His early poverty would have made Elvis feel at home today

If Elvis Presley had lived, he would've been 75 this month. The date occasioned a confession: I am an Elvis fan. My sister, to whom I told my secret, reared back. "Britt," she said, "only old women with big hair and gold sunglasses listen to Elvis."

I couldn't let this slander go undisputed, but I did take a peek in the mirror. What a relief. No big hair. No gold sunglasses tucked in a Priscilla Presley beehive.

What I told my sister, and tell others equally aghast at my devotion to the King, was that Elvis was first and foremost a voice -- a voice of beauty and power that forever changed the face of popular music. You like the Beatles? Well, thank Elvis. You think Led Zeppelin rocked the blues? Elvis rocked first.

And as with our greatest icons, Elvis Presley stood for something -- something particularly suited to our present age of rock-bottom checking accounts, bankruptcies, foreclosures, layoffs and loss of self-worth. He was the classic bootstrap man.

Elvis Aron Presley was born Jan. 8, 1935, to the Presleys of Tupelo, Miss. His father never amounted to much. Not to say he was a bad man; he just couldn't catch a break, given his lack of education and an overpowering sense of inferiority, which he passed on to his son.

Some writers uncharitably refer to Elvis' "white trash" background. Others define his upbringing in more generic terms: The Presleys were poor. The kind of poor that starts nowhere and ends up there, too.

So, imagine July 18, 1953, when 18-year-old truck driver Elvis Presley walked into Sun Records in Memphis. Here stood the man who in three short years would tear up the charts with hits like "Heartbreak Hotel" and "Hound Dog," and whip the young girls into a frenzy with his hips.

But if we'd been there, we would've seen a man curled over by shyness and low self-esteem, like someone who's just lost his job or his house and wears the burden like a tombstone on his back. Sun Records founder Sam Phillips remembered Elvis this way: "He tried not to show it, but he felt so inferior."

I'm sure it took everything Elvis had to walk through that door. Because he wasn't just walking into a recording studio, he was declaring a dream and a desire -- a worthiness -- to pursue a dream. Most of us don't aspire to stardom. We have simpler goals: a happy marriage, good job, health insurance. And yet we too suffer pangs of rejection. Ever sat through a job interview? Applied for a loan? Gone on a date?

Actually, Elvis couldn't own up to his dream. He told Sun Records' secretary Marion Keisker that he only wanted to record a couple songs for his ma. The facility also housed a public recording studio.

Now, I'm going out on a limb here, but I bet Elvis wanted more than to please his mother. He wanted to change his life. Painful as the admission was to a painfully shy man, Elvis also hinted to Ms. Keisker that he'd be available to sing if, on the odd chance, Sam Phillips ever needed a singer. Phillips did, and the rest is solid gold. Elvis' first hit with Sun Records was "That's All Right" in 1954.

Two years later, Elvis signed with RCA, and went on to produce some of the most iconic songs in rock 'n' roll. The white jumpsuits and the Las Vegas shows came later, and even these emblems of bad taste and fast money can't erase the impact of that voice, full of longing and good times. For Elvis, his voice was a ticket out of Nowheresville; for us, it was a gift to the ages.

Paul McCartney says it best. He says Elvis' music makes him happy. I sometimes wish our newscasters, after their unemployment statistics and ominous financial reports, would throw in some of that upbeat Elvis music.

And, in a final note to my sister: I remember you listening to Motley Crue in the 1980s. So let's not even talk big hair.

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Britt Aamodt is a freelance writer in Elk River, Minn.

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