Elvis Presley Research Paper

Words: 877
Pages: 4

“‘Some people tap their feet, some people snap their fingers, and some people sway back and forth. I just sorta do ‘em all together, I guess.’ -Elvis in 1956, talking about his way of moving on stage” (Graceland). Elvis Presley 1935-1977 was the man that single-handedly shaped rock and roll forever, making him the most influential musician ever, and this is how he did it. Elvis had a rough childhood living through the Great Depression on the lower side of the rank. The boy spent his earliest years in his hometown of Tupelo, where he and his family shared a two-room house, and as a teen he lived in Memphis, Tennessee, where his family relocated when he was in the eighth grade. Shortly after finishing high school in 1953, the unknown artist began …show more content…
To break down his childhood even more, page 14 of the book The Importance of Elvis Presley states that Presley was treated with much care as a child. He was a mama’s boy. “‘She worshiped that child from the day he was born to the day she died’” (Woog 14). The Presleys were poor, but they weren’t trash. Elvis’s mother taught him all manner of manners and how to be respectful, and apparently he and his mother would often call each other by pet names. Page 14-15 of The Importance also informs us that Elvis’s father, Vernon, was caught trying to change his check amount because of how poor they were, some of it due to the Depression. Nonetheless, Elvis and his mother visited Vernon every weekend for the extent of the eight months he served. Elvis’s childhood shaped him into who he became in his later years because he learned to persevere through tough times and to value the small things. He didn’t only stick it out through hard times at home, he did it through his music as well. According to The Importance, Elvis was gifted a guitar on his 11th birthday by his Uncle Vester, who taught him a few chords and let him do the