Southern Baptist Presley took the United States by fire, and rapidly burned down the monotonous air of the traditional and conforming nature of an old-school upbringing. His climb from literal rags to riches brought with him the "behaved values" of the church, and molded it with his protesting lyrics and pelvic gyrations. His music was unique to the white population, often regarded as a "race sound," and the soul embedded within his performances stirred a revolution which would provoke critics and parents alike, while drastically morphing the direction of pop culture. Elvis Presley was a concoction of his southern origins, a booming economy, and a drearily antiquated era of entertainment - all which were integral towards popularizing and …show more content…
A blend of African American blues, slave music styles, black spirituals, and '40s era rhythm and blues, the audacious tone Rock n' Roll inherits can be traced to the shanties and juice joints of black culture (. Starkly adjusted for white populations however, the "race record imitations" received no less discrimination. Being a "white man with the negro sound and the negro feel," Presley helped to expand the scope of the musical genre; his white background broadened his audience to a still bigoted America. The frank, genuine and universal nature of the race record was described best by Presley himself, who openly expressed that "there is a low down people and high up people, but all of them get this kind of feeling this Rock n' Roll music tells about." Rock n' Roll is rebellious by inherent purpose- it is a variant of the African American's calls for change- and naturally became culpable for "juvenile delinquency, breakdown of morality and cultural values, race mixing, riots and irreligious." Such criticism was expected, and was only accentuated by the explosive growth of the genre brought upon by the booming post-war