Elvis: The Gospel Singer.

In reply to my blog, ”Elvis: Not original but unique anyway!” I received the following response: ”Hi Walter, Some years ago we went to see an Elvis impersonator who only sang his Gospel songs. At the time he told us that Elvis recorded more Gospel songs than he did rock and roll ones. I'm not sure if this is correct but others have told me that he recorded an enormous number of Gospel tracks so maybe it is correct. Evidently in his younger days he was a very active Christian but that obviously fell away in his later years prior to his death.”

Now I don’t know if it is true whether Elvis recorded more Gospel songs than Rock ones, or whether He was or wasn’t an active Christian. However I do know that before the period that Elvis blasted upon the Music scene and turned the then fledgling Rock scene into the popular World scene, Gospel Music was an important music stream within the then American Music scene.

In fact many of the soon to be household names of the Rock area, like Sam Cooke and Otis Redding, were major Gospel stars, before they lost most of their Gospel audience and Market by selling out to the Rock Market Scene and even greater fame. Even Johnny Cash started out trying to record Gospel songs at the beginning of his career. At this distance in time and in Mileage, from the American scene, we don’t quite realize how important Gospel music was and still is, to some people there, as a distinct stand-alone market.

Some choose to stay in Gospel music and relative obscurity, doing and recording what they really wanted, while others took the route of Elvis and Johnny Cash, and moved on to the bigger markets, still doing mostly what they wanted, especially in Johnny’s case, less so in Elvis’ case.

As to who is right, I will leave it up to you to decide, but money, fame, and financial success is not the be all and end all that you might at first suspect. Some have gone that route, only to regret it.

What about you? Are you happy where you are or do you wish to move on up and over to bigger markets? Whether that is right for you, only you can decide, but when you read or learn about the personal lives of Both Elvis and Johnny cash, one can only wonder whether they both may not have been happier with less success but more control over their lives. What say you?