To L + C... T.C.B. G.E.
For Linda J.O.B.
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Text copyright 2007 by Geoff Edgers. Illustrations copyright 2007 by John OBrien. Cover illustration copyright 2007 by Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Published by Penguin Workshop, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. PENGUIN and PENGUIN WORKSHOP are trademarks of Penguin Books Ltd. WHO HQ & Design is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC. Printed in the USA.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2007006990
Ebook ISBN 9781101098929
Version_3
Contents
Who Was Elvis Presley?
He was called The King. Thats because Elvis Presley ruled rock and roll. There were other singers in the 1950s. But nobody like Elvis. He looked different. He greased up his black hair and grew long sideburns. He wore whatever he wanted. Even pink pants with black stripes looked cool on Elvis. And, boy, could he dance.
Then there was the music. In the fifties, before Elvis, there was no rock and roll. There were two kinds of popular music. On the radio, white singers sang romantic songs or cute songs. A big hit in 1953 was (How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window? In small clubs, black singers were performing rhythm and blues, or R & B. It was loud, with a strong beat, and was easy to dance to. Back then, R & B wasnt played very much on radio stations just because it was black music.
But Elvis listened to those black singers, mainly from records other kids had. And he loved that music.
Rhythm and blues music helped make Elvis a big star. He sang R & B in his own special way. Girls screamed when he stood onstage and wiggled his hips. Boys tried to look like him. Parents were upset. They didnt like this new music. They thought Elvis was too wild.
But there was no turning back. This was the start of rock and roll. And of all the rock stars to come, Elvis was always the biggest. He had one hit record after another. He sold out concerts. He became a movie star. And when he died more than thirty years ago, Elvis left behind millions of fans who still miss him. Tours of his home, Graceland, are packed.
GRACELAND
Thousands of people show up in Memphis, Tennessee, to celebrate his birthday. They are also there to cry on the anniversary of the day he died.
Elvis Presley is gone, but the King lives on.
Chapter 1
Tupelo
Elvis wasnt always rich. He didnt always own a mansion or a garage filled with Cadillacs. He didnt always have fancy clothes and expensive jewelry.
As a boy, Elvis was poor. Very poor.
Elvis Aron Presley was born on January 8, 1935, in Tupelo, Mississippi. His mother, Gladys, was pregnant with twins, but she didnt know it. Like a lot of poor people in the South, the Presleys didnt have the money to see doctors. So Elviss mother gave birth at home.
The delivery was difficult. At around four in the morning, Gladys gave birth to a son, but sadly he was stillborn. Then Gladys realized there was another baby still inside her. About a half hour later, Elvis arrived. The family named the baby who died Jesse Garon. The healthy boy was named Elvis Aron. Gladys and Vernon Presley couldnt even afford a gravestone for little Jesse Garon.
Though he never met Jesse Garon, Elvis thought about his twin all the time. He wondered what life would have been like with a brother. As a boy, he would go visit Jesses grave. As a famous rock star, Elvis still talked about the brother he never knew.
Elviss childhood wasnt easy. His family struggled. The Presleys lived on the poor side of town. Their house had only two rooms.
Vernon hadnt finished high school. He married Gladys when he was just seventeen. Without an education, Vernon found it hard to find or keep a good job. At different times he worked on farms, painted houses, and drove trucks.
A lot of people were going through hard times, just like the Presleys. Elvis was born in the middle of the Great Depression. All across the United States, people couldnt find work. They couldnt make enough money for food and clothes. People had to beg for food, or hope for free lunch at a soup kitchen. Families moved from town to town looking for work. Some people had to live in cardboard boxes.
At least the Presleys had a home. It didnt have electricity or running water. There was no indoor bathroom. Instead, Vernon built an outhouse in the backyard. An outhouse is a small, wood hut with no real toilet. Just a hole in the ground.
Gladys couldnt have any more babies. So she became very nervous that Elvis might get hurt. She walked him to school every day. She gave him a whipping when he did something wrong. Elvis didnt like getting hit, but he loved his mother very much. He would hurry home after school in the afternoon to be with Mama.
