Elvis - 30 Years Ago Today, RIP

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!

Elvis,Jesus and Coca Cola the three most well known words in the world according to Kinky Friedman.