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Joseph El Turk
The Career
Growing up in Tennessee, Elvis would hear music daily by listening to gospel music
from the church and the all night “gospel sings” that he would attend. As well, he was influenced
by the black R&B, which he saw on the famous Beale Street as teenager growing up in Memphis
(Elvis Australia News). When Elvis was in Junior High School, he would show up every day
with a guitar. He would be playing his guitar for anyone who cared to listen to him play during
lunch (Entertainment). Not everyone in his school enjoyed his singing, sometimes his classmates
would cut the strings on his guitar before he performed so no one would have listen to his music.
However, not everyone was that some mean, some the kids even liked his music and would listen
(entertainment).
Elvis was inspired to write music from an early age when he got a guitar for his eleventh
birthday from his mom (Elvis Presley Receives His First Guitar). Getting into music at such a
young age can change a young boy’s life dramatically. Elvis’s mom would tell stories about how
he would jump up out of her lap and run up and down the aisles of his church while the choir
was singing. He even would get up to the stage and sing along with the choir (Elvis Presley
Receives His First Guitar). All this energy in one little boy came from listening to music, Elvis
was inspired to write and listen to all this music because his mom made one little boy have the
best birthday present ever by getting him a seven dollar guitar.
Elvis was a very educated person, but in all the music, you hear from Elvis, it was rare
that it was his own lyrics. His manager found most of his music, for him and Elvis added his own
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spin on the music (Griebel, Mike Louis). However, the songs that Elvis did write they were
written for the important people in his life. He wrote some of his songs for his twin brother who
died at birth, one song he wrote for his brother was called “You’ll be gone.” With this on his
mind, he had many things to flow from and make songs. Some other people he wrote songs for
were his mother he loved his mother a lot he had a very special bond with his mom. A song he
made for his mom was called “That’s Someone You Never forget.” His mom was very protective
over Elvis and watched him like crazy because she already had lost one of her baby boys she did
not want to lose another one of her baby boys.
In 1954, Elvis made his first record with Sun Records label and after making that one
record, he began in his singing career (Elvis Australia News). When one day Elvis walked into
sun records to record “My Happiness and That’s When Your Heartaches Begin” and he made a
