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Post by kitty on Feb 15, 2016 20:49:34 GMT -5
Substituting an overweight, terminally ill Elvis impersonator is really "out there," Kitty.
But it's possible.
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Post by kitty on Aug 15, 2016 21:50:27 GMT -5
Tomorrow, it will be 39 years since Elvis died; if he died.
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Post by Graveyardbride on Aug 16, 2016 5:24:31 GMT -5
 Elvis in Syracuse
Elvis, then 41, performed two sold-out concerts at the War Memorial in July 1976, giving 16,000 fans their final chances to see the legendary rocker in Syracuse. He sang many of his classics, including “Hound Dog,” “All Shook Up,” “I Got a Woman,” “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and “Don’t Be Cruel.” The July 25 show went down in Syracuse history, thanks to a scathing review by Dale Rice, a 25-year-old education reporter for The Post-Standard.
‘The sex idol is dead!’ Printed under the headline “Fat, Puffy, Has-Been Elvis Is Outshone by His Costume,” the concert review sparked what one editor later called a “firestorm of protest.” Rice opened the review with the line “The sex idol is dead!,” followed by withering jabs about his puffy cheeks, double chin and “mediocre” singing. “The show lacked enthusiasm, and the only thing that sparkled was Elvis’ costume,” he wrote. “The suit featured a wide (very wide) belt that must have been designed to disguise the fact that Elvis is overweight. It didn’t help. Elvis is fat, and there’s no hiding it.”
Rice was not a music critic. At the time, the newspaper didn’t employ a full-time music journalist, so various reporters from the public affairs department would be sent to cover major acts in Syracuse. Rice later said no education or city hall story ever brought him as much attention as his Elvis critique. Fans of The King responded with outrage. Hundreds of furious letters and phone calls flooded The Post-Standard newsroom, calling Rice’s review “totally unfair,” “uncalled for” and “completely wrong.” The morning the review was published, angry fans managed to track down Rice’s home phone number. Rice woke up to several phone calls with “strings of expletives.” He eventually unplugged his phone and went back to sleep.
Escape to Wyoming. On July 28, Rice struck back. A picture of Rice appeared on The Post-Standard editorial page with Rice’s reply to the angry fans:
“With a single review of an Elvis Presley concert, I became infamous and notorious overnight. At least several hundred, maybe even several thousand, female fans (not to mention a handful of males) directed their fury at me. ... One phone call after another arrived at my home. They questioned. They shouted. And they swore ... I don’t need a hearing aid. My vision is 20-20. I’m not jealous of Elvis, and I love my mother. I may have encroached on the fantasies many women have harbored for the last 20 years, but I still stand by my original review. I wrote it as I saw it, and the phone calls and letters have done nothing to change my mind.”
Best of all, Rice ended the response by sharing his plans to escape: “If you want to get in touch with me now, forget it. I leave tomorrow for Wyoming. There, I will spend the next two weeks backpacking and mountain climbing where there’s no forwarding address.”
The letters kept coming, and The Post-Standard even had to run an editorial on July 30 asking readers to “let the controversy die.” The editorial promised readers all their angry letters would be saved for Rice to read when he returned from his Wyoming trip.
Elvis leaves Syracuse on a good note. The Post-Standard sent Mike Holdridge, the newspaper’s sports editor (and avid Elvis fan), to review Presley’s second War Memorial show on July 28. Unsurprisingly, he wrote a rave. “The ‘King’ lives!” Holdridge wrote. “Presley was nothing less than dynamite as he crooned his way through a fine mixture of love songs and had ‘em rockin’ in the aisles with the kind of tunes he does best.” Holdridge quoted Elvis’ closing comments to the Syracuse fans: “You’ve been one of the finest audiences we’ve ever worked with.” Elvis then said he’d be back “if you want me.”
Elvis planned to make a return appearance at the War Memorial on August 20, 1977, but died four days prior to the scheduled date.
Dale Rice reflects, four decades later. Today, Rice works as the director of the journalism studies program at Texas A&M University. His 35-year career included jobs as a city hall reporter, education writer, capital bureau chief, business editor, features editor and restaurant critic. “What I wrote was representative of an emphasis on journalism in the post-Watergate era,” said Rice, now 65. “There was a real effort to tell what you saw as the truth, to write things the way you saw it. But I learned you can tread a bit more lightly when you are dealing with people’s heroes.”
Rice stayed at The Post-Standard for six years. He saved a bundle of those angry Elvis letters and still hangs on to them, 40 years later. “I thought someday I might write a piece that looks at fandom and the passion people carry,” he said. “I can look back and really appreciate the position those fans took. I didn’t have any animosity to the people who hated me.” Today, Rice would tell those fans he “really respected their passion” for Elvis’ music and dedication to him. “They held Elvis up as someone very special, that represented more than just music,” he continued. “For so many of them, he represented their youth and a changing time in American society. He was an important part of their lives, and I certainly recognized that.”
However, Rice still stands by his review. “I still don’t think it was a great performance,” he insisted. “I did not think it was a performance worthy of the audience.”Source: Katrina Tulloch and Johnathan Croyle, Syracuse.com, August 12, 2016. |
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Post by Graveyardbride on Jan 8, 2017 8:50:55 GMT -5
Col. Parker’s Nashville Home Facing DemolitionAs a teenager growing up in the 1950s, Steve North would look for the pink Cadillac outside the stone house at 1215 Gallatin Road, South, in Madison, Tennessee, the outskirts of Nashville. Decades later, he bought the property and practiced law at the unassuming former home of Col. Tom Parker, the rough-around-the-edges manager who helped steer Elvis Presley to stardom.
Elvis’ old home-away-from-home is now on the brink of being torn down and replaced by a car wash. North has spent four years seeking a buyer who would preserve the building. In a city where real estate prices are booming, he found none willing to pay the $625,000 market price while promising to keep the house intact.
It’s a recurring cultural struggle in growing Nashville, where developers have sought to demolish quaint sites of music lore to build apartments and high-rises that accommodate the 80-plus people moving to the Tennessee city each day. “Nashville hangs its hat on the fact that it’s Music City, USA,” said Robbie Jones, a board member with Historic Nashville Inc. “And if we keep tearing down our music landmarks, how much longer can we claim to be Music City, USA, with a straight face?”
In 2014, RCA Studio A was slated for demolition on Music Row, near downtown Nashville, to make way for luxury condos. Musician Ben Folds, who rented the space for 12 years, led the charge to preserve it and a philanthropist ultimately bought the studio where Elvis, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and others recorded.
Music Row has seen several music industry properties knocked down, and the district is perpetually on Historic Nashville’s list of properties most in danger of demolition.
While growing up in his Madison neighborhood, North took for granted seeing music legends such as Elvis, Eddie Arnold, Ferlin Husky and more at the grocery store and elsewhere. He’d wave at Elvis in the yard. The king of rock ‘n’ roll would wave back.
Parker owned the home from 1953 to 1992, and whenever Elvis came to town to record music at Studio B on Music Row, he’d stay with the Colonel, according to Jones. Elvis had his main home in Memphis, Graceland, which has long been a major tourist attraction. Parker is credited with landing Presley’s $35,000 recording contract with RCA Victor in the mid-1950s and lining up such early TV appearances as The Ed Sullivan Show. Parker died in 1997.
North bought the building for his law firm about two decades ago. In 2015, Historic Nashville put the building on its annual list of endangered historic properties because it was up for sale. North said he’d be heartbroken to see it knocked down, but he’s exhausted his search. The building is set back on a mostly commercial strip between an auto parts store and a car repair garage. North plans to sell off the artifacts inside: a wet bar in the basement, wrought-iron window security bars and doors, a black marble shower. “All of a sudden, I’ve had a bunch of people say, ‘Oh, you know, it’d be a shame to tear it down. Let’s find a buyer,’” North said. “My comment is basically, ‘Where were you the last four years when it’s been on the market?’”
The car wash developer awaits a scheduled zoning hearing and North said the project is likely to go forward regardless of whether it’s granted several variances. Nashville Metro Councilman Anthony Davis wants the meeting delayed and a public meeting scheduled so the developer can talk with the community. “If nothing else, deferring allows for the applicant to answer questions … and it allows a little more time, in case there is a buyer out there that could possibly satisfy the community desire to preserve this building,” Davis said.
And though North has already signed the contract, preservationists still hold out hope. “Until the wrecking ball’s out there actually knocking it down, we’ll never give up,” Jones promised.Source: Associated Press, January 5, 2017.
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Post by pat on Jan 8, 2017 20:19:42 GMT -5
I hope that they save the Colonel's house. It's part of music history and could be turned into a tourist site.
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Post by natalie on Jan 9, 2017 17:04:45 GMT -5
Why doesn't the Presley Estate buy it, considering its association to Elvis and the man who managed his career? They could use it as a second museum.
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Post by Kate on Jan 11, 2017 20:37:05 GMT -5
Why doesn't the Presley Estate buy it, considering its association to Elvis and the man who managed his career? They could use it as a second museum.
I'm not sure that an Elvis museum would be a success in Nashville because of its association with country music rather than rock 'n roll. But the house should be preserved and maybe continue as office space or some other business. Maybe if it was closer to Memphis, Elvis fans who visit Graceland would also want to see Col. Parker's home, but it's almost 300 miles from Memphis to Nashville.
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Post by pat on Aug 12, 2017 13:06:56 GMT -5
Next week will be the 40th anniversary of his death, so there should be some interesting updates.
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Post by Joanna on Aug 12, 2017 13:53:12 GMT -5
Candlelight Vigil for Elvis No Longer Free
MEMPHIS – People from around the world are here in Memphis to pay their respects to the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. But the 40th anniversary of the death of Elvis comes with some changes. For the first time ever, there will be a nearly $30 fee to participate in the once-free vigil.
In the past, visitors have been able to take part in the event without paying anything extra, but this has changed. Guests will now need a property pass wristband to enter all non-ticketed areas of the Graceland property during Elvis Week. The Elvis Week Property Pass will give people access to the Elvis Week Entertainment Tent, Ticket Pavilion, restaurants and select gift shops and free parking after 5 p.m. These property pass wristbands are not for individual sale, they are included in Elvis Presley’s Memphis tickets. A one-day ticket will cost you $28.75. Additional days are then available at a discounted price.
The change comes with mixed reviews. “I don’t see their point in having us pay,” said Jim Short, who is visiting from Dayton Ohio. “I’ve been coming for 20 years and I’ve never had to pay. I think Elvis would be rolling in his grave.”
Other Elvis fans don’t have a problem with shelling out more money. “I think anyone that is coming here is coming out of the love for Elvis Presley and if that’s what they’ve got to do, let’s do it, man,” said Dwight Icenhower visiting from Orlando, Florida. “Look at everything he gave us throughout the year. Let’s do it.”
Elvis Presley Enterprises told Local 24 the change comes as part of updated security measures because of the large crowds expected over the next few days. The wristband will give visitors access to Elvis Presley’s Memphis and the candlelight vigil. Graceland released the following statement Friday:
“This year we have updated our security measures at Graceland for Elvis Week, as we anticipate very large crowds for this 40th anniversary. In order to keep everyone safe and ensure an enjoyable and meaningful event for all, we have worked closely with local, state and federal security authorities to establish new procedures that have been widely used across the US.
“An Elvis Week Property Pass wristband now allows guests to enter all non-ticketed parts of Graceland property throughout Elvis Week, including the Elvis Week Entertainment Tent, Ticket Pavilion, restaurants and select gift shops, plus free parking after 5 p.m. This wristband is included with a ticket to Elvis Presley’s Memphis during Elvis Week (our lowest priced tour ticket). Since the vast majority of our guests take our tour as part of their visit during Elvis Week, there is no additional cost to them.
“During the Candlelight Vigil evening, we invite everyone to join us on Elvis Presley Blvd. in front of the Mansion. Guests are welcome to stay in this area throughout the evening to watch the Candlelight Vigil ceremony and observe the procession without a Property Pass.
“As with all other Elvis Week events on the Graceland campus, to join the procession up to Meditation Garden, guests will need their Elvis Week Property Pass wristband. For guests who join us for Vigil night only and wish to join the procession, they will be able to purchase an Elvis Presley’s Memphis tour ticket that evening and receive their Property Pass.
“Graceland provides free walk-ups to Meditation Garden daily throughout the year from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m., including the morning of the Candlelight Vigil (August 15), and every evening of Elvis Week, except Vigil evening, from 7 to 9 p.m.”
The change comes a year after protesters were arrested outside Graceland. Source: Dave Detling, LocalMemphis, August 11, 2017.
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Post by kitty on Aug 12, 2017 20:19:07 GMT -5
Col. Parker’s Nashville Home Facing Demolition
Has anyone bought Col. Parker's house?
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Post by Graveyardbride on Aug 13, 2017 4:06:14 GMT -5
Has anyone bought Col. Parker's house?
The house is gone; the location is being turned into a carwash.
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Post by madeline on Aug 13, 2017 19:03:09 GMT -5
The house is gone; the location is being turned into a carwash.
It's a shame that with all of those millions of Elvis fans, they couldn't come up with some way to save the house. Even if they each contributed $1, it would have been more than enough to buy the house and turn it into a museum.
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Post by Kate on Aug 15, 2017 7:01:45 GMT -5
It's a shame that with all of those millions of Elvis fans, they couldn't come up with some way to save the house. Even if they each contributed $1, it would have been more than enough to buy the house and turn it into a museum.
Nashville and the surrounding area aren't big on historic preservation. A lot of the beautiful old houses and buildings in Nashville are gone and more are torn down every year.
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Post by Graveyardbride on Aug 16, 2017 8:57:41 GMT -5
Elvis Picked the Absolutely Worst Time to DieIn 1992, the U.S. Postal Service conducted a nationwide survey to determine which face of the late Elvis Presley would be immortalized on a 29¢ stamp: a 1950s Elvis with a pompadour and tweed jacket, or a 1970s Elvis with mutton chops and a jeweled collar. Everyone knew exactly how this vote was going down. Never mind that the “mature Elvis,” as the more respectful media reports called him, was the Elvis of “Suspicious Minds” and “Kentucky Rain” and arena-filling world tours. Never mind there was nothing visible of this Elvis below his bright eyes and Rushmore-firm jaw; nor that the man was selling millions of albums and actually fitting quite nicely into his jumpsuits through most of the era, thank ya vera much. Mature Elvis was inescapably tainted in the public mind by the dismal spectacle of his final year or two – the startling weight gain, the sluggish performances, the final collapse beside the toilet. Even 15 years after he had died, Mature Elvis was still “Fat Elvis” for too many people, and Fat Elvis was an embarrassment. By a 3-to-1 margin, America voted for the Elvis of an even more distant past. To this day, the Elvis stamp remains the most popular US postage stamp of all time.
Wednesday marks the 40th anniversary of Presley’s death and with every passing year, it has become ever more clear that Elvis picked the absolutely worst time to die. He was 42 in August of 1977, a very awkward age for a rock star. Perhaps especially so for the first rock star.
It was hardly the first rock-star death. There had been a bumper crop at the beginning of the decade – Jimi, Janis, Jim Morrison. But they were all stars on the rise, with nothing but hit records and gorgeous photos in their wake. Their final moments were drug-addled and reckless, but they were only 27, so in death they achieved the James Dean-effect later conferred upon Kurt Cobain – frozen in a moment of youthful promise.
This was not Elvis’s moment. “Elvis is fat,” The Washington Post’s Style section declared in June 1976 when he performed at Maryland’s Capital Centre. “Not only is he fat, his stomach hangs over his belt, his jowls hang over his collar and his hair hangs over his eyes.” It was (only) 20 years after he had electro-shocked the culture with “Heartbreak Hotel” and “Hound Dog.” At the time, it probably felt like speaking truth to power.
The writer Sally Quinn noted with astonishment the number of swooning female fans who had traveled many miles to see him, hoping to touch the hem of his garments. “The scarf routine is particularly disconcerting,” she wrote. “A draper drapes the silk scarves over his neck, he wipes the sweat off his neck with the scarves, the girls scream, he throws the sweaty scarves to them, they faint and collapse and are pushed away by the guards or led away by their friends.” She concluded: “It is not understandable.” At the very least, it was not cool. As a child, Lisa Robinson thought those first Elvis releases back in 1956 were cool. But by the time she was a rock journalist in New York in the 1970s – absorbed by the chart-dominating bands such as The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin and the punk insurgency of the Clash and Television – he was more or less irrelevant. “I don’t mean to be a snob about it,” said Robinson, a Vanity Fair contributing editor. “But for those of us who were sitting at CBGB, he was just kind of a kitsch figure.”
Many of the cool kids of the era still held reverence for his early work, the transformative Sun Studio years – the Clash’s Joe Strummer loved to talk about the King and Robinson recalled that David Bowie got over his fear of flying for the sake of catching Elvis’s 1972 Madison Square Garden concert – but for the most part, he was “the MGM Grand and white jumpsuits and the fringe, and it was just kind of corny.”
And then he died. His death was front-page news, a global event, another shock to the culture – and yet for many, it was as if they were mourning a man who’d died years ago, not a contemporary in vital middle age. “Yesterday afternoon the ’50s bit the dust,” another Post writer proclaimed. “The King was gone ... just like that, the blue suede shoes empty.” She went on to evoke a swiveling pelvis, The Ed Sullivan Show, high school sock hops, her old Sun 45s.
Many fans clung to these vintage memories, choosing to look away from Las Vegas and “Burning Love” and lightning-bolt medallions. If they didn’t appreciate what Elvis was doing musically at that time, it wasn’t necessarily their fault, says Peter Guralnick, author of an epic two-volume Presley biography. Presley remained a creative genius, he said. But “for the most part, his music had been neglected, in large part because his record company had totally neglected him and had merely sought to exploit the legend, the name.”
Dying young – but not James Dean young – meant that Presley’s image was mired in the 1970s aesthetic that the culture was on the cusp of firmly rejecting. He couldn’t be appreciated without a wink. Dread Zeppelin, an early 1990s novelty act, put Led Zeppelin tunes to a reggae beat and of course their drawling lead singer was a jumpsuited fat guy named Tortelvis, ha ha. Elvis impersonators capered all over the Nicolas Cage comedy Honeymoon in Vegas, part of a running shtick.
It also meant that he missed out on the comebacks and critical reevaluations enjoyed by other performers after years in the wilderness – Glen Campbell, Leonard Cohen, Brian Wilson, Tom Jones, Johnny Cash. It’s thrilling to imagine Elvis in the 1990s, doing an MTV Unplugged concert or a VH1 Storytellers, with short hair and a gorgeous suit, that voice of his enveloping a room.
“When you see the pictures of what people imagine he would look like today, it’s this grey-haired guy with sideburns. But he was always changing with the times,” said Dwight Icenhower, an Elvis “tribute artist” from Orlando who last year was named the nation’s best Presley impersonator. For the show he was performing Tuesday during Memphis’s annual “Elvis Week” festivities, Icenhower had worked up renditions of songs he likes to believe Elvis might have covered one day: “Rock This Town” by the Stray Cats, Elton John’s “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” and “Fire” by Bruce Springsteen. “Elvis always had a good knack for finding the perfect songs, Icenhower continued, “He would have just adapted.”
It fell to other artists (the Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, Bowie), slightly younger or at least more durable, to figure out how to grow old as rock stars and then to offer those aesthetic templates up to even younger rock stars – expensive tailoring, corporate gigs, pared-down ballads, country estates, supermodel second wives, environmental activism, knighthoods. And yet, Guralnick says, “I don’t think Elvis wanted to grow old as a rock star.” Grow old, sure. Elvis was sick and suffering a crisis of confidence, Guralnick explains, but people come out of tailspins and so might have Elvis had his heart not stopped that day 40 years ago. There could have been a life-altering surgery, some antidepressants, a trip to Betty Ford and then a long climb back.
Still, it’s hard for Guralnick to imagine Presley embarking on the lucrative oldies tours enjoyed by his luckier peers. More likely, the man of many comebacks would have moved in a new direction – very likely gospel music, in which he’d already found some 1970s success. “He could have found real satisfaction with that,” Guralnick concludes. “He wasn’t looking backwards. He was not looking to stay still.”Source: Amy Argetsinger, The Washington Post, August 15, 2017.
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Post by kitty on Aug 16, 2017 9:28:02 GMT -5
But there was no way that Elvis would have ever had that "life-altering surgery" because it would have meant wearing a colostomy bag.
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