msumbi hugging Winfrey extra tight, then whispering “We are your daughters now.”[41] Winfrey, who will teach a class at the school via satellite, plans to spend much of her retirement in a house she is building on the campus where she plans to use the same dishes, sheets, and curtains that the students do. “I want to be near my girls and be in a position to see how they're doing,” said Winfrey.[41]

 

Relatives

 

As revealed on a 2004 episode of her television show, Oprah had a half-brother who was gay and had died of AIDS.[42]

 

In the February 2006 issue of her magazine, O, Winfrey said she felt "betrayed" by her family member, who revealed to the National Enquirer that Winfrey gave birth as a teen to a baby who died in the hospital weeks later.[43]

 

Oprah visited Graceland in 2006 while on her cross-country trip with Gayle King. While having dinner with Lisa Marie Presley and her husband Michael Lockwood, Oprah told Lisa Marie that her grandmother's last name was also Presley.[44]

 

Winfrey had her DNA tested for the 2006 PBS program African American Lives. The genetic test determined that her maternal line originated among the Kpelle ethnic group, in the area that today is Liberia. Her genetic make up was determined to be 89% Sub-Saharan African. She is part Native American (about 8% according to the test) and East Asian (about 3% according to the test).

 

Romantic history

 

Winfrey once dated movie critic Roger Ebert, whom she credits with advising her to take her show into syndication. The relationship of Winfrey and Graham has been documented through the years with numerous romantic tabloid articles often accompanied by color spreads of the couple at home and on lavish vacations. Prior to meeting Graham, Winfrey's love life was a lot less stable. A self-described promiscuous teen who was a victim of sexual abuse, Winfrey gave birth at the age of 14, to a boy who died shortly after.[13] In 1997 a former boyfriend named Randoph Cook tried to sue Winfrey for $20 million for allegedly blocking a tell-all book where he claimed they lived together for several months in 1985 and did drugs.[45][46][47] Cook’s claims mark the second time reports surfaced about Winfrey’s involvement in a drug related love affair. In 1995 Winfrey herself confessed to drug use. “And I've often said over the years…in my attempts to come out and say it, I've said many times I did things in my 20s that I was ashamed of, I did things I felt guilty about, but that is my life's great big secret that's always been held over my head,” she explained on her show. “I always felt that the drug itself is not the problem but that I was addicted to the man.” She added: “I can't think of anything I wouldn't have done for that man.”[48]

 

Winfrey's early love life was not always so tumultuous. Her high school sweetheart Anthony Otey recalled an innocent courtship that began in Winfrey's senior year of high school, from which he saved hundreds of love notes; Winfrey conducted herself with dignity and as a model student.[49] The two spoke of getting married, but Otey claimed to have always secretly known that Winfrey was destined for a far greater life than he could ever provide.[50] On Valentine's day of her senior year, Otey's fears came true when Winfrey took Otey aside and told him they needed to talk. “I knew right then that I was going to lose the girl I loved,” Otey recalled. “She told me she was breaking up with me because she didn't have time for a relationship. We both sat there and cried. It broke my heart.”[51]Years later, Otey was stunned to discover details from Winfrey's promiscuous and rebellious past at the end of the 1960s, and the fact that she had given birth to a baby several years before they met.[50]

 

In 1971, several months after breaking up with Otey, Winfrey met William “Bubba” Taylor at Tennessee State University. According to CBS journalist George Mair, Taylor was Winfrey's “first intense, to die for love affair”. Winfrey helped get Taylor a job at WVOL, and according to Mair, “did everything to keep him, including literally begging him on her knees to stay with her.”[52] Taylor however was unwilling to leave Nashville with Winfrey when she moved to Baltimore to work at WJZ-TV in June 1976. “We really did care for each other,” Winfrey would later recall. “We shared a deep love. A love I will never forget.”[53]

 

When WJZ-TV management criticized Winfrey for crying on the air while reporting tragedies and were unhappy with her physical appearance (especially when her hair fell out as the result of a bad perm), Winfrey turned to reporter Lloyd Kramer for comfort. “Lloyd was just the best,” Winfrey would later recall. “That man loved me even when I was bald! He was wonderful. He stuck with me through the whole demoralizing experience. That man was the most fun romance I ever had.”[54]

 

According to Mair, when Kramer moved to NBC in New York Winfrey became involved with a man who friends had warned her to avoid. Winfrey would later recall:

“ I'd had a relationship with a man for four years. I wasn't living with him. I'd never lived with anyone—and I thought I was worthless without him. The more he rejected me, the more I wanted him. I felt depleted, powerless. At the end I was down on the floor on my knees groveling and pleading with him.[55] ”

 

According to Mair's reporting “the major problem with this intense love affair arose from her lover's being married, with no plans to leave his wife”. Winfrey became so depressed that on September 8, 1981, she wrote a suicide note to best friend Gayle King instructing King to water her plants.[55] “That suicide note had been much overplayed” Winfrey told Ms. magazine's Joan Barthel. “I couldn't kill myself. I would be afraid the minute I did it; something really good would happen and I'd miss it.”[56]

 

According to Winfrey, such emotional ups and downs gradually led to a weight problem:

“ The reason I gained so much weight in the first place and the reason I had such a sorry history of abusive relationships with men was I just needed approval so much. I needed everyone to like me, because I didn't like myself much. So I'd end up with these cruel self-absorbed guys who'd tell me how selfish I was, and I'd say “Oh thank you, you're so right” and be grateful to them. Because I had no sense that I deserved anything else. Which is also why I gained so much weight later on. It was the perfect way of cushioning myself against the world's disapproval.[56] ”

 

Close Friends

 

Winfrey's best friend since their early twenties is Gayle King. King was formerly the host on The Gayle King Show, and is currently an editor of O, the Oprah Magazine. Since 1997, when Winfrey played the therapist on an episode of the sitcom Ellen in which Ellen DeGeneres came out of the closet, Winfrey and King have been the target of persistent rumours that they were gay. “I understand why people think we're gay,” Winfrey says in the August 2006 issue of O magazine. “There isn't a definition in our culture for this kind of bond between women. So I get why people have to label it—how can you be this close without it being sexual?”[57] “I've told nearly everything there is to tell. All my stuff is out there. People think I'd be so ashamed of being gay that I wouldn't admit it? Oh, please.”[57] Another of Winfrey's best friends is Maria Shriver.[58]

 

In 1989, Winfrey was personally touched by the 1980s AIDS crisis so frequently discussed on her show when her long time aide, Billy Rizzo, became afflicted by the disease. Rizzo was the only man among the four-person production team who Winfrey relied on in her early years in Chicago long before she had a large staff. “I love Billy like a brother,” she said at the time. “He's a wonderful, funny, talented guy, and it's just heartbreaking to see him so ill”. Winfrey visited him daily during his last days.

 

Health

 

On October 16, 2007, Winfrey revealed that she was diagnosed with a thyroid disorder that made her gain 20 pounds. "At the end of May, I was so exhausted I couldn't figure out what was going on in my life. I ended up going to Africa and spent a month with my beautiful daughters there, was still feeling really tired, really tired, going around from doctor to doctor trying to figure out what was wrong and finally figured out that I had literally sort of blew out my thyroid " Winfrey said on her show. She also discusses more about her story in the October 2007 issue of the Oprah Magazine. Recently Winfrey decided to become a vegan for three weeks.[6]

 

Wealth

 

Born in rural poverty, then raised by a mother on welfare in a poor urban neighborhood, Winfrey became a millionaire at age 32 when her talk show went national. Because of the amount of revenue the show generated, Winfrey was in a position to negotiate ownership of the show and start her own production company. By 1994 the show's ratings were still thriving and Winfrey negotiated a contract that earned her nine figures a year. Considered the richest woman in entertainment by the early 1990s, at age 41 Winfrey's wealth crossed another milestone when with a net worth of $340 million, she replaced Bill Cosby as the only African American on the Forbes 400. Although blacks are 12% of the U.S. population, Winfrey has remained the only black person wealthy enough to rank among America's 400 richest people nearly every year since 1995. (Black Entertainment Television founder Bob Johnson briefly joined her on the list from 2001-2003 before his ex-wife reportedly acquired part of his fortune, though he returned in 2006.)[59]

 

With a 2000 net-worth of $800 million, Winfrey is believed to have been the richest African American of the 20th century. To celebrate her status as a historical figure, Professor Juliet E.K. Walker of the University of Illinois created the course "History 298: Oprah Winfrey, the Tycoon."[60]

 

Forbes' international rich list has listed Winfrey as the world's only black billionaire in 2004, 2005, and 2006 and as the first black woman billionaire in world history.[7][61] According to Forbes, Winfrey is worth over $2.5 billion, as of September, 2007[62] and has overtaken former Ebay CEO Meg Whitman as the richest self-made woman in America.[63]

 

In July 2007 TV Guide reported that Winfrey was the highest paid TV entertainer in the United States during the past year. She earned an estimated $260 million during the year. This amount was more than 5 times what had been earned by the person in second place - music executive Simon Cowell, who had earned $45 million. [7]. By 2008, her income had increased to $275 million.[64]

 

Influence

 

Rankings as world's most influential woman

 

Winfrey was called "arguably the world's most powerful woman" by CNN and Time.com[65], "arguably the most influential woman in the world" by the American Spectator[66], "one of the 100 people who most influenced the 20th Century" and "one of the most influential people" of 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 by Time. Winfrey is the only person in the world to have made all five lists.

 

At the end of the 20th century Life listed Winfrey as both the most influential woman and the most influential black person of her generation, and in a cover story profile the magazine called her "America's most powerful woman".[67] Ladies Home Journal also ranked Winfrey number one in their list of the most powerful women in America and senator Barack Obama has said she "may be the most influential woman in the country".[68] In 1998 Winfrey became the first woman and first Black to top Entertainment Weekly's list of the 101 most powerful people in the entertainment industry.[69]In 2003 Winfrey edged out both Superman and Elvis Presley to be named the greatest pop culture icon of all time by VH1.[70] Forbes named her the world's most powerful celebrity in 2005[71] 2007[72] and 2008[73] Columnist Maureen Dowd seems to agree with such assessments:

“ She is the top alpha female in this country. She has more credibility than the president. Other successful women, such as Hillary Clinton and Martha Stewart, had to be publicly slapped down before they could move forward. Even Condi has had to play the protegé with Bush. None of this happened to Oprah — she is a straight ahead success story.[74] ”

 

Vanity Fair wrote:

“ Oprah Winfrey arguably has more influence on the culture than any university president, politician, or religious leader, except perhaps the Pope.[75] ”

 

Bill O'Reilly said:

“ I mean this is a woman that came from nothing to rise up to be the most powerful woman, I think, in the world. I think Oprah Winfrey is the most powerful woman in the world, not just in America. That's — anybody who goes on her program immediately benefits through the roof. I mean, she has a loyal following; she has credibility; she has talent; and she's done it on her own to become fabulously wealthy and fabulously powerful.[76] ”

 

Biographer Kitty Kelley states that she has always been “fascinated” by Winfrey:

“ As a woman, she has wielded an unprecedented amount of influence over the American culture and psyche,…There has been no other person in the 20th century whose convictions and values have impacted the American public in such a significant way.[77]… I see her as probably the most powerful woman in our society. I think Oprah has influenced every medium that she's touched.[78] ”

 

Winfrey's influence reaches far beyond pop-culture and into unrelated industries where many believe she has the power to cause enormous market swings and radical price changes with a single comment. During a show about mad cow disease with Howard Lyman (aired on April 16, 1996), Winfrey exclaimed, "It has just stopped me cold from eating another burger!" Texas cattlemen sued her and Lyman in early 1998 for "false defamation of perishable food" and "business disparagement", claiming that Winfrey's remarks subsequently sent cattle prices tumbling, costing beef producers some USD$12 million. On February 26, after a trial spanning over two months in an Amarillo, Texas court in the thick of cattle country, a jury found Winfrey and Lyman were not liable for damages. (After the trial, she received a postcard from Roseanne Barr reading, “Congratulations, you beat the meat!”) In June 2005 the first case of mad cow disease in a cow native to the United States was detected in Texas. The USDA concluded that it was most likely infected in Texas prior to 1997.[79]

 

In 2005 Winfrey was named the greatest woman in American history as part of a public poll as part of The Greatest American. She was ranked #9 overall on the list of greatest Americans.

 

Winfrey's reach extends far beyond the shores of the U.S., where 49 million U.S. viewers see her talk show weekly. The show airs in 117 countries around the world “from Australia to Zimbabwe.”[80]

 

Media counterculture

 

While Phil Donahue has been credited with pioneering the tabloid talk show genre, what has been described as the warmth, intimacy and personal confession[18] Winfrey brought to the format is believed to have both popularized and revolutionized it.[17][18][19] In the scholarly text Freaks Talk Back,[20] Yale sociology professor Joshua Gamson credits the tabloid talk show genre with providing much needed high impact media visibility for gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, and transgender people and doing more to make them mainstream and socially acceptable than any other development of the 20th century. In the book's editorial review Michael Bronski wrote "In the recent past, lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered people had almost no presence on television. With the invention and propagation of tabloid talk shows such as Jerry Springer, Jenny Jones, Oprah, and Geraldo, people outside the sexual mainstream now appear in living rooms across America almost every day of the week."[81]

 

An example of one such show by Winfrey occurred in the 1980s where for the entire hour, members of the studio audience stood up one by one, gave their name and announced that they were gay. Also in the 1980s Winfrey took her show to West Virginia to confront a town gripped by AIDS paranoia because a gay man living in the town had HIV. Winfrey interviewed the man who had become a social outcast, the town's mayor who drained a swimming pool in which the man had gone swimming, and debated with the town's hostile residents. "But I hear this is a God fearing town," Winfrey scolded the homophobic studio audience; "where's all that Christian love and understanding?" During a show on gay marriage in the 1990s, a woman in Winfrey's audience stood up to complain that gays were constantly flaunting their sex lives and she announced that she was tired of it. "You know what I'm tired of", replied Winfrey, "heterosexual males raping and sodomizing young girls. That's what I'm tired of." Her rebuttal inspired a screaming standing ovation from that show's mostly gay studio audience.

 

Gamson credits the tabloid talk show fad with making alternative sexual orientations and identities more acceptable in mainstream society. Examples include a recent Time magazine article describing early 21st century gays coming out of the closet younger and younger and gay suicide rates plummeting. Gamson also believes that tabloid talk shows caused gays to be embraced on more traditional forms of media. Examples include sitcoms like Will & Grace, primetime shows like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Oscar nominated feature films like Brokeback Mountain.

 

While having changed with the times from her tabloid talk show roots, Winfrey continues to include gay guests by using her show to promote openly gay personalities like her hairdresser Andre Walker, makeup artist Reggie Wells, and decorator Nate Berkus who inspired an outpouring of sympathy from middle America after grieving the loss of his partner in the 2004 tsunami on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Winfrey's "therapeutic" hosting style and the tabloid talk show genre has been credited or blamed for leading the media counterculture of the 1980s and 1990s which some believe broke 20th century taboos, led to America's self-help obsession, and created confession culture. The Wall Street Journal coined the term "Oprahfication" which means public confession as a form of therapy.[82]

 

In April 1997, Winfrey played the therapist on the sitcom Ellen to whom the character (and the real-life Ellen DeGeneres) said she was a lesbian. In 1998, Mark Steyn in the National Review wrote of Winfrey "Today, no truly epochal moment in the history of the Republic occurs unless it is validated by her presence. When Ellen said, 'Yep! I'm gay,' Oprah was by her side, guesting on the sitcom as (what else?) the star's therapist."

 

Communication style

 

By confessing intimate details about her weight problems, tumultuous love life, and sexual abuse, and crying alongside her guests, Time magazine credits Winfrey with creating a new form of media communication known as "rapport talk" as distinguished from the "report talk" of Phil Donahue:

“ Winfrey saw television's power to blend public and private; while it links strangers and conveys information over public airwaves, TV is most often viewed in the privacy of our homes. Like a family member, it sits down to meals with us and talks to us in the lonely afternoons. Grasping this paradox, ...She makes people care because she cares. That is Winfrey's genius, and will be her legacy, as the changes she has wrought in the talk show continue to permeate our culture and shape our lives. ”

 

Observers even noted the "Oprahfication" of politics by noting "Oprah-style debates" and Bill Clinton's empathetic speaking style. Columnist Maureen Dowd commented on the symbolism of Bill Clinton seeking an "Oprah-style" talk show when he left the presidency:

“ There is a delicious symmetry in Clinton's exploring the idea of a daytime syndicated talk show: the man who brought Oprah-style psychobabble and misty confessions to politics taking the next step and actually transmogrifying into Oprah.[83] ”

 

Newsweek stated:

“ Every time a politician lets his lip quiver or a cable anchor "emotes" on TV, they nod to the cult of confession that Oprah helped create.[84] ”

 

Winfrey's intimate confessions about her weight (which peaked at 108 kg (238 lb), also paved the way for other plus sized women in media such as Roseanne Barr, Rosie O'Donnell and Star Jones. The November 1988 Ms. magazine observed that "in a society where fat is taboo, she made it in a medium that worships thin and celebrates a bland, white-bread prettiness of body and personality...But Winfrey made fat sexy, elegant — damned near gorgeous - with her drop-dead wardrobe, easy body language, and cheerful sensuality."

 

Oprah's Book Club

 

Main article: Oprah's Book Club

 

In late 1996,[85] Winfrey introduced a new segment on her television show: Oprah's Book Club. The segment focused on new books and classics, and often brought obscure novels to popular attention. The book club became such a powerful force that whenever Winfrey introduced a new book as her book-club selection, it instantly became a best-seller (known as the Oprah Effect); for example, when she selected the classic John Steinbeck novel East of Eden, it soared to the top of the book charts. Being recognized by Winfrey often means a million additional book sales for an author.[86]

 

In Reading with Oprah: The book club that changed America, Kathleen Rooney describes Winfrey as "a serious American intellectual who pioneered the use of electronic media, specifically television and the Internet, to take reading — a decidedly non-technological and highly individual act — and highlight its social elements and uses in such a way to motivate millions of erstwhile non-readers to pick up books."

 

Oprah's Book Club has occasionally chosen books which have proven to be controversial. Most notably, Jonathan Franzen questioned the Club's selection process and credibility,[87] and there was a live television confrontation over allegations of fabrication regarding James Frey's A Million Little Pieces.

 

Spiritual icon

 

In 2002, Christianity Today published an article called "The Church of O" in which they concluded that Winfrey had emerged as an influential spiritual leader. "Since 1994, when she abandoned traditional talk-show fare for more edifying content, and 1998, when she began 'Change Your Life TV', Oprah's most significant role has become that of spiritual leader. To her audience of more than 22 million mostly female viewers, she has become a postmodern priestess—an icon of church-free spirituality."[88] The sentiment was seconded by Marcia Z. Nelson in her book The Gospel According to Oprah.[89] On the season premier of Winfrey's 13th season Roseanne Barr told Winfrey "you're the African Mother Goddess of us all" inspiring much enthusiasm from the studio audience. The animated series Futurama alluded to her spiritual influence by suggesting that, a thousand years from now, a religion known as "Oprahism" exists.

 

Fan base

 

The audience for her magazine is considerably more upscale than those who watch her show, earning US$63,000 a year (well above the median for U.S. women).[90] Although Winfrey's audience is sometimes spoofed for their fanatical devotion by shows like Saturday Night Live, Winfrey has been very protective of them and gets very offended when they are publicly disparaged.

 

Although Winfrey's audience is 75% female[91], some of Winfrey's fans are gay males. For example, one of the stars of the reality TV show The Benefactor was a gay African American man named Kevin who was so obsessed with Winfrey that he would ask "What would Oprah do?" before making any strategic decision.

 

Winfrey's fan base transcends national borders. The Wall Street Journal reported that MBC 4, an Arab satellite channel, centered its entire programming around reruns of her show because it was drawing record numbers of female viewers in Saudi Arabia.[92]

 

Philanthropy

 

In 1998, Winfrey began Oprah's Angel Network, a charity aimed at encouraging people around the world to make a difference in the lives of underprivileged others. Accordingly, Oprah's Angel Network supports charitable projects and provides grants to nonprofit organizations around the world that share this vision. To date, Oprah's Angel Network has raised more than $51,000,000 ($1 million of which was donated by Jon Bon Jovi). Winfrey personally covers all administrative costs associated with the charity, so 100% of all funds raised go to charity programs.[93]

 

Although Winfrey's show is known for raising money through her public charity and the cars and gifts she gives away on TV are often donated by corporations in exchange for publicity, behind the scenes Winfrey personally donates more of her own money to charity than any other show-business celebrity in America. In 2005 she became the first black person listed by Business Week as one of America's top 50 most generous philanthropists, having given an estimated $303 million.[94] Winfrey was the 32nd most philanthropic.

 

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Oprah asked her viewers to open their hearts—and they did. As of September 2006, donations to the Oprah Angel Network Katrina registry total more than $11 million. Homes have been built in four states—Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama—before the one year anniversary of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.[95] Winfrey also matched her viewers' donations by personally giving $10 million to the cause.[96]

 

Winfrey has also put 250 African-American men through college[97]

 

Winfrey was the recipient of the first Bob Hope Humanitarian Award at the 2002 Emmy Awards for services to television and film.

 

To celebrate two decades on national TV, and to thank her employees for their hard work, Winfrey took her staff and their families (1065 people in total) on vacation to Hawaii in the summer of 2006.[98]

 

South Africa

 

In 2004, Winfrey and her team filmed an episode of her show entitled Oprah's Christmas Kindness, in which Winfrey, her best friend Gayle King, her partner Stedman Graham, and some crew members travelled to South Africa to bring attention to the plight of young children affected by poverty and AIDS. During the 21-day whirlwind trip, Winfrey and her crew visited schools and orphanages in poverty-stricken areas, and at different set-up points in the areas distributed Christmas presents to 50,000 children,[99] with dolls for the girls and soccer balls for the boys. In addition, each child was given a backpack full of school supplies and received two sets of school uniforms for their gender, in addition to two sets of socks, two sets of underwear, and a pair of shoes. Throughout the show, Winfrey appealed to viewers to donate money to Oprah's Angel Network for poor and AIDS-affected children in Africa, and pledged that she personally would oversee where that money was spent. From that show alone, viewers around the world donated over $7,000,000.

 

Main article: Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls

 

Winfrey invested $40 million and much of her time establishing the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls near Johannesburg in South Africa. The school opened in January, 2007. Nelson Mandela praised Winfrey for overcoming her own disadvantaged youth to become a benefactor for others and for investing in the future of South Africa.[100]

 

Political advocacy

Winfrey joins Barack and Michelle Obama on the campaign trail (2007-12-10)

Winfrey joins Barack and Michelle Obama on the campaign trail (2007-12-10)

 

Winfrey has recently exerted political influence, endorsing presidential candidate Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. This is the first time she has publically made such an endorsement. Winfrey held a fundraiser for Obama on September 8, 2007 at her Santa Barbara, CA estate.[101] In December 2007, Winfrey joined Obama for a series of rallies in the early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.[102] The Columbia, South Carolina event on December 9, 2007 drew a crowd of nearly 30,000, the largest for any political event of the 2008 presidential election season thus far.[103]

 

Criticisms and controversies

 

Although Winfrey has continually changed the focus of her show since the mid-1990s, her success has been seen as popularizing of the "tabloid talk show" genre, and turning it into a thriving industry that has included Ricki Lake, The Jenny Jones Show, and The Jerry Springer Show. Sociologist Vicki Abt criticized tabloid talk shows for redefining social norms. In her book Coming After Oprah: Cultural Fallout in the Age of the TV talk show, Abt warned that the media revolution that followed Winfrey's success was blurring the lines between "normal" and "deviant" behavior.[104][105]

 

Leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Winfrey's show received criticism for allegedly having an anti-war bias. Ben Shapiro of Townhall.com wrote:

“ Oprah Winfrey is the most powerful woman in America. She decides what makes the New York Times best-seller lists. Her touchy-feely style sucks in audiences at the rate of 14 million viewers per day. But Oprah is far more than a cultural force — she's a dangerous political force as well, a woman with unpredictable and mercurial attitudes toward the major issues of the day.[106] ”

 

In 2006, Winfrey recalled such controversies:

“ I once did a show titled Is War the Only Answer? In the history of my career, I've never received more hate mail-like 'Go back to Africa' hate mail. I was accused of being un-American for even raising the question.[107] ”

 

However antiwar activist Michael Moore came to Winfrey’s defense, praising her for showing antiwar footage no other media would show[108] and begging her to run for president.[109] A February 2003 series Winfrey did, in which she showed clips from people all over the world asking America not to go to war, was interrupted in several east coast markets by network broadcasts of a press conference in which President George W. Bush, joined by Colin Powell, summarized the case for war.[110]

 

In June 2005, Winfrey was denied access to the Hermès company's flagship store in Paris, France. Winfrey arrived fifteen minutes after the store's formal closing time, though the store was still very active and high end stores routinely extend hours for VIP customers.[citation needed] Winfrey believed she would have been allowed in the store if she were a white celebrity. “I know the difference between a store that is closed and a store that is closed to me,” explained Winfrey. In September 2005, Hermès USA CEO Robert Chavez was a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show and apologized for a rude employee.

 

On December 1, 2005, Winfrey appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman to promote the new Broadway musical The Color Purple,[111] of which she was a producer, joining the host for the first time in 16 years. The episode was hailed by some as the “television event of the decade” and helped Letterman attract his largest audience in more than 11 years: 13.45 million viewers.[112] Although a much-rumored feud was said to have been the cause of the rift, both Winfrey and Letterman balked at such talk. “I want you to know, it's really over, whatever you thought was happening,” said Winfrey. On September 10, 2007, David Letterman made his first appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show", as its season premiere was filmed in New York City.[113]

 

In 2006, rappers Ludacris, 50 Cent and Ice Cube criticized Winfrey for what they perceived as an anti-hip hop bias. In an interview with GQ magazine, Ludacris said that Winfrey gave him a "hard time" about his lyrics, and edited comments he made during an appearance on her show with the cast of the film Crash. He also claimed that he wasn't initially invited on the show with the rest of the cast. Winfrey responded by saying that she's opposed to rap lyrics that "marginalize women", but enjoys some artists, including Kanye West, who appeared on her show. She said she spoke with Ludacris backstage after his appearance to explain her position, and said she understood that his music was for entertainment purposes, but that some of his listeners might take it literally.[114]

 

Winfrey has also been criticized for not being "tough" enough in questioning celebrity or politician guests on her show that she appears to like.[115] Lisa de Moraes, a media columnist for The Washington Post, stated, "Oprah doesn't do follow-up questions unless you're an author who's embarrassed her by fabricating portions of a supposed memoir she's plugged for her book club."[116]

 

In early 2007, Winfrey was criticized for building a $40 million school complex for girls in South Africa. The school will have an initial enrollment of 152 but will gradually accommodate 450,[117] and features such amenities as a beauty salon and yoga studio.[118] It has been argued that the money would be better utilized to educate a larger number of children in either North America or South Africa; however, Winfrey insists that beautiful surroundings will inspire greatness in the future leaders of Africa.[119]

 

Recently, Winfrey has been accused by magician and skeptic James Randi of being deliberately deceptive and uncritical in how she handles paranormal claims on her show.[120]

 

In 2007, Winfrey began to endorse the controversial self-help program The Secret. The Secret claims that people can change their lives through positive thoughts, which will then cause vibrations that result in good things happening to them. Critics argue that this idea is pseudoscience and psychologically damaging, as it trivializes important decisions and promotes a quick-fix material culture, and suggest Winfrey's promotion of it is irresponsible given her influence.[121]

OH EM GEE! AHHHHHHH!

 

 

 

i can beat that.

>;] muahahaha

English physicist and mathematician who was born into a poor farming family. Luckily for humanity, Newton was not a good farmer, and was sent to Cambridge to study to become a preacher. At Cambridge, Newton studied mathematics, being especially strongly influenced by Euclid, although he was also influenced by Baconian and Cartesian philosophies. Newton was forced to leave Cambridge when it was closed because of the plague, and it was during this period that he made some of his most significant discoveries. With the reticence he was to show later in life, Newton did not, however, publish his results.

 

Newton suffered a mental breakdown in 1675 and was still recovering through 1679. In response to a letter from Hooke, he suggested that a particle, if released, would spiral in to the center of the Earth. Eric Weisstein's World of Astronomy Hooke wrote back, claiming that the path would not be a spiral, but an ellipse. Eric Weisstein's World of Math Newton, who hated being bested, then proceeded to work out the mathematics of orbits. Again, he did not publish his calculations. Newton then began devoting his efforts to theological speculation and put the calculations on elliptical motion aside, telling Halley he had lost them (Westfall 1993, p. 403). Halley, who had become interested in orbits, finally convinced Newton to expand and publish his calculations. Newton devoted the period from August 1684 to spring 1686 to this task, and the result became one of the most important and influential works on physics of all times, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) (1687), often shortened to Principia Mathematica or simply "the Principia."

 

In Book I of Principia, Newton opened with definitions and the three laws of motion now known as Newton's laws Eric Weisstein's World of Physics (laws of inertia, action and reaction, and acceleration proportional to force). Book II presented Newton's new scientific philosophy which came to replace Cartesianism. Finally, Book III consisted of applications of his dynamics, including an explanation for tides and a theory of lunar motion. To test his hypothesis of universal gravitation, Newton wrote Flamsteed to ask if Saturn Eric Weisstein's World of Astronomy had been observed to slow down upon passing Jupiter. Eric Weisstein's World of Astronomy The surprised Flamsteed replied that an effect had indeed been observed, and it was closely predicted by the calculations Newton had provided. Newton's equations were further confirmed by observing the shape of the Earth Eric Weisstein's World of Astronomy to be oblate spheroidal, Eric Weisstein's World of Math as Newton claimed it should be, rather than prolate spheroidal, Eric Weisstein's World of Math as claimed by the Cartesians. Newton's equations also described the motion of Moon Eric Weisstein's World of Astronomy by successive approximations, and correctly predicted the return of Halley's Comet. Newton also correctly formulated and solved the first ever problem in the calculus of variations Eric Weisstein's World of Math which involved finding the surface of revolution which would give minimum resistance to flow (assuming a specific drag law).

 

Newton invented a scientific method which was truly universal in its scope. Newton presented his methodology as a set of four rules for scientific reasoning. These rules were stated in the Principia and proposed that (1) we are to admit no more causes of natural things such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances, (2) the same natural effects must be assigned to the same causes, (3) qualities of bodies are to be esteemed as universal, and (4) propositions deduced from observation of phenomena should be viewed as accurate until other phenomena contradict them.

 

These four concise and universal rules for investigation were truly revolutionary. By their application, Newton formulated the universal laws of nature with which he was able to unravel virtually all the unsolved problems of his day. Newton went much further than outlining his rules for reasoning, however, actually describing how they might be applied to the solution of a given problem. The analytic method he invented far exceeded the more philosophical and less scientifically rigorous approaches of Aristotle and Aquinas. Newton refined Galileo's experimental method, creating the compositional method of experimentation still practiced today. In fact, the following description of the experimental method from Newton's Optics could easily be mistaken for a modern statement of current methods of investigation, if not for Newton's use of the words "natural philosophy" in place of the modern term "the physical sciences." Newton wrote, "As in mathematics, so in natural philosophy the investigation of difficult things by the method of analysis ought ever to precede the method of composition. This analysis consists of making experiments and observations, and in drawing general conclusions from them by induction...by this way of analysis we may proceed from compounds to ingredients, and from motions to the forces producing them; and in general from effects to their causes, and from particular causes to more general ones till the argument end in the most general. This is the method of analysis: and the synthesis consists in assuming the causes discovered and established as principles, and by them explaining the phenomena preceding from them, and proving the explanations."

 

Newton formulated the classical theories of mechanics and optics and invented calculus Eric Weisstein's World of Math years before Leibniz. However, he did not publish his work on calculus Eric Weisstein's World of Math until afterward Leibniz had published his. This led to a bitter priority dispute between English and continental mathematicians which persisted for decades, to the detriment of all concerned. Newton discovered that the binomial theorem Eric Weisstein's World of Math was valid for fractional powers, but left it for Wallis to publish (which he did, with appropriate credit to Newton). Newton formulated a theory of sound, but derived a speed which did not agree with his experiments. The reason for the discrepancy was that the concept of adiabatic propagation did not yet exist, so Newton's answer was too low by a factor of , where is the ratio of heat capacities Eric Weisstein's World of Physics of air. Newton therefore fudged his theory until agreement was achieved (Engineering and Science, pp. 15-16).

 

In Optics (1704), whose publication Newton delayed until Hooke's death, Newton observed that white light could be separated by a prism Eric Weisstein's World of Physics into a spectrum of different colors, each characterized by a unique refractivity, and proposed the corpuscular theory of light. Newton's views on optics were born out of the original prism Eric Weisstein's World of Physics experiments he performed at Cambridge. In his "experimentum crucis" (crucial experiment), he found that the image produced by a prism Eric Weisstein's World of Physics was oval-shaped and not circular, as current theories of light would require. He observed a half-red, half-blue string through a prism, Eric Weisstein's World of Physics and found the ends to be disjointed. He also observed Newton's rings, Eric Weisstein's World of Physics which are actually a manifestation of the wave nature of light which Newton did not believe in. Newton believed that light must move faster in a medium when it is refracted Eric Weisstein's World of Physics towards the normal, in opposition to the result predicted by Huygens's wave theory.

 

Newton also formulated a system of chemistry in Query 31 at the end of Optics. In this corpuscular theory, "elements" consisted of different arrangements of atoms, and atoms consisted of small, hard, billiard ball-like particles. He explained chemical reactions in terms of the chemical affinities of the participating substances. Newton devoted a majority of his free time later in life (after 1678) to fruitless alchemical experiments.

 

Newton was extremely sensitive to criticism, and even ceased publishing until the death of his arch-rival Hooke. It was only through the prodding of Halley that Newton was persuaded at all to publish the Principia Mathematica. In the latter portion of his life, he devoted much of his time to alchemical researches and trying to date events in the Bible. After Newton's death, his burial place was moved. During the exhumation, it was discovered that Newton had massive amounts of mercury in his body, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. This would certainly explain Newton's eccentricity in late life. Newton was appointed Warden of the British Mint in 1695. Newton was knighted by Queen Anne. However, the act was "an honor bestowed not for his contributions to science, nor for his service at the Mint, but for the greater glory of party politics in the election of 1705" (Westfall 1993, p. 625).

 

Newton singlehandedly contributed more to the development of science than any other individual in history. He surpassed all the gains brought about by the great scientific minds of antiquity, producing a scheme of the universe which was more consistent, elegant, and intuitive than any proposed before. Newton stated explicit principles of scientific methods which applied universally to all branches of science. This was in sharp contradistinction to the earlier methodologies of Aristotle and Aquinas, which had outlined separate methods for different disciplines.

 

Although his methodology was strictly logical, Newton still believed deeply in the necessity of a God. His theological views are characterized by his belief that the beauty and regularity of the natural world could only "proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being." He felt that "the Supreme God exists necessarily, and by the same necessity he exists always and everywhere." Newton believed that God periodically intervened to keep the universe going on track. He therefore denied the importance of Leibniz's vis viva as nothing more than an interesting quantity which remained constant in elastic collisions and therefore had no physical importance or meaning.

 

Although earlier philosophers such as Galileo and John Philoponus had used experimental procedures, Newton was the first to explicitly define and systematize their use. His methodology produced a neat balance between theoretical and experimental inquiry and between the mathematical and mechanical approaches. Newton mathematized all of the physical sciences, reducing their study to a rigorous, universal, and rational procedure which marked the ushering in of the Age of Reason. Thus, the basic principles of investigation set down by Newton have persisted virtually without alteration until modern times. In the years since Newton's death, they have borne fruit far exceeding anything even Newton could have imagined. They form the foundation on which the technological civilization of today rests. The principles expounded by Newton were even applied to the social sciences, influencing the economic theories of Adam Smith and the decision to make the United States legislature bicameral. These latter applications, however, pale in contrast to Newton's scientific contributions.

 

It is therefore no exaggeration to identify Newton as the single most important contributor to the development of modern science. The Latin inscription on Newton's tomb, despite its bombastic language, is thus fully justified in proclaiming, "Mortals! rejoice at so great an ornament to the human race!" Alexander Pope's couplet is also apropos: "Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night; God said, Let Newton be! and all was light."

 

Several interesting Newton quotes are given by Misner et al. (1973, pp. 40-41).

 

Halley, Hooke, Leibniz

 

 

Additional biographies: MacTutor (St. Andrews), Dublin Trinity College, Bonn

 

 

 

 

References

 

--. Engineering and Science, Caltech, No. 2, pp. 15-16, Winter 1991.

 

Andrade, E. N. da C. Sir Isaac Newton. Greenwood Pub., 1979.

 

Bell, E. T. "On the Seashore: Newton." Ch. 6 in Men of Mathematics: The Lives and Achievements of the Great Mathematicians from Zeno to Poincaré. New York: Simon and Schuster, pp. 90-116, 1986.

 

Christianson, G. E. In the Presence of Creation: Isaac Newton and His Times. New York: Free Press, 1984.

 

De Gandt, F. Force and Geometry in Newton's Principia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.

 

Fauvel, J.; Flood, R.; Shortland, M., and Wilson, R. (Eds.). Let Newton Be! New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

 

Gjertsen, D. The Newton Handbook. London: Routledge, 1986.

 

Guicciardini, N. Reading the Principia: The Debate on Newton's Mathematical Methods for Natural Philosophy form 1687 to 1736. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

 

Hall, A. R. Isaac Newton: Adventurer in Thought. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

 

Lines, M. E. On the Shoulders of Giants. Philadelphia: Inst. of Phys., 1994.

 

Manuel, F. E. A Portrait of Isaac Newton. Da Capo Press, 1990.

 

Misner, C. W.; Thorne, K. S.; and Wheeler, J. A. Gravitation. San Francisco, CA: W. H. Freeman, 1973.

 

Newton, I. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (Trans. I. B. Cohen and A. Whitman). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999.

 

Turnbull, H. W. The Mathematical Discoveries of Newton. London, England: Blackie and Sons, 1945.

 

Westfall, R. S. The Life of Isaac Newton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

 

Westfall, R. S. Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

 

White, M. Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1997.

 

 

 

© 1996-2007 Eric W. Weisstein

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crap... I can't beat that.

The Beatles were a pop and rock group from Liverpool, England formed in 1960. Primarily consisting of John Lennon (rhythm guitar, vocals), Paul McCartney (bass guitar, vocals), George Harrison (lead guitar, vocals), and Ringo Starr (drums, vocals) throughout their career, The Beatles are recognised for leading the mid-1960s musical "British Invasion" into the United States. Although their initial musical style was rooted in 1950s rock and roll and homegrown skiffle, the group explored genres ranging from Tin Pan Alley to psychedelic rock. Their clothes, styles, and statements made them trend-setters, while their growing social awareness saw their influence extend into the social and cultural revolutions of the 1960s. After the band broke up in 1970, all four members embarked on solo careers.

 

The Beatles are one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed bands in the history of popular music. The Beatles are the best-selling musical group in history. In the United Kingdom, The Beatles released more than 40 different singles, albums, and EPs that reached number one, earning more number one albums (15) than any other group in UK chart history. This commercial success was repeated in many other countries; their record company, EMI, estimated that by 1985 they had sold over one billion records worldwide.[1] According to the Recording Industry Association of America, The Beatles have sold more albums in the United States than any other band.[2] In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked The Beatles number one on its list of 100 Greatest Rock & Roll Artists of All Time. According to that same magazine, The Beatles' innovative music and cultural impact helped define the 1960s, and their influence on pop culture is still evident today.

Contents

[show]

 

* 1 History

o 1.1 1957–60: Formation

o 1.2 1960–62: Hamburg, Cavern Club and Brian Epstein

o 1.3 1962: Record contract

o 1.4 1962–63: Fame in the UK

o 1.5 1963–64: American success

o 1.6 1964–66: Beatlemania crosses the Atlantic

o 1.7 1966: Backlash and controversy

o 1.8 1966–69: Studio years

o 1.9 1969–70: Let It Be project and breakup

o 1.10 1970–present: Post-breakup

* 2 Musical evolution

* 3 On film

* 4 Achievements

* 5 Influence on popular culture

o 5.1 Radio

o 5.2 Recreational drug use

* 6 Discography

o 6.1 Song catalogue

o 6.2 Studio albums

o 6.3 CD releases

* 7 See also

* 8 Notes

* 9 References

* 10 Further reading

* 11 External links

 

History

 

1957–60: Formation

 

Main article: The Quarrymen

 

In March 1957, while attending Quarry Bank Grammar School in Liverpool, John Lennon formed a skiffle group called The Quarrymen.[3] Lennon met guitarist Paul McCartney at the Woolton Garden Fête, held at St. Peter's Church, on 6 July 1957; Lennon added him to the group a few days later.[4] On 6 February 1958 young guitarist George Harrison was invited to watch the group, playing under a variety of names, at Wilson Hall, Garston, Liverpool.[5] McCartney had become acquainted with Harrison on the morning bus ride to the Liverpool Institute, as they both lived in Speke. Despite Lennon's initial reluctance due to Harrison's young age, Harrison joined the Quarrymen as lead guitarist at McCartney's insistence after a rehearsal in March 1958.[6][7] Lennon and McCartney both played rhythm guitar during that period, and had a high turnover of drummers. Lennon's art school friend Stuart Sutcliffe joined on bass in January 1960.[8][9]

 

The Quarrymen went through a progression of names, including "Johnny and the Moondogs" and "Long John and The Beatles". Sutcliffe suggested the name "The Beetles" as a tribute to Buddy Holly and The Crickets. After a tour with Johnny Gentle in Scotland, the band changed their name to "The Beatles." Lennon's first wife Cynthia Lennon suggested that Lennon came up with the name The Beatles at a "brainstorming session over a beer-soaked table in the Renshaw Hall bar."[10] Lennon, who was well known for giving multiple versions of the same story, joked in a 1961 Mersey Beat magazine article that "It came in a vision — a man appeared on a flaming pie and said unto them, 'From this day on you are Beatles with an A'".[11] During an interview in 2001, McCartney took credit for the peculiar spelling of the name, saying that "John had the idea of calling us the Beetles; I said, 'How about the Beatles; you know, like the beat of the drum?' At the time, everyone was stoned enough to find it hilarious. It's funny how history is made."[12]

 

In May 1960, the then-Silver Beetles toured northeast Scotland as a back-up band with singer Johnny Gentle, whom the band had met an hour before their first gig.[8] McCartney referred to the tour as a great experience for the band.[13] For the tour, the often drummer-less group secured the services of Tommy Moore, who was considerably older than the others.[14] Moore left the band soon after the tour and went back to work in a bottling factory as a forklift truck driver.[15] Norman Chapman was the band's next drummer, but was called up for National Service a few weeks later. His departure posed a serious problem, for the group's unofficial manager, Allan Williams, had arranged for them to perform in clubs on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg, West Germany.[16]

 

1960–62: Hamburg, Cavern Club and Brian Epstein

 

Finding themselves drummerless before their upcoming engagement in Hamburg, the group invited Pete Best to become their drummer on 12 August 1960. Best had played with The Blackjacks in The Casbah Coffee Club, owned by Pete's mother, Mona Best; a cellar club in West Derby, Liverpool, The Beatles played there and often visited.[17] Four days after hiring Best, the group left for Hamburg. The Beatles began playing in Hamburg at the Indra Club and moved to the Kaiserkeller in October 1960. They were required to play six or seven hours a night, seven nights a week. On 21 November 1960 Harrison was deported for having lied to the German authorities about his age.[18] A week later, having started a small fire at their living quarters while vacating it for more luxurious rooms, McCartney and Best were arrested, charged with arson, and deported.[19] Lennon followed the others to Liverpool in mid-December while Sutcliffe stayed behind in Hamburg with his new German fiancée Astrid Kirchherr. The reunited group played an engagement on 17 December 1960 at the Casbah Club, with Chas Newby substituting for Sutcliffe.[20]

The Indra Club, where The Beatles first played on arriving in Hamburg, as it appears today.

The Indra Club, where The Beatles first played on arriving in Hamburg, as it appears today.

 

The Beatles returned to Hamburg in April 1961, performing at the "Top Ten Club". While playing at the Top Ten Club, they were recruited by singer Tony Sheridan to act as his backing band on a series of recordings for the German Polydor Records label,[21] produced by famed bandleader Bert Kaempfert.[22] Kaempfert signed the group to its own Polydor contract at the first session on 22 June 1961. On 31 October Polydor released the recording "My Bonnie (Mein Herz ist bei dir nur)", which appeared on the German charts under the name "Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers", a generic name used for whoever happened to be in Sheridan's backup band.[23] A few copies were also pressed under the Decca label for United States disc jockeys, as American Decca had a distribution deal with Polydor parent Deutsche Grammophon.[24] When the group returned to Liverpool, Sutcliffe stayed in Hamburg with Kirchherr.[25] McCartney took over bass duties.[26]

 

The band returned to Liverpool from Germany, and on Tuesday February 21, 1961 they made their first lunchtime appearance at The Cavern Club in Mathew Street. Their stage show had been through a lot of changes, and some in the audience thought they were watching a German band. From 1961 to 1962 The Beatles made 292 appearances at the club. On 9 November 1961, Brian Epstein, owner of the NEMS music store on Great Charlotte Street, saw the Beatles for the first time in the club.

 

In a meeting with the group at North End Music Store (NEMS) on 10 December 1961, Brian Epstein proposed the idea of managing the group.[27] The Beatles signed a five-year contract with Epstein on 24 January 1962.[28] Epstein led The Beatles' search for a British recording contract. Epstein had been manager of the record department at NEMS, an offshoot of his family's furniture store. He played on the status of NEMS as a major record dealer to gain access to producers and recording company executives. In a now-famous exchange, Decca Records A&R executive Dick Rowe turned Epstein down flat, informing him that "guitar groups are on the way out, Mr. Epstein."[29] (See The Decca audition.) While Epstein was negotiating with Decca, he also approached EMI marketing executive Ron White.[30] White, who was not himself a record producer, in turn contacted EMI producers Norrie Paramor, Walter Ridley, and Norman Newell; all of them declined to record The Beatles. White did not approach EMI's fourth staff producer—George Martin—who was on holiday at the time.[31] The Beatles returned to Hamburg from 13 April to 31 May 1962, where they performed at the opening of The Star Club.[32] Upon their arrival, they were informed of Sutcliffe's death from a brain hemorrhage.[33]

 

1962: Record contract

The telegram that Epstein sent to Mersey Beat magazine to announce that he had secured The Beatles their first recording contract.

The telegram that Epstein sent to Mersey Beat magazine to announce that he had secured The Beatles their first recording contract.

 

After failing to impress Decca Records, Epstein went to the HMV store on Oxford Street in London to transfer the Decca tapes to discs. There, recording engineer Jim Foy referred him to Sid Coleman, who ran EMI's publishing arm. When Coleman heard the demo tapes, he suggested taking the tapes to George Martin who, Coleman explained, "does comedy records" and headed the Parlophone label at EMI.[citation needed] Epstein eventually met with Martin, who signed the group to EMI on a one-year renewable contract.[34] The Beatles' first recording session was scheduled for 6 June 1962 at EMI's Abbey Road Studios in north London.[35] Martin had not been particularly impressed by the band's demo recordings, but he liked The Beatles' personalities when he met them.[36] He concluded that they had raw musical talent, but stated in later interviews that what made the difference for him was their wit and humour.[37]

 

Martin had a problem with Pete Best,[36] whom he criticised for not being able to keep time. Martin privately suggested to Epstein that the band use another drummer in the studio. There was speculation by some that Best's popularity with fans was another source of friction.[38] In addition, Epstein became exasperated with his refusal to adopt the distinctive hairstyle as part of the band's unified look. Best also had missed a number of engagements because of illness. The three founding members of the band enlisted Epstein to dismiss Best, which he did on 16 August 1962.[39] They asked Richard Starkey, known as Ringo Starr, to join the band; Starr was the drummer for one of the top Merseybeat groups, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, and had performed occasionally with The Beatles in Hamburg.[40] The first recordings of Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr together were made as early as 15 October 1960, in a series of demonstration records privately recorded in Hamburg while acting as the backing group for singer Lu Walters.[41] Starr played on The Beatles' second EMI recording session on 4 September 1962, but Martin hired session drummer Andy White for their next session on 11 September.[42] White's only released performances were recordings of "Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You", found on The Beatles' first album.

George Martin previewing a song by McCartney and Lennon in 1963.

George Martin previewing a song by McCartney and Lennon in 1963.

 

Their recording contract paid them one penny for each single sold, which was split amongst the four Beatles — one farthing per group member.[43] This royalty rate was reduced for singles sold outside the UK, for which they received half of one penny (again split between the whole band) per single. Martin said later that it was a "pretty awful" contract.[43]

 

The Beatles' first EMI session on 6 June 1962 did not yield any recordings considered worthy of release, but the September sessions a few months later produced a minor UK hit "Love Me Do", which peaked on the charts at number seventeen.[44] "Love Me Do" would reach the top of the U.S. singles chart over eighteen months later in May 1964.

 

1962–63: Fame in the UK

 

On 26 November 1962 the band recorded their second single "Please Please Me", which reached number two on the official UK charts and number one on the NME chart. Three months later, they recorded their first album, also titled Please Please Me (1962). The band's first televised performance was on the People and Places programme, transmitted live from Manchester by Granada Television on 17 October 1962.[45] As The Beatles' fame spread, the frenzied adulation of the group, predominantly from teenage female fans, was dubbed "Beatlemania".

 

The band also began to be noticed by serious music critics. On 23 December 1963, The Times music critic William Mann published an essay extolling The Beatles' compositions, including their "fresh and euphonious" guitars in "Till There Was You", their "submediant switches from C major into A flat major", and the "octave ascent" in "I Want to Hold Your Hand".[46] The Beatles themselves were perplexed by this analysis by Mann: "...one gets the impression that they think simultaneously of harmony and melody, so firmly are the major tonic sevenths and ninths built into their tunes, and the flat-submediant key-switches, so natural is the Aeolian cadence at the end of 'Not a Second Time' (the chord progression which ends Mahler's 'Song of the Earth')."[47] In 1980, Lennon commented, "To this day I don't have any idea what Aeolian cadences are. They sound like exotic birds."[47]

 

1963–64: American success

 

Although the band experienced huge popularity on the British record charts in early 1963, EMI's American operation, Capitol Records, declined to issue the singles "Please Please Me" and "From Me to You", their first official number one hit in the UK.[48] Vee-Jay Records, a small Chicago label, issued the singles as part of a deal for the rights to another performer's masters. Art Roberts, music director of popular Chicago radio station WLS, placed "Please Please Me" into radio rotation in late February 1963, arguably the first time a Beatles record was heard on American radio. Vee-Jay's rights to The Beatles were later cancelled for non-payment of royalties.[49]

 

In August 1963, Philadelphia-based Swan Records released "She Loves You", which also failed to receive airplay. A testing of the song on Dick Clark's TV show American Bandstand produced laughter from American teenagers when they saw the group's distinctive hairstyles.[50] In early November 1963, Brian Epstein persuaded Ed Sullivan to present The Beatles on three editions of his show in February, and parlayed this guaranteed exposure into a record deal with Capitol Records. Capitol committed to a mid-January release of "I Want to Hold Your Hand".[51] On 10 December 1963, a 5-minute story shot in England about the phenomenon of Beatlemania was shown on the CBS Evening News. The segment first aired on the CBS Morning News on 22 November and had originally been scheduled to be repeated on that day's Evening News, but regular programming was cancelled following the assassination of John F. Kennedy that day. The segment inspired a teenage girl named Marsha Albert living in Silver Spring, Maryland to write to Carroll James, a disc jockey at Washington DC's WWDC radio station, requesting that he play records by The Beatles. Carroll James had seen the same news story and arranged through a friend to have a copy of The Beatles' new single "I Want to Hold Your Hand" sent over to him in Washington DC. Immediately after debuting the record on December 17, the station received overwhelming positive audience reaction, with the station escalating airplay of the record. Made aware of the overwhelming listener response, Capitol Records president Alan Livingston decided a few days later to take advantage of the response and rush-release the already-prepared single three weeks ahead of schedule on 26 December 1963.[52]

 

Several New York radio stations—first WMCA, then WINS and WABC—began playing "I Want to Hold Your Hand" on its release day. The positive response to the record that had started in Washington was duplicated in New York and quickly spread to other markets. The record sold one million copies in just ten days, and by 16 January 1964, Cashbox magazine had certified the record number one, in the edition datelined 23 January. Aware that The Ed Sullivan Show was scheduled to present The Beatles live in early February, the Jack Paar Show licensed a film clip of The Beatles performing "She Loves You" from Britain's BBC and aired the footage on 3 January 1964, enabling Paar to claim that he had beaten rival Sullivan to showing The Beatles on a network TV show.[citation needed]

 

1964–66: Beatlemania crosses the Atlantic

 

On 7 February 1964, a crowd of four thousand fans at Heathrow Airport waved to The Beatles as they took off for their first trip to the United States as a group.[53] They were accompanied by photographers, journalists (including Maureen Cleave), and Phil Spector, who had booked himself on the same flight.[54] When the group arrived at New York's newly-renamed Kennedy Airport, they were greeted by a large crowd. The airport had never experienced such a crowd, estimated at about 3,000 fans.[55] After a press conference, where they first met disc jockey Murray the K, The Beatles were put into limousines and driven to New York City. On the way, McCartney turned on a radio and listened to a running commentary: "They [The Beatles] have just left the airport and are coming to New York City..."[56] After reaching the Plaza Hotel, they were besieged by fans and reporters. Harrison had a fever of 102 °F (39 °C) the next day and was ordered to stay in bed, so Neil Aspinall replaced him for the band's first for their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.[57]

The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, 9 February 1964

The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, 9 February 1964

 

The Beatles made their first live American television appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February 1964. Approximately 74 million viewers—about half of the American population—watched the group perform on the show.[58] The next morning, many newspapers wrote that The Beatles were nothing more than a "fad", and "could not carry a tune across the Atlantic".[59] The band's first American concert appearance was at Washington Coliseum in Washington, D.C. on 11 February 1964.[60]

 

After The Beatles' success in 1964, Vee-Jay Records and Swan Records took advantage of their previously secured rights to the group's early recordings and reissued the songs; all the songs reached the top ten this time. (MGM and Atco also secured rights to The Beatles' early Tony Sheridan-era recordings and had minor hits with "My Bonnie" and "Ain't She Sweet", the latter featuring John Lennon on lead vocal.) In addition to Introducing... The Beatles (1964), which was essentially The Beatles' debut British album with some minor alterations, Vee-Jay also issued an unusual LP called The Beatles Vs The Four Seasons. This 2-LP set paired Introducing... The Beatles and The Golden Hits Of The Four Seasons, another successful act that Vee-Jay had under contract, in a 'contest' (the back cover featured a 'score card'). Another unusual release was the Hear The Beatles Tell All album, which consisted of two lengthy interviews with Los Angeles radio disc jockeys (side one was titled "Dave Hull interviews John Lennon", while side two was titled "Jim Steck interviews John, Paul, George, Ringo"). No Beatles music was included on this interview album, which turned out to be the only Vee-Jay Beatles album Capitol Records could not reclaim.

 

The Vee-Jay/Swan-issued recordings eventually ended up with Capitol, which issued most of the Vee-Jay material on the American-only Capitol release The Early Beatles, with three songs left off this final US version of the album. ("I Saw Her Standing There" was issued as the American B-side of "I Want to Hold Your Hand", and also appeared on the Capitol Records album Meet The Beatles. "Misery" and "There's a Place" were issued as a Capitol "Starline" reissue single in 1964, and reappeared on Capitol's 1980 US version of the Rarities compilation album.) The early Vee-Jay and Swan Beatles records command a high price on the record collectors' market today, and all have been copiously bootlegged.[61] The Swan tracks "She Loves You" and "I'll Get You" were issued on the Capitol LP The Beatles' Second Album. Swan also issued the German-language version of "She Loves You", called "Sie Liebt Dich". This song later appeared (in stereo) on Capitol's Rarities album.

 

In mid-1964 the band undertook their first appearances outside of Europe and North America, touring Australia; Ringo Starr was suffering from tonsillitis and was temporarily replaced by session drummer Jimmy Nicol. In Adelaide, The Beatles were greeted by over 300,000 people at Adelaide Town Hall.[62] Ringo had rejoined by the time they arrived in New Zealand on 21 June 1964.[63]

 

On 6 June 1964, A Hard Day's Night, the first movie starring the Beatles, was released in the United Kingdom. Directed by Richard Lester, the film is a mockumentary of the four members as they make their way to a London television programme. The film, released at the height of Beatlemania, was well-received by critics, and remains one of the most influential jukebox musicals.[64][65] That December the group released their fourth album, Beatles for Sale.

 

In June 1965, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II appointed the four Beatles Members of the Order of the British Empire, MBE. The band members were nominated by Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who also was the M.P. for Huyton, Liverpool.[66] The appointment–at that time primarily bestowed upon military veterans and civic leaders – sparked some conservative MBE recipients to return their insignia in protest.[67] The first two were returned on 14 June 1965, before The Beatles received theirs on 26 October.[68]

 

In July 1965, The Beatles's second feature film, Help!, was released. The film was accompanied by the band fifth British studio album Help!, which also functioned as the soundtrack for the movie. On 15 August 1965, The Beatles performed the first major stadium concert in the history of rock 'n' roll at Shea Stadium in New York to a crowd of 55,600.[69] Their sixth album, Rubber Soul, was released in early December 1965. It was hailed as a major leap forward in the maturity and complexity of the band's music.[70]

 

1966: Backlash and controversy

 

In July 1966, when The Beatles toured the Philippines, they unintentionally snubbed the nation's first lady, Imelda Marcos, who had expected the group to attend a breakfast reception at the Presidential Palace.[71] When presented with the invitation, Brian Epstein politely declined on behalf of the group, as it had never been the group's policy to accept such "official" invitations.[72] The group soon found that the Marcos regime was unaccustomed to accepting "no" for an answer. After the snub was broadcast on Philippine television and radio, all of The Beatles' police protection disappeared. The group and their entourage had to make their way to Manila airport on their own. At the airport, road manager Mal Evans was beaten and kicked, and the band members were pushed and jostled about by a hostile crowd.[73] Once the group boarded the plane, Epstein and Evans were ordered off, and Evans said, "Tell my wife that I love her."[74] Epstein was forced to give back all the money that the band had earned while they were there before being allowed back on the plane.[75]

 

Almost as soon as they returned from the Philippines, an earlier comment by Lennon made in March that year launched a backlash against The Beatles from religious and social conservatives in the United States. In an interview with British reporter Maureen Cleave,[76] Lennon had offered his opinion that Christianity was dying and that The Beatles were "more popular than Jesus now".[77] Afterwards, a radio station in Birmingham, Alabama, ran a story on burning Beatles records, in what was considered to be a joke. However, many people affiliated with rural churches in the American South started taking the suggestion seriously. Towns across the United States and South Africa started to burn Beatles records in protest. Attempting to make light of the incident, Harrison said, "They've got to buy them before they can burn them."[78] Under tremendous pressure from the American media, Lennon apologised for his remarks at a press conference in Chicago on 11 August 1966, the eve of the first performance of what turned out to be their final tour.[79]

 

The group's two-year series of Capitol compilations also took a strange twist in the United States when one of their publicity shots, used for a Yesterday and Today album and a poster promoting the UK release of "Paperback Writer", created an uproar, as it featured the band dressed in butchers' overalls, draped in meat and plastic dolls. A popular, though apocryphal, rumour said that this was meant as a response to the way Capitol had "butchered" their albums.[80] Thousands of copies of the album had a new cover pasted over. Years later, a commentator linked the cover shot with the group's interest in German expressionism.[79] Uncensored copies of Yesterday and Today command a high price today, with one copy selling for $10,500 at a December 2005 auction.[81]

 

Elvis Presley disapproved of The Beatles's anti-war activism and open use of drugs, later asking President Richard Nixon to ban all four members of the group from entering the United States. Peter Guralnick writes, "The Beatles, Elvis said, [...] had been a focal point for anti-Americanism. They had come to this country, made their money, then gone back to England where they fomented anti-American feeling."[82] Guralnick adds, "Presley indicated that he is of the opinion that The Beatles laid the groundwork for many of the problems we are having with young people by their filthy unkempt appearances and suggestive music while entertaining in this country during the early and middle 1960s."[83] Despite Presley's remarks, Lennon still had some positive feelings towards him: "Before Elvis, there was nothing."[84] In contrast, Bob Dylan recognised The Beatles' contribution, stating: "America should put up statues to The Beatles. They helped give this country's pride back to it."[85]

 

1966–69: Studio years

 

In April 1966, the group began recording what would be their most ambitious album to date, Revolver.[citation needed] During the recording sessions for the album, tape looping and early sampling were introduced in a complex mix of ballad, R&B, soul, and world music. The Beatles performed their last concert before paying fans at Candlestick Park in San Francisco on 29 August 1966.[79][86] McCartney asked Tony Barrow to tape the event, but the 30-minute tape he used ran out halfway through the last song.[87] From then on, The Beatles concentrated on recording. Less than seven months after recording Revolver, The Beatles returned to Abbey Road Studios on 24 November 1966 to begin the 129-day recording sessions for their eighth album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, released on 1 June 1967.

 

On 25 June 1967, The Beatles became the first band globally transmitted on television, before an estimated 400 million people worldwide.[citation needed] The band appeared in a segment within the first-ever worldwide television satellite hook-up, a show titled Our World. The Beatles were transmitted live from Abbey Road Studios, and their new song "All You Need Is Love" was recorded live during the show, albeit to the accompaniment of a backing track they had spent five days recording and mixing in the studio prior to the broadcast.[88]

 

On 24 August 1967, The Beatles met the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at the London Hilton. A few days later they went to Bangor, in North Wales, to attend a weekend 'initiation' conference.[89] There, the Maharishi gave each of them a mantra.[90] While in Bangor, The Beatles learned of the death of Brian Epstein at age 32 from an accidental prescription drug overdose. At the end of 1967, they received their first major negative press in the UK with disparaging reviews of their surrealistic TV film Magical Mystery Tour.[91] Part of the criticism arose because colour was an integral part of the film, yet the film was shown on Boxing Day in black and white. The Magical Mystery Tour film soundtrack, was released in the United Kingdom as a double EP, and in the United States as a full LP (the LP is now the official version).

 

The group spent the early part of 1968 in Rishikesh, Uttar Pradesh, India, studying transcendental meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.[92] Their time at the Maharishi's ashram was highly productive from a musical standpoint, as many of the songs that would later be recorded for The Beatles (White Album) and Abbey Road were composed there by Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison.[92] Upon their return, Lennon and McCartney went to New York to announce the formation of Apple Corps. The middle of 1968 saw the band busy recording the double album The Beatles, popularly known as The White Album because of its plain white cover. These sessions saw deep divisions opening within the band, with Starr temporarily leaving the band. The band carried on, with McCartney recording the drums on the songs "Martha My Dear", "Wild Honey Pie", "Dear Prudence" and "Back in the USSR". Among the other causes of dissension were that Lennon's new girlfriend, Yoko Ono, was at his side through almost all of the sessions, and that the others felt that McCartney was becoming too dominant.[93] Internal divisions had been a small but growing problem in the band; most notably, this was reflected in the difficulty that Harrison experienced in getting his songs onto The Beatles albums.

 

On the business side, McCartney wanted Lee Eastman, the father of his then-girlfriend Linda Eastman, to manage The Beatles, but the other members wanted New York manager Allen Klein. All past Beatles decisions had been unanimous, but this time the four could not agree. Lennon, Harrison and Starr felt the Eastmans would put McCartney's interests before those of the group. In 1971, it was discovered that Klein, who had been appointed manager, had stolen £5 million from The Beatles' holdings. Years later, during the Anthology interviews, McCartney said, "Looking back, I can understand why they would feel that he [Lee Eastman] was biased for me and against them."

 

1969–70: Let It Be project and breakup

 

Main articles: The Beatles' breakup, Let It Be (film), and Let It Be (album)

 

In January 1969, The Beatles began a film project documenting the making of their next record, originally titled Get Back. During the recording sessions, the band undertook their final live performance on the rooftop of the Apple building at 3 Savile Row, London, on 30 January 1969. Most of the performance was filmed and later included in the film Let It Be. The project was temporarily shelved, and The Beatles recorded their final album, Abbey Road, in the summer of 1969. The completion of the song "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" for the album on 20 August 1969 was the last time all four Beatles were together in the same studio. Lennon announced his departure to the rest of the group on 20 September 1969, but agreed that no announcement was to be publicly made until a number of legal matters were resolved. Their final new song was Harrison's "I Me Mine", recorded 3 January 1970 and released on the Let It Be album. It was recorded without Lennon, who was in Denmark at the time.[94]

 

In March 1970, the Get Back session tapes were given to American producer Phil Spector, who had produced Lennon's solo single "Instant Karma!". Spector's Wall of Sound production values went against the original intent of the record, which had been to record a stripped-down live performance. McCartney was deeply dissatisfied with Spector's treatment of "The Long and Winding Road" and unsuccessfully attempted to halt release of Spector's version of the song. McCartney publicly announced the break-up on 10 April 1970, a week before releasing his first solo album, McCartney. Pre-release copies included a press release with a self-written interview explaining the end of The Beatles and his hopes for the future.[95] On 8 May 1970 the Spector-produced version of Get Back was released as Let It Be, followed by the documentary film of the same name. The Beatles' partnership wasn't dissolved until 1975.[96]

 

1970–present: Post-breakup

 

Shortly before and after the official dissolution of the group, all four Beatles released solo albums. Some of their albums featured contributions by other former Beatles; Starr's Ringo (1973) was the only one to include compositions and performances by all four, albeit on separate songs. Harrison showed his socio-political consciousness and earned respect for his contribution for arranging the Concert For Bangladesh in New York City in August 1971 along with sitar maestro Ravi Shankar. Other than an unreleased jam session in 1974 (later bootlegged as A Toot and a Snore in '74), Lennon and McCartney never recorded together again.

 

In the wake of the expiration in 1975 of The Beatles' contract with EMI-Capitol, the American Capitol label, rushing to cash in on its vast Beatles holdings and freed from the group's creative control, released five LPs: Rock 'n' Roll Music (a compilation of their more uptempo numbers), The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl (containing portions of two unreleased shows at the Hollywood Bowl), Love Songs (a compilation of their slower numbers), Rarities (a compilation of tracks that either had never been released in the U.S. or had gone out of print), and Reel Music (a compilation of songs from their films). There was also a non-Capitol-EMI release entitled Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962, which was a recording of a show from the group's early days at the Star Club in Hamburg captured on a poor-quality tape. Of all these post-breakup LPs, only the Hollywood Bowl LP had the approval of the group members. Upon the American release of the original British CDs in 1986, these post-breakup Capitol American compilation LPs were deleted from the Capitol catalogue.

 

John Lennon was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman on 8 December 1980 in New York City. In May 1981, George Harrison released "All Those Years Ago"; a single written about Harrison's time with The Beatles. It was recorded the month before Lennon's death, with Starr on drums, and was later overdubbed with new lyrics as a tribute to Lennon. Paul and Linda McCartney later contributed backing vocals to the track.[97]

 

In 1988, The Beatles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame during their first year of eligibility.[98] On the night of their induction, Harrison and Starr appeared to accept their award along with Lennon's widow Yoko Ono and his two sons. McCartney stayed away, issuing a press release citing "unresolved difficulties" with Harrison, Starr and Lennon's estate.

 

In February 1994, the three surviving Beatles reunited to produce and record additional music for a few of Lennon's home recordings. "Free as a Bird" premiered as part of The Beatles Anthology series of television documentaries and was released as a single in December 1995, with "Real Love" following in March 1996. These songs were also included in the three Anthology collections of CDs released in 1995 and 1996, each of which consisted of two CDs of never-before-released Beatles material. Klaus Voormann, who had known The Beatles since their Hamburg days and had previously illustrated the Revolver album cover, directed the Anthology cover concept. 450,000 copies of Anthology 1 were sold on its first day of release. In 2000, the compilation album 1 was released, containing almost every number-one single released by the band from 1962 to 1970. The collection sold 3.6 million copies in its first week (selling 3 copies a second) and more than 12 million in three weeks worldwide. The collection also reached number one in the United States and 33 other countries, and had sold 25 million copies by 2005 (about the ninth best selling album of all time).

 

In the late 1990s, George Harrison was diagnosed with lung cancer. He succumbed to the disease on 29 November 2001.

 

In 2006, George Martin and his son Giles Martin remixed original Beatles recordings to create a soundtrack to accompany Cirque du Soleil's theatrical production Love. In 2007, McCartney and Starr reunited for an interview on Larry King Live to discuss their thoughts on the show. Beatles widows Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison also appeared with McCartney and Starr in Las Vegas for the one-year anniversary of Love.

 

Also in 2007, reports circulated[99] that McCartney was hoping to complete "Now and Then", the third Lennon track the band worked on during the Anthology sessions, as a "Lennon/McCartney composition" by writing new verses, laying down a new drum track recorded by Starr, and utilizing archival recordings of Harrison's guitar work.

 

Lawyers for The Beatles sued on March 21, 2008 to prevent the distribution of unreleased recordings purportedly made during Ringo Starr's first performance with the group in 1962. The dispute between Apple Corps Ltd. and Fuego Entertainment Inc. of Miami Lakes stems from recordings apparently made during a performance at the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany.[100]

 

Musical evolution

 

See also: The Beatles' influence on music recording

 

The Beatles' constant demands to create new sounds on every new recording, combined with George Martin's arranging abilities and the studio expertise of EMI staff engineers such as Norman Smith, Ken Townsend and Geoff Emerick, all played significant parts in the innovative sounds of the albums Rubber Soul (1965), Revolver (1966) and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967).

 

The Beatles continued to absorb influences long after their initial success, often finding new musical and lyrical avenues by listening to their contemporaries. Among those influences were Bob Dylan, who influenced songs such as "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" and "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)".[citation needed] Other contemporary influences included the Byrds and the Beach Boys, whose album Pet Sounds was a favourite of McCartney's.[101] Beatles producer George Martin stated that "Without Pet Sounds, Sgt. Pepper wouldn't have happened... Pepper was an attempt to equal Pet Sounds."[102] After Sgt. Pepper was released, Beach Boys' leader Brian Wilson was so despondent that he went to bed for months.[103] Lennon also named Elvis Presley as a spark that interested himself in music:

 

It was Elvis who really got me buying records. I thought that early stuff of his was great. The Bill Haley era passed me by, in a way. When his records came on the wireless, my mother used to hear them, but they didn’t do anything for me. It was Elvis who got me hooked on beat music. When I heard 'Heartbreak Hotel', I thought ‘this is it’ and I started to grow sideboards and all that gear...."[104]

 

Along with studio tricks such as sound effects, unconventional microphone placements, tape loops, double tracking and vari-speed recording, The Beatles began to augment their recordings with instruments that were unconventional for rock music at the time. These included string and brass ensembles as well as Indian instruments such as the sitar as in "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" and the swarmandel as in "Strawberry Fields Forever". They also used early electronic instruments such as the Mellotron, with which McCartney supplied the flute voices on the intro to "Strawberry Fields Forever", and the ondioline, an electronic keyboard that created the unusual oboe-like sound on "Baby You're a Rich Man".

 

Beginning with the use of a string quartet (arranged by George Martin with input from McCartney) on "Yesterday" in 1965, The Beatles pioneered a modern form of art song, exemplified by the double-quartet string arrangement on "Eleanor Rigby" (1966), "Here, There and Everywhere" (1966) and "She's Leaving Home" (1967). A televised performance of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 directly inspired McCartney's use of a piccolo trumpet on the arrangement of "Penny Lane". The Beatles moved towards psychedelia with "Rain" and "Tomorrow Never Knows" from 1966, and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "I Am the Walrus" from 1967.

 

On film

 

Main article: The Beatles in film

 

The Beatles appeared in several films, all of which featured associated soundtrack albums. The band played themselves in two films directed by Richard Lester, A Hard Day's Night (1964) and Help! (1965). The group produced and starred in the hour-long television movie Magical Mystery Tour (1967), while the documentary Let It Be (released 1970) followed the rehearsals and recording sessions for the early 1969 Get Back project and won the Academy Award in 1971 for Best Original Song Score. In addition, the psychedelic animated film Yellow Submarine (1968) followed the adventures of a cartoon version of the band; the members did not provide their own voices, appearing only in a brief live-action epilogue.

 

During 1965-1969, the Beatles were the subject of a Saturday morning cartoon series, The Beatles, which loosely continued the kind of slapstick antics of A Hard Day's Night. Two Beatles songs were played in each half-hour show, with the Beatles' cartoon counterparts "lip-synching" the actual Beatles recordings. Some of the song performances, such as those from A Hard Day's Night, appeared to have been rotoscoped. The regular speaking voices of the characters were not supplied by the Beatles themselves, but rather by voice artists Paul Frees and Lance Percival.[105]

 

Achievements

 

* The Beatles are the world's best-selling musical group of all time, selling over a billion records worldwide. [106]

* The Beatles have had more number one albums (15) than any other group in UK chart history.[107]

* The Beatles broke television ratings records in the U.S. with their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show with over 73 million people viewing.[108]

 

Influence on popular culture

 

Main article: The Beatles' influence on popular culture

 

Radio

 

The arrival of The Beatles is seen in radio as a touchstone in music signalling an end to the rock-and-roll era of the 1950s. Program Directors like Rick Sklar of WABC in New York went as far as forbidding DJs from playing any "pre-Beatles" music.[109]

 

Recreational drug use

 

In Hamburg, The Beatles used "prellies" (Preludin) both recreationally and to maintain their energy through all-night performances.[110] McCartney would usually take one, but Lennon would often take four or five.[110] Bob Dylan introduced them to cannabis during a 1964 visit to New York.[111] McCartney remembered them all getting "very high" and giggling.[112] The Beatles occasionally smoked a joint in the car on the way to the studio during the filming of Help!, which often made them forget their lines.[113]

 

In April 1965, Lennon and Harrison were introduced to LSD by an acquaintance, dentist John Riley, who slipped some into their coffees.[114] Lennon in particular became an avid "tripper", claiming in a 1970 interview in Rolling Stone to have taken LSD hundreds of times. McCartney was more reluctant to try the drug, but finally did so in 1966 and was the first Beatle to talk about it in the press, saying in June 1967 that he took it four times.

 

The Beatles added their names to an advertisement in The Times, on 24 July 1967, which asked for the legalisation of cannabis, the release of all prisoners imprisoned because of possession, and research into marijuana's medical uses. The advertisement was sponsored by a group called Soma, and was signed by 65 people, including Brian Epstein, Graham Greene, R.D. Laing, 15 doctors, and two MPs.[115]

 

Discography

 

Main article: The Beatles discography

Further information: List of Beatles songs by singer, The Beatles record sales, worldwide charts, and The Beatles bootlegs

 

Song catalogue

 

Main article: Northern Songs

 

In 1963 Lennon and McCartney agreed to assign their song publishing rights to Northern Songs, a company created by music publisher Dick James.[116] The company was administered by James' own company Dick James Music. Northern Songs went public in 1965, with Lennon and McCartney each holding 15% of the company's shares Dick James and the company's chairman, Charles Silver, held a controlling 37.5%. In 1969, following a failed attempt by Lennon and McCartney to buy the company, James and Silver sold Northern Songs to British TV company Associated TeleVision (ATV), from which Lennon and McCartney received stock.

 

In 1985, after a short period in which the parent company was owned by Australian business magnate Robert Holmes à Court, ATV Music was sold to Michael Jackson for a reported $47 million[117] (trumping a joint bid by McCartney and Yoko Ono), including the publishing rights to over 200 songs composed by Lennon and McCartney.

 

A decade later Jackson and Sony merged its music publishing businesses.[117] Since 1995, Jackson and Sony/ATV Music Publishing have jointly owned most of the Lennon-McCartney songs recorded by The Beatles. Meanwhile, Lennon's estate and McCartney still receive their respective songwriter shares of the royalties. (Despite his ownership of most of the Lennon-McCartney publishing, Jackson has only recorded one Lennon-McCartney composition himself, "Come Together" which was featured in his film Moonwalker and HIStory album)

 

Although the Jackson-Sony catalogue includes most of The Beatles' greatest hits, four of their earliest songs had been published by one of EMI's publishing companies prior to Lennon and McCartney signing with Dick James — and McCartney later succeeded in personally acquiring the publishing rights to "Love Me Do", "Please Please Me", "P.S. I Love You" and "Ask Me Why" from EMI.

 

Harrison and Starr did not renew their songwriting contracts with Northern Songs in 1968, signing with Apple Publishing instead. Harrison later created Harrisongs, which still owns the rights to his post-1967 songs such as "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Something". Starr also created his own company, called Startling Music. It holds the rights to his two post-1967 songs recorded by The Beatles, "Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus's Garden".

 

The Beatles are one of the few major artists who have not released their recorded catalogue through online music services (for example, iTunes and Napster). Apple Corp's dispute with Apple, Inc. (the owners of iTunes) over the use of the name "Apple" has played a particular part in this. An uneasy truce between the two companies broke when Apple Computers opened the iTunes Store, after which Apple Corp sued Apple, Inc. This was resolved in February 2007, with Apple Computer owning the Apple name but licensing it back to Apple Records. Following the resolution, several solo albums by Lennon and McCartney were released to the iTunes Music Store. As of November 2007, all of the band members' solo catalogues have been released on iTunes.

 

Studio albums

 

* Please Please Me (Parlophone, 1963)

* With the Beatles (Parlophone, 1963)

* A Hard Day's Night (Parlophone, 1964)

* Beatles for Sale (Parlophone, 1964)

* Help! (Parlophone, 1965)

* Rubber Soul (Parlophone, 1965)

* Revolver (Parlophone, 1966)

* Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Parlophone, 1967)

* Magical Mystery Tour (U.S. only. Released as a Double EP in the UK) (Capitol, 1967)

* The Beatles ("The White Album") (Apple, 1968)

* Yellow Submarine (Apple, 1969)

* Abbey Road (Apple, 1969)

* Let It Be (Apple, 1970)

 

CD releases

 

In 1987, EMI released all of The Beatles' studio albums on CD worldwide. Apple Corps decided to standardize The Beatles catalogue throughout the world. They chose to release the twelve original studio albums as released in the United Kingdom, as well as the Magical Mystery Tour U.S. album, which had been released as a shorter Double EP in the UK. All of the remaining Beatles material from the singles and EPs from 1962–1970 which had not been issued on the original British studio albums were gathered on the Past Masters double album compilation:

 

* Past Masters, Volume One (1988)

* Past Masters, Volume Two (1988)

 

The U.S. album configurations from 1964-65 were released as box sets in 2004 and 2006 (The Capitol Albums Volume 1 and Volume 2 respectively); these included both stereo and mono versions based on the mixes that were prepared for vinyl at the time of their original 1960s releases in the United States.

Elvis Presley

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This article is about the singer. For other uses, see Elvis Presley (disambiguation).

Elvis Presley

Elvis in 1970

Elvis in 1970

Background information

Birth name Elvis Aaron Presley[1]

Also known as Elvis, "The King", Elvis (the) Pelvis

Born January 8, 1935(1935-01-08)

Tupelo, Mississippi, USA

Origin Memphis, Tennessee, USA

Died August 16, 1977 (aged 42)

Memphis, Tennessee, USA

Genre(s) Rockabilly

Rock and roll

Gospel

Blues

Country

Occupation(s) Singer, Actor

Instrument(s) Vocals, Guitar, Piano

Years active 1953–1977

Label(s) Sun, RCA Victor

Website Elvis.com

 

Elvis Aaron Presley[1][2] (January 8, 1935–August 16, 1977), sometimes written Aron,a was an American singer, musician and actor. He is considered a cultural icon, sometimes referred to as "The King of Rock 'n' Roll", or simply "The King".

 

Presley began his career as one of the first performers of rockabilly, an uptempo fusion of country and rhythm and blues with a strong back beat. His novel versions of existing songs, mixing "black" and "white" sounds, made him popular—and controversial—as did his uninhibited stage and television performances. He recorded songs in the rock and roll genre, with tracks like "Hound Dog" and "Jailhouse Rock" later embodying the style. Presley had a versatile voice and had unusually wide success encompassing other genres, including gospel, blues, ballads and pop. To date, he has been inducted into four music halls of fame.

 

In the 1960s, Presley made the majority of his thirty-one movies—mainly poorly reviewed, but financially successful, musicals. In 1968, he returned with acclaim to live music in a television special, and thereafter performed across the U.S., notably in Las Vegas. Throughout his career, he set records for concert attendance, television ratings and recordings sales. He is one of the best-selling and most influential artists in the history of popular music. Health problems plagued Presley in later life which, coupled with a punishing tour schedule and addiction to prescription medication, led to his premature death at age 42.

Contents

[hide]

 

* 1 Biography

o 1.1 Early life

o 1.2 Early musical influences

o 1.3 First recordings and performances

o 1.4 Breakthrough, 1956

o 1.5 Controversial King

o 1.6 Military service and mother's death

o 1.7 Acting career

o 1.8 Sex symbol

o 1.9 Family

o 1.10 Influence of Colonel Parker and others

o 1.11 1968 comeback

o 1.12 1970's

o 1.13 Aloha From Hawaii

o 1.14 Divorce from Priscilla

o 1.15 Final year and death

* 2 Legacy

* 3 Discography

* 4 See also

* 5 Notes

* 6 Footnotes

* 7 References

* 8 Further reading

* 9 External links

 

Biography

 

Early life

 

Elvis Presley was of German, Scottish, French, Jewish and Cherokee ancestry.[3][4][5][6][7] Presley's father, Vernon (April 10, 1916–June 26, 1979), had several low-paying jobs, including sharecropper and truck driver. His mother, Gladys Love Smith (April 25, 1912–August 14, 1958) worked as a sewing machine operator. They met in Tupelo, Mississippi, and eloped to Pontotoc County where they married on June 17, 1933.[8][9]

 

Presley was born in a two room house, built by his father, in East Tupelo. He was an identical twin—his brother was stillborn and given the name Jesse Garon. He grew up as an only child and "was, everyone agreed, unusually close to his mother."[10] The family lived just above the poverty line and attended an Assembly of God church.[11] Vernon has been described as "a malingerer, always averse to work and responsibility."[12] In 1938, he was jailed for an eight dollar check forgery. During his absence, his wife, described as "voluble, lively, full of spunk",[13] lost the family home.[14] Priscilla Presley recalls her as "a surreptitious drinker and alcoholic."[15]

 

Presley was bullied at school; classmates threw "things at him—rotten fruit and stuff—because he was different... quiet and he stuttered and he was a mama's boy."[16]

 

At age ten, he made his first public performance in a singing contest at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show. Dressed as a cowboy, the young Presley had to stand on a chair to reach the microphone and sang Red Foley's "Old Shep." He won second prize.[17]

 

In 1946, Presley got his first guitar.[18] He had wanted a bicycle or rifle for his birthday, but his parents could only afford a guitar.[19][20] In September 1948 the family moved to Memphis, Tennessee[19], allegedly because Vernon—in addition to needing work—had to escape the law for transporting bootleg liquor.[14][21] In 1949, they lived at Lauderdale Courts, a public housing development in one of Memphis' poorer sections. Presley practiced playing guitar in the laundry room and also played in a five-piece band with other tenants.[22] Another resident, Johnny Burnette, recalled, "Wherever Elvis went he'd have his guitar slung across his back... [H]e'd go in to one of the cafes or bars... Then some folks would say: 'Let's hear you sing, boy.'"[23] Presley attended L. C. Humes High School, but fellow students viewed the young singer's performing unfavorably: one recalled that he was "a sad, shy, not especially attractive boy" whose guitar playing was not likely to win any prizes. Some children made fun of him as a 'trashy' kind of boy playing 'trashy' hillbilly music."[24] Others, however, "would beg him" to sing, but Presley was apparently too shy to perform.[25]

 

Presley occasionally worked evenings to boost the family income.[26] He began to grow his sideburns and dress in the wild, flashy clothes of Lansky Brothers on Beale Street, when he could afford to.[27] He stood out, especially in the conservative Deep South of the 1950s, and was mocked and bullied for it.[22] Despite any unpopularity or shyness, he was a contestant in his school's 1952 "Annual Minstrel Show"[22] and won by receiving the most applause and thus an encore (he sang "Cold Cold Icy Fingers" and "Till I Waltz Again With You").[23]

 

After graduation, Presley was still rather shy, a "kid who had spent scarcely a night away from home".[28] His third job was driving a truck for the Crown Electric Company. He began wearing his hair longer with a "ducktail"—the style of truck drivers at that time.[29]

 

Early musical influences

 

Initial influences came through his family's attendance at the Assembly of God, a Pentecostal Holiness church.[10] Rolling Stone wrote: "Gospel pervaded Elvis' character and was a defining and enduring influence all of his days."[30] During breaks at recording sessions or after concerts, Presley often joined in private with others for informal gospel music sessions.[31]

 

The young Presley frequently listened to local radio; his first musical hero was family friend Mississippi Slim, a hillbilly singer with a radio show on Tupelo’s WELO. Presley performed occasionally on Slim’s Saturday morning show, Singin’ and Pickin’ Hillbilly. "He was crazy about music... That’s all he talked about," recalls his sixth grade friend, James Ausborn, Slim’s younger brother.[32] Before he was a teenager, music was already Presley’s "consuming passion".[32] J. R. Snow, son of 1940s country superstar Hank Snow, recalls that even as a young man Presley knew all of Hank Snow’s songs, "even the most obscure".[33]

 

In Memphis, Presley went to record stores that had jukeboxes and listening booths, playing old records and new releases for hours. He was an audience member at the all-night black and white "gospel sings" downtown.[34] Memphis Symphony Orchestra concerts at Overton Park were another Presley favorite, along with the Metropolitan Opera. His small record collection included Mario Lanza and Dean Martin. Presley later said, "I just loved music. Music period."[32]

 

Memphis had a strong tradition of blues music and Presley went to blues as well as hillbilly venues. Many of his future recordings were inspired by local African American composers and recording artists, including Arthur Crudup, Rufus Thomas and B.B. King.[35] King says that he "knew Elvis before he was popular. He used to come around and be around us a lot ... on Beale Street."[36]

 

Presley "was an untrained musician who played entirely by ear. 'I don't read music,' he confessed, 'but I know what I like.' ... Because he was not a songwriter, Presley [would] rarely [have] material prepared for recording sessions..." When later, as a young singer, he "ventured into the recording studio he was heavily influenced by the songs he had heard on the jukebox and radio."[37]

 

First recordings and performances

 

Main article: Elvis Presley's Sun recordings

 

On July 18, 1953, Presley went to Sun Records' Memphis Recording Service to record "My Happiness" with "That's When Your Heartaches Begin", supposedly a present for his mother.[38] During his initial introduction at Sun Records, the receptionist Marion Keisker asked him who he sounded like. Presley replied: "I don't sound like nobody."[39] On January 4, 1954, he cut a second acetate. Sun Records boss Sam Phillips was on the lookout for someone who could deliver a blend of black blues and boogie-woogie music; he thought it would be very popular among white people.[40] Keisker called Presley on June 26, 1954. After an inauspicious session, Phillips invited local musicians Winfield "Scotty" Moore and Bill Black to audition Presley. Though they were not overly impressed, a studio session was planned.[41]

 

During a recording break, Presley began "acting the fool" first with Arthur Crudup's "That's All Right (Mama)".[42] Phillips got them all to restart and began taping. This was the sound he had been looking for.[43] The group recorded other songs, including Bill Monroe's "Blue Moon of Kentucky". "That's All Right" was aired on July 8, 1954, by DJ Dewey Phillips.[44]b After its release, both sides of "That's All Right"/"Blue Moon of Kentucky" began to chart across the South.[45]

 

Moore and Black began playing regularly with Presley. They gave a few performances in July 1954 to promote the Sun single at the Bon Air, a rowdy music club where the band was not well-received.[46] On July 30 the trio, billed as The Blue Moon Boys, made their first appearance at the Overton Park Shell, with Slim Whitman headlining.[47] A nervous Presley's legs were said to have shaken uncontrollably during this show: his wide-legged pants emphasized his leg movements, apparently causing females in the audience to go "crazy".[48] Scotty Moore claims it was just the natural way he moved and had nothing to do with "nerves."[49] Presley consciously incorporated similar movements into future shows.[50]

 

DJ and promoter Bob Neal became the trio's manager (replacing Scotty Moore). Moore and Black left their band, the Starlite Wranglers and, from August through October 1954, appeared with Presley at The Eagle's Nest.[46] Presley debuted at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville on October 2; Hank Snow introduced Presley on stage. He performed "Blue Moon of Kentucky" but received only a polite response. Afterwards, the singer was allegedly told by the Opry's Jim Denny: "Boy, you’d better keep driving that truck."[51], though others deny it was Denny.[52] Country music promoter and manager Tillman Franks booked Presley for the Louisiana Hayride on October 16. Before Franks saw Presley, he referred to him as "that new black singer with the funny name".[53] During Presley's first set, the reaction was muted; for the second, Franks advised Presley to "Let it all go!" As house drummer D.J. Fontana (who had worked in strip clubs) complemented Presley's movements with accented beats and Bill Black engaged in his usual stage antics, the crowd was more responsive.[54][55]

 

According to one source, "Audiences had never before heard [such] music... [or] seen anyone who performed like Presley either. The shy, polite, mumbling boy gained self-confidence with every appearance... People watching the show were astounded and shocked, both by the ferocity of his performance, and the crowd’s reaction to it... Roy Orbison saw Presley for the first time in Odessa, Texas: 'His energy was incredible, his instinct was just amazing... I just didn’t know what to make of it. There was just no reference point in the culture to compare it.'"[56] Sam Phillips said Presley "put every ounce of emotion ... into every song, almost as if he was incapable of holding back."[57]

 

Breakthrough, 1956

The iconic cover of Elvis Presley's debut RCA Victor album. Photo taken on January 31, 1955

The iconic cover of Elvis Presley's debut RCA Victor album. Photo taken on January 31, 1955

 

Presley's sound proved hard to categorize; he was billed or labeled in the media as "The King of Western Bop", "The Hillbilly Cat" and "The Memphis Flash". He was also dubbed "Elvis the Pelvis" which Presley disliked, calling it "one of the most childish expressions I ever heard."[58]

 

On August 15, 1955, "Colonel" Tom Parker became Presley's manager. By August 1955, Sun Studios had released ten sides credited to "Elvis Presley, Scotty and Bill", all typical of the developing Presley style. Several major record labels had shown interest in signing Presley. On November 21, 1955, Parker and Phillips negotiated a deal with RCA Victor Records to acquire Presley's Sun contract for an unprecedented $40,000, $5,000 of which was a bonus for the singer[59] (Presley was under 21 at the time and still a minor, so his father had to sign the contract.[60])

 

To increase the singer's exposure, Parker finally brought Presley to television (In March 1955, Presley had failed an audition for Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts). He booked six Dorsey Brothers' Stage Show appearances (CBS), beginning January 28, 1956, when Presley was introduced by Cleveland DJ Bill Randle. Parker also obtained a lucrative two-show deal with Milton Berle (NBC).

 

On January 27, Presley's first RCA Victor single, "Heartbreak Hotel," was released. By April it hit number one in the U.S., and sold one million copies. On March 23, RCA Victor released Elvis Presley, his first album. Like the Sun recordings, the majority of the tracks were country songs.[61]

 

From April 23, he had two weeks at the New Frontier Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip—billed this time as "the Atomic Powered Singer". His shows were badly received, by critics and the conservative guests. Presley saw Freddie Bell and the Bellboys live in Vegas, and liked their version of Leiber and Stoller's "Hound Dog". By May 16, he had added the song to his own act.[62]

 

A few days after an April 3 appearance for The Milton Berle Show in San Diego, a near-fatal flight taking Presley's band to Nashville for a recording session left all three badly shaken.[63] After more hectic touring, Presley returned to The Milton Berle Show on June 5 and performed "Hound Dog" (without his guitar). Singing it uptempo, he then began a slower version. His exaggerated, straight-legged shuffle around the microphone stand stirred the audience—as did his vigorous leg shaking and hip thrusts in time to the beat. Presley's "gyrations" created a storm of controversy—even eclipsing the 'communist threat' headlines prevalent at the time.[64] The press described his performance as "vulgar" and "obscene".[64][65] Presley was obliged to explain himself on the local New York City TV show Hy Gardner Calling: "Rock and roll music, if you like it, and you feel it, you can't help but move to it. That's what happens to me. I have to move around. I can't stand still. I've tried it, and I can't do it."[66]

 

The Berle shows drew such huge ratings that Steve Allen (NBC), not a fan of rock and roll, booked him for one appearance in New York. Allen wanted "to do a show the whole family can watch" and introduced a "new Elvis" in white bow tie and black tails. Presley sang "Hound Dog" for less than a minute to a Basset Hound in a top hat. According to one author, "Allen thought Presley was talentless and absurd... [he] set things up so that Presley would show his contrition..."[67][68] The day after (July 2), the single "Hound Dog" was recorded and Scotty Moore said they were "all angry about their treatment the previous night".[68] (Presley often referred to the Allen show as the most ridiculous performance of his career.[66]) A few days later, Presley made a "triumphant" outdoor appearance in Memphis at which he announced: "You know, those people in New York are not gonna change me none. I'm gonna show you what the real Elvis is like tonight."[69]

 

Country vocalists The Jordanaires accompanied Presley on The Steve Allen Show and their first recording session together produced "Any Way You Want Me", "Don't Be Cruel" and "Hound Dog". The Jordanaires would work with the singer through the 1960s.

 

Though Presley had been unhappy, Allen's show had, for the first time, beaten The Ed Sullivan Show in the ratings, causing a critical Sullivan (CBS) to book Presley for three appearances for an unprecedented $50,000.[70]

 

Presley's first Ed Sullivan appearance (September 9, 1956) was seen by some 55–60 million viewers. "Compared to moments on the Dorsey shows and on the Berle show, it was ice cream."[71] On the third Sullivan show, Presley sang only slow paced ballads and a gospel song.[72] The fact that Presley was only shown from the waist up and "stepped out in the outlandish costume of a pasha, if not a harem girl" during this last broadcast has led to claims that Sullivan had "censored" or even "buried" the singer,[73] or that Colonel Parker had orchestrated the episode to generate publicity.[74][75] In spite of any misgivings about the controversial nature of his performing style, Sullivan declared at the end of the third appearance that Presley was "a real decent, fine boy" and that they had never had "a pleasanter experience" on the show.[75]

 

Controversial King

 

Main article: Cultural impact of Elvis Presley

 

When "That's All Right" was played, many listeners were sure Presley must be black, and most white disc-jockeys wouldn't play his Sun singles. However, black disc-jockeys didn't want anything to do with a record made by a white man.[76] To some, Presley had undoubtedly "stolen" or at least "derived his style from the Negro rhythm-and-blues performers of the late 1940s."[77] Some black entertainers, notably Jackie Wilson, countered, "A lot of people have accused Elvis of stealing the black man’s music, when in fact, almost every black solo entertainer copied his stage mannerisms from Elvis."[78]e

Crowd frenzy at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show, 1956

Crowd frenzy at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show, 1956

 

By the spring of 1956, Presley was becoming popular nationwide and teenagers flocked to his concerts. Scotty Moore recalled: "He’d start out, 'You ain’t nothin’ but a Hound Dog,' and they’d just go to pieces. They’d always react the same way. There’d be a riot every time."[79] Bob Neal wrote: "It was almost frightening, the reaction... from teenage boys. So many of them, through some sort of jealousy, would practically hate him." In Lubbock, Texas, a teenage gang fire-bombed Presley's car.[80] Some performers became resentful (or resigned to the fact) that Presley going on stage before them would "kill" their own act; he thus rose quickly to top billing.[80] At the two concerts he performed at the 1956 Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show, one hundred National Guardsmen were on hand to prevent crowd trouble.[81]

 

To many adults, the singer was "the first rock symbol of teenage rebellion. ... they did not like him, and condemned him as depraved. Anti-Negro prejudice doubtless figured in adult antagonism. Regardless of whether parents were aware of the Negro sexual origins of the phrase 'rock 'n' roll', Presley impressed them as the visual and aural embodiment of sex."[82] In 1956, a critic for the New York Daily News wrote that popular music "has reached its lowest depths in the 'grunt and groin' antics of one Elvis Presley" and the Jesuits denounced him in its weekly magazine, America.[83] Even Frank Sinatra opined: "His kind of music is deplorable, a rancid smelling aphrodisiac. It fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people."[84] Presley responded to this (and other derogatory comments Sinatra made) by saying: "I admire the man. He has a right to say what he wants to say. He is a great success and a fine actor, but I think he shouldn't have said it... This [rock and roll] is a trend, just the same as he faced when he started years ago."[85]

 

Presley was even seen as a "definite danger to the security of the United States." His actions and motions were called "a strip-tease with clothes on" or "sexual self-gratification on stage." They were compared with "masturbation or riding a microphone." Some saw the singer as a sexual pervert, and psychologists feared that teenaged girls and boys could easily be "aroused to sexual indulgence and perversion by certain types of motions and hysteria—the type that was exhibited at the Presley show."[86] In August 1956, a Florida judge called Presley a "savage" and threatened to arrest him if he shook his body while performing in Jacksonville. The judge declared that Presley's music was undermining the youth of America. Throughout the performance (which was filmed by police), he kept still as ordered, except for wiggling a finger in mockery at the ruling.[87] (Presley recalls this incident during the '68 Comeback Special.)

Presley in a promotional photo for Jailhouse Rock released by MGM on November 8, 1957

Presley in a promotional photo for Jailhouse Rock released by MGM on November 8, 1957

 

In 1957, Presley even faced accusations of racism when he was alleged to have said: "The only thing Negro people can do for me is to buy my records and shine my shoes." The singer always denied saying, or ever wanting to say, such a racist remark. Jet magazine, run by and for African Americans, subsequently investigated the story and found no basis to the claim. However, the Jet journalist did find plenty of testimony that Presley judged people "regardless of race, color or creed".[88]

 

His parents moved home in Memphis, but the singer lived there briefly. With increased concerns over privacy and security, Graceland was bought in 1957, a mansion with several acres of land. This was Presley's primary residence until his death.

 

Presley's record sales grew quickly throughout the late 1950s, with hits like "All Shook Up", "(Let me Be Your) Teddy Bear" and "Too Much".

 

Military service and mother's death

 

On December 20, 1957, Presley received his draft notice. Hal Wallis and Paramount Pictures had already spent $350,000 on the film King Creole, and did not want to suspend or cancel the project. The Memphis Draft Board granted Presley a deferment to finish it. On March 24, 1958, he was inducted as US Army private #53310761 and completed basic training at Fort Hood, Texas on September 17, 1958, before being posted to Friedberg, Germany with the 3rd Armored Division, where his service took place from October 1958 until March 2, 1960.[89]

 

Presley had chosen not to join 'Special Services', which would have allowed him to avoid certain duties and maintain his public profile.[90] He continued to receive massive media coverage, with much speculation echoing Presley's own concerns about his enforced absence damaging his career. However, early in 1958, RCA Victor producer Steve Sholes and Hill and Range "song searcher" Freddy Bienstock had both pushed for recording sessions and strong song material, the aim being to release regular hit recordings during Presley's two-year hiatus.[91] Hit singles—and six albums—duly followed during that period.

 

As Presley's fame grew, his mother continued to drink excessively and began to gain weight. She had wanted her son to succeed, "but... [the] hysteria of the crowd frightened her."[92] In early August 1958, doctors had diagnosed hepatitis and her condition worsened. Presley was granted emergency leave to visit her, arriving in Memphis on August 12. Two days later, Gladys Presley died of heart failure, aged forty-six. Presley was distraught, "grieving almost constantly" for days.[93]

 

Some months later, in Germany, "[a] sergeant had introduced [Presley] to amphetamines when they were on maneuvers at Grafenwöhr... it seemed like half the guys in the company were taking them." Friends around Presley, like Joe Esposito, also began taking them, "if only to keep up with Elvis, who was practically evangelical about their benefits."[94] The army also introduced Presley to karate—something which he studied seriously, even including it in his later live performances.[95]f

 

In 2008, it was claimed that Presley had flown to London (1958) for a one-day trip: his only visit to the UK was thought to have been a stop-over at Prestwick Airport, Scotland in 1960. Tommy Steele, (Presley's alleged chaperone) said that he'd sworn not to divulge details of the visit.[96] Friends of Presley, including Army buddy Lamar Fike, insist that the trip never took place.[97]

 

Presley returned to the U.S. on March 2, 1960, and was honorably discharged with the rank of sergeant on March 5.[98] Recording sessions in March and April yielded some of his best-selling songs—including "It's Now or Never". Although some tracks were uptempo, none could be described as "rock and roll". Most found their way on to an album—Elvis is Back!—described by one critic as "a triumph on every level... It was as if Elvis had... broken down the barriers of genre and prejudice to express everything he heard in all the kinds of music he loved".[99] The album was also notable because of Homer Boots Randolph's acclaimed saxophone solo during the blues standard "Reconsider Baby".

 

Acting career

 

See also: Elvis Presley filmography

 

In 1956, Presley launched his career as a film actor, beginning with the musical western, Love Me Tender. It was panned by the critics but did well at the box office.[100] The original title—The Reno Brothers—was changed because of the advanced sales of the song "Love Me Tender". The majority of Presley's films were musical comedies made to "sell records and produce high revenues."[101] He also appeared in more dramatic films, like Jailhouse Rock and King Creole. The erotic, if not homoerotic[102], dance sequence on the song "Jailhouse Rock", which Presley choreographed himself, "is considered by many as his greatest performance ever captured on film."[103] To maintain box office success, he even "shifted into beefcake formula comedy mode for a few years."[104] He also made one non-musical western, Charro!.

 

Presley effectively stopped live performing after his Army service, with the exception, ironically (given Sinatra's previously scathing criticism), of a guest appearance on The Frank Sinatra Timex Show: Welcome Home Elvis (1960) (He also performed three charity concerts—two in Memphis and one in Pearl Harbor (1961).[105])

 

In the Army, Presley had said on many occasions that "more than anything, he wanted to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor."[106] His manager, with an eye on long-term earnings, negotiated a multi-picture seven-year contract with Hal Wallis.[107] Although Presley was praised by directors, like Michael Curtiz, as polite and hardworking (and as having an exceptional memory), "he was definitely not the most talented actor around."[108]

 

The Presley vehicles, and the AIP beach movies (which were mainly made for an early sixties teenage audience) were generally criticized as a "pantheon of bad taste."[109] The scripts of his movies "were all the same, the songs progressively worse."[110] Sight and Sound wrote that in his movies "Elvis Presley, aggressively bisexual in appeal, knowingly erotic, [was] acting like a crucified houri and singing with a kind of machine-made surrealism."[111] Others noted that the songs seemed to be "written on order by men who never really understood Elvis or rock and roll."[112] For Blue Hawaii, "fourteen songs were cut in just three days."[113] Julie Parrish, who appeared in Paradise, Hawaiian Style, says that Presley hated such songs and that he "couldn't stop laughing while he was recording" one of them.[114] Critics would later claim that "No major star suffered through more bad movies than Elvis Presley."[115]

Elvis in the film Viva Las Vegas (1964)

Elvis in the film Viva Las Vegas (1964)

 

Presley movies were nevertheless very popular, and he "became a film genre of his own."[116] Elvis on celluloid was the only chance to see him in the absence of live appearances, especially outside of the U.S. (the only time he toured outside of the U.S. was in Canada in 1957). His Blue Hawaii even "boosted the new state's tourism. Some of his most enduring and popular songs came from those [kind of] movies," like "Can't Help Falling in Love," "Return to Sender" and "Viva Las Vegas."[117] His 1960s films and soundtracks grossed some $280 million.[118]

 

In 1964, Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole had starred in Hal Wallis' Becket. Wallis admitted to the press that the financing of such quality productions was only possible by making a series of profitable B-movies starring Presley. He branded Wallis "a double-dealing sonofabitch" (and he thought little better of Tom Parker), realizing there had never been any intention to let him develop into a serious actor.[119]

 

Presley was one of the highest paid actors during the 1960s, but times were changing. "[The] Elvis Presley film was becoming passé. Young people were tuning in, dropping out and doing acid. Musical acts like Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, The Doors, Janis Joplin and many others were dominating the airwaves. Elvis Presley was not considered cool as he once was."[120] Priscilla Presley recalls: "He blamed his fading popularity on his humdrum movies" and "... loathed their stock plots and short shooting schedules." She also notes: "He could have demanded better, more substantial scripts, but he didn't."[121]

 

Presley's final movie role was in Change of Habit (1969). His last two films were concert documentaries in the early 1970s, though Presley was keen to consider dramatic movie roles.[122]g

 

As well as the formulaic movie songs of the 1960s, Presley did make noteworthy studio recordings, including "Suspicion," "(You're the) Devil in Disguise" and "It Hurts Me." In 1966 he recorded a cover of Bob Dylan's "Tomorrow is a Long Time" (which RCA Victor relegated to a bonus track on the soundtrack album for Spinout). He also produced two gospel albums: His Hand in Mine (1960) and How Great Thou Art (1966). In 1967, he recorded some well-received singles in collaboration with songwriter/guitar player Jerry Reed, including Reed's "Guitar Man." However, "during the Beatles era (1963-70), only six Elvis singles reached number ten or better. 'Suspicious Minds' was the lone number one."[123]

 

Sex symbol

 

Main article: Relationships of Elvis Presley

 

Presley's sexual attraction and photogenic looks have been acknowledged. Director Steve Binder, not a fan of Presley's music at the time, recalled from the '68 Comeback Special: "I'm straight as an arrow and I got to tell you, you stop, whether you're male or female, to look at him. He was that good looking. And if you never knew he was a superstar, it wouldn't make any difference; if he'd walked in the room, you'd know somebody special was in your presence."[124]

 

Accounts of Presley's numerous sexual conquests may be exaggerated[125][126] Cybill Shepherd reveals that Presley kissed her all over her naked body - but refused to have oral sex with her.[127]. Girlfriends Judy Spreckels and June Juanico had no sexual relationships with Presley. Byron Raphael and Alanna Nash have stated that the star "would never put himself inside one of these girls..."[128] Cassandra Peterson ("Elvira") says she knew Presley for only one night, but all they did was talk.[129] Peggy Lipton claims that he was "virtually impotent" with her, but she attributed this to his boyishness and drug misuse.[130] Guralnick concurs with others, "he wasn't really interested", preferring to lie in bed, watch television and talk.[131]

 

Ann-Margret (Presley's co-star in Viva Las Vegas) refers to Presley as her "soulmate" but has revealed little else.[132] A publicity campaign about Presley and Margret's romance was launched during the filming of Viva Las Vegas,[133] which helped to increase Margret's popularity.[134][135] Presley apparently dated many female co-stars for publicity purposes.[136] Lori Williams dated him for a while in 1964. She says their "courtship was not some bizarre story. It was very sweet and Elvis was the perfect gentleman."[137]

 

Family

 

Main articles: Priscilla Presley and Lisa Marie Presley

 

Priscilla Beaulieu Presley had stayed with Presley during the 1960s (they had first met in Germany, when she was only fourteen). They married on May 1, 1967, in Las Vegas. A daughter, Lisa Marie, was born nine months later. Even Priscilla has claimed that the singer was not overly active sexually during their five-year marriage.[138]

 

Influence of Colonel Parker and others

 

Main articles: Colonel Tom Parker, Memphis Mafia

 

By 1967, Colonel Tom Parker had negotiated a contract that gave him 50% of Presley's earnings. Much has been written about the suspect nature of Parker's business practices. His dubious origins and gambling addictions in particular—and his subsequent need to have Presley signed up to commercially lucrative contracts—may well have adversely affected the course of Presley's career.t It has been claimed that Presley's original band was fired because Parker wanted to isolate the singer from anyone who might offer him a better management deal.[139]

 

Marty Lacker, one of a coterie of Presley's trusted friends known as the "Memphis Mafia", regarded Colonel Parker as a "hustler and scam artist" who abused Presley's trust, but Lacker acknowledged that Parker was a master promoter.[140] Priscilla Presley noted that "Elvis detested the business side of his career. He would sign a contract without even reading it."[141] Interestingly, Presley personally didn't like several songs he had to sing. Jerry Schilling, another Memphis Mafia member, relates that one way to arouse the wrath of the singer was to play one of his own recordings at his parties. "Get that crap off," was his reaction on one occasion when someone played "All Shook Up" on a jukebox. "There was no doubt he was really angry." Schilling thinks that Presley "lived with his music outside of the house—he didn't need to hear it while he was trying to relax in his own basement."[142]

 

Presley's father distrusted the members of the "Memphis Mafia"; he thought they collectively exercised an unhealthy influence over his son.[143] "t was no wonder" that as the singer "slid into addiction and torpor, no one raised the alarm: to them, Elvis was the bank, and it had to remain open."[144] Musician Tony Brown noted the urgent need to reverse Presley's declining health as the singer toured in the mid-1970s. "But we all knew it was hopeless because Elvis was surrounded by that little circle of people... all those so-called friends and... bodyguards."[145]

 

Larry Geller became Presley's hairdresser in 1964. Unlike Presley's generally down-to-earth buddies, Geller was interested in 'spiritual studies'.[146] From their first conversation, Geller recalls how Presley revealed his secret thoughts and anxieties, how "there's got to be a reason... why I was chosen to be Elvis Presley.'"[146] He then poured out his heart in "an almost painful rush of words and emotions," telling Geller about his mother and the hollowness of his Hollywood life, things he could not share with anyone around him. Thereafter, Presley voraciously read books Geller supplied, on religion and mysticism. Perhaps most tellingly, he revealed to Geller: "I swear to God, no one knows how lonely I get and how empty I really feel."[147] Presley would be preoccupied by such matters for much of his life, taking trunkloads of books with him on tour.[148]

 

Presley's spirituality also led him to investigate Mormonism. He was close to the Osmond family, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A copy of the Book of Mormon owned by Presley with handwritten notes was given to Alan Osmond after his death, and eventually ended up in the church's archives in Salt Lake City. A second copy may have also been given to the King by Ed Parker, Elvis' karate instructor.[149][150]

 

In 1969, record producer Chips Moman of American Studios, Memphis, was particularly critical of the song choices and staff of Hill and Range, Presley's main music publisher. Moman could only get the best out of Presley when he got the "aggravating" publishing personnel out of the studio.[151] RCA Victor executive Joan Deary was later full of praise for the superior results of Moman's work but despite this, no producer was to override Hill and Range's control again.[152]

 

1968 comeback

 

Main article: Elvis Presley's '68 Comeback Special

 

Elvis Presley in his '68 Comeback Special, airing on NBC, December 3, 1968

Elvis Presley in his '68 Comeback Special, airing on NBC, December 3, 1968

 

By mid-1968, Presley's recording career was floundering; he had become deeply unhappy with his career.[119] In the summer, he made a Christmas telecast on NBC. Later dubbed the '68 Comeback Special, and airing on December 3, 1968, the show featured lavishly staged productions, but also saw Presley clad in black leather, performing live in an uninhibited style reminiscent of his rock and roll days. Rolling Stone called it "a performance of emotional grandeur and historical resonance."[30] Its success was helped by director and co-producer, Steve Binder, who worked hard to reassure the nervous singer[124]n and to produce a show that was not just an hour of Christmas songs, as Colonel Parker had originally planned.[153][154]

 

Buoyed by the experience, Presley engaged in the prolific series of recording sessions at American Studios, which lead to the acclaimed From Elvis in Memphis (Chips Moman was its uncredited producer).[155] It was followed by From Memphis To Vegas/From Vegas To Memphis, a double-album.

 

The same sessions lead to the hit singles "In the Ghetto", "Suspicious Minds", "Kentucky Rain" and "Don't Cry Daddy".

 

In 1969, Presley made record-breaking appearances in Las Vegas.[156]h He then toured across the U.S. up to his death, with many of the 1,145 concerts setting venue attendance records. He also had hit singles in many countries. Presley's song repertoire was criticized, indicating he was still distant from trends within contemporary music.[157]

 

1970's

Elvis Presley, in Aloha From Hawaii television broadcast via satellite on January 14, 1973

Elvis Presley, in Aloha From Hawaii television broadcast via satellite on January 14, 1973

 

On December 21, 1970, Presley met with President Richard Nixon at the White House (Presley arrived with a gift—a handgun. It was accepted but not presented for security reasons). Presley had engineered the encounter to express his patriotism, his contempt for the hippie drug culture and his wish to be appointed a "Federal Agent at Large". He also wished to obtain a Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs badge to add to similar items he had begun collecting. He offered to "infiltrate hippie groups" and claimed that The Beatles had "made their money, then gone back to England where they fomented anti-American feeling."[158] Nixon was uncertain and bemused by their encounter, and twice expressed concern that Presley needed to "retain his credibility".[158][159]

 

MGM filmed him in Las Vegas for a 1970 documentary: Elvis: That’s The Way It Is. As he toured, more gold record awards followed. In 1971, Presley was named 'One of the Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Nation' by the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce (The Jaycees). That summer, the City of Memphis named part of Highway 51 South "Elvis Presley Boulevard", and he won the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (the organization that presents Grammy awards).

 

MGM filmed other shows for Elvis on Tour, which won a Golden Globe for Best Documentary, 1972. A fourteen-date tour started with an unprecedented four consecutive sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden, New York. After the tour, Presley released the 1972 single "Burning Love"—his last top ten hit in the U.S. charts.

 

Aloha From Hawaii

 

In January 1973, Presley held two concerts in Hawaii to raise money for the Kui Lee cancer foundation. The first concert was on January 12 and used primarily as a practice run for the main show which was to be broadcast live on January 14. The first show was also filmed with the intention of using it as a backup if there were technical problems with the live broadcast. The "Aloha from Hawaii" concert was the first satellite broadcast, reaching at least a billion viewers live and a further 500 million on delay. The show's album went to number one and spent a year in the charts. The album also proved to be Presley's last US Number One album during his lifetime.

 

Divorce from Priscilla

 

Off stage, Presley had continuing problems. In spite of his own infidelity, Presley was furious that Priscilla was having an affair with a mutual acquaintance—Mike Stone, a karate instructor. He raged obsessively: "There's too much pain in me... Stone [must] die."[160] A bodyguard, Red West, felt compelled to get a price for a contract killing and was relieved when Presley decided: "Aw hell... Maybe it's a bit heavy..."[161] The Presleys separated on February 23, 1972, agreeing to share custody of their daughter. Around this time the singer became "inseparable" from Linda Thompson, one-time Memphis beauty queen, until just a few months before his death.[162]

Elvis meets U.S. President Richard Nixon in the White House Oval Office, December 21, 1970

Elvis meets U.S. President Richard Nixon in the White House Oval Office, December 21, 1970

 

After his divorce in 1973, Presley became increasingly isolated and overweight, with prescription drugs affecting his health, mood and his stage act. He overdosed twice on barbiturates, spending three days in a coma in his hotel suite after the first.[148] Despite this, his "thundering" live version of "How Great Thou Art" won him a Grammy award in 1974[163] Presley won three competitive "Grammies" for his gospel recordings: "How Great Thou Art"—the album, as well as the single—and for the album He Touched Me (1972) (He had fourteen nominations during his career, though it has been claimed that "Elvis has never been adequately appreciated by those who give the Grammies."[164])

 

Presley continued to play to sell-out crowds; a 1975 tour ended with a concert in Michigan, attended by over 62,000 fans. However the singer now had "no motivation to lose his extra poundage... he became self-conscious... his self-confidence before the audience declined... Headlines such as 'Elvis Battles Middle Age' and 'Time Makes Listless Machine of Elvis' were not uncommon."[165] According to Marjorie Garber, when Presley made his later appearances in Las Vegas, he appeared "heavier, in pancake makeup... with an elaborate jeweled belt and cape, crooning pop songs to a microphone ... [He] had become Liberace. Even his fans were now middle-aged matrons and blue-haired grandmothers, who praised him as a good son who loved his mother; Mother's Day became a special holiday for Elvis' fans."[166]

 

Almost throughout the 1970s, RCA Victor had been increasingly concerned about making money from Presley material: they often had to rely on live recordings because of problems getting him to attend studio sessions. RCA Victor's mobile studio was occasionally sent to Graceland in the hope of capturing an inspired vocal performance. Once in a studio, he could lack interest or be easily distracted; often this was linked to his health and drug problems.[159]

 

Final year and death

 

In 2006, a journalist recalled: "Elvis Presley had [in 1977] become a grotesque caricature of his sleek, energetic former self... he was barely able to pull himself through his abbreviated concerts."[167] In Alexandria, Louisiana, the singer was on stage for less than an hour and "was impossible to understand."[168] In Baton Rouge, Presley failed to appear. He was unable to get out of his hotel bed, and the rest of the tour was cancelled.[168] In Knoxville, Tennessee on May 20, "there was no longer any pretense of keeping up appearances. The idea was simply to get Elvis out on stage and keep him upright..."[169] Despite his obvious problems, shows in Omaha, Nebraska and Rapid City, South Dakota were recorded for an album and a CBS-TV special: Elvis In Concert.[170]

 

In Rapid City, "he was so nervous on stage that he could hardly talk... He was undoubtedly painfully aware of how he looked, and he knew that in his condition, he could not perform any significant movement."[171] His performance in Omaha "exceeded everyone's worst fears... [giving] the impression of a man crying out for help..."[172] According to Guralnick, fans "were becoming increasingly voluble about their disappointment, but it all seemed to go right past Elvis, whose world was now confined almost entirely to his room and his [spiritualism] books."[169] A cousin, Billy Smith, recalled how Presley would sit in his room and chat, recounting things like his favourite Monty Python sketches and past japes, but "mostly there was a grim obsessiveness... a paranoia about people, germs... future events", that reminded Smith of Howard Hughes.[173]

Elvis Presley's final resting place at Graceland

Elvis Presley's final resting place at Graceland

 

A book was published—the first exposé to detail Presley's years of drug misuse.[174] Written with input from three of Presley's "Memphis Mafia", the book was the authors' revenge for them being sacked and a plea to get Presley to face up to reality.[175] The singer "was devastated by the book. Here were his close friends who had written serious stuff that would affect his life. He felt betrayed."[176]

 

Presley's final performance was in Indianapolis at the Market Square Arena, on June 26, 1977.

 

Another tour was scheduled to begin August 17, 1977, but at Graceland the day before, Presley was found on the floor by fiancée, Ginger Alden. According to the medical investigator, Presley had "stumbled or crawled several feet before he died"; he had apparently been using the toilet at the time.[177] Death was officially pronounced at 3:30 pm at the Baptist Memorial Hospital.

 

At his funeral, hundreds of thousands of fans, the press and celebrities lined the streets and many hoped to see the open casket in Graceland. One of Presley's cousins accepted $18,000 to secretly photograph the corpse; the picture duly appeared on the cover of the National Enquirer, making it the largest and fastest selling issue of all time.[178] Among the mourners were Ann-Margret (who had remained close to Presley) and his ex-wife.[179]z U.S. President Jimmy Carter issued a statement (See 'Legacy').[180]

 

Presley was buried at Forest Hill Cemetery, Memphis, next to his mother. After an attempt to steal the body, his—and his mother's—remains were reburied at Graceland in the Meditation Gardens.

 

Presley had developed many health problems, some of them chronic. [181] He started taking drugs (amphetamines) regularly in the army, though it has also been claimed that pills of some form were first given to him by Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips.[182]. Priscilla Presley writes that by 1962, he was taking placidyls to combat severe insomnia in ever-increasing doses and later took Dexedrine to counter the sleeping pills' after-effects. She later saw "problems in Elvis' life, all magnified by taking prescribed drugs." Presley's physician, Dr. George C. Nichopoulos, has said: "[Elvis] felt that by getting [pills] from a doctor, he wasn't the common everyday junkie getting something off the street. He... thought that as far as medications and drugs went, there was something for everything."[148]

 

According to Guralnick: "[D]rug use was heavily implicated... no one ruled out the possibility of anaphylactic shock brought on by the codeine pills...to which he was known to have had a mild allergy." In two lab reports filed two months later, each indicated "a strong belief that the primary cause of death was polypharmacy," with one report "indicating the detection of fourteen drugs in Elvis' system, ten in significant quantity."[183] It appears he died of Combined Drug Intoxication.

 

The medical profession has been seriously questioned. Medical Examiner Dr. Jerry Francisco had offered a cause of death while the autopsy was still being performed and before toxicology results were known. Dr. Francisco dubiously stated that cardiac arrhythmia was the cause of death, a condition that can only be determined in a living person—not post mortem.[184] Many doctors had been flattered to be associated with Presley (or had been bribed with gifts) and supplied him with pills which simply fed his addictions.[185] The singer allegedly spent at least $1 million per year on drugs and doctors' fees or inducements.[186] Although Dr. Nichopoulos was exonerated with regard to Presley's death, "In the first eight months of 1977 alone, he had [prescribed] more than 10,000 doses of sedatives, amphetamines, and narcotics: all in Elvis' name. On January 20, 1980, the board found [against] him... but decided that he was not unethical [because he claimed he'd been trying to wean the singer off the drugs]." His license was suspended. In July 1995, it was permanently revoked after it was found he had improperly dispensed drugs to several patients.[148]

 

In 1994, the autopsy into Presley's death was re-opened. Coroner Dr. Joseph Davis declared: "There is nothing in any of the data that supports a death from drugs [i.e. drug overdose]. In fact, everything points to a sudden, violent heart attack."[148] However, there is little doubt that long-term drug abuse caused his premature death.[184]

 

Legacy

 

Further information: Cultural depictions of Elvis Presley; Cultural impact of Elvis Presley; Elvis Presley phenomenon

 

Elvis Presley's death deprives our country of a part of itself. He was unique and irreplaceable. More than 20 years ago, he burst upon the scene with an impact that was unprecedented and will probably never be equaled. His music and his personality, fusing the styles of white country and black rhythm and blues, permanently changed the face of American popular culture. His following was immense, and he was a symbol to people the world over of the vitality, rebelliousness, and good humor of his country.

 

– President Jimmy Carter, 1977-08-17, [187]

 

Author Samuel Roy has argued: "Elvis' death did occur at a time when it could only help his reputation. Just before his death, Elvis had been forgotten by society."[188]

 

Biographer Ernst Jorgensen has observed that when Presley died, it was as if all perspective on his musical career had been lost.[189] His latter-day song choices had been seen as poor; many who disliked Presley had long been dismissive because he did not write his own songs. Others complained—incorrectly—that he could not play musical instruments. Such criticism of Presley continues.[190][191]i The tabloids had ridiculed his obesity and his kitschy, jump-suited performances. Sade Adu said about Presley: "when I see him in his fifties movies, Jailhouse Rock and King Creole, that's an image I desire to look like. But when he's in his jumpsuit I just think of him as a drag queen."[192] His film career was mocked. (In 1980, John Lennon said: "[Presley] died when he went into the army. That's when they killed him, that's when they castrated him."[1]) Acknowledgment of his vocal style had been reduced to mocking the hiccuping, vocalese tricks that he had used on some early recordings—and to the way he said "Thankyouverymuch" after songs during live shows.[193] This was only countered by the uncritical adulation of die-hard fans, who had even denied that he looked "fat" before he died.[194]j Any wish to understand Elvis Presley—his genuine abilities and his real influence—"seemed almost totally obscured."[189]

 

Presley has featured prominently in a variety of polls and surveys designed to measure popularity and influence.k However, rock 'n' roll expert Philip Ennis writes: "Perhaps it is an error of enthusiasm to freight Elvis Presley with too heavy a historical load" because, according to a opinion poll of high school students in 1957, Pat Boone was nearly the "two-to-one favorite over Elvis Presley among boys and preferred almost three-to-one by girls..."[195]

 

However, in the late 1960s, composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein remarked: "Elvis is the greatest cultural force in the twentieth century. He introduced the beat to everything, music, language, clothes, it's a whole new social revolution... the 60's comes from it."[196]

 

It has been claimed that Presley's early music and live performances—unlike Pat Boones'—helped to lay a commercial foundation which allowed established African American acts of the 1950s to receive due recognition. Performers like Fats Domino, Chuck Berry and Little Richard, came to national prominence after Presley's mix of musical styles was accepted among White American teenagers.[197]ac Rather than Presley being seen as a white man who 'stole black music', Little Richard argued: "He was an integrator, Elvis was a blessing. They wouldn't let black music through. He opened the door for black music."[196] It has also been claimed that Presley's sound and persona helped to relax the rigid color line and thereby fed the fires of the civil rights movement.[198]

 

Presley's recorded voice is seen by many as his enduring legacy. Music critc Henry Pleasants writes: "Elvis Presley has been described variously as a baritone and a tenor. An extraordinary compass... and a very wide range of vocal color have something to do with this divergence of opinion. The voice covers two octaves and a thirdad... Moreover, he has not been confined to one type of vocal production. In ballads and country songs he belts out full-voiced high G's and A's that an opera baritone might envy. He is a naturally assimilative stylist with a multiplicity of voices—in fact, Elvis' is an extraordinary voice, or many voices."[199]

 

Gospel tenor Shawn Nielsen, who sang backing vocals for Presley on tour, said: "He could sing anything. I've never seen such versatility... He had such great soul. He had the ability to make everyone in the audience think that he was singing directly to them. He just had a way with communication that was totally unique."[199]ae[196]

 

Other celebrated pop and rock musicians have acknowledged that the young Presley inspired them. The Beatles were all big Presley fans.[200] John Lennon said: "Nothing really affected me until I heard Elvis. If there hadn't been an Elvis, there wouldn't have been a Beatles."[201] Deep Purple's Ian Gillan said: "For a young singer he was an absolute inspiration. I soaked up what he did like blotting paper... you learn by copying the maestro."[202] Rod Stewart declared: "Elvis was the King. No doubt about it. People like myself, Mick Jagger and all the others only followed in his footsteps." Cher recalls from seeing Presley live in 1956 that he made her "realize the tremendous effect a performer could have on an audience."[196]

 

By 1958, singers obviously adopting Presley's style, like Marty Wilde and Cliff Richard (the so-called "British Elvis"), were rising to prominence in the UK. Elsewhere, France's Johnny Hallyday and the Italians Adriano Celentano and Bobby Solo were also heavily influenced by Presley.[203][204]

 

Presley's informal jamming in front of a small audience in the '68 Comeback Special is regarded as a forerunner of the so-called 'Unplugged' concept, later popularized by MTV.[205]

 

The singer has been inducted into four music 'Halls of Fame': the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1986), the Rockabilly Hall of Fame (1997), the Country Music Hall of Fame (1998), and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame (2001). In 1984, he received the W. C. Handy Award from the Blues Foundation and the Academy of Country Music’s first Golden Hat Award. In 1987, he received the American Music Awards’ first posthumous presentation of the Award of Merit.[206]

 

Presley has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7080 Hollywood Boulevard. He was also honored by the Mississippi Blues Commission with a Mississippi Blues Trail historic marker placed in Tupelo, his birth place, in recognition of his contribution to the development of the blues in Mississippi.[207][208]

 

In 1994, the 40th anniversary of Presley's "That's All Right" was recognized with its re-release, which made the charts worldwide, making top three in the UK.

 

During the 2002 World Cup a Junkie XL remix of his "A Little Less Conversation" (credited as "Elvis Vs JXL") topped the charts in over twenty countries and was included in a compilation of Presley's U.S. and UK number one hits, Elv1s: 30.

 

In the UK charts (January 2005), three re-issued singles again went to number one ("Jailhouse Rock", "One Night"/"I Got Stung" and "It's Now or Never"). Throughout the year, twenty singles were re-issued—all making top five.

 

In the same year, Forbes magazine named Presley, for the fifth straight year, the top-earning deceased celebrity, grossing US$45 million for the Presley estate during the preceding year. In mid-2006, top place was taken by Nirvana's Kurt Cobain after the sale of his song catalogue, but Presley reclaimed the top spot in 2007.[209]

 

The singer continues to be imitated—and parodied—outside the main music industry. Presley songs remain very popular on the karaoke circuit, and many from a diversity of cultures and backgrounds work as Elvis impersonators ("the raw 1950s Elvis and the kitschy 1970s Elvis are the favorites."[210])

 

In 2002, it was observed:

 

For those too young to have experienced Elvis Presley in his prime, today’s celebration of the 25th anniversary of his death must seem peculiar. All the talentless impersonators and appalling black velvet paintings on display can make him seem little more than a perverse and distant memory. But before Elvis was camp, he was its opposite: a genuine cultural force... Elvis’s breakthroughs are underappreciated because in this rock-and-roll age, his hard-rocking music and sultry style have triumphed so completely.

 

– The New York Times[211]

 

Discography

For a detailed discography, see Elvis Presley discography.

For a list of all of his songs, see List of Elvis Presley songs.

For a list of Presley's singles, see Elvis Presley hit singles.

 

See also

 

* List of best-selling music artists

* List of artists by total number of USA number one singles

* List of artists by total number of UK number one singles

* King of Rock and Roll

 

Notes

 

* Note a: Presley's genuine birth certificate reads "Elvis Aaron Presley" (as written by a doctor). There is also a souvenir birth certificate that reads "Elvis Aron Presley." When Presley did sign his middle name, he used Aron. It reads 'Aron' on his marriage certificate and on his army duffel bag. Aron was apparently the spelling the Presleys used to make it similar to the middle name of Elvis' stillborn twin, Jesse Garon. Elvis later sought to change the name's spelling to the traditional and biblical Aaron. In the process he learned that "official state records had always listed it as Aaron. Therefore, he always was, officially, Elvis Aaron Presley." Knowing Presley's plans for his middle name, Aaron is the spelling his father chose for Elvis' tombstone, and it is the spelling his estate has designated as the official spelling whenever the middle name is used today. His death certificate says "Elvis Aron Presley." This quirk has helped inflame the "Elvis is not dead" conspiracy theories.[1]

* Note b: Presley's version dropped the word "Mama" from the title.[44]

* Note e: The issue of whether Presley "stole" music of black origin continued decades later.[78] See: Kolawole, Helen (August 15, 2002). "He wasn't my king". Guardian Unlimited. Retrieved on 2007-10-14; North, Gary (2000). "No Rhythm, No Blues: Must White Guys Always Finish Last?. LewRockwell.com. Retrieved on 2007-10-14.

* Note f: In 1973, Presley was keen to produce a karate movie/documentary, enlisting the help of several top instructors and film-makers. Instructor Rick Husky says: "...Basically [our meeting] never went anywhere... Elvis got up and did some demonstrations with Ed [Parker], you know stumbled around a little bit, and it was very sad." Husky was aware that Presley was "stoned." "Colonel" Parker thought the project was folly—and a drain on their resources—from the start. (Guralnick 1994, p.531 and in passim). The film footage was finally edited, restored and released as The New Gladiators in 2002.New Gladiators (2002) Yahoo! Movies. Retrieved on 2007-10-12; Susan, King (November 17, 2002). "When Elvis bowed to karate kings" Los Angeles Times. Reprinted in IssacFlorentine.com. Retrieved on 2007-10-12.

* Note g: In 1974, Barbra Streisand offered Presley the male lead role in the remake of A Star is Born. His manager turned down the offer, saying no one should have equal billing with Presley.[122]

* Note h: At a press conference after his first opening in Vegas, when a reporter referred to him as "The King", Presley pointed to Fats Domino, standing at the back of the room. "No," he said, "that’s the real king of rock and roll."[156]

* Note i: Others take the opposite view: "Presley’s comprehensive musical knowledge and talent also surprised and impressed songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller... [They] considered Presley to be an 'idiot savant' because he knew so many songs. His knowledge of the blues especially impressed them. Leiber remembers that Presley "could imitate anything he heard. He had a perfect ear,"... Presley could sing and/or play a song on the piano after hearing it only once or twice. His natural ear for music, ability to play by ear, and to improvise were well known to his friends and musical associates."[191]

* Note j: See also: Cook, Graceland National Historic Landmark Nomination Form. Other analyses of Presley's voice credit him with a three octave range.[199]

* Note k: VH1 ranked Presley #8 on its 100 Greatest Artists in Rock and Roll in 1998 while CMT ranked him #15 on CMT's 40 Greatest Men in Country Music. Presley is one of only three artists to make both VH1's and CMT's lists, the others being Johnny Cash and The Eagles.[212][213] Elvis also ranked second for BBC's "Voice of the Century", eighth on Discovery Channel's "Greatest American" list, in the top ten of Variety's "100 Icons of the century", sixty-sixth in The Atlantic Monthly's "100 most influential figures in American history", and third in Rolling Stone's "The Immortals: The Fifty Greatest Artists of All Time" for which he was chosen by Bono.[214][215][216][217][218]

 

Footnotes

 

1. ^ a b c d (May 9, 2002). "Elvis Presley - the Singer". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2007-10-12.

2. ^ "FAQ: Elvis' middle name, is it Aron or Aaron?" Elvis.com. Retrieved 2007-10-22.

3. ^ [1] "According to Donald W. Presley and Edward C. Dunn, both distant relatives of the King, a direct link can be made from Elvis back to a certain Johann Valentin Pressler, a winegrower who emigrated to America in 1710. Pressler came from a village in southern Palatinate called Niederhochstadt. Niederhochstadt became Hochstadt sometime during the 250 years after Johann Pressler left it, but there are still many Presslers there..."

4. ^ "Elvis roots 'lead to Scotland'"; a 23 March 2004 BBC story that cites Allan Morrison, the author of the then-unpublished book The Presley Prophecy

5. ^ Elvis's great-great-great-grandmother, Morning White Dove (1800-1835), was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian

6. ^ "'Elvis Presley's Scottish Ancestry'".

7. ^ "Elvis Presley's Roots"

8. ^ Elvis Presley's Family Tree. ElvisPresleyNews.com. Retrieved August 15, 2007.

9. ^ Presley's ancestry is discussed at the following sites:

* Rossacher, Hannes (August 16, 2007). Austrian and French TV documentary: "Elvis-O-Rama". ARTE. Retrieved on 2007-10-12.

* (August 11, 2007). "Die wahre Wiege des Rock ’n’ Roll." Ludwigshafen: Die Rheinpfalz.

* "Biography: Presley, Elvis". German Heritage.com. Retrieved October 12, 2007.

* (23 March 2004). "Elvis roots 'lead to Scotland'". BBC News Online. Retrieved on 2007-10-12.

* "Elvis Presley's Family Tree". ElvisPresleyNews.com. Retrieved on 2007-10-12.

* "Elvis Presley's Roots". fife.50megs.com. Retrieved October 12, 2007.

* "Elvis' Jewish Heritage". ElvisPresleyNews.com. Retrieved October 12, 2007.

* "Elvis Was a Metis: Cherokee-Scots-Irish (Celt)". WolfLodge.org. Retrieved October 12, 2007.

10. ^ a b Guralnick 1994, p.13

11. ^ Guralnick 1994, p.29

12. ^ Goldman, p.16

13. ^ Guralnick 1994, p.12

14. ^ a b Elvis Presley Home. Elvis-Presley-Biography.com. Retrieved July 15, 2007.

15. ^ Presley, p.172

16. ^ Guralnick 1994, p.36

Referring to an account by singer Barbara Pittman in Humphries, Patrick (April 1, 2003). "Elvis The #1 Hits: The Secret History of the Classics" Andrews McMeel Publishing, p.117. ISBN 0740738038.

17. ^ Elvis Australia (Jan 7, 2004). "Elvis Presley 1935-54." elvis.com.au. Retrieved 2007-10-14.

18. ^ (October 14, 2001). "Elvis Presley's First Guitar". Tupelo Hardware. Retrieved 2007-10-14.

19. ^ a b Stanley and Coffey, p.19

20. ^ http://www.elvis.am/bio Elvis Biography Retrieved 2008-05-30

21. ^ Escott, p.420

22. ^ a b c Guralnick 1994, p.50

23. ^ a b Carr and Farren, p.10

24. ^ Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis, chapter 1.

25. ^ Hopkins 2007, p.33

26. ^ Lichter, p.10

27. ^ Lichter, p.9

28. ^ Guralnick 1994, p.149

29. ^ (1996). "Elvis Presley". history-of-rock.com. Retrieved 2007-10-14.

30. ^ a b George-Warren, Holly; Patricia Romanowski, Jon Pareles (2001). The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock And Roll. Fireside. ISBN 0-7432-0120-5. Excerpt in "Elvis Presley biography". Rolling Stone. Retrieved on 2007-10-14.

31. ^ Guralnick 1994, p.461

32. ^ a b c Guralnick 1994, p.21

33. ^ Guralnick 1994, p.171

34. ^ (August 18, 1997). "Good Rockin'". Newsweek, pp.54-5

35. ^ Guralnick, Peter (August 11, 2007). "How Did Elvis Get Turned Into a Racist?" New York Times. Retrieved August 15, 2007.

36. ^ Szatmary, p.35

37. ^ Bertrand, p.205

38. ^ "Elvis biography: 1935 - 1957". elvis.com. Retrieved on 2007-10-14.

39. ^ "Marion Keisker: Who Discovered Elvis?". elvispresleynews.com. Retrieved on 2008-6-9.

40. ^ Miller, p.71

41. ^ "Sam Phillips Sun Records Two". history-of-rock.com. Retrieved on 2007-10-14.

42. ^ Guralnick, Peter (1992). The Complete 50's Masters (CD booklet notes).

43. ^ Jorgensen, p.13

44. ^ a b Carr and Farren, p.6

45. ^ EPE (July 21, 2004). "Elvis Presley Sun Recordings". elvis.co.au. Retrieved on August 17, 2007.

46. ^ a b EPE. "Elvis Presley's First Record & Early Gigs". ElvisPresley.com.au. Retrieved on 2007-10-14.

47. ^ Burnett, Brown (ed.) (August 2, 2004). "Overton Park Shell 50th Anniversary, Elvis’ 1st live show". Memphis Mojo Newspaper. Reprinted in "The Buzzards". RedClock.com. Retrieved on 2007-10-14.

48. ^ Naylor and Halliday, p.43

49. ^ Clayton and Heard, p.61

50. ^ Elvis Presley Classic Albums (DVD). Eagle Eye Media, EE19007 NTSC.

51. ^ Naylor and Halliday, pp.43-6

52. ^ Clayton and Heard, p.69

53. ^ Naylor and Halliday, p.46

54. ^ Naylor and Halliday, p.52

55. ^ Clayton and Heard, p.73

56. ^ Cook, p.50

57. ^ Guralnick 1994

58. ^ Farren and Marchbank, p.89

59. ^ Carr and Farren, p.21

60. ^ Escott, p.421

61. ^ Hilburn, Robert (2005-02-11). "Review: Elvis Presley CD". elvis.com.au. Retrieved on 2007-10-14.

62. ^ Butler, Peter. "Blackie". RockabillyHall.com. Retrieved on 2007-10-14.

63. ^ Jorgensen, p.45

64. ^ a b Jorgensen, p.49

65. ^ An example of press criticism can be found at Gould, Jack (June 6, 1956). "TV: New Phenomenon" (PDF). The New York Times. Retrieved on 2007-10-14.

66. ^ a b Raymond, Susan (Director) (1987, Re-released 2000). Elvis '56 - In the Beginning (DVD). Warner Vision.

67. ^ Austen, p.13

68. ^ a b Beebe, Fulbrook and Saunders, p.97

69. ^ Jorgensen, p.51

70. ^ For more on the TV host rivalries of the period, see "The Steve Allen Show (And Various Related Programs)". The Museum of Broadcast Communications. Retrieved on 2007-10-14.

71. ^ Marcus, Greil, "Elvis Presley: The Ed Sullivan Shows." "Official Press Release". elvis.com.au. Retrieved on 2007-10-22.

72. ^ Paul Mavis (Director). Elvis Presley - Ed Sullivan Shows [DVD]. Image Entertainment.

73. ^ Marcus, "Elvis Presley: The Ed Sullivan Shows."

74. ^ Clayton and Heard, pp.117-8

75. ^ a b Gibson, Christine (December 6, 2005). "Elvis on Ed Sullivan: The Real Story". American Heritage Magazine. Retrieved on 2007-10-22.

76. ^ Carr and Farren, pp.11, 16

77. ^ Bayles, p.22

78. ^ a b Blank, Christopher (July 15, 2006). "Elvis & Racism - Elvis Presley Legacy is cloudy through lens of race". elvis.com.au. Retrieved on 2007-10-14.

79. ^ Moore and Dickerson, p.175

80. ^ a b Carr and Farren, p.12

81. ^ "Elvis Rock 'n' Roll History". showbuzz.CBSnews.com. Retrieved 2007-10-14.

82. ^ Billboard writer Arnold Shaw, cited in Denisoff, p.22.

83. ^ "Elvis Presley - 1956". PBS. Retrieved on 2007-10-14.

84. ^ Khurana, Simran. "Quotes About Elvis Presley". about.com. Retrieved on 2007-10-14.

85. ^ Hopkins, p.126

86. ^ See Fensch, Thomas. The FBI Files on Elvis Presley, pp.15-17.

87. ^ Marino, Rick. "Elvis and Jacksonville, Florida". LadyLuckMusic.com. Retrieved on 2007-10-14.

88. ^ Davis, Natalie (August 17, 2003). "The 'King' Has Left the Building". GratefulDread.net.Retrieved on 2007-10-14.

89. ^ Elder, Daniel K. "Remarkable Sergeants: Ten Vignettes of Noteworthy NCOs". ncohistory.com. Retrieved on 2007-11-13.

90. ^ Lichter, p.51

91. ^ Jorgensen, p.107

92. ^ Rodriguez, p.87

93. ^ Guralnick 1999, p.480

94. ^ Guralnick 1994, p.21

95. ^ Guralnick 1994, p.71

96. ^ "Elvis's secret UK visit revealed", BBC News Online, 2008-04-22. Retrieved on 2008-05-01.

97. ^ Ian Youngs. "Elvis friends dispute London trip", BBC News Online, 2008-05-01. Retrieved on 2008-05-01.

98. ^ "What is the history of Elvis Presley's military career?". Army.mil. Retrieved on 2007-10-19.

99. ^ Jorgensen, p.128

100. ^ Harbinson, p.62

101. ^ Falk and Falk, p.52

102. ^ See Brett Farmer, Spectacular Passions: Cinema, Fantasy, Gay Male Spectatorships (Duke University Press, 2000), p.86.

103. ^ Billy Poore, Rockabilly: A Forty-Year Journey (1998), p. 20.

104. ^ "Elvis goes Hollywood: Fun in the sun, and not much else". CNN.com. Retrieved on 2007-10-19.

105. ^ Guralnick 1999, pp.89-91

106. ^ Guralnick 1999, p.50

107. ^ Guralnick 1999, p.27

108. ^ Verswijver, p.129

109. ^ Caine, p.21

110. ^ Kirchberg and Hendricks, p.67

111. ^ Sight and Sound, The British Film Institute, British Institute of Adult Education (1992), p.30.

112. ^ Hopkins, p.32

113. ^ Hopkins, p.31

114. ^ Lisanti 2000, pp.19, 136

115. ^ Lyon, p.511

116. ^ Lisanti 2000, p.18

117. ^ Hopkins, vii

118. ^ Alagna, Elvis Presley

119. ^ a b Guralnick 1999, p.171

120. ^ Lisanti 2000, p.9

121. ^ Presley, p.188

122. ^ a b George-Warren, Romanowski and Pareles, The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock And Roll. Excerpt in "Elvis Presley biography". Rolling Stone. Retrieved on 2007-10-14.

123. ^ Kirchberg, Connie and Marc Hendricks 1999, p.66.

124. ^ a b Binder, Steve (2005-07-08). "Interview with Steve Binder, director of Elvis' 68 Comeback Special". elvis.com.au. Retrieved on 2007-10-19.

125. ^ Kirchberg and Hendricks, p.62

126. ^ Curtin, Curtin and Ginter, p.119

127. ^ See "Hollywood Actress Reveals Her Elvis Sex Secrets". WENN, April 25, 2000.

128. ^ Raphael, Byron; Alanna Nash (November 2005). "In Bed with Elvis". Playboy, 52 (11): pp.64-8, 76, 140.

129. ^ Stein, Ruthe August 3, 1997. San Francisco Chronicle.

130. ^ Lipton, Dalton and Dalton, p.172

131. ^ Guralnick 1994, p.415

132. ^ Margret, Ann-Margret: My Story

133. ^ Presley, p.175

134. ^ Gamson, p.46

135. ^ Harrington and Bielby, p.273

136. ^ Stein, Ruthe (August 3, 1997). "Girls! Girls! Girls! From small-town women to movie stars". San Francisco Chronicle.

137. ^ Lisanti 2003, p.207

138. ^ Presley, Elvis and Me.

139. ^ Dickerson, Colonel Tom Parker: The Curious Life of Elvis Presley's Eccentric Manager

140. ^ Nash, Lacker, Fike and Smith, Elvis Aron Presley: Revelations from the Memphis Mafia

141. ^ Presley, Elvis and Me

142. ^ Schilling, Jerry (2006-07-10). "Why I Wrote Me And A Guy Named Elvis". elvis.com.au. Retrieved on 2007-10-23.

143. ^ Humphries, p.79

144. ^ Harris, John (March 27, 2006). "Talking about Graceland". The Guardian.

145. ^ Clayton and Heard, p.339

146. ^ a b Guralnick 1999, p.173

147. ^ Guralnick 1999, p.174 and in passim

148. ^ a b c d e (August 11, 2002). "Elvis Special: Doctor Feelgood". The Observer. Reprinted in Guardian Unlimited. Retrieved on 2007-10-12.

149. ^ Beliefnet.com

150. ^ Deseret News | Elvis almost LDS?

151. ^ Clayton and Heard, p.265

152. ^ Clayton and Heard, p.267

153. ^ Guralnick 1999, p.293

154. ^ Binder, Steve (Aired: August 14, 2007). "Comeback Special". BBC Radio Two.

155. ^ Jorgensen, p.281

156. ^ a b Cook, p.39

157. ^ (Aired: August 7, 2002). "How Big Was The King? Elvis Presley's Legacy, 25 Years After His Death." CBS News.

158. ^ a b Guralnick 1999, p.420

159. ^ a b Guralnick 1999, in passim

160. ^ Guralnick 1999, p.489

161. ^ Guralnick 1999, p.490

162. ^ Hopkins 2007, p.291

163. ^ Jorgensen, p.381.

164. ^ Roy 1985, p.131.

165. ^ Roy, p.70

166. ^ Garber, Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing & Cultural Anxiety (1992), p.380

167. ^ Scherman, T. (August 16, 2006). "Elvis Dies". American Heritage.

168. ^ a b Guralnick 1999, p.628

169. ^ a b Guralnick 1999, p.634

170. ^ Guralnick 1999, pp.637-8

171. ^ Roy, Elvis: Prophet of Power, p.71.

172. ^ Guralnick 1999, pp.637-8

173. ^ Guralnick 1999, p.642

174. ^ West, West and Hebler, Elvis: What Happened

175. ^ Review of Medical Report. ElvisPresleyNews.com. Retrieved 2007-10-12.

176. ^ Patterson, Nigel (2003-01-30). David Stanley interview. Elvis Information Network (EIN). Retrieved on 2007-10-12.

177. ^ Guralnick 1999, p.651

178. ^ Hopkins 2007, p.386

179. ^ Clayton and Heard, p.394.

180. ^ Woolley, John T.; Gerhard Peters. "Jimmy Carter: Death of Elvis Presley Statement by the President". The American Presidency Project. Santa Barbara, CA:University of California (Hosted). Retrieved on 2007-10-12.

181. ^ Baden and Hennessee, p.35 "Elvis had an enlarged heart for a long time. That, together with his drug habit, caused his death. But he was difficult to diagnose; it was a judgment call."

182. ^ Goldman, Albert, Elvis: The Last 24 Hours, p. 9

183. ^ Guralnick, p.652

184. ^ a b "Coverup for a King". Court TV Crime Library. Retrieved 2007-10-12.

185. ^ Clayton and Heard, p.336

186. ^ Goldman, Albert, Elvis: The Last 24 Hours, p. 56

187. ^ "Death of Elvis Presley Statement by the President". The American Presidency Project. Retrieved on 2007-10-17.

188. ^ Roy, p.173

189. ^ a b Jorgensen, p.4

190. ^ Sinclair, Tom (August 9, 2002). "Elvis Presley is overrated". CNN.com. Retrieved 2007-10-12.

191. ^ a b Cook, p.20

192. ^ Cited in Nina Rapi and Maya Chowdhry, Acts of Passion (1998), p.231.

193. ^ Associated Press (2002-08-07). How big was the king? CBS News. Retrieved 2007-10-18.

194. ^ Wall, David S. (2003). "Policing Elvis: legal action and the shaping of post-mortem celebrity culture as contested space" (PDF). Entertainment Law, 2 (3): pp.35-69. doi:10.1080/1473098042000275774. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.

195. ^ See Ennis, Philip H., The Seventh Stream: The Emergence of Rocknroll in American Popular Music (Wesleyan University Press, 1992), pp.251-252.

196. ^ a b c d Khurana, Simran. "Quotes about Elvis". About.com. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.

197. ^ Associated Press (2002-08-07). How big was the king? CBS News. Retrieved 2007-10-18.

198. ^ Bertrand, Race, Rock, and Elvis

199. ^ a b c WikiQuote: Elvis Presley

200. ^ "Elvis Presley biography". Music-Atlas. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.

201. ^ Cook, p.35

202. ^ Ian Gillan (2007-01-03). "Elvis Presley". Classic Rock. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.

203. ^ "Johnny Hallyday biography". RFI Musique. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.

204. ^ Gundle, Stephen (September 2006). "Adriano Celentano and the origins of rock and roll in Italy". Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 11 (3): pp.367-86. Royal Holloway, University of London: Routledge. doi:10.1080/13545710600806870.

205. ^ Johnson, Brett (2004-06-28). "Steve Binder, Director Of Elvis' '68 Comeback Special Talks About The King". elvis.com.au. Retrieved 2007-10-18.

206. ^ Cook, p.33

207. ^ Mississippi Blues Commission - Blues Trail. http://www.msbluestrail.org. Retrieved on 2008-05-28.

208. ^ Elvis gets marker on Mississippi Blues Trail - USATODAY.com. usatoday.com. Retrieved on 2008-05-28.

209. ^ Goldman, Lea; David M. Ewalt, eds. (2007-10-29). "Top-Earning Dead Celebrities". Forbes. Retrieved on 2007-10-31.

210. ^ Stecopoulos, p.198

211. ^ (August 16, 2002). "Long Live the King". The New York Times. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.

212. ^ (1998). "VH1: 100 Greatest Artists of Rock & Roll". VH1. Retrieved on 2007-10-16.

213. ^ (2005). "CMT's 40 Greatest Men in Country Music". CMT. Retrieved on 2007-10-16.

214. ^ (April 18, 2001). "Sinatra is voice of the century" BBC NEWS, Retrieved on 2007-10-16.

215. ^ "Greatest American". Discovery Channel. Retrieved on 2007-10-16.

216. ^ "100 Icons of the century". Variety. Retrieved on 2007-10-16.

217. ^ (December 2006). "Top 100 most influential figures in American history". The Atlantic Monthly. Retrieved on 2007-10-16.

218. ^ (2004-04-15). "The Immortals: The First Fifty". Rolling Stone (946). Retrieved on 2007-10-16.

 

References

 

* Alagna, Magdalena (2002). Elvis Presley. Rosen Publishing Group. ISBN 0823935248.

* Austen, Jake (2005). TV-A-Go-Go: Rock on TV from American Bandstand to American Idol. Chicago Review Press. ISBN 1556525729.

* Baden, Michael M.; Judith Adler Hennessee (1992). Unnatural Death: Confessions of a Medical Examiner. New York: Random House. ISBN 0804105995.

* Bayles, Martha (1996). Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226039595.

* Bertrand, Michael T. (2000). Race, Rock, and Elvis. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-02586-5.

* Beebe, R.; D. Fulbrook, B. Saunders (eds.) (2002). Rock over the Edge. Duke University Press. ISBN 0822329158.

* Brown, Peter Harry; Pat H. Broeske (1998). Down at the End of Lonely Street: The Life and Death of Elvis Presley. Signet. ISBN 0451190947.

* Caine, A. (2005). Interpreting Rock Movies: The Pop Film and Its Critics in Britain. Palgrave Macmillan. 0719065380.

* Carr, Roy; Mick Farren (1982). Elvis: The complete illustrated record. Eel Pie Publishing. ISBN 0-906008-54-9.

* Clayton, Rose; Dick Heard (2003). Elvis: By Those Who Knew Him Best. Virgin Publishing Limited. ISBN 0-7535-0835-4.

* Cook, J., Henry, P. (ed.) (2004). Graceland National Historic Landmark Nomination Form (PDF). United States Department of the Interior.

* Curtin, Jim; James Curtin, Renata Ginter (1998). Elvis: Unknown Stories behind the Legend. Celebrity Books. ISBN 1580291023.

* Dickerson, James L. (2001). Colonel Tom Parker: The Curious Life of Elvis Presley's Eccentric Manager. Cooper Square Press. ISBN 0815412673.

* Denisoff, R. Serge (1975). Solid Gold: The Popular Record Industry. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Books. ISBN 0878555862.

* Dundy, Elaine (1986). Elvis and Gladys: The Genesis of the King, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 0708830870.

* Escott, Colin. (1998). "Elvis Presley". In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kingsbury, Editor. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195176081.

* Falk, Ursula A.; Gerhard Falk (2005). Youth Culture and the Generation Gap. Algora Publishing. ISBN 0875863671.

* Farren, Mick; Pearce Marchbank (1977). Elvis In His Own Words. New York: Omnibus Press. ISBN 0860014878.

* Finstad, Suzanne (1997). Child Bride: The Untold Story of Priscilla Beaulieu Presley. New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 0517705850.

* Gamson, Joshua (1994). Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America. University of California Press. ISBN 0520083520.

* George-Warren, Holly; Patricia Romanowski, Jon Pareles (2001). The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock And Roll. Fireside. ISBN 0-7432-0120-5.

* Goldman, Albert (1990). Elvis: The Last 24 Hours. St Martins. ISBN 0312925417.

* Guralnick, Peter (1994). Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0316332259.

* Guralnick, Peter (1999). Careless Love. The Unmaking of Elvis Presley. Back Bay Books. ISBN 0316332976.

* Harbinson, W. A., (1977). The life and death of Elvis Presley. London: Michael Joseph. ISBN 0517246708.

* Harrington C. Lee; Denise D. Bielby (2000). Popular Culture: Production and Consumption. Blackwell. ISBN 063121710X.

* Hopkins, Jerry (2002). Elvis in Hawaii. Bess Press. ISBN 1573061425.

* Hopkins, Jerry (2007). Elvis. The Biography. Plexus. ISBN 0859653919.

* Humphries, Patrick (2003). Elvis The #1 Hits: The Secret History of the Classics. Andrews McMeel. ISBN 0740738038.

* Jorgensen, Ernst (1998). Elvis Presley: A life in music. The complete recording sessions. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0312185723.

* Kirchberg, Connie; Marc Hendricks (1999). Elvis Presley, Richard Nixon, and the American Dream, Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company. ISBN 0786407166.

* Lichter, Paul (1980). Elvis - The Boy Who Dared To Rock. Sphere Books. ISBN 0 7221 5547-6.

* Lipton, Peggy; Coco Dalton, David Dalton (2005). Breathing Out. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0312324138.

* Lisanti, Tom (2000). Fantasy Femmes of 60's Cinema: Interviews with 20 Actresses from Biker, Beach, and Elvis Movies. McFarland and Company. ISBN 0786408685.

* Lisanti, Tom (2003). Drive-In Dream Girls: A Galaxy of B-Movie Starlets of the Sixties. McFarland. ISBN 0786415754.

* Margret, Ann; Todd Gold (1994). Ann-Margret: My Story. G.P. Putnam's Sons. ISBN 0399138919.

* Miller, James, (1999). Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll, 1947-1977. Fireside. ISBN 0684865602.

* Moore, Scotty; James Dickerson (1997). That’s Alright, Elvis. Schirmer Books. ISBN 0028645995.

* Nash, A.; M. Lacker, L. Fike, B. Smith (1995). Elvis Aron Presley: Revelations from the Memphis Mafia. Harper Collins. ISBN 006109336X.

* Naylor, Jerry and Steve Halliday (2007). The Rockabilly Legends; They Called It Rockabilly Long Before they Called It Rock and Roll (Book and DVD). Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation. ISBN 142342042X.

* Pratt, Linda R. (1979). "Elvis, or the Ironies of a Southern Identity". Elvis: Images and Fancies. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

* Presley, Priscilla, (1985). Elvis and Me. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. ISBN 0-399-12984-7.

* Rodman, G., (1996). Elvis After Elvis, The Posthumous Career of a Living Legend. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415110025.

* Rodriguez, R., (2006). The 1950s' Most Wanted: The Top 10 Book of Rock & Roll Rebels, Cold War Crises, and All-American Oddities. Potomac Books. ISBN 1574887157.

* Roy, Samuel (1985). Elvis: Prophet of Power. Branden Publishing Co. Inc. ISBN 0-8283-1898-0.

* Shepherd, Cybill; Aimee Lee Ball (2000}. Cybill Disobedience. Thorndike Press. ISBN 0061030147.

* Stanley, David E.; Frank Coffey (1998). The Elvis Encyclopedia. London: Virgin Books. ISBN 0753502933.

* Stecopoulos, H.; M. Uebel (1997). Race and the Subject of Masculinities. Duke University Press. ISBN 0822319667.

* Szatmary, David P. (1996). A Time to Rock: A Social History of Rock 'n' Roll. New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 0028646703.

* Verswijver, L., (2002). Movies Were Always Magical: Interviews with 19 Actors, Directors, and Producers from the Hollywood of the 1930s through the 1950s. McFarland & Company. ISBN 0786411295.

* Walser, Robert; David Nicholls (ed.) (1999). The Cambridge History of American Music. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521454298.

* West, Red; Sonny West, Dave Hebler (As Told To Steve Dunleavy) (1977). Elvis: What Happened. Bantam Books. ISBN 0345272153.

 

Further reading

 

* Goldman, Albert (1981). Elvis. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-023657-7.

* Allen, Lew (2007). Elvis & the birth of rock. Genesis Publications. ISBN 1-905662-00-9.

* Cantor, Louis (2005). Dewey and Elvis - The Life and Times of a Rock 'n' Roll Deejay. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-02981-X.

* Chadwick, Vernon (ed.) (1997). In Search of Elvis: Music, Race, Art, Religion. Proceedings of the first annual International Conference on Elvis Presley, Westview. ISNB 0813329876.

* Doss, Erika Lee (1999). Elvis Culture: Fans, Faith, and Image. University of Kansas Press. ISBN 0700609482.

* Hopkins, Jerry (2007). Elvis. The Biography. Plexus. ISBN 0859653919.

* Marcus, Greil (1991). Dead Elvis: A Chronicle of a Cultural Obsession.

* Marcus, Greil (2000). Double Trouble: Bill Clinton and Elvis Presley in a Land of No Alternative. ISBN 057120676X.

* Nash, Alanna (1995). Elvis Aaron Presley: Revelations from the Memphis Mafia. Harper Collins. ISBN 006109336X.

* Nash, Alanna (2003). The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0743213017.

 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Elvis Presley

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Elvis Presley

 

* Elvis Presley at the Internet Movie Database

* Elvis Presley at Allmovie

* Elvis Presley at Find A Grave

* Elvis Presley Enterprises - Official site of the Elvis Presley brand.

* Elvis Presley Directory

* Elvis Presley at the Open Directory Project

 

[show]

v • d • e

Elvis Presley

U.S. Album

discography

Elvis Presley · Elvis · Loving You · Elvis' Christmas Album · King Creole (soundtrack) · For LP Fans Only · A Date with Elvis · Elvis Is Back! · G.I. Blues (soundtrack) · His Hand in Mine · Something for Everybody · Blue Hawaii (soundtrack) · Pot Luck · Girls! Girls! Girls! (soundtrack) · It Happened at the World's Fair (soundtrack) · Fun in Acapulco (soundtrack) · Kissin' Cousins (soundtrack) · Roustabout Soundtrack · Girl Happy (soundtrack) · Elvis for Everyone · Harum Scarum (soundtrack) · Frankie and Johnny (soundtrack) · Paradise Hawaiian Style (soundtrack) · Spinout (soundtrack) · How Great Thou Art · Double Trouble (soundtrack) · Clambake (soundtrack) · Speedway (soundtrack) · NBC-TV Special · From Elvis in Memphis · On Stage · From Memphis to Vegas/From Vegas to Memphis · That's the Way It Is · Elvis Country (I'm 10,000 Years Old) · Love Letters from Elvis · Elvis Sings The Wonderful World of Christmas · Elvis Now · He Touched Me · Elvis: As Recorded At Madison Square Garden · Aloha from Hawaii: Via Satellite · Elvis (1973) · Raised on Rock/For Ol' Times Sake · Good Times · Elvis: As Recorded Live on Stage in Memphis · Promised Land · Suspicion · Today · From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee · Moody Blue · Elvis in Concert

Filmography

Love Me Tender · Loving You · Jailhouse Rock · King Creole · G.I. Blues · Flaming Star · Wild in the Country · Blue Hawaii · Follow That Dream · Kid Galahad · Girls! Girls! Girls! · It Happened at the World's Fair · Fun in Acapulco · Kissin' Cousins · Viva Las Vegas · Roustabout · Girl Happy · Tickle Me · Harum Scarum · Frankie and Johnny · Paradise, Hawaiian Style · Spinout · Easy Come, Easy Go · Double Trouble · Clambake · Stay Away, Joe · Speedway · Live a Little, Love a Little · Charro! · The Trouble with Girls · Change of Habit

Documentaries

The Pied Piper of Cleveland · Elvis: That's the Way It Is · Elvis on Tour · This Is Elvis

Television specials

The Frank Sinatra Timex Show: Welcome Home Elvis · Elvis Presley's '68 Comeback Special · Aloha from Hawaii · Elvis In Concert

Plays & Stage Shows

based on Elvis' works

Cooking with Elvis · All Shook Up (musical) · Jailhouse Rock (musical) · Cirque du Soleil · Elvis. The Musical · Are You Lonesome Tonight?

Radio appearances

Grand Ole Opry · Louisiana Hayride

Additional TV

appearances

The Dorsey Brothers' Stage Show · The Milton Berle Show · The Steve Allen Show · The Ed Sullivan Show

Top 10

U.S. Singles

Heartbreak Hotel · I Want You, I Need You, I Love You · Don't Be Cruel · Hound Dog · Love Me Tender · Love Me · Too Much · All Shook Up · (Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear · Jailhouse Rock · Don't · Wear My Ring Around Your Neck · Hard Headed Woman · One Night · I Got Stung · A Fool Such as I · I Need Your Love Tonight · A Big Hunk O' Love · Stuck on You · It's Now or Never · Are You Lonesome Tonight? · Surrender · I Feel so Bad · (Marie's the Name) His Latest Flame · Little Sister · Can't Help Falling in Love · Good Luck Charm · She's Not You · Return to Sender · (You're the) Devil in Disguise · Bossa Nova Baby · Crying in the Chapel · In the Ghetto · Suspicious Minds · Don't Cry Daddy · The Wonder of You · Burning Love

Family

Priscilla Presley · Lisa Marie Presley

Related articles

Graceland · Memphis Mafia · Colonel Tom Parker · Cultural depictions of Elvis Presley · Cultural impact of Elvis Presley · Elvis Presley phenomenon · Elvis Presley's political beliefs · Elvis Presley's relationships · Elvis impersonator · Elvis and Gladys · Elvis and Me · Elvis sightings · Elvis-A-Rama Museum · Linda Thompson · Judy Spreckels · June Juanico · Elvis Presley hit singles · Elvis Presley's Sun recordings · Million Dollar Quartet (session) · List of songs about or referencing Elvis Presley · Elvis Presley Enterprises · Elvis has left the building · Felton Jarvis · Elvis Radio

Persondata

NAME Presley, Elvis Aaron

ALTERNATIVE NAMES Presley, Elvis Aaron

SHORT DESCRIPTION American singer, song producer and actor; "The King of Rock'n'Roll"

DATE OF BIRTH January 8, 1935(1935-01-08)

PLACE OF BIRTH Tupelo, Mississippi, U.S.

DATE OF DEATH August 16, 1977

PLACE OF DEATH Memphis, Tennessee, USA

 

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_Presley"

Categories: Elvis Presley | 1935 births | 1977 deaths | Actors portrayed posthumously | American Christians | American rock singers | American baritones | American musicians | American country singers | American male singers | American gospel singers | American B-movie actors | American crooners | American actor-singers | American film actors | Blues musicians from Mississippi | Identical twins | Sun Records artists | Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees | Rockabilly Hall of Fame inductees | Grammy Award winners | Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners | Hollywood Walk of Fame | UK Music Hall of Fame inductees | United States Army soldiers | American Pentecostals | People from Memphis, Tennessee | People from Tupelo, Mississippi | People from Las Vegas, Nevada | Americans of German descent | Americans of Jewish descent | Americans of Native American descent | Americans of Scottish descent | Tennessee actors | Tennessee musicians | Las Vegas musicians | Performers of Christian music | Gospel Music Hall of Fame inductees | Mississippi Blues Trail

oprah beats elvis!

definitely.