Meighan Byron's "History of Rock & Roll"
I think women were taken with Elvis because of his blunt sexuality. No one came close to having the same sexual charisma that he did in his early days. The wiggle of his hips, the quiver in his lips, whew! Elvis was the polar opposite of Lawrence Welk, Sammy Kaye and Bing Crosby. They were useful as the soothing, crooning voices during the unsettling time of World War II. People would hear them on the radio warbling through the night and I think it probably set a tone of calmness and normalcy. The war was over, service men and women came home and started the baby boom. The norm was to buy a Chevrolet, a dog and a colonial style house with a picket fence in front and pop out children.
Things became so monotonous and safe after a time of turbulent war. The generation after the “Greatest Generation” needed their own identity; to break out of this Pleasantville world. I think that’s what George Clinton meant by “most kids hate their parent’s artist…” It’s because they need their own generational identity. Elvis’ introduction into the mainstream gave white kids permission to like music different than their parents. After all what was wasn’t to like? He was white, very good looking and a good Christian boy from Tupelo, Mississippi. So Elvis became the liberator for the post World War II generation, those who were too young to participate in the war effort but were now of an age where they wanted to be apart of a social movement. It’s happened in every generation really. You associate the young people of a said generation with a genre of music. I associate my parents with the disco of the seventies, my sister with the grunge movement of the nineties and someday I hope I’ll be associated with the indie rock movement of today.