Elvis Presley and the Irrepressible Influence of Southern Evangelicalism

Abstract When Elvis Presley died on August 16, 1977, two things of religious portent stood out: the book he was reading at the time of his death, A Scientific Search for the Face of Jesus (Adams, 1972), and the album on his stereo (presumably the last one he played), an unreleased copy of the Stamps Quartet’s Sweet, Sweet Spirit. This chapter will examine the religious moorings that both propelled and challenged Presley’s adult life. While recent scholarly work, most notably that of Randall J. Stephens (2008), has argued that Pentecostalism helped give rise to the sights and sounds of early rock’n’roll, missing is the degree to which Presley came to drink more broadly from the well of Southern evangelicalism, in large part because Southern Pentecostals were themselves in the midst of major transition. Enamored by the gospel music stage, Elvis Presley’s earliest musical heroes were gospel singers—both Black and white performers of the genre. He was likewise influenced and haunted by the decidedly evangelical and Pentecostal strictures of his youth. As he grew older, he broke most if not all of the rules of this early church training as well as the stated wishes of his mother Gladys—a woman who pampered, spoiled, and sheltered him as long as she could. Her death in 1958 marked a major turning point in Presley’s rather fragile family structure and her funeral marked the last official connection he had with the Assemblies of God church, the most important denomination of his youth. Even so, religion and gospel music remained important to Elvis.