Elvis Shakes America: The Night Ed Sullivan Changed Music

On September ninth in nineteen fifty six, Elvis Presley made his very first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, and it became one of the most talked about nights in the history of American television. Interestingly, Ed Sullivan himself was not even there to host that evening. He was still recovering from a serious car accident he had suffered earlier that summer, so the legendary actor Charles Laughton stepped in as guest host, broadcasting from New York while Elvis performed live from CBS Television City out in Hollywood, California. Elvis was only twenty one years old at the time, and he was already causing a sensation with his hip shaking performances and his fusion of rhythm and blues with country twang. That night he sang a mix of songs including Don't Be Cruel, Love Me Tender, Ready Teddy, and Hound Dog, delivering them with the kind of raw energy and playful charisma that made teenagers scream and made plenty of parents clutch their pearls. The numbers from that broadcast are almost hard to believe even today. An estimated sixty million people tuned in, which translates to somewhere around eighty two percent of the entire American television audience at that moment. Think about that for a second. In an era before cable, before streaming, before a hundred channels to choose from, more than eighty percent of everyone watching television that night was watching one young man from Tupelo, Mississippi shake up the airwaves. This appearance came at a pivotal moment for Elvis. He had already stirred controversy earlier that year with performances on other variety shows, and there was a growing cultural anxiety about his suggestive dance moves. Some critics and moral guardians of the day genuinely worried that his hip movements were corrupting the youth of America. Sullivan himself had initially said he would never book Elvis for that very reason, but after watching the ratings that Elvis brought to competing programs, he quickly changed his tune, so to speak, and offered Presley an enormous contract for three appearances. That September ninth debut helped cement Elvis Presley not just as a musical phenomenon but as a full blown cultural lightning rod. It kicked off a series of appearances on the show that would follow over the next several months, including the famous January broadcast where cameras controversially filmed him only from the waist up to avoid showing his dancing. But it all started with that first electric night in September, when a shy young man with a guitar and a lip curl smile walked out in front of the largest television audience most Americans had ever been part of and changed the shape of popular music and celebrity culture forever. It is wild to think that a single television appearance could carry that kind of weight, but in nineteen fifty six, before the internet, before social media, before twenty four hour entertainment news, a moment like this was basically the entire country watching the same spark ignite at the exact same time. Elvis walked off that stage and into legend, and pop culture has never quite been the same since. Some great Deals https://amzn.to/49SJ3Qs For more check out http://www.quietplease.ai