mid January, 2006
- Seems It Does Snow in Southern California
By AUDREY DAVIDOW
(New York Times, January 13 2006)
SOUTHERN Californians rarely venture into the snow without the promise of a totally gnarly ski run, but the alpine village of Idyllwild, 5,200 feet above Palm Springs in the San Jacinto Mountains, has the power to lure them. Two hours from either Los Angeles or San Diego, Idyllwild has long been one of Hollywood's best-kept getaway secrets. Tony Curtis, Charles Bronson and Elvis Presley spent time there. Dolly Parton holes up there now. And lately, more urbanites are discovering the rustic charms of this hidden hilltop village, where 75 percent of the residences are vacation homes. ...
- THE MARYHILLBILLYS - GODDAM HE THINKS HE'S ELVIS *****
(dailyrecord.co.uk, January 13 2006)
Surely this must be the best name for a Scottish country band based in Australia? With a chorus of "Amen, the king is gone" and a fiddle-powered middle eight, this could be straight out of Nashville itself.
- Enchanting and handy insight about Mississippi
By KERI HOLT
(Delta Democrat Times, January 12 2006)
Did you know shortly before writer William Faulkner's death, he corresponded with Elvis Presley? Faulkner had heard that Elvis' mother died and wrote to cheer up a fellow Mississippi boy. Did you know in 1908 Mississippi became the first state to prohibit alcohol? Predictably, Mississippi was the first state to ratify the 18th Amendment, which established Prohibition in the country. State Prohibition lasted until 1966, 33 years after the 21st Amendment repealed national Prohibition. Did you know at almost 37 percent, Mississippi has a larger percentage of black residents than any other state? Did you know every day, up to five hundred billion gallons of water flow through the Mississippi River on the state's western border? Did you know Greenville is the Towboat Capital of the world?
Did you know Washington County, organized in 1827, is named for George Washington? The county seat, Greenville, was named for Nathaniel Green, a Revolutionary War hero and close friend of Washington. Did you know most of America's bananas come ashore at the banana terminals in Gulfport? Did you know Clarksdale is home of the oldest Holiday Inn in the world? All this information and more can be found in a newly released book "Mighty Mississippi," written by Victor Robilio and published by Premium Press America in Nashville, Tenn. ...
- Presley fan may be lonesome tonight
(Yahoo! Music, January 12 2006)
A US man who auctioned off thousands of pieces of Elvis Presley memorabilia to try to win back his girlfriend may still be headed for Heartbreak Hotel. Jim Curtin has put up for sale what may be the world's largest private collection of Elvis memorabilia - 50,000 items, including a mirrored white jumpsuit he says The King gave him at a meeting in Las Vegas. The collection could be worth Ł833,000, said Beverly Hills auctioneer David Kols. Nearly two-thirds of the first 1,209 items were auctioned off last weekend.
But Renata Ginter, Curtin's 35-year-old ex-girlfriend, wants nothing to do with him. In fact, she is engaged to someone else. Ginter declined to speak publicly about their relationship, but she said she was surprised Curtin was selling his beloved collection. "I thought he would keep it forever," she said. "After all those years of housing it, collecting it, he was a prisoner to it. It ruled his every move." Curtin, who is in his mid-50s and lives just outside Philadelphia, began his collection as a child with Presley's record Return to Sender. The obsession grew from there. Curtin said he first met Elvis backstage in Las Vegas in 1974. ...
- A VISIT TO HOME OF THE KING PLANNED: TRIP A MUST FOR ELVIS FANS
(dailyrecord.co.uk, January 12 2006)
MUSIC fans from the west of Ireland, especially those with a weakness for Elvis Presley and Country Music, are invited to an information evening in Galway for a music holiday with a difference. Leading escorted tour operators NST are running a Follow Your Dreams trip to Nashville, Memphis and Graceland from October 28 to November 4, departing from Shannon Airport. The group will visit all the leading attractions in these two American cities, including Music Row recording studios, the Graceland home of Elvis, his birthplace and museum in Tupelo, Nashville Nightlife Theatre, the Country Music Hall of Fame, and a show at the world-famous Grand Ole Opry. The group will be accompanied by guides for all excursions. ...
- Elvis Fest: Let's break even
By EMILY LE COZ
(Daily Journal, January 12 2006)
TUPELO - Organizers of the 8th annual Elvis Presley Festival say the weekend event might never generate the financial windfall that it originally was intended to do. Instead, what once was envisioned as Downtown Tupelo Main Street Association's major fundraiser is now budgeted as a break-even event. ...
- Diana's Elvis dress to go on show
(BBC News, January 12 2006)
A pearl-encrusted dress worn by Princess Diana is to go on display at London's Victoria and Albert Museum. The gown, known as the "Elvis dress" due to its rich adornment and high collar, was donated by a US firm which sold Diana dolls wearing the dress. Franklin Mint's subsequent costly legal battle with the Diana Memorial Fund, led the charity to freeze its donations in 2003. The firm's owners acquired the dress in 1997 at a fundraising auction. The late princess commissioned the floor-length white, sequinned gown for an unofficial visit to Hong Kong in November 1989. ...
- Fans party with Elvis: Hound dog heaven: Pay tribute to the King during birthday bash
By MOLLY GILMORE-BALDWIN
(South Sound Entertainment, January 11 2006)
In Olympia, the fact that the Elvis Birthday Bash draws hundreds of fans is more surprising than the fact that the Elvis Presley sound-alike who performs at the bash is black. "There are a lot of great Elvis fans out there," said Robert Washington, the first black man to win the annual Elvis World Championships in Memphis. "I don't know if the Northwest expects that it has that many Elvis fans or freaks, but it's growing into a full-fledged festival," said organizer David Ross. "We average maybe 500 people for the bash itself, and we've slowly but surely expanded to other events."
vWhile there's definitely a tongue-in-cheek appeal to the Saturday night party - which includes fried peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches, birthday cake and a screening of the funny Elvis-impersonator documentary "Almost Elvis" - there also are serious fans. "Last year, we did the Elvis Gospel Brunch," said Ross, an associate producer with Blue Suede Films, which produced "Almost Elvis." "Sunday morning, world-champion Elvis Robert Washington comes out in an angelic white satin suit with a red scarf just like Elvis did in his 1978 comeback special, singing a gospel medley. I thought it would be tongue-in-cheek ‹ and they get a mixed crowd - but I was surprised how many people came before or after church in their Sunday best," he said. "Little old ladies were getting teary-eyed."
In his lifetime, Presley won just three Grammy awards - and all were for gospel. (He did get a posthumous award for "Hound Dog" and "Don't Be Cruel" in 1993.) But as Washington points out, Presley was a versatile singer. "He recorded so many different types of music ‹ country, gospel, rhythm and blues, rock 'n' roll." Washington said he varies what he sings depending on his audience, choosing the basics for younger people and more obscure numbers for the Elvis-obsessed. "Elvis recorded over 730 songs," he said, "so I have a lot of material to work from." (He's memorized more than 300 of them in his 20 years in the business.)
The fact that the Elvis most popular here in South Sound is black is old news. But suffice it to say that Washington's struggle to triumph at the "Images of Elvis" championships, chronicled in "Almost Elvis," isn't over-dramatized. "Down in the Deep South, in Memphis, Tenn., it's amazing that a black man would be crowned world champion," Ross said. Surely the South isn't what it used to be? "I didn't think so, either, until I started going to Memphis every year to cover this stuff and make this film," he said. "There are two worlds there, black and white, and I didn't think things like that existed." Here in Olympia, Ross said, fans are rooting for Washington when they watch the documentary, and then when he performs, it's like seeing someone they know and love. "The fact that he's the black Elvis impersonator is irrelevant," Ross said. "Women swoon when he gets on stage." "You get the screams and stuff, but I'm sure it's not the same magnitude as Elvis got," said Washington, who hails from Auburn, Maine, and is clearly a rather shy fellow. "A little bit, and I'm happy."
A shy Elvis? We asked about the "kiss from the king" included with the VIP tickets. "I'm always the last to know," he said with a chuckle. "You might have let the cat out of the bag telling me now. They were going to spring that on me last minute. I'm going to have to give them a call." Although he does numerous shows each year - including the Birthday Bash, at which he's performed for three years - he's never thought of quitting his day job at a shipyard. "I have a family," he said. "There's no Elvis Blue Cross/Blue Shield or anything like that."
- Local woman recalls Elvis encounter
By Paige Namuth
(Journal Star, January 11 2006)
One beautiful May evening in 1956, I was pacing around our living room in Lincoln. It was a beautiful time of year. The screen door had been put on. The unit in Miss Gabu's fifth grade on the state capitals was finished. Summer was coming. I could go barefoot. I should have been happy. Instead, I was pacing the house with a spirit that was flopping around like a gasping fish in a bathtub. My agony was caused by my knowledge that Elvis Presley was singing at the University of Nebraska coliseum that evening, and I wasnąt there. ... We made our way through a tremendous crowd of teenage girls who were watching the elevator numbers go up and down and screaming when the elevator came down to the first floor, terrifying the poor elevator riders who were trying to get out on the first floor and didn't even know who Elvis Presley was.
We found Mr. Rodney and wove our way through the working insides of the hotel, the kitchen and big piles of rumpled white sheets and towels. He led us on to a big box of a freight elevator, and we went up to the eighth floor. We entered a room called the executive suite and Mr. Rodney told us to wait there because the girls were tracking Elvis down from the presidential suite that was on the ninth floor. After a high-pressure wait, the pass key turned the lock and they walked in, Jim Rodney, Colonel Parker and Elvis Presley.
Trained to be invisible if I was on a photography assignment, I just stood there. "Oh, my God," I thought to myself. I could barely swallow my spit. Elvis walked right over to me and said, "Hello," and smiled and put his hand on my head. I put my upper lip in my mouth to suppress a grin and never let my eyes leave him. He was wearing black cotton slacks and a black cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I could tell right away that Elvis Presley was a prince. He swiveled around in a chair and said very politely, "This is a real nice place." ...
Mr. Rodney begged Elvis to come down and sing a song and tell the girls to go home because they were wrecking the hotel but Colonel Parker intervened and said he couldnąt because it was not in his contract. Elvis sheepishly apologized. I broke out of my silence and said to the Colonel, "Really? He canąt sing if he wants to?" The Colonel answered me, "No."
We said our goodbyes and Elvis Presley told us it was good to meet us and thanked my mother for taking the picture. My spirit screamed out for him to escape his contract and run out of there and sing in the streets like they do in the movie. Come and sit on Little Betty's porch past midnight and jump up on her trellis and sing "Heartbreak Hotel." The contract seemed like something scary and dark, like a mafia thing. Giving up your freedom was the worst thing I could imagine next to being locked up in a room with Colonel Parker. It was like staying home with your great uncle when all the other kids are going to the drive-in movie. ...
- Elvis song sparked stabbing, say police
(Canberra Times, January 11 2006, p. 6)
A woman who allegedly stabbed her partner six times because he repeatedly played an Elvis Presley song will face a West Australian court today. ... Officers will allege the woman stabbed her 35-year-old partner with a pair of scissors during an argument over him playing Burning Love over and over again. ...
- Elvis kicked off his blue suede shoes in style: Trip to Graceland shows how Elvis was king of living large in the '70s
By Donna Monday
(topics.com, January 10 2006)
If I'm not mistaken, Elvis was a Capricorn. I'm not sure what that says about him. As I recall from my fascination with astrology in the 1970s, Capricorns were prosperous. And you got to hand it to Elvis. He may have been bloated when he died, but so was his bank account. ...
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- Elvis impersonator spared jailhouse rock
(Cambridge Evening News, January 10 2006)
AN Elvis impersonator has been spared his own jailhouse rock after magistrates handed down a community punishment. Fenland magistrates heard Elvis impersonator Gary Jordan and his friend Mark Davies set up an account in the name of Davies' landlord, and ordered Ł2,615.33 of equipment to be delivered to Davies' home.Return to sender: Elvis nut Gary Jordan. It was only when a vigilant neighbour noticed their parcel was addressed to the landlord, and enquiries revealed a bogus account had been set up, that they were caught. Magistrates ordered Jordan carry out 140 hours of community work and pay costs and compensation totalling Ł91. Davies, of Williams Way, Manea, has to work 150 hours and pay Ł136 in costs and compensation. ...
Return to sender: Elvis nut Gary Jordan
- Goin' down to Graceland
By TONY REID
(Herald & Review, January 9 2006)
Are you lonesome tonight? The answer is definitely not if you're an Elvis Presley fan walking in Memphis around the grounds of his fabled Graceland mansion. Die-hard Decatur Elvis aficionados Fred Whobrey and Greg Spain made the trip Friday night so they would be there in plenty of time to get all shook up about the hoopla surrounding the King of Rock n' Roll's 71st birthday on Sunday.
Whobrey, a former president of the International Foundation of Elvis Presley Fan Clubs, said you could hardly move without someone stepping on you blue suede shoes at fan-packed parties and tributes to Presley. There were events featuring special guests who knew and worked with the singer and displays of rarely seen memorabilia associated with his tumultuous life, cut tragically short at the age of 42 in 1977.
Why can't we stop loving Elvis? Whobrey, 65, says the baby boomers who grew up mesmerized by his songs can never forget the impact he had on their lives. "It's just the voice, for one thing - he still sounds like no one else," added Whobrey, now retired from the Herald & Review where he was major national accounts advertising sales manager. "And Elvis speaks to the individual when he sings - he makes you feel like 'I've been through this or I've been through that,' he always hits it right on the head; he's just got that much charisma in his voice."
Presley's sexually charged on-stage performances were once another sensation, prompting outraged baby boomer parents to accuse him of being the devil in disguise. One Catholic priest slammed Ed Sullivan for inflicting a "moral injury" on the nation after Presley smoldered through his 1956 performance on the TV show. Today, when such criticism can only muster a wry smile, Elvis is still always on our minds and even on the minds of kids who weren't born when he was alive. "You see a lot of younger fans down here," said Spain, 44. "Kids who are 12, 13, 14 years old and who really appreciate the music and just the whole atmosphere of being here and being part of all this."
Spain, a Decatur police sergeant who never got to see Presley live as did Whobrey, makes an "annual pilgrimage" for the birthday festivities, where he looks forward to meeting close friends from Britain he's made through their shared appreciation of the man and his music. Spain and Whobrey stress that nobody is left crying in the chapel, either, as the mood of the Graceland birthday events focuses on the celebration of the life and continuing legacy of the superstar. "Even in death as he did in life, Elvis is still bringing hundreds of thousands of people together," said Whobrey. "You know, some 650,000 visitors come to Graceland every year - that is second only to the White House."
- Even in death there's still a whole lotta Elvis goin' on
By Julian Lewis
(The Australian, January 9 2006)
OFFICIALLY he's dead, but you wouldn't know he'd left the building, judging by his continuing media presence, not least yesterday, on what would have been his 71st birthday. Elvis, to my delight, is everywhere, with his name and image rarely out of the news nearly 30 years after his death.
But if you require hard evidence of his omnipresence, let me cite some examples of Elvis mania since his last birthday, when English bookmaker William Hill was taking bets on him being alive at odds of 1000 to one. The hospital in Memphis where staff pronounced Elvis dead of heart failure at 42 on August 16, 1977, has itself died, demolished as All Shook Up blared through loudspeakers for the crowd outside. Elvis was named king of the top 10 earning dead celebrities for the fifth year running by Forbes magazine, generating $60 million, ahead of Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz and John Lennon. A list of the 25 "most incredible" rock star body parts compiled by music magazine Spin last year included Elvis's pelvis.
No wonder an English impersonator said Elvis was "at the height of his popularity since his death", for among those who curl lips, wiggle hips and wave capes is Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who sang a reworked version of It's Now or Never on stage at an ASEAN meeting in Laos, while other homegrown impersonators headed to Parkes, NSW, for the annual Elvis Revival to practise their karate moves and mumble "Thank ya verra much".
Even the singer chosen by INXS to replace Michael Hutchence who, they claimed, approved of Canadian J.D. Fortune, was a former Elvis impersonator, as was the retired 62-year-old "older-era Elvis" who helped Las Vegas police catch a thief who was offering him memorabilia from the Elvis-A-Rama museum, including a gold-plated Smith & Wesson .38 special. And when Johnny Carson died, Australian television writer Mike McColl Jones said one of his favourite Carson lines was, "If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead."
But if there were no Elvis impersonators, who would have been the celebrant at the wedding of TV chef Iain Hewitson to restaurant manager Ruth Krawat? And Jerry Springer wouldn't have donned a rhinestone jumpsuit to sing Can't Help Falling in Love on a celebrity edition of a British impersonation talent show.
Elvis made more headlines in Britain by scoring multiple No.1 hits after his previous No.1s were reissued. Heartbreak Hotel was runner-up in an Uncut magazine poll of the 100 songs, movies, TV shows and books that "changed the world". Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone was voted No.1 despite Paul McCartney saying, "Musically, Heartbreak Hotel [his No.1 pick] is perfect."
Even the modest Memphis house about 16km from Graceland, which Elvis bought at the age of 21 with his first royalty cheques, was nominated for the US Register of Historic Places. Graceland itself got all shook up when its business side was sold for $US100 million by the King's daughter Lisa Marie Presley.
An Elvis likeness made from butter helped to draw a crowd at an exhibition of memorabilia in Texas.
Kidnap victim Douglas Wood kept his spirits up during the 47 days he was bashed, handcuffed and blindfolded in Iraq by humming Elvis's I Want to Be Free (from the 1957 Jailhouse Rock EP). The song's writer, Mike Stoller, says this was the "most important use of that song ever". Wood suggested he would close his speaking engagements with a rendition.
Greg Page, the yellow Wiggle, became the first Australian to perform and record with Elvis's Taking Care of Business Band (TCB), the musicians who backed Elvis on his 1969 comeback tour.
Jailhouse Rock (1957) was among the 25 film classics the US Library of Congress chose in 2004 for inclusion in its National Film Registry, though I doubt it'll ever pick Bubba Ho-Tep, the blink-and-you-missed-it movie from last year with a bizarre comedy-horror plot about the real Elvis living in an east Texas rest home, having switched identities with an Elvis impersonator before his supposed death, and now unable to convince anyone except fellow patient Jack, a black man who thinks he is John F. Kennedy.
So happy birthday Elvis, for to me you remain the King, if only of great newsworthiness.
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