Back in the mid-1950s, a new kind of music was winning the hearts and shaking the hips of America's teenagers. That music was rock and roll (see entry under 1950s—Music in volume 3). The new style of music was controversial for several reasons. It was loud. It was unruly. Its sounds were rooted in the rhythm and blues (R&B; see entry under 1940s—Music in volume 3) of black America. In a reflection of the times, some white middle-class parents viewed rock and roll as nothing less than a communist plot, a scheme to enslave the minds of their naive, easily led children.

Coming to the rescue of rock and roll was Elvis Presley, a good-natured white boy from Memphis, Tennessee (and born in Tupelo, Mississippi). Presley's outward surliness and hip-shaking sex appeal while performing made him an instant twentieth-century cultural phenomenon. Elvis...