Did the youth of the 70’s like Elvis?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by SeepSprite, Mar 11, 2021.

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  1. SeepSprite

    SeepSprite Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Canada
    I was watching ELVIS ON TOUR and it seemed there were still a lot of young people in the audience and during fan scenes (maybe early 20’s) that still loved Elvis.

    In the HBO documentary again, looked like a lot of fans could be seen in their 20’s during this era.

    Did teens and people in their 20’s like Elvis in the 70’s? Basically every single he put out in that defaced became a Top 40 hit so he must of had a current audience?
     
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  2. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    Some of us did. I turned 13 in 1976 so I spent the first half of my teens in the 1970s and I loved Elvis. I had "Burning Love" on 45 (that was before my teens); I remember the impact on me of seeing "Suspicious Minds" from the That's The Way It Is on TV, In high school I had copies of the Sun Sessions and From Memphis to Vegas and Elvis Golden Records; I used to love to watch Elvis movies, which were frequently on TV. It wasn't the norm, a teenager being a fan of Elvis, but it wasn't crazy or eccentric either. I don't think the you teens of my generation though played any roll in the charting of any of his contemporaneous singles. Honestly the only one I remember hearing at all at the time was "Burning Love," which was a legit smash hit and got a lot of airplay around my neck of the wood (metro NYC) and which I owned on 45. Despite the fact that they charted a lot of those other top 40 hit of that time weren't really what I'd call "hits" they were "charted singles" that maybe got some airplay in some markets (don't forget, radio airplay was and still is a big component of the Billboard Hot 100). Kids weren't buying 45s of "T-R-O-U-B-L-E" or "Moody Blue." In fact, after "Burning Love," if I heard Elvis on the radio it was on oldies radio, which was a newish format at the time and which I liked a lot. And that was, like "Suspicious Minds," or "All Shook Up."
     
  3. dwilpower

    dwilpower Forum Resident

    Location:
    Glasgow Scotland
    I was 9 in 1970 and loved "The Wonder of You" which was a massive No1 hit in the UK (his final UK No1 during his lifetime). By the time I'd turned 12 no one at school who was in the "cool" gang would ever admit to being an Elvis fan OR a Beatles fan- they were seen as old and cheesy- particularly Elvis who had become a sad fat Vegas act who released some real clunkers in the 70s. It was all David Cassidy Donny Osmond, Gary Glitter (sorry) for the girls and boys were into Slade Sweet Led Zep Deep Purple & Floyd to name but a few- but you get the message- tastes would of course change as the decade progressed but Elvis & The Beatles were stone cold out in the wilderness. Following Elvis & John Lennon's death they became cool again to a new generation and were re-assessed by my generation.
     
  4. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product

    I did. Born in 68 I gre up with Elvis Golden records 1, the UK version...
    During the eighties I was wandering off and finding all sorts of music, and the grounding in Elvis material disappeared for a long time.

    When the fifties box was released I grabbed it, and it rejuvenated my love of his music. I tentatively got the sixties box and loved it.
    This ended up causing a big exploration and now I have pretty much all his stuff in one form or another.

    A brilliant artist and interpreter who is seemingly, and sadly overlooked by many, because he didn't write his own songs...
    Often misrepresented as a guy who couldn't play an instrument, yet Elvis has album with him playing bass guitar, piano and lots of guitar.....

    Well worth looking into his music, and even the much maligned soundtrack albums have plenty of gems to be discovered.
    One of the all time greats.
     
  5. Bink

    Bink Forum Resident

    I was born in 1978 so can't really comment specifically in terms of how 1970's youth responded to Elvis, however doesn't it often come down to perception?

    Dwilpower's reference above to the 'cool gang' at school is a relevant observation, however the cool gang is not the be all and end all of music audiences.

    I have been to many concerts by so-called legacy acts who you might think would only attract audiences of a certain age, yet I would see many people in their teens and early 20's.

    Indeed when I was a teenager in the 90's, I was listening to a lot of 60's music. I was not representative of my peer group but it still doesn't discount my experience.
     
  6. egebamyasi

    egebamyasi Forum Resident

    Location:
    Worcester, MA
    I didn't like his current music but he was still the king, until Elvis Costello came along. I know I had a picture of the young Elvis on my wall along with my Wings and ELO pictures.
     
  7. RudolphS

    RudolphS Forum Resident

    Location:
    Rio de Janeiro
    As as a kid growing up in the '70s, I liked the early Elvis Presley. I was aware of hits like Jailhouse Rock and Hound Dog, but those were very different from his contemporary '70s songs, which were more in the crooner vein. The latter just didn't connect with a kid otherwise listening to glam, prog and hardrock. Only much later I really learned to appreciate Elvis, after hearing his Sun material.
     
    Last edited: Mar 11, 2021
  8. Purple Jim

    Purple Jim Senior Member

    Location:
    Bretagne
    Yep, that's how it was in Britain at the time. Very few "youths" were into Elvis. He appeared schmaltzy, kitsch and old hat throughout the 70s. I still feel the same way about Vegas Elvis.
     
  9. Vaughan

    Vaughan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Essex, UK
    I can only give a personal opinion - but in my circles..... no. A big no.
     
  10. Tim 2

    Tim 2 MORE MUSIC PLEASE

    Location:
    Alberta Canada
    The gals sure did.
     
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  11. wondergrape

    wondergrape Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ohio
    I know the punks largely revered him. That's all I got.
     
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  12. Sneaky Pete

    Sneaky Pete Flat the 5 and That’s No Jive

    Location:
    NYC USA
    I think Elvis had a large and varied audience. He was really of my parents generation but most of my peers liked Elvis. He had a career revival and was doing some of his best work in the early 70s. Elvis wasn’t cool in the same way that Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Allman Brothers were cool, but he was beyond that. He was Elvis! That’s like being Frank Sinatra.

    My friends liked all the early rock-a-billy pioneers from Sun Records but Elvis was the King. Then the drugs and bloat set in and he was a sad character. Most of us didn’t know how bad things were until he died. But the short answer is yes we liked Elvis.
     
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  13. Bluesman Mark

    Bluesman Mark I'm supposed to put something witty here....

    Location:
    Iowa
    Growing up in the 70s in North Carolina, (I was 15 when he died), I was certainly aware of Elvis, but didn't really care much about him either way. And it's much the same now. There's other 50's rockers I'd rather listen to, (Chuck, Richard, Buddy, Fats, Jerry Lee), before Elvis.

    And, other than one guy, I didn't know anyone in my age group who felt any differently about him. By the mid 70s when I got into music at age 13, he just wasn't on our radar at all.
     
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  14. blutiga

    blutiga Forum Resident

    I did.
     
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  15. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member

    Elvis had a steady run of chart hits in the U.K. throughout the 70s. I’d be 14 when he died. A few weeks later he had his biggest hit of the decade with Way Down. I have to say that although I liked the odd single by him, I wasn’t a fan especially. I thought people like him, McCartney and Cliff Richard were terribly old and used to wonder why they were still having hits. I was so ageist back then.:D

    Years later of course, I listened to Elvis properly and became a fan. But in the 70s, I would have never bought an Elvis album.
     
  16. Bassist

    Bassist Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    In the UK? I would say that prior to his death he hardly got mentioned at all as an influence on current styles. He was more showbusiness than rock n roll. My friends and I didn't give him a second thought.

    Generally speaking Elvis' death was far less a cause for mourning than Lennon's for obvious reasons and also the fact that few Brits had seen Elvis in person. There was a lot of irreverence and not much by way of a serious assessment of the good stuff. Not in the music press at any rate.

    Culturally there was already a retro oriented sub-cult of punk 'n' hippie-hating hooligans called Teds that were carrying the torch for a pre Beatles universe. Then there was the far cooler, younger and better dressed, pre-Psychobilly, Rockabilly crowd that emerged towards the end of the decade. There were of course legions of Elvis fans among the straight-living folks now in their mid to late 30s who stepped off the pop culture train around the time of Revolver never to return but they didn't register their grief (or connect with each other) to anything like the same degree that would be possible today.

    The outpouring of grief at Bowie's death across the media and among the public was I would say many times more impactful and long lasting. In many ways it is still going on.
     
    Last edited: Mar 11, 2021
  17. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member

    I remember the death of Elvis as a massive story here. The press covered it for weeks. Unlike Marc Bolan who passed a few weeks later and was very much a one day wonder in the papers. In fact, I’d say the coverage of Elvis was unrivalled until the death of Princess Diana 20 years later.
     
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  18. TimM

    TimM Senior Member

    I was 15 in 1970 and we certainly knew of him and his music but he was not a "Rock Star" by that time and I don't think he wanted to be. He had almost no impact on the radio stations teenagers listened to and the white suits and Vegas act didn't fit the times. People who took their music a little more serious like I did probably had a little deeper appreciation of his importance to the history of rock, but as the 70's unfolded the only Elvis in my collection was a couple of the late 60's singles and one of his greatest hits albums. I guess I would sum it up by saying he was known to my generation but not really a very big deal. I don't think teenagers contributed much to whatever chart impact he had, much like when Paul McCartney has a high charting album these days it's not being bought by teenagers.
     
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  19. Bassist

    Bassist Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    Really? That is now how I remember it. I remember girls waiting in the street when Marc died. All I remember about Elvis is a day or two of headlines, a dribbling out of the gory details and people making jokes about it. Maybe London was doing things differently.
     
  20. halfjapanese

    halfjapanese Gifs moider!

    My 9-year-old post:

    The only time I saw Elvis was at the Hampton Roads Coliseum in 1972. I was 18 and living in Norfolk, Virginia, at the time and none of my friends would go with me because it was just too uncool. This meant I'd have to hitch hike since I didn't own a car. I don't know if it's still true, but back then you needed a ride through the Hampton Roads Tunnel to get to the Coliseum. Every other vehicle seemed to be a pickup truck and every other pickup truck seemed to include a passenger who yelled at me. It appeared that NO ONE would stop because I looked a little too freaky. I eventually made it and took my single seat among the bouffants and pompadours AND IT WAS A GREAT SHOW. Better than I ever expected. And, just like many other rock shows of that era, there was a collective high and a sense of shared experience as we all cheered Elvis on. Hell, the couple next to me who eyed me warily when I took my seat, gave me a ride all the way home to my apartment. Great night. Great memory.
     
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  21. eric777

    eric777 Astral Projectionist

    My mother was 15 years old in 1970 and she loves him. He has always been her favorite.
     
  22. Bern

    Bern JC4Me

    Location:
    Allegan, Michigan
    I only knew of one Elvis fan in high school (class of 77). But he was a big one. We always talked music.
     
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  23. pig bodine

    pig bodine God’s Consolation Prize

    Location:
    Syracuse, NY USA
    Casual music fans didn't care one way or another, but people who were really into music liked him.
     
  24. Todd W.

    Todd W. It's a Puggle

    Location:
    Maryland
    The two songs I can genuinely remember on the radio from Elvis was "In the Ghetto" and "Burning Love". I liked them both. I was born in 1960. So, I guess that would make me a youth of the 70's. A buddy of mine's mom was a huge fan and she had this little Elvis bust she kept on her TV. We always made fun of it.

    Besides that, I don't remember Elvis having much impact on my teen music enjoyment. I can't remember any friends either who had any music by him. Though, I will say in later years I became much more of a fan.
     
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  25. Bluesman Mark

    Bluesman Mark I'm supposed to put something witty here....

    Location:
    Iowa
    By the time he died in 1977, I was deeply into music with a large & ever growing collection of albums, (around 500-600 or more), well past a "casual music fan", & like I said, I didn't care one way or the other about his music. Broad, sweeping statements need to be backed up by factual evidence.
     
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