Elvis Presley

"Do something worth remembering." 
~ Elvis Presley
The King of Rock & Roll, Elvis Aaron Presley (1935-1977) was born on this day in Tupelo, Mississippi. His poor, close-knit family attended Pentecostal church where he learned gospel music.

 About the power of music, he once said, "Let's get real, real gone."  

 A sexy rebel with a sneer on his lip, Elvis moved and swiveled his hips. He celebrated the joy of rhythm, shocked the norm, and drove women wild. A phenomenon, he redefined music and became one of the greatest stars of the 20th century.

 Certainly worth remembering.

 Young Elvis sang uninhibited, his entire body gyrated. He merged racial barriers with his voice, blending passion with spirit. 

 When he appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1957, the cameras censored his moves, recording him only from the waist up. Elvis and his music dominated the world.

 "I was very lucky," Elvis explained. "The people were looking for something different, and I came along just in time."

 He came along and he died too young, his life dissected and pinned with abuses. About the darkness of fame, he revealed, "An image is one thing, a human being is another. It's very hard to live up to an image."

 But even in death, he endures.  Elvis has sold more than one billion records worldwide, is honored with over 400 active fan clubs, and remembered by over 600,000 fans who visit his Memphis home Graceland every year.

 Beatle John Lennon, with typical outspoken eloquence, observed, "Before Elvis, there was nothing."
Long live the king!
Make your move and make your mark.
Copyright © 1999-2017 MsCator, All Rights Reserved

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

W.E.B. Du Bois

Image
"Believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader, and fuller lives." ~ W.E.B. Du Bois W.E.B. Du Bois African American writer and teacher William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963) was born on this day in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, three years after the end of the American Civil War.  He was the most influential black leader of the first half of the 20th century. "One ever feels his twoness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder," said Du Bois, who was his high school's valedictorian. Educated at Fisk, Harvard, and the University of Berlin, he was an advocate for education and equality. He published The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study (1899), the first case study of a U.S. black community which used ethnography, history, and statistics. In his masterpiece The Souls of Black Fol
Read more

Edith Wharton

Image
"Life is either always a tightrope or a feather bed. Give me the tight rope." ~ Edith Wharton Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Edith Wharton (1862–1937) was born Edith Newbold Jones on this day in New York City, to a privileged family. She spent summers in Rhode Island and traveled throughout Europe. "The only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it," she said. Faced with an unhappy marriage, Wharton took up writing, what she described as "an irresistible call," to deal with her heartache and stress. She lived in Paris and had a close relationship with novelist Henry James, a fellow American expatriate. She said, "There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it." Wharton's first major work, The House of Mirth (1905), told the story of ill-fated Lily Bart, 29, and her tragic quest for marriage and wealth. "The only thing to do." she said, "is to hug one's f
Read more

James A. Michener

Image
"I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as  they tangle with human emotions." ~ James A. Michener American novelist and short story writer James Albert Michener (1907–1997) was born on this day in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.  Abandoned by his parents, he grew up struggling with poverty and credits his foster mother for fostering his love of books. "I've always been a sucker for a narrative," he said. "The great historical novels. I read all of (Honore de) Balzac when I was 14." Michener followed this passion for history by writing his own sweeping tales. He was known for conducting extensive research ("total immersion". His epic novels focused on specific geographical locations and historical facts across generations, whether Hawaii (1959), Chesapeake (1978), or Texas (1985).  "I never wrote anything that was published until I was 40," he said and won the Pulitzer for his first book of fiction, T
Read more