Elvis Presley
The king of rock and roll and one of Britain’s most successful singer-song writers share January 8 as their birthdays.
Elvis Aaron Presley, the small-town boy from Tupelo, MS, was born on this date in 1935.
He moved to Memphis in the late ’40s and became a pop culture icon, topping the Billboard charts with 18 No. 1 singles over the course of his career.
Presley hit the big time in the early ’50s after recording two solo records at Sun Studios in Memphis, owned by the legendary Sam Phillips.
Elvis’ first single, “That’s All Right” was aired on July 8, 1954, by DJ Dewey Phillips on radio station WHBQ. Listeners to the show began phoning in, eager to find out who the singer was.
David Bowie
From that day forward Elvis would become one of the highest-paid performers in history. It is estimated that Presley has sold over 1.5 billion albums world wide since his debut.
David Bowie has been active in five decades of rock music and frequently reinvented his music and image. Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. He has been cited as an influence by many musicians.
Throughout his career he has sold an estimated 136 million albums and ranks among the ten best-selling acts in UK pop history. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him 39th on their list of the 100 Greatest Rock Artists of All Time.
This is a video from one of Elvis’ early TV appearances in the 1950s.
One of my personal favorites from Bowie.
