King of Rock and Roll

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The King of Rock and Roll is a title many artists have tried to claim in the past.

Elvis Presley's record company, RCA, first dubbed him this title after the weekly trade magazine Variety flashed it across its front page, in November 1956. He is the artist most widely known as the King of Rock and Roll.

Several of Presley's contemporaries have called themselves as such, including Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Bo Diddley.

Berry's claim rests on his catalog of well-known rock songs, such as Johnny B Goode, School Days (Hail, Hail Rock and Roll), Sweet Little Sixteen and My Ding-a-ling. It can be said that it was Chuck Berry who, with these songs, created one type of rock and roll music, while Presley's style, derived from sources too numerous to cite here, was developing another, equally potent and far more eclectic and multi-dimensional, as far as a much larger segment of the population is concerned.

The fact that Berry wrote all his own music, while Presley did not, is also considered by some as evidence that Berry is more deserving of the title, while others feel that the title, which came into being in 1956 when singers did not need to be songwriters to make a huge imprint in society, was more a result of the impact that Presley had on popular culture in that particular year.

While scores of musicians were, even from the start, able to challenge Presley's popularity and the effect he had on teenagers and society in general, no individual has had a more sustainable impact on popular music, in spite of his two-year stint in the Army, his subsequent 9 year absence from the stage - which coincided with the arrival and global success of the Beatles (all lifelong Elvis fans), nor his death, in 1977.

Long John Baldry has also referred to himself as the King of Rock and Roll in his popular song "Don't Try to Lay No Boogie Woogie on the King of Rock and Roll."