Elvis Presley - Origin of the surname

The surname Presley was Anglicized from the German name "Pressler" during the Civil War. His ancestor Johann Valentin Pressler emigrated to America in 1710. Presley was mostly of Scottish, Native American, Irish, Jewish, and German roots.

Elvis Presley - Early life

Elvis Presley was born on January 8, 1935 at around 4:35 a.m. in a two-room shotgun house in Tupelo, Mississippi, to Vernon Presley, a truck driver, and Gladys Love Smith, a sewing machine operator. Vernon Presley is described as "taciturn to the point of sullenness" and as "a weakling, a malingerer, always averse to work and responsibility," whereas his mother, Gladys, was "voluble, lively, full of spunk." Priscilla Presley describes her as "a surreptitious drinker and alcoholic." When she was angry, "she cussed like a sailor." Presley's twin brother, Jesse Garon Presley, was stillborn, thus leaving him to grow up as an only child. Jesse Garon Presley was buried in a shoebox in an unmarked grave, in Priceville Cemetery in Tupelo. In the evening of April 5, 1936, Elvis survived the forth dealiest tornado in US history in the Tupelo community that took 233 lives.

Elvis Presley - Voice characteristics

Elvis Presley was a baritone whose voice had an extraordinary compass - the so-called register - and a very wide range of vocal color. It covered two octaves and a third, from the baritone low-G to the tenor high B, with an upward extension in falsetto to at least a D flat. Presley's best octave was in the middle, D-flat to D-flat. "He has always been able to duplicate the open, hoarse, ecstatic, screaming, shouting, wailing, reckless sound of the black rhythm-and-blues and gospel singers. But he has not been confined to that one type of vocal production." In ballads and country songs he was able to belt out "full-voiced high Gs and As that an opera baritone might envy," showing a remarkable ability to naturally assimilate styles. His "voice has always been weak at the bottom, variable and unpredictable. At the top it is often brilliant. His upward passage would seem to lie in the area of E flat, E and F."

Elvis Presley - Last relationships

Six months after Priscilla left, Presley dated beauty queen Linda Thompson. Although she was a virgin when they met, it has been claimed that they "started with marathon love-making sessions in Vegas hotel rooms." She shared Presley's passion for gospel music and higher religious understanding, moved into Graceland in August 1972 and remained the singer's steady companion for roughly three and a half years. However, their relationship "disintegrated into a sexless and gloomy existence." According to Thompson, "There were times when he was very, very, difficult. There was a lot of heartache and he exhibited a lot of self-destructive behaviour, which was very difficult for me, you know, watching someone I loved so much destroy himself." In 1976, she left Presley. "Some doubt he ever had sex again," and his final live-in girlfriend, beauty queen Ginger Alden, "is too polite to say." 

 

 

Elvis Presley - The Memphis Mafia and other male friends

Apart from his relationships with women, Presley had many male friends. He reportedly spent day and night with friends and employees whom the news media affectionately dubbed the Memphis Mafia. Among Elvis Presley Biographythem were Sonny West, Red West, Billy Smith, Marty Lacker and Lamar Fike. Gerald Marzorati says that Elvis "couldn't go anywhere else without a phalanx of boyhood friends." Even the girls he dated deplored, "Whenever you were with Elvis for the most part you were with his entourage. Those guys were always around..."