This is the first volume of a two-volume biography of Elvis Presley, a book that justifies the importance of "The King" to American music and culture. It covers Presley's rise up to his mother's death in 1958. The Presley displayed is bright, articulate, energetic - a young man in a hurry with a very real sense of himself and his art, a man with a disdain for convention and yet a yearning for genteel respectability. This is not the Elvis Presley of tabloid headlines and chat show notoriety. Instead, it restores Elvis to his music, telling the story of a young man who, at 19, emerged as a full-blown artist to the wonder of his friends and the world.