Did Black Folks Love Elvis, Too, Or Was He Just Another Racist?

The King of Rock n' Roll's recent biopic shows a one-sided relationship with us.

PublishedJuly 29, 2022

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Image for article titled Did Black Folks Love Elvis, Too, Or Was He Just Another Racist? — Photo: Michael Ochs Archives (Getty Images)

Not everyone agreed with the notion that Elvis Presley was the king of Rock n Roll: everyone meaning Black people. The reason was because he made a killing appropriating songs by Black artists and the media praised him for the creation of the new sound.

My parents (and grandparents) still recall the famous quote captured by the periodical Sepia back in 1975, “The only thing Negroes can do for me is buy my records and shine my shoes.” However, others thought he was doing justice to the Black community by bringing their sound to the national stage.

Let’s take a look into how Black celebrities and artists reacted to Elvis.

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Quincy Jones

Quincy Jones was very clear that he thought Elvis was a racist. He told The Hollywood Reporter last year that he wouldn’t work with him after orchestra leader Tommy Dorsey refused to play with Elvis back in the 1950s.

“He was a racist mother — I’m going to shut up now,” Jones said. “But every time I saw Elvis, he was being coached by [“Don’t Be Cruel” songwriter] Otis Blackwell, telling him how to sing,” he said. Blackwell told David Letterman he never met Presley.

But it’s safe to say there’s no changing Jones’ mind.

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Ray Charles

Ray Charles’ thoughts on Elvis Presley

In a resurfaced video of Ray Charles, he asserted that Elvis music was really Black music. Like other artists, he wasn’t impressed by the hype because the artists Presley took from were not profiting the same off their music.

“He was doing the Willie Mae Thornton jailhouse rock. That’s Black music,” Charles said in the interview. “What am I suppose to get excited about? Don’t ask me no more questions about Elvis,” said Charles. “I know too many artists that are far greater than Elvis. I think he came around at the right time and here is a white kid that could do rock and roll and the girls could swoon over him,” he added. “He was doing our kind of music.”

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Chuck D

In an interview with The Guardian in 2014, Public Enemy’s Chuck D laid it all out that he was not a fan of Elvis. He didn’t have a particular vendetta against him. He just didn’t appreciate how he was being made out to be an icon without giving proper credit where it was due.

“But the American way of putting him up as the King and the great icon is disturbing. You can’t ignore black history. Now they’ve trained people to ignore all other history – they come over with this homogenised crap. So, Elvis was just the fall guy in my lyrics for all of that. It was nothing personal – believe me,” he said.

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Sister Rosetta Tharpe

The godmother of Rock n Roll acknowledged the appropriation happening but only slightly.

“These kids and their rock‘n roll is just sped up rhythm and blues. I’ve been doing that forever,” her character says in Baz Lurhmann’s biopic. In reality, she had already hit the ground running in the music genre by the time Elvis got to her music.

Even though he profited off her sound, he did acknowledge that he loved Tharpe and was outspoken about how he admired her singing and guitar-playing.

When you see Elvis Presley singing early in his career … imagine he is channeling Sister Rosetta Tharpe,” said historian Gayle Wald to the Rolling Stone. “It’s not an image I think we’re used to thinking about when we think of rock & roll history – we don’t think about the black woman behind the young white man.”

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Big Mama Thornton

‎(1965) Blues by Big Mama Thornton - Hound Dog and Down Home Shakedown

I remember when Black Twitter went up in flames after they found out Elvis stole this song. One of Presley’s biggest hits was “Hound Dog” and even Thornton herself made a remark about how filfthy rich he got off her record.

According to Vanity Fair, she called the song “the record she made Elvis Presley rich on.” Futher she called it a song she was “robbed of” at a concert.

“This ain’t no Elvis Presley song, son,” she said to her drummer according to biographer Michael Spörke. This was allegedly a regular thing at her shows as she took back credit for what was rightly hers.

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Little Richard

We know how Little Richard felt about not being credited to pioneering Rock n Roll. However, he didn’t so much hate Elvis as much as he resented him. He told the Rolling Stone back in 1990 that Elvis was a star but because he had the complexion to be one.

“I think the door opened wider [with Elvis], but the door may have already been opened by ‘Tutti Frutti,’” Richard told Rolling Stone. “I think that Elvis was more acceptable being white back in that period. I believe that if Elvis had been Black, he wouldn’t have been as big as he was. If I was white, do you know how huge I’d be? If I was white, I’d be able to sit on top of the White House! A lot of things they would do for Elvis and Pat Boone, they wouldn’t do for me.”

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B.B. King

In Lurhmann’s biopic, he shows Elvis and B.B. King as besties. But were they really?

According to the San Antonio Examiner, King said he had a friendship with Elvis because they both grew up poor in Mississippi and fought their way out through music.

I told Elvis once, and he told me he remembered I told him this, is that ‘music is like water. Water is for every living person and every living thing,” King said. “I’d play Lucille (his guitar) and sing with Elvis, or we’d take turns. It was his way of relaxing’…’We were the original Blues Brothers because that man knew more blues songs than most in the business - and after some nights it felt like we sang everyone one of them.”

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Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali called Elvis “The Greatest,” a term he often used to refer to himself. According to Elvis’ biography website, he was his second favorite next to Sam Cooke.

When I was 15 years old and saw Elvis on TV, I wanted to be Elvis,” said Ali. “Other kids in the neighborhood were listening to Ray Charles and James Brown, but I listened to Elvis. I admired him so much and I decided that if I was going to be famous, I’d do it just like him. He’s one of the reasons I wanted to entertain people and be loved by the people and make the girls admire me so much.”

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Sammy Davis Jr.

Davis said, per his story in the 1989 book Why Me?: The Sammy Davis Jr. Story, he and Elvis “gravitated” toward each other being rebels in their own ways. But the way their relationship became interesting was based on a song called “In the Ghetto.”

Davis said he turned down the song because Presley would have a better connection to what the song was about.

He’d experienced firsthand the desperation and injustice of that kind of life,” said Linda Thompson, Elvis’ girlfriend via her book. “Anyone who knows the song only has to think of the recurring line, ‘And his mama cried,’ to be reminded of the powerful love he had for his mother.”

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James Brown

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Cissy Houston

Cissy Houston talks about Elvis Presley and The Sweet Inspirations

Elvis was reportedly amused by Cissy Houston as she performed her soprano solo in “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” at one of his Vegas shows on August 26, 1969, according to the Elvis.com.

That show became a coveted moment among Elvis fans and his singing style was easily recognizable by Houston but more as appreciation instead of appropriation.

“Elvis loved gospel music. He was raised on it. And he really did know what he was talking about. He was singing Gospel all the time – almost anything he did had that flavor. You can’t get away from what your roots are,” Cissy Houston said.

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Fats Domino

Elvis gave Fats Domino the praise of being “king” of Rock n Roll. He told Las Vegas reporters Domino was the one to hail.

No, that’s the real King of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” he said pointing at Domino from across the room. “A lot of people seem to think I started this business,” said Elvis. “But rock ‘n’ roll was here a long time before I came along. Let’s face it: I can’t sing like Fats Domino can. I know that,” said Elvis per James L. Neibaur’s biography of the artist.

Domino was also one of Elvis’ biggest competitors in the music industry and he knew he was the goat then too. When asked if he got to meet The Beatles, he said “No, they got to meet me,” per National Post.

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Arthur Crudup

Arthur Crudup - That’s All Right (original version)

Elvis director Baz Luhrmann said he couldn’t emphasize Elvis’ talent and legacy without acknowledging where he got his sound from, according to The Washington Post.

“I can’t overstate enough: You can’t tell the story of Elvis Presley without telling the story of Black American rhythm and blues, Pentecostal gospel,” Luhrmann said. “It’s just completely woven in there. But I think there have been tellings of the Elvis story where that’s just kind of touched on lightly or expunged.”

Elvis’ debut single was a rendition of Arthur Crudup’s “That’s All Right.” Crudup reportedly was one of Elvis main inspirations going into music.

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Background Singers and Others

The people who were closest to Elvis, (his ex-wife included) tended to disagree with the notion that Elvis was a racist.

Darlene Love, who sang backup for Elvis as a part of the Blossoms, said “I would never think that Elvis Presley was a racist,” and pianist Dudley Brooks said he treated everyone equally, per the Jim Crow Museum.

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