The Elvis Trap

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Today we’re stepping into complicated territory.

Not a personal hero of mine.

Not a composer whose scores I pore over, or a bandleader whose arrangements I quote with delight or a singer I enjoy listening to.

We’ve just spent time with artists like Frank Sinatra, who turned phrasing into a method, and Chuck Berry, who wired rock’s circuitry with wit and precision. Both, in their own ways, were architects of how modern music sounds.

Today’s subject is someone you simply cannot walk around if you’re tracing how popular music, celebrity, and American culture twisted themselves together in the second half of the twentieth century.

Elvis Presley.

For some, he’s the thrilling young rebel in black and white. For others, he’s a cartoon in a white jumpsuit. For many, he’s a brand—lunchboxes, impersonators, Halloween costumes—more than a musician.

For me, and for this podcast, he’s something else: a case study in what happens when a very real, very shy Southern kid with a remarkable voice is plugged directly into a machine that never turns off.

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