December 2001
- A list of those for whom the bell tolled this year
By Polly Anderson
(Chicago Tribune / Associated Press, December 31, 2001)
Chet Atkins' guitar was heard on hundreds of hit records by Hank Williams, Elvis Presley and others. And millions of Beatles fans were familiar with his style in the 1960s without even knowing it. George Harrison was profoundly influenced by the guitar playing of the man from Nashville, and the influence brought a touch of country to the Beatles' style. And now, both Chet and George are gone, victims of cancer. A list of some of the artists and entertainers we lost in 2001 is provided. It includes: Deborah Walley, 57. Actress in such quintessential 1960s teen movies as "Gidget Goes Hawaiian" and "Beach Blanket Bingo." May 10. Cancer.
- Don't gush over the Velvet Elvis unless you want another one
(SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER, December 31, 2001)
Bad gifts happen. But when they happen again and again, you may want to look at how you receive them, and what you can do to break the pattern. Children usually hold little back in their appraisal of presents. Adults, however, may keep quiet about a disappointing gift because they don't want to hurt feelings. Hypocrisy is the path of least resistance. But this can be a slippery slope. If you gush over Aunt Tillie's Velvet Elvis, she's going to expect to see it hanging on the wall whenever she visits. Worse, she may give you a velvet Slim Whitman next Christmas to enhance your collection. If Aunt Tillie is 85 years old, holding on to the Velvet Elvis may seem a small price to pay for avoiding confrontation. But people are living a lot longer and you could end up doing 15 years to life with her gift if you pretend you like it. Honest and open communication is the best response to misguided gifts, says M.K. "Doc" Downing, a psychologist and director of the Family Communication Center in Fresno, Calif. By all means express thanks and appreciation for every gift, says Downing, but Aunt Tillie needs to know you won't be hanging her Vselvet Elvis on your wall.
- Elvis' birthday party open to 'E-Club' members: Organizers to announce entertainment lineup for 2002 Presley Festival
By M. Scott Morris
(Daily Journal, December 30, 2001)
The 2002 Elvis Presley Festival is several months off, but the Downtown Tupelo Main Street Association wants to get a jump on things. The organization will throw a party on Elvis Presley's birthday Tuesday, Jan. 8, for members of the "E-Club." "That's when we're going to announce the entertainment for the festival," said Jan Pannell, president of the Downtown Tupelo Main Street Association. "We'll also unveil the image that will be on the T-shirt and the poster." E-Club membership costs $150 a year and features several perks.
- Singer makes sure St. Vincent is not a 'Heartbreak' hospital
By CHRISTENE MEYERS
(Billings Gazette, December 29, 2001)
Arising at 4 a.m. for a two-hour drive to the airport, then several delayed flights later, Elvis impersonator Wade Cummins arrived in Billings and kept his word to sing for the sick. In the tradition of his act's subject, Elvis Presley, Cummins appeared Friday afternoon at St. Vincent Healthcare. He blitzed the hospital's wings - from pediatrics to geriatrics to a visit to the cafeteria, where he surprised snacking visitors. "Elvis loved to do his thing at hospitals," said Cummins, who adopted the stage name Elvis Wade many years ago. "Whole wings are named after him all over the South. I just quietly do that, too." Accompanied by backup musicians on a boom box, Wade sang songs at each of five stations within the hospital complex.
- Elvis Presley voted greatest pop idol (3rd news item)
(BBC News, December 27, 2001)
The British public regards the late Elvis Presley as the greatest of all pop stars, according to a poll commissioned by the sponsors of ITV1's Pop Idol show,Vizzavi. Elvis beat more recent stars like Robbie Williams and Madonna in the poll of 2,000 adults across the UK, conducted by BMRB. Perennial pop singer Cliff Richard came second to Elvis, with Robbie Williams third and The Beatles fourth. Other names in the top ten included Frank Sinatra, John Lennon, Freddie Mercury, Michael Jackson and Elton John.
- Elvis shakes up "Glades": Elvis is coming to town
(Everglades Echo, December 26, 2001)
The Everglades City School, Everglades City, Florida, is sponsoring an Elvis concert at the school gymnasium on Saturday, January 12 at 7.00 pm to raise money for school activities. Joe "Elvis" Marino and "All the King's Men" will be performing.
- All shook up over ghost of seasons past
By BRIAN DICKERSON
(Detroit Free Press, December 24, 2001)
Dickerson reminisces about Doris, office manager for the Florida-based Sunday magazine where Dickerson worked in the mid-1980s. Doris loved Elvis Presley. In 1987, as the 10th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death approached, their Sunday magazine commissioned Dave Barry to visit Graceland and report back on whatever weirdness he discovered there. Barry was the country's leading humor writer, and was considered an obvious choice for the Graceland gig. But Doris was horrified; in her mind, Elvis' home was a shrine, hardly an appropriate target for Barry's brand of satire. Surprisingly, Barry reached the same conclusion. Unexpectedly moved by the people he met at Graceland, he turned in a sensitive tribute to Presley and the cult following he inspired. The magazine upset Doris by illustrating the article with a fat Elvis caricature. Eventually they gave her an Elvis coffee-table book as a peace offering.
- Autry Museum exhibit spotlights the birth of cowboy couture
By Barbara De Witt
(Daily News Los Angeles, December 23, 2001)
Long before Elvis Presley's gold lame suit -- western stars such as Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy, and Roy and Dale Evans dazzled on the screen and parade routes in rhinestone-and-fringe get-ups designed by a couple of San Fernando Valley tailors named Nathan Turk and Nutya "Nudie" Cohn. While both men have since ridden into the sunset, their trademark fashions live on in old movies, TV reruns and the "How the West Was Worn" costume exhibit at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage in Los Angeles.
- King of Knit Parade
Designed by Libby Jones
(Australian Women's Weekly, December, 2001)
Elvis knitting pattern for a jumper.
- Migraine headaches still misdiagnosed
By MARILYN LINTON
(Canoe, December 17, 2001)
Elvis Presley may have been all shook up for reasons other than his love of music. According to Toronto's Dr. John Edmeads, the musical legend was one of many historical figures who suffered from migraine headaches. Other sufferers have included painter Vincent Van Gogh, writers Virginia Woolf and Lewis Carroll, as well as Napoleon and Julius Caesar.
- Actress Priscilla Presley in Las Vegas
By Ethan Miller
(Excite news / Reuters, December 15, 2001)
Actress Priscilla Presley arrives at the grand opening party for The Stirling Club in Las Vegas December 14, 2001. The 80,000 square-foot, members-only club on the grounds of the Turnberry Place luxury condominiums features an anti-aging spa, a piano bar, a pool, billiards, wine and cigar rooms.
- Migraine headaches still misdiagnosed
By MARILYN LINTON
(Canoe, December 17, 2001)
Elvis Presley may have been all shook up for reasons other than his love of music. According to Toronto's Dr. John Edmeads, the musical legend was one of many historical figures who suffered from migraine headaches. Other sufferers have included painter Vincent Van Gogh, writers Virginia Woolf and Lewis Carroll, as well as Napoleon and Julius Caesar.
- The Stirling Club, Las Vegas' Premier Private Club, Celebrates Their Grand Opening in Style
(Excite news / various news wires, December 12, 2001)
Jack Nicholson, Sylvester Stallone, Vivica A. Fox, David James Elliot, Priscilla Presley, Paul Walker and others are expected to attend the official grand opening of the Stirling Club, Turnberry Associates' first development in Las Vegas. Taking shape as the city's premier private club if not one of the most exclusive in the country, the 80,000 square-foot, world-class facility will cater to those who want to indulge in the finest service and amenities.
- Soldiers Hailed As Heroes in Ky
By KIMBERLY HEFLING
(Excite news / Associated Press, December 10, 2001)
Three American soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan last week were hailed Monday as heroes who helped free an oppressed nation. They were Master Sgt. Jefferson "Donnie" Davis, 39, of Watauga, Tenn.; Staff Sgt. Brian Cody Prosser, 28, of Frazier Park, Calif.; and Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Petithory, 32, of Cheshire, Mass. The men were members of the Army's 5th Special Forces Group at Fort Campbell, 50 miles north of Nashville, Tenn. They were killed when a U.S. bomb missed its target Wednesday. Five Afghan fighters also died and 19 American servicemen were wounded. Petithory was called "Dan-o" by his buddies partly for a sense a humor similar to that of comedian Dan Aykroyd. He was remembered as a morale builder and a big man "with an even bigger heart" who skydived in Elvis glasses and once canoed on July 4 wearing a grass skirt and coconut bra.
- CONSPIRACY ZONE
By KIMBERLY HEFLING
(Excite news, December 10, 2001)
Is Elvis really dead? Did the U.S. government send military personnel on a secret trip through time? Do psychics really speak with those who have passed on? These and other issues that for many remain unexplained will be examined when The New TNN: THE NATIONAL NETWORK presents the World Premiere of TNN'S CONSPIRACY ZONE WITH KEVIN NEALON Sunday, Jan. 6.
- British Police Probe Suspect Elvis Memorabilia
(Excite news, December 8, 2001)
British police are investigating the sale of suspected fake Elvis Presley songsheets at a London auction house, London's Metropolitan police said Saturday. Police said the allegations were made Monday but declined to give further details. Three songsheets, supposedly found at a German boarding house where Elvis stayed during his spell in the U.S. Army, were sold by auctioneers Christie's for $14,300, according to a report in Britain's Sun newspaper Saturday.
- COLUMN: Still his guitar gently weeps
By Julie Bender
(The Observer via U-WIRE, December 4, 2001)
"Sunrise doesn't last all morning/ A cloudburst doesn't last all day/ Seems my love is up and has let you with no warning/ It's not always going to be this grey/ All things must pass/ All things must pass away..."
With Harrison's passing last Friday after a long struggle with cancer, his words seem particularly poignant. They come not only as a source of comfort to his many fans, but also as an indication of the genius Harrison possessed, despite his years living in the shadows. As a child, Harrison caught the rock and roll bug early. He would tune into Radio Luxembourg and struggle to hear the strains of Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly through the static. Harrison was recruited by his friend Paul McCartney to join the band known as the Beatles. As the youngest member of the group, Harrison was barely out of his teens when he was engulfed in the fury soon to be known as "Beatlemania." Harrison was a driving force in the Beatles. His electric guitar work can be heard on the earliest of Beatle albums, only to mature to an art form on later works. It was Harrison who wrote some of the most classic Beatle songs, such as "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Here Comes the Sun," and "Something." It was Harrison who brought the Indian influence into the Beatles' music with the use of the sitar on songs like "Norwegian Wood" and "Love You To." And it was Harrison who encouraged the Beatles to go to India to study transcendental meditation under the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
- Rock 'N' Roll Lyricist Kal Mann Dead at 84
By Steve Gorman
(Excite news, December 3, 2001)
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Lyricist Kal Mann, who co-wrote some of rock 'n' roll's biggest hits of the 1950s and '60s, including Elvis Presley's "Teddy Bear," Chubby Checker's "Let's Twist Again" and Bobby Rydell's "Wild One," has died at age 84, longtime songwriting partner Dave Appell said Monday. Mann, a major influence on the Philadelphia sound and dance-craze music popularized by Dick Clark's television show "American Bandstand" in the years before the Beatles burst on the scene, succumbed to Alzheimer's disease last Wednesday in Pompano Beach, Fla., where he had lived in retirement. In the late 1950s, friend and songwriter Bernie Lowe convinced Mann that if he could write comic parodies he could write lyrics, proving his point when the two collaborated on "Teddy Bear (Let Me Be Your)," which became a hit for Presley.
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