Some musicians thrive in the armed forces: James Blunt spent six years in the British Army before he started his singing career, rising to the rank of captain.
Some don’t: Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead was discharged by the U.S. Army after nine months for being “completely lacking in soldierly qualities.”
And some have no choice but to interrupt their meteoric rises to serve: The multiplatinum pop group BTS went on hiatus in 2022 so its seven members could complete their mandatory stints in the South Korean military.
By June of last year, all seven BTS singers had fulfilled their service, in roles including drill instructor, cook and public service worker. With their 10th studio album, “Arirang,” due Friday and a concert on Saturday livestreamed on Netflix, they will attempt to resume their careers as pop idols after being conscripted — a feat almost unprecedented, if not for Elvis Presley’s time in the Army.
When Presley was drafted at age 22, he was at the vanguard of rock ’n’ roll. By the time he returned, his prospects seemed uncertain and rock was reeling. Little Richard had renounced secular music, Jerry Lee Lewis was mired in scandal after he married his 13-year-old cousin, and Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper had all died in a plane crash. As BTS may learn, the music world can change fast while you’re gone.
Presley was drafted in December 1957, just 14 months after he exploded onto the national scene with his performance on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” After receiving a 60-day deferment to film “King Creole,” he reported to his local induction center in March 1958 with a few songs in the can, a movie scheduled for summer release and strict orders from his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, not to perform while he was in the armed forces.
The Army would have been happy to make Presley a singing ambassador and entertainer for the troops, but Parker feared a public backlash if Presley got kid-glove treatment — and he wanted a shortage of Presley recordings on the market to improve his negotiating position with RCA Records.
Parker’s refrain was that Presley should be treated like any other soldier, but no other soldier attracted dozens of journalists and photographers on his induction day, when Presley got a 65-cent crew cut. He also received his first military paycheck that day: $7. Asked by reporters what he would do with the money, he quipped, “Start a loan company.”
After six months of training at Fort Hood in Texas — interrupted by 12 days of compassionate leave when his mother suddenly fell ill and died — Private Presley unhappily shipped out to Germany in September 1958 as part of the Third Armored Division. When he arrived at Ray Barracks in Friedberg, there was already a sack of fan mail waiting for him.
Presley’s assignment was shifted from tank driver to jeep driver in a reconnaissance platoon, a role the Army announced was reserved for soldiers of “above normal capability.” He was granted permission to live off-base with his father, grandmother and two friends from home: They stayed at a luxury hotel in the nearby resort town of Bad Homburg until they were thrown out, and then found a local house for rent. Although Presley routinely went home for lunch, he was regarded as a good soldier.
“On maneuvers he continued to show ingenuity as a scout,” Peter Guralnick wrote in his Presley biography “Careless Love,” “but more important, he was by now firmly entrenched as one of the guys, and if another soldier gave him a hard time over his wealth or celebrity, he could give as good as he got.”
Presley developed some obsessions during his military service that would color the rest of his life: karate (after he saw a demonstration by the “father of German karate,” he started taking lessons); 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu (whom he courted and later married); and amphetamines (he bought large bottles of Dexedrine under the table from the base’s dispensary).
In January 1960, Presley was promoted to sergeant and given command of a three-man reconnaissance team; two months later, he was honorably discharged and sent home. Presley, who had kept close tabs on the American music scene while he was gone, worried that his fans had forgotten about him.
Those fears were quickly allayed during a whistle-stop train journey arranged by Parker. On the way home to Memphis from Fort Dix, N.J., Presley was greeted by cheering crowds, including 2,500 people in Roanoke, Va., and 3,000 in Knoxville, Tenn. David Halberstam, then a cub reporter with The Nashville Tennessean, boarded the train and described the civilian Presley clowning around in high spirits, “like a happy young colt.”
Two weeks later, Presley received a record-breaking fee of $125,000 to sing on a TV special hosted by Frank Sinatra, who had previously dismissed rock musicians as “cretinous goons,” but who now found that his “Frank Sinatra Timex Show” had acquired the subtitle “Welcome Home Elvis.” Sinatra sang Presley’s “Love Me Tender,” while Presley sang Sinatra’s “Witchcraft.” “All you seem to have lost is your sideburns,” Sinatra told his guest. Presley, like Sinatra, had been denounced by bluenoses as a herald of immorality and hysteria among teens, but he had now acquired the respectable sheen of military service.
Presley promptly returned to the studio, recording in Nashville with a band that included two of his old collaborators, the drummer D.J. Fontana and the guitarist Scotty Moore. In two sessions, he worked efficiently through songs he had been preparing while he was in Germany, including versions of Little Willie John’s “Fever” and the Four Fellows’ “Soldier Boy” — although he also made time for hamburger breaks and karate demonstrations.
The sessions yielded two No. 1 singles, “Stuck on You” and “It’s Now or Never” (an adaptation of the 19th-century Italian song “O Sole Mio”). On the resulting album, “Elvis Is Back!,” he was audibly broadening his musical range from the blues-based material that made him famous to other strains of American music, but he remained in full command of his gifts throughout.
While RCA blanketed the United States with more than a million copies of “Stuck on You,” Presley headed back to Hollywood to star in his fifth movie, “G.I. Blues.” He quickly grew dissatisfied with the shoot, especially when Parker cut the songs of Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller from the soundtrack for financial reasons. Presley groused but went along with Parker’s dictates. Even out of the Army, he kept taking orders.
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