His film career is where he took a dive, cause before and after that he played songs he wanted to play. During his film career he played songs chosen for him by executives, which were usually shit
youtube.com
Which one and why?
Ian Phillips
Ryan Cox
Chuck and Little Richard could never have hoped to achieve Elvis's superstar status simply because it was the 50s and they had the wrong skin color.
Jace Parker
youtube.com
Find me a more uncomfortable song sung by Elvis, pro-tip: you can't
Adrian James
Chuck was obviously the more talented of the two, but I'd rather listen to Elvis. The guy basically had the monopoly on rock 'n' roll for nearly two decades.
Parker Davis
Well put. Chuck and Johnnie Johnson wrote some brilliant songs, but very limited in time and scope. He was on fire for a few years and then absolutely nothing after that. His catalog is not expansive and belongs strictly in the 1955 to 59 period.
Andrew Smith
Wow you're going to get some big arguments here starting with me.
Ryan Hughes
No it's not. Nobody is going to argue that Chuck made any relevant music after 1965.
Leo Sanders
Why is everyone belittling Elvis as just an interpreter and showman? People forget the huge contribution to rock and roll he made by combining country with R&B and gospel. He created a musical synthesis that hadn't existed before.
Anthony Ramirez
Why though? Little Richard did genre fusion as good as Elvis, but Elvis made it marketable to the masses (I won't lie that being white certainly helped). And shit, Ray Charles did it even earlier than them.
Easton Carter
Ray Charles was mainly an R&B performer who also incorporated gospel in his music, but his success was pretty much limited to black audiences, he didn't have many white fans, at least not until he went country in 62, long after Elvis had set the stage for genre fusion. The first single he ever recorded at Sun was a fusion of country/rockabilly with blues vocals. His Sun output was already cutting-edge stuff and that was just at the very start of his career.