Elvis Presley
Tupelo, Lee County, Mississippi
Marker Inscription
Birthplace of Elvis Presley. Elvis Aaron Presley was born Jan. 8 1935 in this house, built by his father. Presley's career as a singer and entertainer redefined American popular music. He died Aug. 16 1977 at Memphis, Tennessee.
The Story
In a two-room house his father built in East Tupelo, Elvis Aaron Presley was born in January 1935 into a poor family during the Depression. From those modest Mississippi beginnings he rose to reshape American popular music, fusing regional sounds into a style that reached a national and then global audience before his death in Memphis in 1977. The preserved birthplace anchors the story of how far he traveled from small-town Lee County.
Why it matters
Elvis's arc from a two-room Tupelo house to worldwide fame captures the mid-century transformation of American popular culture and the national reach of Southern vernacular music.
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