The best artist who ever lived?

[CRAZY-HORSE]

I'm going to disagree strongly here.

Elvis profitted from music pioneered by the likes of Chuck Berry, & Little Richard, who didn't achieve the same levels of success because their skin was the wrong colour. For a while he was certainly a brilliant performer, but for me didn't do much of worth after his spell in the US army.

Lots of dodgy decisions about his participation in trashy movies did nothing to help, and he wrote little or none of his own material.

He did have an amazing voice though...

i agree with most of what you have written Tiggi,
however Elvis grew up with "black" music and it was part of him from a very early age as was the growing up in extreme peverty, IMO his early music helped pave the way for "black" artists to get recognised.
also, he had an "olive complexion" due to the fact that he was of mixed race...he was part american Indian,part Scottish.

and Yes!,
there were some aweful decisions made for him by Tom Parker for whom he was a slave to, the only time he stood up to Parker was around 1968ish when he told him he would not be appearing in any more movies when his contract expired...as he just married Priscilla at the time my guess is she encouraged him to say and do what he wanted(very astute is Priscilla!)

from memory he only co-wrote a handful of tracks..including Love Me Tender and All Shook Up.

now, my opinion on Elvis being the 'best individual artist'....the answer is "NO", although he played piano and guitar he was primarily a vocalist and that discounts him IMO.