The “Call to Arms” Moment for Robert Plant and the Rest of Britain’s Youth in the 1960s

The origins of Elvis Presley‘s music are fairly controversial, given the lack of credit the songwriters behind his music received. Ultimately, Presley covered a lot of music from the blues and R&B scenes and didn’t pay sufficient credit to the Black artists behind some of his biggest hits. A few notable examples of this include “Hound Dog”, “That’s Alright, Mama”, and “Shake, Rattle And Roll”. This practice is justifiably questionable, but the outcome that did come from it was the mass popularization of blues and R&B music, particularly among British youth, including Robert Plant.

Elvis Presley’s influence on up-and-coming musicians of the 1960s was far-reaching. He was everywhere, and everyone who wanted a taste of the pinnacle of pop culture knew to try to tune into Elvis Presley’s catalog. While Presley himself wasn’t the writer of many of his songs, his stage presence and public celebrity spread rock ‘n’ roll and seemingly showed dreamers that there was a platform for the genre, as well as the experimentation of it. This is why Robert Plant considered Elvis’ breakthrough in the United Kingdom to be a “call to arms” moment of sorts.

Eyes and Ears Open: Robert Plant Recalls Presley’s Impact on British Culture

During an interview with Charlie Rose, Plant stated, “The whole deal of Presley was that he was the original hepcat.” “And what we got on the radio in England, it cut through all the drizzle, and it really gave us something; everybody’s heads turned, and our parents, as you can imagine, it was the same thing in America, rejected it wholeheartedly.”

“They saw something coming around the corner that they couldn’t understand… I think our call to arms,” he added. Addressing Presley’s relationship to Black music, Plant continued, “It was something that was happening, and with Presley mimicking the Black voice and bringing a little lift of Black music into the mainstream, that was the first, that was the sort of hors d’oeuvre, and then a little later on you’ve got all these Black American bands who started to permeate.”

In totality, Presley’s presence in the United Kingdom opened the floodgates for American music, which then ultimately led to the British invasion. When it comes to the British bands born in the 1960s, it’s fairly difficult to find one that says they weren’t influenced by Elvis Presley. Hence, Robert Plant cites Elvis’ entry into England as such a culturally defining moment.

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