Elvis Presley

Rush-released to satisfy public demand in March 1956, Elvis' debut LP was a ruthless, exploitative product of its day, hastily assembled from Sun session leftovers and hurried covers. In parts brilliant (such as the ghostly Blue Moon), and despite a reputation as his definitive early work, the Elvis Presley album pales beside his second LP, Elvis. Released seven months later, the follow-up album is a reverb-sodden paradise featuring guitarist Scotty Moore at his spidery-fingered best, and capped by the rarely celebrated weepie, How's The World Treating You?

As the sixties dawned in America, no pretenders had threatened Presley's position as king of rock & roll. The month after his army release in March 1960, Stuck On You bolted to Number One to be followed by It's Now Or Never and Are You Lonesome Tonight? later in the year.  By the time Surrender had achieved similar status in February 1961, Elvis already had a dozen chart-toppers under his belt but he was concentrating all his activities in the recording and film studios, making no personal appearances.

Over the next decade he starred in a succession of woeful song-vehicles with films like Tickle Me and Clambake, and the low standard of his records was reflected in his failure to achieve more than one US Top 10 entry between 1964 and 1969 when In The Ghetto and Suspicious Minds showed a rally of brilliance.

Between 1961 and 1968 in fact, Elvis made no less than 21 movies, at the rate of three a year. An MGM executive was quoted as saying at the time; "They don't need titles. They could be numbered. They would still sell". In fact Elvis could act quite well, and he did sometimes (Flaming Star, Wild In The Country), but usually nobody bothered to demand it of him. To make an Elvis movie in those days all you really needed were lots of pretty girls, a couple of fights, some chocolate box scenery and maybe a car race or a rodeo.

Kissin' Cousins (1963) for example, was shot in 17 days, for which Elvis reportedly received $750,000 flat, plus 50% of the take. Nice work if you can get it . . . With the movies, the soundtrack albums, the publishing royalties on the songs and the exploitation products, Elvis and his manager Colonel Parker were pulling in more than $5 million a year - every year. So what if they were dreadful movies?

Until 1967 Elvis had seemed content to exist in a state of nearly complete limbo, holed up in his Memphis mansion with his cousins and bodyguards and assorted friends, occasionally making the trip out to Hollywood, and occasionally rushing in to a recording studio to reel off a soundtrack. But even the soundtrack songs were pretty standard fare: oatmeal from his own publishing house.

On May 1, 1967, female Elvis fans had their hopes forever dashed when he married his sweetheart of eight years, Priscilla Beaulieu. The wedding of the year was a remarkably modest affair, taking place in the private suite of the owner of the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas between 9:30 and 10:00 am with Nevada Supreme Court Justice David Zenoff officiating. Best man was Joe Esposito, a trusted member of Presley's so-called 'Memphis Mafia', while Priscilla's sister Michelle was Maid of Honor.

Elvis decided to stop making films, and by the time he stepped onto the stage of the Las Vegas International Hotel in August 1969 - still with his MGM acting contract unfulfilled - he had matured in every possible way.

With the album of his life, From Elvis In Memphis, receiving the praise it deserved, Presley was at the top of his game: full of energy, the voice better than ever and the performing skills finely honed. Crucially, he knew how to pick both songs and band members. The results were not camp, not tacky, just sensational!

Before the bovine stewardship of "colonel" Tom Parker ensured that grueling repetitive America-only touring schedules ground him down, Presley adored performing. It showed in the way he teased his band, trashed his silly films and did Ed Sullivan impersonations on stage.

He radically altered his show each year, dipping into the gospel that was his first love, re-electrifying old hits and covering songs by other artists (Sweet Caroline, Proud Mary etc). And whenever he covered a  song, as the voice of Rock & Roll, it became his. By 1975 the breathing was getting heavier but the voice never, ever faltered.

The official cause of Elvis Presley's death was heart failure, but there was much speculation at the time over The King's unsparing approach to self-medication. The word was, that even if the drugs he took hadn't technically killed him, they'd certainly been keeping him alive for the last few years. The most remarkable thing about the Presley stash, though, was that it was all completely legal.

Everything in his famed traveling medicine chest - apparently it was like one of those multi-draw cabinets on wheels that mechanics keep their tools in - was available on prescription. The only question mark hangs over what they were actually prescribed for. 

Elvis' dangerous pharmaceutical cocktail cabinet consisted of; Dilaudid (a powerful synthetic opiate which is among the strongest painkillers); Percodan (another major league painkiller - usually administered to serious burns victims);  Biphetamine (a strong stimulant used in cases of dangerously slow heartbeat); Dextroamphetamine (much the same); and Quaaludes (very strong sleeping pills).