Elvis - 30 Years Ago Today, RIP

Hi Chasmal.

My wife is the Elvis fan. She just likes him I think more so than his music. He was apparently a very charismatic person.

To me, his early recordings were good and I like acouple of his later 60's hits. He also did some very good gospel I suppose in that that was supposedly the music he related to most.

I understand why he is regarded as the "King of Rock" despite the fact that only his early groundbreaking stuff is truly "rock and roll". His sixties movie related output is generally regarded as fluff and my understanding is that he was not very happy with his movie career. HE had a lot of well documented personal issues apparently, as did Michael Jackson. Perhaps that is part of his and MJs appeal? Despite their tremendous successes, they still had demons that haunted them and people relate to that perhaps as much as anything?

After all, isn't much of rock, blues and R&B music typically about the various demons that haunt us? Isn't that a good bit of popular music's appeal in general?

BTW, my perspective in going to see Graceland was much as related by Paul Simon in his tune "Graceland":

"For reasons I cannot explain
There's some part of me wants to see
Graceland..."

I have always maintained that you cannot truly understand America until you've been to Graceland. About halfway through the tour, when we were ushered into one particularly ridiculous room (among many impressively ridiculous rooms), I started laughing uncontrollably and feared that I would be beaten to death by the huge posse of solemn pilgrams who were staring darts at me.

Chas, make the trip and you will see what it means to be young, rich, gifted and stupid. The guy could sing, he could exude both rebellion and sex, and he personified a certain kind of American dream that was shared by the youth of the country in the late '50s. It's an eye opener.

Marty

BTW, I saw one of Elvis' last concerts (in Ann Arbor, Mi) during my college years (late '70's). There were some recreational chemicals involved and Elvis was certainly well into his terminal (bloated) stage as a performer, but my memory of the show is his charisma. Even in this phase, which approached self-parody, he commanded the room. He was at once silly and riveting - an enigma, at that time. At an earlier time, when he was at his peak and the country was a bit more innocent, it's easy for me to understand how he was a mega-star.

Marty

Map: as good as the Sun recordings are, I think I prefer Jerry Lee Lewis for that era. If he only hadn't of married his 14 year old cousin.

I picked up the 3-CD Sun 50th anniversary box set at Sun Studio's shop while there.

Lots of eye opening nicely remastered performances there that register strongly with their rawness and energy.

"The Killer" is well represented, as are many lesser known Sun artists, and a hot version of Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl" by "The GEntrys", I think.

No Elvis in that particular collection though. Probably a recording rights issue.

It was simpler times back in those days indeed!