ELVIS & SINATRA
THE SURPRISING RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TWO MUSIC ICONS
By Mahnuel Muñoz
EPISODE 2
THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME
Frank’s supposed criticism of the influence of rock on youth would have been unfounded, given that in 1943 he himself had caused a cataclysm that cracked the foundations of the musical and social paradigm.
After making his debut in 1939 with the Harry James orchestra and consecrating himself with Tommy Dorsey‘s band between 1940 and 1942, he launched a risky move into a solo career with which he placed the role of singer – until then a mere second in the big bands-at the center of popular music.
His style based on Italian bel canto, with longer phrasing, greater vocal power and interpretive drama, differentiated him from the many associates of Bing Crosby, and the use of the microphone as if it were the body and face of a woman unleashed an enraged fan phenomenon that included street riots, screams, fainting and loss of bodily fluids from the innocent girls in short white socks.
These patterns were reproduced with slight variations, in each new musical advent, as would the perplexed and even harmful criticism from the previous generation; Abominations comparable to those leveled against rock and its creators were said about Sinatra’s fans.
Elvis Presley was the perfect figure to fulfill the recording industry’s goal of satisfying the attraction of working-class white youth to black music. At a time when racial segregation was commonplace, record companies created white idols to sell sanitized versions of rhythm and blues hits that rooted out the viscerality that made rock and roll a transformative sound.
Elvis was Caucasian and beautiful, from a humble family, the prototype of the American dream, and he was able to interpret the songs of African Americans without betraying the original message.
On stage, his performance was reinforced by explicitly sexual body language that broke with Sinatra’s subtle metaphors. The cunning of his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, made him the greatest icon in the history of rock and roll and a role model for teenagers who were beginning to work and dream of a world built by and for them.
Thousands of musicians were inspired by Elvis and his contemporaries around the world to compose the soundtrack of their respective generations.
Presley himself was also bothered by the arrival of the Beatles. It is understandable that our two protagonists, quite conservative in their conception of art, found it difficult to find the appeal of the new sounds, but somehow they ended up accepting them and incorporating them without betraying their own stylistic postulates.
If you want to visit more articles about the life of Frank Sinatra enter the following Sinatra Radio 24h link: https://sinatraradio24h.com/category/articles/
We remind you that you can also listen to Sinatra Radio 24 hours on your mobile phone by downloading our free applications for Android in the Play Store https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sinatra.radio24h for iPhone in the Apple Store https://apps.apple.com/app/sinatra-radio-24h/id6599859344
