First National TV 56-57

The "iconic cover" of Presley's debut album, featuring a photo taken July 31, 1955.    On January 10, 1956, Presley made his first recordings for RCA in Nashville.    Extending the singer's by now customary backup of Moore, Black, and Fontana, RCA enlisted pianist Floyd Cramer, guitarist Chet Atkins, and three background singers, including Gordon Stoker of the popular Jordanaires quartet, to fill out the sound.     The session produced "Heartbreak Hotel/I Was The One", which was released on January 27.

To increase the singer's exposure, Parker finally brought Presley to national television, booking him on CBS's Stage Show for six appearances over two months.    The program, produced in New York, was hosted on alternate weeks by big band leaders and brothers Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey.    For his first appearance, on January 28, Presley was introduced by Cleveland DJ Bill Randle. He stayed in town and, on January 30, recorded at RCA's New York studio.    The sessions yielded eight songs, including a cover of Carl Perkins' rockabilly anthem "Blue Suede Shoes". Public reaction to "Heartbreak Hotel" was sufficiently strong that RCA released it as a single in its own right on February 11.    The same month, Presley's "I Forgot to Remember to Forget", a Sun recording initially released the previous August, reached the top of the Billboard country chart.    Neal's management contract was terminated after Presley's parents expressed a wish for Parker to become the sole representative for the singer's recording contract. Parker became Presley's manager on March 2.

RCA Victor released Presley's self-titled debut album on March 23. Joined by five previously unreleased Sun recordings, its seven recently recorded tracks were of a broad variety.    There were two country songs and a bouncy pop tune.    The others would centrally define the new sound of rock and roll: "Blue Suede Shoes"—"an improvement over Perkins' in almost every way", according to critic Robert Hilburn—and three R&B numbers that had been part of Presely's stage repertoire for some time, covers of Ray Charles, Little Richard, and The Drifters.    As described by Hilburn, these "were the most revealing of all.    Unlike many white artists ... who watered down the gritty edges of the original R&B versions of songs in the '50s, Presley reshaped them.    He not only injected the tunes with his own vocal character but also made guitar, not piano, the lead instrument in all three cases."    It became the first rock and roll album to top the Billboard chart, a position it held for 10 weeks. Cultural historian Gilbert B. Rodman argues that the album's cover image, "of Elvis having the time of his life on stage with a guitar in his hands played a crucial role in positioning the guitar...as the instrument that best captured the style and spirit of this new
music."

After Parker negotiated a lucrative deal with NBC for two Milton Berle Show appearances, Presley made the first on April 3—from the deck of the USS Hancock in San Diego, where he was cheered by an audience of appreciative sailors and their dates.    A few days after, a flight taking Presley and his band to Nashville for a recording session left all three badly shaken when the plane lost an engine and almost went down over Texas.    That same month, twelve weeks after its original release, "Heartbreak Hotel" became Presley's first number one pop hit.

Presley began a four-week residency at the New Frontier Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip on April 23—billed this time as "the Atomic Powered Singer" (a name Parker thought would be catchy as Nevada was a major site for atomic weapons testing).    The shows were so badly received by critics and the conservative, middle-aged hotel guests that Parker cut the engagement to two weeks.    Amid his Vegas tenure, Presley, who had serious acting ambitions, signed a seven-year contract with Paramount Pictures. While there he was also struck by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys'
performance of "Hound Dog", a hit in 1952 for blues singer Big Mama Thornton.    He soon made it the closing number of his act. In mid-May he began a tour of the Midwest, taking in 15 different cities in as many days.    Following a May 14 concert in La Crosse, Wisconsin, someone associated with the local Catholic diocese wrote an urgent letter to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, warning that "Presley is a definite danger to the security of the United States. ...
[His] actions and motions were such as to rouse the sexual passions of teenaged youth. ... After the show, more than 1,000 teenagers tried to gang into Presley's room at the auditorium. ... Indications of the harm Presley did just in La Crosse were the two high school girls ... whose abdomen and thigh had Presley's autograph."

The second Milton Berle Show appearance came on June 5 at NBC's Hollywood studio, amid another hectic tour, of California and Arizona.    On this occasion, Berle persuaded the singer to leave his guitar backstage, advising, "Let 'em see you, son."    Thus unencumbered, during the performance Presley abruptly halted an uptempo version of "Hound Dog" with a wave of his arm, launching straight into a slower version accentuated with exaggerated and energetic movements of his body.    Presley's gyrations created a storm of controversy.    Television critics were outraged: Jack Gould of The New York Times wrote, "Mr. Presley has no discernible singing ability. ... His phrasing, if it can be called that, consists of the stereotyped variations that go with a beginner's aria in a bathtub. ... His one specialty is an accented movement of the body ... primarily identified with the repertoire of the blond bombshells of the burlesque runway."    Ben Gross of the New York Daily News opined that popular music "has reached its lowest depths in the 'grunt and groin' antics of one Elvis Presley. ... Elvis, who rotates his pelvis ... gave an exhibition that was suggestive and vulgar, tinged with the kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos".    Ed Sullivan, whose own variety show was the nation's most popular, declared him "unfit for family viewing".    To Presley's displeasure, he soon found himself being referred to as "Elvis the Pelvis", which he called "one of the most childish expressions I ever heard, comin' from an adult."

The Berle shows drew such high ratings that Presley was booked for a July 1 appearance on NBC's The Steve Allen Show, recorded in New York.    Allen, no fan of rock and roll, believed that his show should be one "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 and bow tie.    As described by television historian Jake Austen, "Allen thought Presley was talentless and absurd... [he] set things up so that Presley would show his contrition".    Allen, for his part, later wrote that he found Presley's "strange, gangly, country-boy charisma, his hard-to-define cuteness, and his charming eccentricity intriguing" and simply worked the singer into the customary "comedy fabric of our program".    Presley would refer back to the Allen show as the most ridiculous performance of his career.    Later that night, he appeared on Hy Gardner Calling, a popular local TV show.    Pressed on whether he had learned anything from the criticism to which he was being subjected, Presley responded, "No, I haven't, I don't feel like I'm doing anything wrong. ... I don't see how any type of music would have any bad influence on people when it's only music. ... I mean, how would rock 'n' roll music make anyone rebel against their parents?"

The next day, Presley recorded "Hound Dog", along with "Any Way You Want Me" and "Don't Be Cruel".    The Jordanaires sang harmony, as they had on The Steve Allen Show; they would work with the singer through the 1960s.    A few days later, Presley made an outdoor concert 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."    In August, 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 of the ruling.    The single pairing "Don't Be Cruel" with "Hound Dog" ruled the top of the charts for 11 weeks—a mark that would not be surpassed for 36 years. Recording sessions for Presley's second album took place in Hollywood during the first week of September. Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, the writers of "Hound Dog", provided "Love Me".

Allen's show with Presley had, for the first time, beaten CBS's The Ed Sullivan Show in the ratings.    Sullivan, despite his June pronouncement, booked the singer for three appearances for an unprecedented $50,000.    The first, on September 9, 1956, was seen by approximately 60 million viewers—a record 82.6 percent of the television audience.    Actor Charles Laughton hosted the show, filling in while Sullivan recuperated from a car accident.    According to Elvis legend, Presley was shot only from the waist up. Having viewed clips of the Allen and Berle shows, Sullivan told his producer that Presley "got some kind of device hanging down below the crotch of his pants—so when he moves his legs back and forth you can see the outline of his cock. ... I think it's a Coke bottle. ... We just can't have this on a Sunday night.    This is a family show!"    Sullivan publicly told TV Guide, "As for his gyrations, the whole thing can be controlled with camera shots."    In truth, Presley was shown head-to-toe in the first and second shows.    Though the camerawork was relatively discreet during his debut, with leg-concealing closeups when he danced, the studio audience reacted in customary style—screaming.    More than any other single event, it was this first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show that made Presley a national celebrity of barely precedented proportions.