May 2001
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Ike Turner releases first album in 23 years
By NEKESA MUMBI MOODY
(Canoe, May 31, 2001)
Ike Turner may be one of the more influential figures in rock music. He created what many see as the first rock 'n' roll record, Rocket 88; his guitar licks on classic blues recordings are considered masterful; he helped launch the careers of Buddy Guy, Howlin' Wolf and Otis Rush, among others; and he discovered one of the most dynamic female rock stars ever. For most of his five-decade-plus career, Turner churned out music that others paid attention to -- it's even been said that a young Elvis Presley checked out Turner's band after Turner helped the then-unknown singer sneak into clubs to hear him.
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EWAN ROCKS IN 'ROUGE'
By MEGAN TURNER and CAROLINE PEAL
(New York Post, May 31, 2001)
It's a brave actor who's willing to expose his vocal cords to the world, but Ewan McGregor emerges from "Moulin Rouge" looking like a newly minted rock star. The surprisingly strong and versatile voice he shows off in Baz Luhrmann's unorthodox musical, which opens wide Friday, has been winning generally glowing reviews. And the 30-year-old Scottish actor is keen to follow in the footsteps of his childhood idol, Elvis. "Elvis Presley was his idol. He fashioned himself on him," recalls McGregor's aunt, Isabel McWilliam. "He had teddy boy shoes."
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Success came a step at a time for Nordstrom
By Bill Kossen
(Seattle Times, May 29, 2001)
The Nordstrom company is marking its 100th anniversary. It can look back on a rich history but also into an uncertain future. This is the store where Elvis dropped in to have his boots repaired and where one of the owners liked to startle strangers on downtown streets by calling out, "Hi! How are you?" For years nobody sold shoes and apparel much better or with more grace than the Nordstroms of Seattle. If they didn't revolutionize retailing, they at least made it nicer.
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ELECTION 2001: TONY'S SO AT HOME IN THE PREMIERSHIP
By DOUG CAMILLI
(Online Mirror, May 28, 2001)
British Prime Minister Tony Blair showed some neat touches with a football yesterday when he took time off from his election schedule for a knockabout with the under-twelves of Trimdon Boys FC in his Sedgefield constituency. And the PM would have made Elvis proud by turning out in his favourite blue suede shoes.
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The King and I: Critic - Retiring restaurant reviewer tells all about Elvis
By DOUG CAMILLI
(Montreal Gazette, May 28, 2001)
Gael Greene has been the restaurant critic for New York magazine - not the worst job in the world - for 32 years, and now she's retiring. That rated a profile in Brill's Content, a magazine about the journalism racket. Anyway, the best part of the story was her anecdote about being sent, as a young reporter, to interview Elvis Presley at a New York hotel. "He was young and beautiful, and I was young and madly in love with him," she told Brill's, by way of explaining why they promptly went from the sitting room to the bedroom and got undressed. "Of course, what I remember most distinctly is that as I was leaving his hotel room, he picked up the phone and ordered a fried-egg sandwich."
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Lloyd Shearer, the personality behind 'Personality Parade' dies
By Joyce Wadler
(Seattle Times, May 27, 2001)
Lloyd Shearer, a Hollywood fixture whose Personality Parade column in Parade magazine reached as many as 50 million readers in its heyday, died Thursday at his home in Los Angeles at age 84. Personality Parade, which Shearer wrote under the name Walter Scott from 1958 to 1991, was best known for celebrity tidbits. Writing under his own name, Shearer also wrote profiles of a variety of subjects, including the young, unknown Elvis Presley and Ralph Nader.
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The King loses out again
By Rob Lowing
(Sun-Herald, May 27, 2001)
3000 MILES TO GRACELAND. Rating: R.
3000 Miles To Graceland might be pumped up by flashy action and two strong stars but, in the end, this heist drama is just disorganised carnage. Don't be fooled by the title or the purely coincidental release of an Elvis Presley concert film this week. Graceland is another in that long line of Quentin Tarantino crime movie clones which will clutter the screen for years to come. You know, guys in suits and sunglasses talking tough and shooting each other. Here, guys in Elvis Presley costumes rob a casino in a Las Vegas hotel.
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Elvis minus the cheese: Top notch: The merchant of motion at his best
(Sun-Herald, May 27, 2001)
By Rob Lowing
ELVIS: THAT'S THE WAY IT IS (SPECIAL EDITION) Rating: G.
For anyone whose lingering image of Elvis Presley is of a fat guy who made bad movies, this new concert documentary will blow their minds. Elvis: That's The Way It Is (Special Edition) is a recut of the 1970 concert film. The really electrifying aspect is that Presley is so "in" the moment, pouring out energy in the studio and on stage. The music is dynamite. Make sure your cinema plays it LOUD so you can savour That's All Right, Love Me Tender, Can't Stop Loving You and more.
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Long live the King - Elvis: That's The Way It is - Special Edition (Review of Sydney/Melbourne screenings)
(Weekend Australian, Review section, May 26-27, 2001, pp. R22-23)
By Evan Williams
Elvis was the first great pop performer for whom style and charisma were more important than musical talent. Modern pop culture, for better or worse, was largely his creation. Presley was not a musical innovator, still less a great creative talent. But unlike many pop stars, he could play the piano. His genius lay in showmanship, his ability to express a joyous and primal zest for rhythm, harnessed to a deep carnal energy that somehow appealed to everyone. In this documentary, Elvis comes across as a nice, humorous guy. The bond with his backup artists is clear. Even for non-fans, this documentary is a thrilling - and revealing - experience, his performance electrifying.
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CCHR New Exhibition Exposes 6.2 Billion Psychiatric Pills Given Children Each Year
(Excite news / PRNewswire), May 23, 2001
More than 1600 people joined politicians and celebrities on Sunset Boulevard Friday evening to celebrate the grand opening of a new permanent Exhibition exposing psychiatric abuse. The exhibit includes a 10 feet high pill bottle representing the more than 6.2 billion psychiatric pills foisted off on 6 million children nationwide. Attending the opening was Lisa Marie Presley who stated: "I believe psychiatrists are creating an epidemic by labeling children with bogus mental disorders and then putting them on drugs. This is abhorrent to me." The Exhibit is part of the new international headquarters of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a psychiatric watchdog group co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, Dr Thomas Szasz.
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Australia's New South Wales Lottery to Launch MDI Entertainment's Elvis Promotion; First Gig Outside North America for Company
(Excite news / Business Wire), May 21, 2001
The Elvis Presley(R) Instant Lottery Promotion created by MDI Entertainment, Inc (NASDAQ SC:LTRY) leaps to the global stage today as Australia's New South Wales Lottery launches its "scratchie" ticket, the company announced. It is the first-ever extension of MDI's business outside North America, where the company dominates the marketing of licensed property promotions to government-sponsored lotteries. MDI holds an exclusive license through Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. to create lottery promotions. The $2 Elvis(R) Instant game features cash prizes of up to $100,000. It also offers "Elvis Experience" VIP trips to Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee USA. Trip winners will travel to Elvis Presley's Graceland Mansion in Memphis, Tennessee. They will enjoy Platinum VIP tours of Graceland and stay in luxurious Elvis-themed suites in the Elvis Heartbreak Hotel, dine at Elvis' highly-acclaimed "Memphis" restaurant and night club, and then spend two fabulous nights in Las Vegas on the return trip home.
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Memphis from Elvis to Martin Luther King
By LINTON WEEKS
(Bergen Record), May 20, 2001
Weeks, who was born and reared in Memphis, makes a nostalgic journey back. Among other things, he talks about Elvis' house on Audubon Drive and its proposed restoration by a couple, Mike Freeman and Cindy Hazen, who bought it in 1998 and who have also written two books about Elvis. He spends the night at the Peabody, a plushly appointed hotel where Bernard Lansky, who once sold clothes to Elvis, now runs a little boutique. He watches the ritual of the ducks emerging from the lift and waddling down the red carpet to the lobby fountain.
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BRING 'DEAD ELVIS' TO LIFE
By BARBARA HOFFMANN
(New York Post), May 18, 2001
ELVIS may have left the building - but his spirit will rock the hall. Bassoonist Milan Turkovic will do the full Presley in white jump suit and pompadour when the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center closes its Alice Tully Hall season tonight with Michael Daugherty's "Dead Elvis." Scored for ensemble and bassoonist-as-Elvis impersonator, it's a 10-minute dirge shot through with snatches of "It's Now or Never" (a.k.a. the King's take on "O Sole Mio"). It's all played with a wildly throbbing vibrato that recalls Presley's Las Vegas period.
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OBITUARIES: Deborah Walley, 57, movie actress
By Myrna Oliver
(The Atlanta Journal-Constitution), May 15, 2001
Deborah Walley, the perky young actress who succeeded Sandra Dee as the ''girl midget'' in the first ''Gidget'' sequel, starred in several of the 1960s beach frolic movies and went on to become a writer and producer aiding children and American Indians, has died. She was 57. But neither the typecast image of the 5-foot-2, 95-pound Ms. Walley as a bouncy, libidinous but virginal teenager - nor her appearances with Elvis Presley in ''Spinout'' or with the popular canine in ''Benji'' - completely defined the multifaceted entertainer.
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Museum ensures circle of country music is unbroken
By JIM PATTERSON
(Evansville Courier & Press), May 13, 2001
The $37 million, 135,000-square-foot Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, which opens Thursday in downtown Nashville, is large and contemporary. The tour starts with a series of giant mazes, where visitors will walk through the early history of country music. Artifacts and music samples placed along the way help tell the story. Visitors can select music during the tour and get a customized CD at the end. The mazes end at a gateway marked by a gold Cadillac that was owned by hall-of-famer Elvis Presley. Visitors will then be able to view a display of stage outfits that traces the evolution of a country staršs image.
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EPE suing NBC
(Los Angeles Times), May 8, 2001
The suit filed last week in federal court in Los Angeles claims the General Electric Co. unit infringed its copyrights by airing scenes from Presley's 1973 "Aloha From Hawaii" and "The '68 Comeback Special" on the MSNBC programs "Time and Again" and "Headliners and Legends with Matt Lauer". Memphis, Tenn.-based Elvis Presley Enterprises says it has been selective in licensing copyrighted materials featuring the late singer and repeatedly has asked NBC to stop infringing on Presley's works. "Contrary to their standard practices, defendants never sought nor obtained permission to copy, broadcast and create new derivative works," the suit claims.
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Inbox: Don't want that mail? Return it to sender
By Charles Bermant
(Seattle Times), May 6, 2001
My youth is chock full of images of outdated technology, such as dial phones and Elvis Presley muttering an incomprehensible "Re Tunda Cinda" through a tinny 2-inch speaker attached to a small plastic box. This song told the quaint tale of a woman who kept refusing repeated approaches from an unworthy ex, simply by scrawling a terse message across each letter on its arrival. Technology brings forth myriad shortcuts, as it makes some things impossible. For instance, when you get an e-mail from a former friend, there is no standard way to stamp it "return to sender," which also carries a whole other subtext.
The author suggests various devious ways of dealing with unwanted e-mail that might baffle the sender.
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An Irishman's Diary
By Tim O' Brien
(Irish Times), May 5, 2001
By this weekend more than 100,000 people will have filed past a casket containing the bones of St Therese of Lisieux. There are three classes of relic - bodies (limbs, ashes and bone); objects that came into physical contact with the saints; and objects such as bits of cloth that have touched a first- or second-class relic. Many miracles and healings have been claimed by those who have touched relics, reliquaries, or even a piece of a saint's clothing. None of this is as strange as it might seem to those of who might call ourselves secular liberals. Witness the scramble for anything that might have touched the late Princess Diana, or the crowds outside Graceland who gape at a toaster that once was in everyday proximity to Elvis Presley.
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Memphis manor gave escaping slaves refuge
By Douglas Brinkley
(USA TODAY), May 4, 2001
The reporter visited ramshackled Burkle House, located in the industrial district of North Memphis, a blighted neighborhood of rubbish-filled vacant lots, shattered glass and unkempt homes, most with flimsy plywood boarding up the windows. The former owner of the house, Jacob Burkle, gave sanctuary to fugitive slaves as part of the "Underground Railroad" - the name given to the many routes that blacks took to escape slavery in the southern United States before the Civil War. This decrepit urbanscape is a far cry from the unauthorized kitschy curio shops that line Elvis Presley Boulevard, selling the King's sweat in small plastic bottles, gag-gift priced at $3.99, or from Beale Street, where B.B. King's Blues Club is lit up in neon even in the blazing afternoon sun, or from Mud Island, which boasts a five-block-long concrete replica of Ol' Man River.
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Music: EMP basks in Sun's 'Dawn of Rock'
By Patrick MacDonald
(Seattle Times), May 3, 2001
The enduring impact of Sun Records is being honored this month at Experience Music Project at Seattle Center. "Dawn of Rock: The Sun Records Legacy" will include live performances by Jerry Lee Lewis, Ike Turner and others, screenings of several documentaries, speakers, workshops and demonstrations. The heyday of Sun Records will be celebrated from now through May 31. Shut down and boarded up for some 27 years, the Sun Records site was restored and reopened in 1986. Busloads of tourists come by every day, while at night it functions as a recording studio. Sun Records' founder Sam Phillips had a phenomenal ear for talent. Not only did he discover Elvis Presley, he also signed Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins and other early rock stars to the Sun label.
It was actually Phillips' secretary, Marion Keisker, who first took notice of Presley. Keisker was so impressed by his voice that she also made a tape recording, the one and only time she did that for an acetate customer. Phillips listened to the tape but wasn't impressed enough to give the singer a call. It wasn't until Presley came in a second time, on Friday, Jan. 4, 1954, to record another song for his mother that Phillips took notice of him. But Phillips waited several more months before he called and asked if Presley would be interested in recording.
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Five Questions With Rachel Weisz
By SAMANTHA CRITCHELL
(Excite news / Associated Press), May 2, 2001
During an interview, actress Rachel Weisz was asked about the necklace she was wearing with the initials "EP." "Anyone special?" Weisz: "Elvis Presley. I got this at Graceland. I'm a big Elvis fan. Graceland is cool, kind of kitschy, but it's great fun."
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K-ODD-STOOGES-DC: ^Nyuk! Three Stooges Win in Court@
By Michael Kahn
(Excite news, May 1, 2001
The California Supreme Court on Monday ruled that a Los Angeles artist cannot sell lithographs or T-shirts depicting the images of the Three Stooges, saying freedom of expression does not trump property rights. The justices said when balancing the First Amendment with property rights, courts must decide whether works involve creative elements that transform them beyond something more than a mere celebrity likeness or imitation. The court ruled in a unanimous decision that artist Gary Saderup's merchandise did not involve those elements, citing portraits of Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe by pop artist Andy Warhol as art that did cross that hard-to-define threshold. The decision was seen as a victory for celebrities or their heirs in the battle over who should control publicity rights -- similar to trademarks or copyrights -- to market famous names and images.
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