May 2004
- Rare cello's theft likely a local job
By Sara Lin
(contracostatimes.com / LOS ANGELES TIMES, May 9, 2004)
The theft early last week of a $3.5 million Stradivarius cello owned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic sent a sour note across the classical music world amid fears that a sophisticated ring of bandits had made off with the treasure. Detectives launched an international search for the instrument as aficionados from London to Hong Kong chattered about who might have the cello. But on Thursday, the investigation shifted decidedly closer to home. The Los Angeles Police Department released a videotape showing a young man on a bicycle, probably a teenager from the neighborhood, making off with the cello. ... At first, detectives thought they were dealing with a crack instrument thief who might keep the cello underground for years before trying to sell it or trade it. The FBI listed the instrument with auction houses and registries of lost art next to Picassos, Rembrandts and Elvis Presley's high school ring.
- From gags to stitches
By JANET I. MARTINEAU
(THE SAGINAW NEWS, May 9, 2004)
When it comes to sight gags, Pit & Balcony Community Theatre has raised the bar. Its production of the Webber/Rice musical "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," which opened Friday and runs through Sunday, May 23, offers THE sight gag of the season, if not the century. It has to do with a camel, created by Saginaw sculptor Jason Graham, and later in the show it even switches animal orientation. And we think we will leave it at that. In fact, we're not going to spill the beans on a lot of the cleverness and creativity in this show, guest directed by Stasi Schaeffer, because everyone needs to discover them for themselves in this well-done, detail-rich production. What we will reveal, to give a clue, is that the small orchestra ensemble is encased in a tent -- given the biblical desert setting of the show. And keep your eye on the rotating prop at the right that becomes a palm tree, a cactus, an obelisk and the Eiffel Tower, as needed. ... And then there is Andy Knippel as Pharoah, always played as an Elvis Presley figure. This one is the skinniest Presleys on record, and Knippel as is tradition tears up the stage with it -- and the cast around him eventually swoons and faints. ...
- Martyn's alter ego pays the bills
(Bedford Today, May 9, 2004)
Elvis is alive and well... and living in Dunstable. The king of rock and roll may be better known as Martyn Dias, but he's been able able to give up his day job as manager of an IT company to turn into his alter ego full time. And since turning professional over three years ago, Elvis Shmelvis's career has rocketed. After modest beginnings at parties, clubs and pubs, the Elvis lookalike has rubbed shoulders with the stars at a number of top events, including performing in front of a 100,000 crowd at Bristol at an international balloon festival. The Shmelvis has also appeared on national TV and radio, as well as helping raise cash at many charity events, including The Pasque at Luton. ...
- Citizens welcomed to U.S. family
By Amber Bollman
(Pensacola News Journal, May 8, 2004)
... Chief U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson presided over Friday's naturalization ceremony, which drew scores of proud parents, children and friends to the federal courthouse.
"My mother has been so excited about this," said Roselyn Sukal, whose - Muniamma Rao, 70 - was sworn in as a citizen.
Rao, a native of Fiji, spent hours practicing reading and writing English in preparation for her citizenship exam.
Last weekend, she spoke during a eulogy for a friend who passed away in Texas. ... A fifth-grade class from West Navarre Elementary School passed out packages of information to the new citizens, who also heard remarks from Sacred Heart Health System President and CEO Patrick Madden, a native of Ireland who was himself sworn in as a citizen 37 years earlier. "I lived in a country where my social class dictated exactly how my life would forever be," Madden said. "My hope was to live in a place where you could create your own future." Madden recalled his first days in a new country - coming to United States with a haircut like Elvis Presley, because that was what he believed all American men looked like and working long hours shining shoes and sweeping floors to earn money.
- Johnny B Goodbye
By GARETH EDWARDS
(Edinburgh Evening News, May 8, 2004)
CHUCK BERRY is set to play his last ever Scottish gig in Edinburgh next month. The legendary rock 'n' roll icon will take to the stage at the Edinburgh Playhouse for what is sure to be a sell-out concert. And organisers are hoping he will be joined by another music legend - Jerry Lee Lewis. It has been ten years since Berry last performed in Edinburgh, when he sold out the 1500-seater Usher Hall and thrilled crowds with a set including classic hits such as Sweet Little Sixteen and Johnny B Goode. Now the 77-year-old is coming back to the city to kick off a tour of Europe which he says will be his last.
Berry has been touring America with fellow icons Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard. While Mr Wilson said it was "unlikely" that Little Richard, 68, would make it to Britain in time for the Edinburgh gig, as he was sailing over, he was hopeful Jerry Lee Lewis would be part of the Playhouse gig. ... Often credited as the creator of rock and roll, Chuck Berry was an inspiration for the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. He also worked with, and sacked, guitar legend Jimi Hendrix. ... He has found himself in trouble with the law on more than one occasion, however, hitting the headlines in 1959 after taking 14-year-old Janice Norine Escalan over a State line for immoral purposes, an offence for which he served two years in prison.
... Jerry Lee Lewis played in Glasgow's Clyde Auditorium earlier this year and the 69-year-old proved he still had stage presence, even if he admitted he could not perform with the same energy he did 50 years ago. The man they call The Killer was raised on Bible Belt southern Baptism, attending prayer meetings where he witnessed people inducing fits, handling snakes and drinking poison, all of which inspired his unique rock showmanship. He has also had his run-ins with the law, notably for his marriage to his 14-year-old cousin, and he famously rammed the gates of Elvis Presley's Graceland home, shot at the house and tried to tell him who the real King of Rock and Roll was. He was later informed by police that Elvis was not at home. ...
- Rock 'n' Roll Just Right for the Milk and Cookies Set
By BEN BRANTLEY
(New York Times, May 8, 2004)
Can one pumping pelvis, sheathed in gold lame, crack the pious foundations of the Eisenhower era? Need God-fearing citizens lock up their daughters? More to the point, might the tribal rhythms of rock 'n' roll unhinge forever the clean-cut harmony of the all-American musical? Such were the suspenseful questions posed in 1960 by "Bye Bye Birdie," the popular musical satire about small-town wholesomeness under siege in the age of Elvis. Not that there was ever much doubt about the answers. As is made clear by the amiable new Encores! concert staging, which runs through Monday at City Center, this show was always on the side of the squares.
"Bye Bye Birdie," originally directed and choreographed by Gower Champion, was the first Broadway hit to embrace the fire-breathing dragon known as rock 'n' roll, with a title character inspired directly by Elvis Presley and his dangerous hips. Seven years before the rock musical "Hair," "Birdie" tapped the potential for musicals joining instead of licking the craze for youth-oriented pop songs.
But "Birdie" really only let the enemy through its gates to tame it. Charles Strouse's songs, with lyrics by Lee Adams, may incorporate the throbbing rhythms and sado-masochistic sex appeal of Presley's hits, but they do so with a parodist's ear for the ludicrous. And while the Elvis-like figure named Conrad Birdie may shake, rattle and roil the tranquil town of Sweet Apple when he visits it for a farewell performance before (reluctantly) joining the army, he doesn't really change things there.
Conrad (played with a narcissistic shrug by Bob Gaynor) is just a low-grade earthquake, and even before he leaves, Sweet Apple is once again closer to Grovers Corners than Gomorrah. And the lilting love song that concludes the show, "Rosie," a paean to domestic bliss, has no place for electric guitars.
Jerry Zaks's production for Encores!, the last in the season's series, emphasizes the innocence of this vision of an American Eden in jeopardy. The colors of John Lee Beatty's gridlike set, William Ivey Long's costumes and Ken Billington's lighting are the sugary shades of Popsicles and candy necklaces.
The singers and dancers who embody the Conrad-worshiping youth of Sweet Apple are squeaky clean enough to win over an admissions officer at Oral Roberts University. And while the 1963 movie of "Birdie" pumped up the hormone count by casting the young Ann-Margret as Kim MacAfee, its teenage heroine, this version restores the character to her full virginal innocence. As played by Jessica Grové, she's an apple-cheeked good girl who, given a choice between milk and cookies or an orgy before bedtime, will always go for the snack.
Thanks to the film version and a 1995 television adaptation, "Birdie" is hardly in need of the kind of rediscovery that makes Encores! so invaluable to fans of musicals. This is no archival resurrection in the style of the program's last concert staging, the nearly forgotten Gershwin gem "Pardon My English."
Mr. Zaks hasn't come up with fresh perspectives on a familiar landscape. And the choreographer Casey Nicholaw tends to accentuate the cuteness of the young corps de ballet, turning the great "Telephone Hour" number into a kindergartenish romp. The overall effect is perfectly genial, but it never soars into that giddy heaven where Encores! at its best transports you.
But under the direction of Rob Fisher, who always combines the care and zeal of a true aficionado, the first-rate orchestra brings out the wit, canniness and pure tunefulness of Mr. Strouse's score, which ranges from deliciously silly spoof rock songs like "Honestly Sincere" to old-fashioned winners that have already gone on to the eternity of elevator and dentist office music, like "Put on a Happy Face."
Then there's that prescient ode to instant celebrity, "Hymn for a Sunday Evening," sung with religious gratitude by Kim's family when they learn they will be appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show. (The former artistic director of Encores!, Walter Bobbie, returns with palpable enjoyment to play Kim's fretful father.)
Bob Gayner in an Encores! staging of "Bye Bye Birdie."
- Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the country... 25 times over
By GRANT WOODWARD
(Leeds Today, May 8, 2004)
GROOM Mark Woodrow left holidaymakers All Shook Up when he and 24 pals went on his stag do dressed as Elvis Presley. Mark, 38, persuaded his mates to go dressed as the king of rock 'n' roll when they jetted to Spain from Leeds-Bradford Airport.
Their entrance was greeted by the announcement over the public address system: "Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has entered the building." Mark, who works at Richmond Foods in Cross Gates, Leeds, said: "I'm a huge Elvis fan and thought it would be a good laugh. Everyone was up for it and made a real effort. I think they look fantastic, although my fiancee reckons we're all mad." The lads trawled the internet, fancy dress shops and even their own wardrobes for the costumes. The combination of jet black quiffs, gold-rimmed sunglasses and white jumpsuits left fellow air travellers yesterday with Suspicious Minds. Margaret Wadsworth, 52, from Huddersfield, who was on her way to Dublin, said: "Where are they going, a convention or something? It wouldn't have bothered me if they had been on my flight. I love Elvis and I suppose this is the nearest I will get to seeing him." Best man John Sutcliffe, 35, who works with Mark, said the Elvises were all looking forward to their three-day trip to Benidorm. "When Mark suggested going as Elvis I thought it was an excellent idea," he said. "It's a great way of starting the stag do with a laugh." Mark is to marry Amanda Dawson, 25, in their native Halifax on July 10. And if his emotions get the better of him on their big day then he could be mimicking his hero once again - by Crying in the Chapel.
- Lesser lights revel in 'stuff of fantasy'
By Nick Harris
(sport.independent.co.uk, May 7, 2004)
Unlikely is not the word. At the start of this season's Champions' League, a final between Monaco and Porto was more unthinkable than Elvis Presley being found alive or someone producing proof of intelligent alien life before the end of the season. So say William Hill, who would have given you odds of 1000-1 against either of the latter scenarios last summer. ...
- Chamber coffee features health, taxes and Elvis
By Tony Rehagen
(Southeast Missourian, May 7, 2004)
Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce members who made it out to the Show Me Center for First Friday Coffee got to talk health and taxes and dance with the help of a dead music legend. The event kicked off with representatives from the sponsoring Southeast Missouri Hospital talking about the chamber's third annual Shape Up Cape program. The four-month contest pits teams from participating chamber businesses in a friendly competition to see who can score the most points for exercising. ... To cap off the first part of the event, Fitness and Wellness Center assistant manager Scott Givens came out clad in a white, sequined jumpsuit and a jet black wig with sideburns to pump up the crowd. Swinging to the tune "Jailhouse Rock," the thinner Elvis impersonator told the audience that fitness was "all in the pelvis." ...
- Washington Journal: McCarthy, Brown and Dien Bien Phu
By Phil Nash
(Exeter News-Letter News, May 7, 2004)
Fifty years ago, in 1954, The Lord of the Rings was published, Elvis Presley was bursting onto the music scene with ³That¹s All Right Mama² and Dr. Jonas Salk was starting to inoculate school children in Pittsburgh in the first stage of his successful battle against the deadly polio virus. The new medium of television was broadcasting U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy as he continued his witch-hunting activities, culminating in a series of hearings where he tried to prove communist infiltration into the United States Army. ...
- Author meets fans of his midlife crisis book
By Sarah Jusseaume
(Exeter News-Letter News, May 7, 2004)
What does an Elvis impersonator have in common with a man going through a midlife crisis? More than you would think, according to local author Phil Englehardt. Englehardt held a book signing for his recent release, "Motorcycleman," at Rick's Cafe on Wednesday where a friend, and part-time Elvis impersonator, performed for the crowd of close to 100 people. "He's somewhat of an inspiration for the book," said Englehardt. "In his mind he's one step away from Nashville, but he's not that great. He has a dream though, and people just gravitate toward him; they enjoy watching him perform. He has a real and true belief in himself, and it's great. It's like a train wreck, you don't want to watch but you can't look away."
Tom Wall of Kingston echoed Englehardt's thoughts about Elvis. "He was phenomenal, not the talent so much, but his spirit, he was great, he really did it up," said Wall. ...
- Salinas Expo has door prizes, Elvis: Chamber of Commerce members display services, wares at Sherwood Hall
By DANIA AKKAD
(The Salinas Californian, May 7, 2004)
A whole lot of shaking was going on at the "Shake, Rattle and Roll"-themed Community Expo Thursday afternoon in Salinas -- hand-shaking, that is. During the annual networking session, more than 80 businesses and organizations, all Salinas Valley Chamber of Commerce members, exhibited their goods and services at Sherwood Hall on North Main Street. ... Even Elvis made an appearance. "I gave them The King discount," said 12-year Elvis impersonator Donald Prieto, discussing what he charged the chamber for walking through the crowds and having his photo taken with women. ...
- Stolen cello draws worldwide attention: L.A. police scout for neighborhood cyclist
By Sara Lin
(fortwayne.com / Los Angeles Times, May 7, 2004)
The theft early last week of a $3.5 million Stradivarius cello owned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic sent a sour note across the classical music world amid fears that a sophisticated ring of bandits had made off with the treasure. Detectives launched an international search for the instrument as aficionados from London to Hong Kong chattered about who might have the cello. But Thursday, the investigation shifted closer to home. The Los Angeles Police Department released a videotape showing a young man on a bicycle, probably a teen-ager from the neighborhood, making off with the cello. The grainy video shows the thief peddling away with the silver cello case under his arm, then has the sound of him crashing into trash cans before getting away. ... At first, detectives thought they were dealing with a crack instrument thief who might keep the cello underground for years before trying to sell it or trade it. Hrycyk contacted Interpol. The FBI listed the instrument with auction houses and registries of lost art next to Picassos, Rembrandts and Elvis Presley's high school ring. ...
- Music Hall of Fame gets TV launch
By John Lehndorff
(BBC News, May 7, 2004)
The first UK Music Hall of Fame is to open in November as part of a Channel 4 prime-time Saturday night TV series. A shortlist of artists from the last six decades will be drawn up by a panel of music experts to compete for a place in the final. A new series will be aired annually, with several acts from each year's final being inaugurated into the Hall of Fame based on a public vote. Artists can be any nationality as long as they have had success in the UK. Possible contenders are likely to include Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Frank Sinatra, Abba, Queen and U2. Shortlists will be drawn up from record sales, critical acclaim, entertainment value and reputation in live performance and songwriting. ...
- Great moments in Denver sandwich history
By John Lehndorff
(Rocky Mountain News, May 7, 2004)
- The Denver Sandwich. It may be the Mile High City's namesake sandwich, but it's mostly known as a Western Sandwich around these parts. Essentially, the Denver Sandwich is a Denver omelet between two slices of bread. There's no historical evidence to suggest that the sandwich, filled with eggs scrambled with ham, green peppers and onions, was created in Denver.
- The Cheeseburger. There's a 3-foot granite monument in the Key Bank parking lot on Speer Boulevard west of Interstate 25 that reads, "On this site in 1935, Louis E. Ballast created the cheeseburger." Ballast had opened a popular eatery on the site named the Humpty Dumpty Barrel Drive-In. While Ballast did trademark the name "cheeseburger" with the state of Colorado in 1935, there's substantial historical evidence that hamburgers with cheese melted on top of them had been served for many years previously in several other American cities.
- The Elvis Sandwich. The Fool's Gold Loaf was on the menu at the now-closed Colorado Gold Mine Co. restaurant in Glendale. Priced at $49.95, the dish entailed an entire loaf of Italian white bread, soaked in butter and baked and then sliced in half lengthwise. The interior of the loaf was scooped out to make room for a pound of crisply cooked bacon and a large jar each of Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter and Smucker's Grape Jelly. Then the loaf was closed. Legend has it that Elvis Presley had enjoyed the sandwich once while on tour in Denver. One night at his Memphis home Graceland, he got a hankering for it. He and a group of friends boarded his jet, the Lisa Marie, and flew to Denver's Stapleton Airport. Several orders of the dish were waiting for them when they landed. ...
- Ironing out the Iron Curtain with Red Elvises
By Grant Britt
(ESP Magazine, May 5-11, 2004, Volume 16, Issue 39)
There's something very strange going on here. It sounds like the Statler Brothers with Russian accents singing "Flowers on the Wall" with surf guitar breaks and Greg Allman organ riffs. Welcome to the world of the Red Elvises, founders of Eastern Block rockabilly surf music, or as their bumper sticker proclaims, "kick-ass rock 'n' roll from Siberia." The concept, according to co-founder Igor Yuzovk, is "about enjoying life, no matter what it is. Happy music - upbeat, party music. People come and have fun - that's the whole idea behind it." Though the band uses the King's name, they don't do any of his music. "We did a little bit of Elvis's tunes," says Yuzovk, "but not any more. He's the best to do his own songs. But just the name stuck to us."
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