Who stepped on my blue suede shoes?

By Bob Ford Special to

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I like birthplace museums. If you’ve done something memorable in your life, you get a museum. If you changed people’s lives, they go back to the beginning and tell the story of what made you, you.

John Wayne, Amelia Earhart, Walt Disney and John J. Pershing all moved the needle and have great birthplace museums.

So I was excited when pulling into Tupelo, Mississippi, because the signs were everywhere, “Welcome to the Birthplace of Elvis Presley.”

Tupelo is an old rail town with typical southern roots. Poor and rural with a history of segregation and southern culture. It’s exactly the type of place in America where dreams are answered, for someone to overcome life’s problems and become one of the most important cultural figures of the 20th century.

Elvis loved his hometown and would initiate and support projects in Tupelo throughout his life.

“You can take Elvis out of Tupelo but you can’t take Tupelo out of Elvis,” so says Roy Turner, director of the Elvis Presley Birthplace Museum. “Elvis was more than just a star, he bridged the generation gap and influences music to this day.”

As John Lennon said, “without Elvis the Beatles wouldn’t exist!”

The Stones, Aretha Franklin, Dolly Parton and throngs of other musicians credit Elvis, his creativity and diversity with influencing their music. Even though his music is what first got him noticed, it was more than that. He changed America’s fabric.

Born in a shotgun house on the wrong side of the tracks in 1935, Elvis didn’t know he was poor; all he knew was he wasn’t rich. His area of the city was called Shake Rag, a predominantly black neighborhood known for music and struggles. The air was always filled with blues and jazz but come Sunday it was all gospel.

As a kid, Elvis and his Black best friends Sam Bell and Bo Clanton would sneak into speakeasies and absorb the music, style and fun of the times. All this had an endearing impact on his persona and life.

The boys would go to segregated movie houses together where Elvis went in the front door and his buds in the side, only to have Elvis sneak into the Black section of the theater to be with his friends. No one took notice. Elvis was very close to Sam Bell’s grandparents, who after his stardom would comment on Elvis’s politeness and “southern ways.”

In 1945 at the age of 10, Elvis gave his first public performance at a singing contest held at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show, singing the sad ballad, “Old Shep.” Elvis came in fifth place. Redemption and celebration was had 11 years later as he came back to the fair and entertained 21,000 hysterical fans. I wonder if any of those who finished 1-4 were in the crowd?

On his 11th birthday, Elvis received his first guitar as a present from his mother. He took it everywhere, playing at school, church, tent revivals and honky-tonks.

When he turned 13, Elvis and the Presley’s moved 120 miles northwest to Memphis where father Vernon Presley continued his struggling ways. The really cool 1953 Plymouth that they rode while leaving Tupelo is on display at the museum.

Elvis changed the music industry because of the dollars he generated. In music it’s still telltale to follow the 14-year-old girls with their craves, raves and buying habits. As Elvis started singing and moving, young girls couldn’t get enough. The change in music from Sinatra and Dean Martin to Elvis and the Beatles led to a shift in society and attitudes. It was the first cultural step away from post WWII life. Those comfortable with routine were opposed to any sort of change, thought the music and style were rebellious.

Elvis heard it all, rock and roll was the devil’s music. There was a “Black music” phobia in America at the time, because you could “feel the music.” It distanced one generation from another.

No matter the road blocks the establishment put out, girls climbed over and dollars drove the mania.

Elvis’s life is a mixture of raw talent with an infectious persona that a restless generation was demanding.

The museum is a great two hour walk through with his shotgun boyhood home, Assembly of God chapel where the Presley’s worshiped and the museum itself all on a 15-acre unspoiled Southern setting.

Next week, more on the man, his music, impact and lives touched.