Introduction
By 1956, the screaming at an Elvis Presley concert could become so loud that hearing Elvis Presley was sometimes the difficult part.Girls cried. Others surged toward the stage. Photographer Alfred Wertheimer, who followed the 21 year old singer during the year his fame exploded, noticed something striking wherever Presley went: young women were reacting to him with an emotional intensity rarely associated with the restrained male entertainers of the era.The records mattered. The voice mattered.But something else was happening before either could fully explain the reaction.Elvis Presley had become a physical event.Meghan’s mansion proves why she left, here’s how it looks insideLittle FriesThe best walking shoes are suitable for women to wear all day.Findbestes™Taylor’s New House Is Not What You’d Expect. See the Photo ProofsLittle FriesHe Did Not Look Like the Men Pop Audiences Were Used to SeeingThe shock began before Elvis moved.Mainstream male entertainers of the 1950s were generally expected to project control. Suits were neat. Gestures were measured. Singers such as Perry Como could stand behind a microphone and allow the song to do most of the work.Elvis presented a radically different image.His styled hair, long sideburns, fitted clothing and expressive face gave him a visual identity that felt younger and less restrained. TIME, writing about Presley during his extraordinary rise in 1956, paid attention not only to his music but also to the effect created by the combination of his appearance and movement.Then Elvis began to perform.He leaned into microphones, twisted his body, moved his legs and hips and seemed incapable of separating singing from physical expression. Wertheimer later contrasted that behavior with singers who simply stood and delivered a song.With Elvis, the body had become part of the music.That helped explain why the audience reaction could begin almost immediately.His Voice Made Him Even Harder to DefineAppearance alone would not have created the Elvis phenomenon.His voice complicated everything the audience was seeing.Elvis could sound impatient and aggressive on a rock and roll number, then become unexpectedly tender during a ballad or gospel performance. His singing carried elements of the Southern musical environment in which he had grown up, including country, blues, gospel and rhythm and blues.The result was difficult to place neatly inside the musical categories familiar to mainstream America.So was the man performing it.The singer whose movements were condemned as sexually provocative could appear shy in conversation. The performer who seemed dangerous onstage could sing a gospel song with remarkable softness. The young man inspiring screaming crowds could suddenly sound vulnerable.That tension was central to his appeal.Elvis never gave audiences only one version of himself.The Screaming Became a Story of Its OwnBy the middle of 1956, the reaction surrounding Presley was becoming almost as newsworthy as the music.Some performances descended into chaos as fans pushed toward the stage. Television brought that energy into millions of American homes. When Elvis appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in September 1956, roughly 60 million viewers watched, exposing an enormous national audience to the performer who had already alarmed parents, critics and television executives.Adults often interpreted the frenzy as evidence of something dangerous.Young fans experienced it differently.Elvis appeared immediate in a way many established stars did not. He did not seem carefully contained by the microphone, the television studio or the social expectations surrounding male performers. His movements made sexuality visible, while his voice could make vulnerability audible.The combination was unusually powerful.That is why photographs of young Elvis still explain only part of what happened in 1956.Yes, he was strikingly photogenic. Yes, his voice was distinctive. And yes, his movements became one of the most controversial elements of his early career.But the real phenomenon came from all three arriving at once.Elvis Presley was helping redefine what a male pop star could look like, sound like and make an audience feel.For thousands of young fans confronting that combination for the first time, sometimes the sight of him walking onto the stage was enough.The screaming had already begun.