Elvis Presley was a superstar and continues to be one posthumously. The artist had a vision of himself as a musician and pursued that path throughout his life. To outsiders, Elvis was "repeatedly dismissed as vulgar, incompetent, and a bad influence," (The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Simon & Schuster, 2001). However, the personality of Elvis is far more complicated than what fan magazines and superficial reports can

Elvis Presley Subject's development: Erikson and Kohlberg Elvis Presley is something of a paradox as an entertainer. He became famous for singing traditionally 'black' songs although he was a white singer with a largely white fan base. He began young and poor and died after creating 'Graceland,' his residence which became a museum to excess as well as his legacy as a singer. He also died overweight and addicted to prescription drugs.

Moreover, younger and more cutting edge artists like the Beatles had assumed creative control over their output, in defiance of their managers and record executives. However, Elvis' manager Colonel Thomas Parker "insisted that Presley stick with this winning formula. Years later Parker's shortsightedness would result in his turning down Barbara Streisand's offer to have Presley co-star with her the 1974 remake of a Star Is Born" ("Elvis Presley," 1996,

Although a gifted and musician and a good and generous human being, by the end of his life, Elvis had fallen into a state of decadence, drunkenness, drug abuse, and physical deterioration (Simon 1995). He had become bitterly disappointed with his life, and almost a desolate person, for celebrity had basically chewed up his creativity (Simon 1995). Guralnick writes that there were "fewer and fewer opportunities to withdraw from the

This lesson sparked one of the most influential times in American History: the 1960's. The dream of freedom from preconceived notions of happiness, which Elvis first whispered in the ear of everybody in 1956, had by the late 1960's, blossomed into a time of social awareness. By creating a new way to live the "American Dream," no longer constrained by the traditions of the materialistic past, American society has been

Drugs in Rock Music -- 1955-1966 Much is made in the media about rock history and drug involvement by rock stars, particularly in the late 1960s and into the 1970s. The deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and others were apparently due to drug overdoses. But illegal drugs and prescription drugs were in use by rock and roll bands and individual stars before the psychedelic era in the late