what made elvis great and was he the best rock & roll singer ever?

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EAR­LIER TODAY I fielded an­other ques­tion on the Quora plat­form: “What made Elvis Presley great and was he the best rock and roll singer ever?” Rather than tax my mind trying to come up with some­thing clever, in­stead I re­called to the best of my ability—keeping in mind that I may be suf­fering with in­cip­ient Denny Crane Syndrome—a re­view that was forty-six years old.

Here is my en­tire 43-word an­swer to the ques­tion as it ap­peared on Quora ear­lier today (Au­gust 12, 2018):

 

Elvis HeTouchedMe lp cover 600

In 1972, one of the non-rock magazines—I think it was Stereo Re­view—re­viewed Presley’s re­cently re­leased album HE TOUCHED ME by saying (and I am para­phrasing from memory), “If you don’t get Elvis by now, you prob­ably never will.”

That still stands . . .

 

 

 

2 thoughts on “what made elvis great and was he the best rock & roll singer ever?”

  1. His voice made him great and yes he was the best rock roll singer ever and also the best singer ever.By the way I loved the He Touched Me album and I am not very im­pressed with the re-worked album just out Where No One Stands Alone.The Kings Gospel music was al­ways his most heart­felt and purest vocals.

    Reply
    • D

      Agreed. In fact, I would say that HE TOUCHED ME was Pres­ley’s last fully great album. After that, we got so-so live al­bums and patchy ho-hum studio albums. 

      I don’t care for the rerecorded/reworked projects that Elvis’s music has been sub­jected to since the GUITAR MAN thing ages ago, so I don’t follow it and can’t com­ment on it.

      I do un­der­stand why it’s done and if it helps reach new lis­teners, and maybe make Elvis some new fans, then I can’t re­ally damn it, either.

      Thanks again for reading my stuff and taking the time to post comments.

      Rock­ahula, baby!

      N

      Reply

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