Named one of Ten Most Outstanding Young Men of the Nation

The U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce named Presley one of its annual Ten Most Outstanding Young Men of the Nation on January 16, 1971. Not long after, the City of Memphis named the stretch of Highway 51 South on which Graceland is located 'Elvis Presley Boulevard'. The same year, Presley became the first rock and roll singer to be awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (then known as the Bing Crosby Award). Three new, non-film Presley studio albums were released in 1971. Best received by critics was Elvis Country, a concept record that focused on genre standards. The biggest seller was Elvis Sings The Wonderful World of Christmas. According to Greil Marcus, in the midst of ten painfully genteel Christmas songs, every one sung with appalling sincerity and humility, one could find Elvis tom-catting his way through six blazing minutes of 'Merry Christmas Baby', a raunchy old Charles Brown blues. If Presley's sin was his lifelessness, it was his sinfulness that brought him to life.