Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, in a small house his father built for $180. His twin brother, Jesse Garon, was stillborn. Raised in poverty, Presley would go on to fuse gospel, country, and rhythm and blues into a sound that redefined popular music and made him the best-selling solo artist in history.
The house where Elvis was born still stands in Tupelo: two rooms, no running water, built by his father Vernon and an uncle for less than $200. Vernon lost the house within a few years after defaulting on the loan, and the family moved between rented rooms, sometimes relying on relatives and welfare. Gladys Presley doted on Elvis after the loss of his twin, Jesse Garon, who died shortly after birth — a loss that friends later said haunted Elvis throughout his life.
Elvis grew up steeped in the music of the rural South: Pentecostal church singing, blues drifting from Memphis's Beale Street, and country radio. That fusion, unremarkable to him as a teenager, became revolutionary when he stepped into Sun Studio in Memphis in 1954 and recorded 'That's All Right.' Producer Sam Phillips had reportedly said he wanted to find a white singer with 'the Negro sound and the Negro feel' who could bring that music to a broader audience — and found it in the truck driver from Tupelo.
By the time of his death in 1977, Presley had sold more records than any other solo artist in history and become a symbol of American cultural upheaval, both celebrated and vilified for the racial and sexual boundaries his performances crossed. The small shotgun house in Tupelo is now a museum, drawing pilgrims from around the world to see where it all began.