Elvis - 30 Years Ago Today, RIP

I first saw Elvis on the Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey summer replacement show for Jackie Gleason. It was 1956 and I was ll years old. I laughed so hard watching his gyrations that I almost had an accident. My 7 year old brother did not help either. He was on the floor laughing and rolling around gasping for breath. By the fall-winter of '56, I was buying his records. I still have an extended play 45 of songs from his first album.

His death was so unnecessary. It still greatly saddens me.

32 years ago now as of yesterday.

We did a jaunt to Memphis this year and visited Graceland as well as the Sun Studio, (and the Peabody Ducks).

It was a very enjoyable trip. Visiting Sun studio was the highlight for me, but I did enjoy Graceland as well.

One of the first records I ever bought with my own money was a set of the Johnny Cash Sun Recordings from an add run on TV back in the 60s, so Sun Studios holds a special place of honor in my musical world.

My 8 year old daughter has been obsessed with Michael Jackson since his death as a result of all the hype. My wife is an Elvis fan and my daughter and son both seemed to really enjoy our visit as well.

Both my kids like the Beatles. My daughter has been playing the "Say Say Say" video off Youtube repeatedly since she heard it on the McCartney "All The Best" CD that got some play time during our 900 mile jaunt to MEmphis.

I never, ever, understood the appeal of this man. Yeah, the Sun recordings are good. But what happened after the late 50's makes no sense to me. I just do not understand why people like it so much. Maybe someone can explain it to me.

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