Welcome to Elvis Week 2017! This is the annual week long celebration of the January 8th anniversary of the birth of Elvis Presley. This year he would have been 82. There was so many cool things about him – one of the coolest was to be born when he was. The holidays are over but before the January Blahs can set in we can all continue our ‘escape’ by entering Elvis World for a week to cushion the blow of the coming winter. I’ve tried to break down EP into only seven short segments (no small task) but let’s walk through the Coles Notes version of his life over the course of this week.

Day 1. TUPELO – Tupelo, Mississippi,  January 8, 1935 – basically the mid-way point of the Depression – and Gladys Love Presley goes into labour with her first child. Father Vernon Elvis Presley – in the manner of the day – is banished from the shack he has built with his father’s help to await the arrival. In the early morning hours, Gladys finally delivers a tiny baby boy. The child, however, is born dead. In the horrific aftermath of this it is realized that there is another child awaiting birth. 35 minutes later, another child – only 5+ pounds but alive – is delivered into the world. In trying to think of these people as just regular folks, one can possibly understand how a stillborn baby – and the knowledge for the mother that she can never conceive again – would do irreparable emotional damage to an already destitute, although tight-knit, family. As Elvis grows, Gladys becomes obsessively devoted to her only child. Often to the exclusion of Vernon. She never wanted little Elvis out of her sight and so began a relationship that saw mother and son form an unusually strong bond. Indeed, in many ways, as history would show, their destinies became inextricably linked.

I don’t think enough can be said about the effect that extreme poverty had on the rest of Elvis Presley’s life. Growing up in such dire straits and then coming into a fortune that was inconceivable to share-cropper families like his had an inestimable effect on the way Presley conducted business throughout his career. It can explain so much about the way he handled contracts and his employees and about the influence he allowed his manager, Col. Tom Parker, to exert over him. The same can certainly be said about Vernon. Indeed, Elvis’ father lived the rest of his life in fear that one day it would all be gone and they’d be back where they started. Even in the middle of the opulent lifestyle that his son’s success made possible.

As Elvis entered his late teens, the family decided to pull up stakes and try for a better life over the state line in Memphis, Tennessee. The next few years of his life would bring a change of fortunes for his family. Actually, the next few years of his life would bring changes that would literally resonate throughout the social history of life on this planet.