DBWI: Less successful 1970s for Elvis

glenn67

Elvis Presley's comeback TV special and his subsequent chart successes in 1969 would continue into the 1970s. Elvis would have 8 Number One hit singles including The Sound of Your Cry, Burning Love, The Wonder of You, The Times of Your Life, and his rendition of Rock Around The Clock.

Nobody will ever forget when Elvis appeared on an episode of the TV show "Happy Days" in its debut 1974 season. The iconic image of The King meeting The Fonz at Arnold's made that show the highest rated television episode in history. Also memorable was Elvis taking off his black leather jacket and gifting it to Fonzie before borrowing a guitar and singing Rock Around The Clock.

If was shows like "Happy Days" and Elvis' newfound popularity that led to the revival of 1950's music. And when the musical Grease became a movie, Elvis contributed the songs Grease Lightning and Hand Jive to the soundtrack which he also performed in the movie.

What if the 70s were less successful for Elvis? Would he have still appeared in Happy Days and Grease? Would he still succeed in getting out of his contract with Colonel Parker and embark on his first worldwide concert tour?

Discuss amongst yourselves.
 
Dolan

Dolan

Banned
One thing is assured, there will be 2010 - 2012 Elvis World Grand Tour, where the 75 years "Old King Elvis" doing what is his last performances all around the world to raise Cancer awareness, with all the Billions that end up being donated to further Cancer research.

Elvis has served as inspiration for other cancer patients, refusing to just roll up and die but stay alive and active. Proving to all of us that Cancer is not a hopeless death sentence.
 

Unknown

You left out Elvis' version of Bridge Over Troubled Water, originally by Simon and Garfunkel (which he recorded in the summer of 1970 after hearing the Simon and Garfunkel version). Reportedly, Colonel Parker didn't want to release Elvis's version, but Elvis overruled him and released it as a single (an interesting WI in and of itself), where it hit number 1 on the Billboard charts and stayed there for five weeks (and for half a year on the Billboard Top 40 chart altogether), prompting the beginning of the end of Colonel Parker's management of Elvis...

Even Simon and Garfunkel, separately, admitted that Elvis' version was better than theirs later on...

(OOC: This is what I'm thinking of; I have no problem seeing this as a #1 hit for Elvis in 1970 TTL:
)
 
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ejpsan

It was in the 1976 version of A Star is Born that garnered him his only Academy Award nomination for best actor and showed him that is was the right thing for him to have dumped the Colonel years before.
His lawsuits against Tom Parker became a landmark in entertainment law that made it possible to protect performing artists from predatory management contracts and gave them more freedom.
 

Loulou

Ya know, maybe if Frank Sinatra didn't pass on Watertown, Elvis probably won't be as relevant in the 70s as he was then!
 

George Kaplan

Wasn’t there another health scare early 70s? He was putting on some weight and people were worried about his heart. A heart attack, if it didn’t kill him, would have ended any comeback.
 

Cmmdfugal

i'm not going to lie a timeline without the success of Elvis would have been kind of disappointing for my family. i think without his story i probabbly would not be speaking with my grandmother at this point. she had cancer and stuck with it because of stories like Elvis and others who tried to follow his example

we all grew up hearing songs by Elvis and if it were not for him I don't think the artistry revolution of the mid to late 2000's would have been as successful.

remember in the aftermath of the suspicion and distrust that people in the western world had for alot of things in the start of the century it was guys like Elvis alongside simon and garfunkel that got people to get more involved in the arts to try and make the world a happier place. could it still have happened, maybe but i don't think it would have been as upbeat.
 
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