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Elvis: a life in pictures

Elvis Presley: A Southern Life

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Today, 8 January, would have been Elvis Presley’s 80th birthday. In remembrance of his fascinating life we’re sharing a slideshow from the beautiful images in Elvis Presley: A Southern Life by Joel Williamson. How did this Southern boy make it from Nashville and Vegas, to Grafenwoehr and the White House?

  • Elvis with his parents, 1950. Joseph A. Tunzi/ JAT Publishing.

  • Elvis Presley with Scotty and Bill poster, Cape Girardeau, Mo., July 1955. Taken at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee. Thomas Hawk, photographer. Available via Flikr.

  • Elvis on his way to fame at the Louisiana Hayride, 1956. LSU-Shreveport Archives and Special Collections.

  • An impromptu session with Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley, and Johnny Cash at the Sun Record Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, on December 4, 1956. Originally published in the Memphis Press-Scimitar. Courtesy of the Memphis and Shelby County Room, Memphis Public Library & Information Center.

  • Headline and 1956 photo from article on Elvis and Mae Axton, who wrote “Heartbreak Hotel,” just after the record sold 1 million copies, 1956. Published in the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Courtesy of the Memphis and Shelby County Room, Memphis Public Library & Information Center.

  • Elvis Presley in Grafenwoehr, 1958. Courtesy of U.S. Army Garrison Grafenwoehr.

  • The façade of Graceland in the late 1950s or early 1960s.

  • Elvis during his ’68 Comeback Special on NBC. Available via Joseph A. Tunzi/ JAT

  • Elvis and Priscilla’s wedding at the Aladdin Hotel, Las Vegas, May 1, 1967. Available via Getty.

  • Priscilla and Elvis at a dinner. Memphis and Shelby County Room, Available via Memphis Public Library & Information Center.

  • Elvis after a performance in Las Vegas, January or February 1970. Available via Joseph A. Tunzi/ JAT Publishing.

  • Elvis rehearsing in Las Vegas for his 1970 documentary, “Elvis: That’s the Way It Is. Available via Joseph A. Tunzi/ JAT Publishing.

  • Elvis Presley meets President Richard Nixon on December 21, 1970. White House Chief Photographer Oliver F. Atkins. General Services Administration. National Archives and Records Service. Office of Presidential Libraries. Office of Presidential Papers. Collection RN-WHPO: White House Photo Office Collection (Nixon Administration), 01/20/1969–08/09/1974.

  • Marquee of the International Hotel, Las Vegas, 1971. Available via Joseph A. Tunzi/ JAT Publishing.

  • From just behind the gates at Graceland, a look at the mourners gathered on the day Elvis died, as the police try to hold back the crowds, August 16, 1977. Photographed by Saul Brown. Memphis and Shelby County Room, Memphis Public Library & Information Center.

Featured image credit: Headline and 1956 photo from article on Elvis and Mae Axton, who wrote “Heartbreak Hotel,” just after the record sold 1 million copies, 1956. Published in the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Courtesy of the Memphis and Shelby County Room, Memphis Public Library & Information Center.

Joel Williamson, Lineberger Professor Emeritus of the Humanities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is the author, most recently, of Elvis Presley: A Southern Life. He is the author of a number of landmark works on Southern culture, including William Faulkner and Southern History (OUP, 1993) and The Crucible of Race: Black-White Relations in the American South since Emancipation (OUP, 1984), which won the Francis Parkman Prize, the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, and the Ralph Emerson Award. Both books were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.

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