Late August 2002
- Hitman to help Scots Elvis
By Michael Christie
(Daily Record, August 27, 2002)
STARS In Their Eyes winner Stewart Duff is all shook up after Elvis's songwriter wrote three tracks for him. ... [As below with minor editing].
- Elvis accolade for Stewart
(Daily Record, August 27, 2002)
STARS In Their Eyes winner Stewart Duff is all shook up after Elvis's songwriter wrote three tracks for him. Stewart, 38, wowed the nation with his performance of Are You Lonesome Tonight. Sitting at home beside the TV was London- based David Martin, who wrote five songs for The King in the 1960s and 70s. A few days after his triumph, he picked up the phone and offered to write some songs. ... David was part of a three-man song writing team that wrote hits for the stars. They wrote top ten numbers for Cilla Black, the Carpenters, Barry Manilow, Englebert Humperdinck and Dusty Springfield. But the five songs sung by Elvis between 1969 and 1973 remain the pinnacle of David's career.
- Seattleites all shook up with memories of Elvis
(Seattle Times, August 26, 2002)
Did you see the King? On Aug. 16, Seattle Times rock critic Patrick MacDonald wrote a story about all of Elvis Presley's concerts in Seattle. We asked readers if they had similar memories, and a whole lotta fans responded. Here are a few of the letters. And to everyone else who wrote in, we can only say, thankyuh. Thankyuhverrymuch: -- I was there, too! Sept. 1, 1957, at Sicks' Seattle Stadium. I was 12 years old and screamed myself hoarse. It is a night I will never forget. I saw Elvis again when he came to Seattle on Nov. 12, 1970. At the time I was a flight attendant for Hughes Airwest, and an Elvis Presley charter flight from Portland to Seattle was available. I almost died when my seniority allowed me to fly that trip. I didn't sleep the night before and was a nervous wreck. Imagine my disappointment when we found out it was his entourage, but not Elvis. He was on a little executive jet owned by Frank Sinatra. ...
- Elvis mourning going on too long
By Sara Vanden Berge
(Stephenville Empire Tribune, August 26, 2002)
Don't hate me because I don't miss Elvis. Now that the legendary King of Rock and Roll has been dead for 25 years, fans have gone beserk in an over-the-top mourning frenzy that has left me more than a bit irritated. ... I don't mean to sound cynical, but I just don't understand all the ballyhoo. Sure, Elvis had a lot of talent. His contribution to the music industry was a significant one. ... But what I don't understand is this crazed obsession from fans who feel the need to engage in a week-long mourning period for an entertainer that has been gone for a quarter of a century. I don't understand all the crying and all the candle lighting and all the pilgrimages to Graceland. ...
Comments to: sara.vandenberge@empiretribune.com
- Elvis sighting spurs gov foe
By ROBERT GEARTY and CELESTE KATZ
(New York Daily News, August 24, 2002)
Gov. Pataki faced two campaign assaults yesterday - one by Democratic opponent Andrew Cuomo, who vowed to spend the night in a homeless shelter, and the other by Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and Romeo Shagwell. With celebrity impersonators in tow, Pataki's Independence Party primary foe, Thomas Golisano, went to lower Manhattan to protest a voter enrollment drive by Pataki's campaign. The drive for Independence Party enrollees has apparently resulted in thousands of fraudulent registrations from the likes of Presley, Shagwell, Cinderella and Emmanuel Noreaga.
- Hospitality wins with Elvis factor
(Memphis Business Journal, August 23, 2002)
As the anniversary of Sept. 11 approaches, the past year may be remembered as the worst ever for the tourism industry, which came to a virtual halt following the terrorist attacks. Fortunately for Memphis, the tourism drought became an oasis thanks to a timely anniversary and the deplorable behavior of a former heavyweight champion. An estimated 75,000 visitors from around the world set foot in Memphis for Elvis Week, marking the 25th anniversary of the rock 'n' roll legend's death. Between the opening parade, annual candlelight vigil and a special anniversary concert at The Pyramid, the Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau projects these fans pumped $20 million into the local economy. Earlier this summer, Mayor Willie Herenton jumped at the opportunity to land the Lennox Lewis/Mike Tyson championship fight after Tyson was denied a boxing license in Las Vegas. Several other cities considered hosting the heavyweight title bout, but Memphis won out -- to the tune of about $25 million. The fight just happened to be the highest grossing pay-per-view bout in history, netting HBO-Showtime a record $103 million and putting Memphis in the dens and minds of millions of viewers worldwide.
- Hernando woman caught Elvis' eye as he became the King
(DeSoto Times, August 26, 2002)
The famous picture of Elvis kissing Jane Wilbanks Gowen as he leaned out of a train leaving Memphis was published worldwide. During the 25th anniversary of his death last week, one of his most famous biographers came to Hernando to meet the girl in the photo. The photo also is scheduled for publication - again - in a new book about Elvis. For the past 40 years, Gowen has been living quietly in Hernando.
- Summer of Elvis
(International Herald Tribune, August 23, 2002)
He was, and is, possibly the most famous stand-alone first name in history - not counting the ones credited with founding a major organized religion. Which isn't to say that Elvis Presley got anything like deity treatment on the anniversary of his death this month. "Twenty-five years ago," began a CNN program marking the occasion, "an aging singer with more then 10 different pharmaceutical drugs in his bloodstream had a heart attack, fell to the bathroom floor and entered history." ... But, looking back on the old television clips, what is most striking now is how nice he seemed, at least when he finished a number and stopped swiveling - like a fresh-faced, respectful kid just off the Greyhound to start a job at the shoe store.
Not long after the Sullivan shows he went into the army, as was expected of healthy young men at the time, then made an endless number of hit records - most of which wouldn't offend anybody - and turned out several dozen unmemorable movies. He died young, but not quite young enough to escape the temptations of aging show business figures in general and Las Vegas entertainers in particular. ... And while his life and death contain elements of tragedy, there is this to be thankful for: He is not, at age 67 struggling to belt out "Blue Suede Shoes" on one of those public TV fund-raising specials.
- Devil's Bargain: Elvis, Yoko, Anna Nicole
By John Powers
(Yahoo! News / Los Angeles Weekly, August 23, 2002)
LATE ONE NIGHT IN THE SPRING OF 1978, I WAS SITTING in the railway station of a small English town waiting for a train that had been delayed for hours. On the next bench was a 40-ish man in a black leather jacket. n a black leather jacket. "You have a match?" the guy abruptly asked, and when I answered no, he said, "So you're a Yank." I nodded and he looked at me intently. "You killed him, you know." "Who?" I asked, hoping I wasn't dealing with a lunatic. "Elvis!" he said, shocked that I didn't know. "You Americans killed him . . . You didn't love him enough."
Well, at least that last part was true. Like most people born after 1950, I scarcely noticed The King, and bombing down the San Joaquin Valley last Friday, through the windshield-bespattering farmland my wife calls Bugaria, I was reminded why I'd spent my youth thinking of Elvis as little more than a greater Pat Boone. ... the achingly heartfelt, unspeakably corny "Are You Lonesome Tonight?," the kind of rubbishy material Presley started doing in his early 20s and never stopped singing. No one in history was ever allowed to make so many rotten records. ... Driven by an admixture of naiveté, weakness, eagerness to please and poor-boy ambition (the Presleyologists are busy measuring the precise proportions of each), Elvis had made a devil's bargain. To assure long-term profitability as a star, he domesticated the outlaw qualities that made his presence feel so subversive in mid-'50s America: the churning sexuality, bursting youth energy and natural-born bluesiness that wrapped white skin around black music. Far from being a deliberate subversive, he conspired with his handlers in turning himself into a conventional show-biz creature, churning out abysmal movies and becoming the kind of crummy crooner that his first fans had worshipped him for not being.
What gave Presley's saga its special symbolic potency was its juxtaposition of vast artistic diminution and equally vast bodily expansion. He became one of those run-to-fat icons -- Orson, Marlon, Liz -- toward whom Americans always enact a ritual ambivalence. We love ridiculing these oversize celebrities while they're alive, then once they're gone, cherish them for being so doggone human. All these years later, I'm still not sure what it says about our national psyche that we voted to put the drug-addled Fat Elvis on our stamp rather than the young, handsome, charismatic Thin Elvis who anyone in their right mind would rather be. ...
All these years later, of course, media coverage of the 25th anniversary could scarcely be bothered to ponder Elvis' meaning to American culture. Instead, it became the latest pretext, like Spider-Man or Samantha Runnion, for a marketing-driven bombardment designed to promote the illusion of a national consensus.
- Hospital employees enjoy Elvis day
By Shelvia Dancy
(Washington Evening Journal, August 22, 2002)
The Washington Diner at the Washington County Hospital grooved to the cool tunes of the King today for lunch at Elvis Day.
- ELVIS KEEPS 'EM ROCKING AT HOSPITAL!
(The Cornishman, August 22, 2002)
Elvis is alive and well and working as a hospital porter at St Michael's Hospital, Hayle! At least that's what some of the patients are saying about Duane Bullock - a fully fledged Teddy boy with a carefully styled quiff - who turns up for work with black drainpipes under his white hospital jacket! And last week, as the world marked the 25th anniversary of Elvis' death, patients and staff at the hospital were reminded of "The King" as Duane did his rounds! The 37-year-old says that he doesn't intentionally dress to look like Elvis, although he is a big fan of his music. "I originally wanted to look like Shakin' Stevens," he said. "But everybody said I looked like Elvis. My nickname is Shakey and he modelled himself on Elvis. He is more my younger idol."
- Elvis Presley plans a noisy day in Wales
By JASON KEYSER
(Yahoo! News / Associated Press, August 22, 2002)
Elvis Presley plans a noisy day in Wales to mark the 25th anniversary of The King's death.
Presley - who legally changed his name from Glyn Nedrud three years ago - planned to spend 24 hours cranking up the volume on his collection of Presley recordings. "I don't think the neighbors will be too happy. But I've checked up and I won't be classed as a nuisance because it's only twice a year that I do it, on the anniversary of his death and his birthday," said Presley, 43.
- Buddy Holly Center Displays Rare Pics of Elvis, Dylan, Beatles
By Paul Bourgeois
(abc28.com, August 22, 2002)
The Buddy Holly Center is rocking with some new exhibits. You can now see rare photographs of Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and the Beatles here in Lubbock. The pictures are part of the exhibits, "Arts to Icon: Early Photos of Elvis" and "Dylan and The Beatles." All of the photos were taken before the stars became rock and roll became celebrities. The exhibit will be on display at the Buddy Holly Center through October 12.
- Excessively Elvis
By Paul Bourgeois
(DFW.com / Star-Telegram, August 22, 2002)
A quarter of a century after his death, The King still lives large in Graceland. Twenty Star-Telegramstaffers took a vacation to Memphis last week to look for Elvis during the celebration surrounding the 25th anniversary of his death. This is what they found. "If Elvis were alive today, he would be blown away by all of the attention he has received 25 years after his death." So says Kevin Kane, president of the Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau. He's right. Even The King, a man given to excess, would be blown away by the bloat that is Elvis Week in Memphis. The fact that Kane's take on Elvis Week is a challenge to metaphysics also is testimony to the strangeness here. Where else does one not give a second look to a jump-suited Elvis on the bus or behind the counter at McDonalds? There are babies with sideburns. Graceland is overrun by thousands of men who want to be Elvis and even more women eager to be with anyone vaguely resembling Elvis. There are even female Elvises, including two clad in spangly jumpsuit who proclaim they are Lesbian Elvises. They fit right in among the Elvises of every color, creed, age, nationality and size. "Bloated" Elvis is very popular. ... The most solemn time of Elvis Week is the Candlelight Vigil. It attracted more than 35,000 candle-wielding fans. Very few candles were lit as a driving rainstorm passed over Memphis. But the people stayed, and when the rain turned to a drizzle, some lighted their candles.
- On 25th anniversary of Elvis' death, some Israelis ask: Was the king Jewish?
By JASON KEYSER
(Yahoo! News / Associated Press, August 21, 2002)
On the main highway into this holy, hilltop city, a curious sign directs motorists to what's become a modern place of pilgrimage. It reads simply, "Elvis."
In a land crisscrossed by biblical prophets and Jesus, emperors and potentates, the roadside Elvis Inn - a gas station, restaurant and tourist trap - is a shrine to the king of rock 'n' roll. Friday marks the 25th anniversary of Elvis' death and hundreds were expected to come to the spot to remember the singer. Some Israeli fans are also pondering a little-known theory about Elvis' identity that is increasingly talked about here - the king may have had Jewish blood.
Elvis' maternal great-great-grandmother, Nancy Tackett, was Jewish, according to one author. Tackett's daughter Martha Tackett was the mother of Doll Mansell, who in turn was the mother of Elvis' mother, Gladys Smith, according to a book, "Elvis and Gladys," by Elaine Dundy. Religious law says Judaism is passed down from the mother, so Elvis could be considered Jewish even though he was raised Christian, Dundy says. ... A 13-foot (four-meter) golden Elvis statue looms out front. Inside are souvenirs and a chaotic hodge-podge of more than a thousand photos of Elvis on the walls and ceiling. The restaurant, which opened two years before the king's 1977 death, is the creation of Elvis fanatic Uri Yoeli, an Israeli who was flying home from a trip to London to be on hand for Friday's celebrations.
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