Author on Elvis Presley

“It was scientist Isaac Newton who told us in his "Three Laws Of Motion" that each action has an equal and opposite reaction. One could say the same about the behaviour of human societies. Glance at history and you will see what I mean. The Regency period, with an example of a randy slob who later became George IV, was a time of loose morals and widespread immorality. Then came the Victorian era. This we are told was a time of rigid prudishness. That lasted for more than a hundred years. I recall it as a provincial shopkeeper's son in the 1940s. Back then, respectability was all. When did British society revert to its natural preference for randiness? There were three impulses. One was the arrival of The Pill. ­Another was the arrival of marijuana. And yet another was the arrival in the mid-1950s of pop music. I recall the utter horror of the older generation and the forecasts of the end of civilisation and teenage girls swooning at the wildly gyrating hips of Elvis Presley. The pop fraternity was king and the pop stars “screwed around”. In short I wish the sudden legion of moralists (where have they been all these years of Playboy and Penthouse?) would put two short words on their bucket list of chores to accomplish before they drop off the perch. A simple resolution: Grow Up.”

“Presley brought rock'n'roll into the mainstream of popular culture, as he set the artistic pace, other artists followed. He, more than anyone else, gave the young a belief in themselves as a distinct and somehow unified generation—the first in America ever to feel the power of an integrated youth culture.”

“Presley brought rock'n'roll into the mainstream of popular culture, as he set the artistic pace, other artists followed. Presley, more than anyone else, gave the young a belief in themselves as a distinct and somehow unified generation—the first in America ever to feel the power of an integrated youth culture.[”