Long before Elvis Presley’s hip-shaking became one of the most recognizable sights in rock and roll, he apparently did not even realize he was doing it. His longtime drummer D.J. Fontana remembered an early show where Elvis came offstage confused by the screaming coming from the young crowd. He wanted to know what had caused such a reaction.
Fontana’s answer was simple: Elvis was moving around and dancing. According to Fontana, Elvis seemed genuinely surprised and responded as if he had not noticed it himself. Fontana later said he did not believe Elvis understood at first what those movements were doing to the audience. Once Elvis realized it, though, he began using them more deliberately.
Watch the Hip-Shaking Performance That Created a National Uproar
Elvis Presley Performs “Hound Dog” on The Milton Berle Show
What started naturally soon became part of the Elvis phenomenon. He later explained that when he felt rock and roll music, standing still was difficult for him. That physical reaction looked unlike the restrained performances many American television viewers were accustomed to seeing, and teenagers responded with screams loud enough that Fontana sometimes struggled to hear Elvis onstage.
By June 1956, those movements were no longer just exciting concert crowds. Elvis’s performance of “Hound Dog” on The Milton Berle Show helped turn his dancing into a national controversy. Newspapers and critics attacked the way he moved, yet the outrage only made young audiences more fascinated. What Elvis supposedly had not even noticed at first was rapidly becoming one of the biggest talking points in American entertainment.
See How Elvis Took Those Moves to The Ed Sullivan Show
Elvis Presley Performs “Hound Dog” on The Ed Sullivan Show
The second performance shows how quickly that accidental habit became part of the Elvis image. When he appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956, millions of Americans were watching the young singer whose records, voice and movements had suddenly made him impossible to ignore. His first Sullivan appearance drew an audience of roughly 60 million viewers, while the growing controversy surrounding his dancing eventually became so intense that his final appearance was famously filmed mainly from the waist up.
Elvis Presley went on to change popular music with “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Hound Dog,” “Jailhouse Rock” and a stage presence copied for generations. Yet according to the drummer standing behind him during those early years, one of the most famous parts of the Elvis legend began without a plan at all. Watch the first performance to see the movement that caused the uproar, then watch the second to see how something Elvis once barely noticed became part of the image that helped make him the King of Rock and Roll.