Elvis Presley
The Mississippi truck driver whose hips, voice, and Black-music-on-a-white-singer recipe launched rock and roll — and the entire concept of the modern megastar.
Origin
Elvis Aaron Presley (1935–1977) grew up poor, white, and Pentecostal, soaked in Black gospel and blues, and exploded out of Memphis's Sun Records in 1954. The hip-shaking television performances scandalized parents and rewired their teenagers. After a two-year army stint and decades of Vegas residencies and pill-fueled decline, he died on the bathroom floor at Graceland at forty-two. Within a decade he had been canonized as 'the King' and Graceland had become a secular pilgrimage site. Elvis impersonators — wigs, jumpsuits, sideburns — are an actual profession.
Modern usage
'The King' (unqualified) means Elvis. 'Elvis has left the building' is the canonical PA-system line for any event that is over and you should go home. 'Going full Elvis' covers anything from the late-period jumpsuit to the prescription-pill spiral. He's the prototype every later pop megastar — Michael Jackson, Madonna, Beyoncé — is implicitly compared to.
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