Mid December 2006
- A DAME GOOD NIGHT WAS HAD BY ALL - OH, YES IT WAS!
By Eva Simpson & Caroline Hedley
(sundaymirror.co.uk, December 19, 2006)
IT was the biggest gay wedding since Elt and Dave's. Our source at Matt Lucas's £300,000 panto nuptials tells us: "You were greeted by staff dressed up as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Liberace and the room itself was dressed like a fantastical enchanted forest." ...
- Graceland Kicks Off 30th Anniversary with Four Day Elvis Birthday Celebration: January 8th Marks the Late Superstar's Birthday and the Year 2007 Commemorates the 30th Anniversary of His Passing
Source: Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc.
(Yahoo! Finance / BUSINESS WIRE, December 19, 2006)
WHAT:
Various activities are planned over a four day period at
Graceland Mansion in Memphis to celebrate Elvis Presley's
birthday and to begin the year-long commemoration of the 30th
anniversary of his passing. The key activities include:
WHEN/WHERE:
Friday, January 5
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8:00 p.m. - Midnight
Elvis Birthday Dance Party
Ticket office pavilion in Graceland Plaza
Hundreds of fans gather to dance to Elvis music with Argo, a
popular dee-jay from Elvis Radio/Sirius Satellite 13.
Saturday, January 6
--------------------------------------------------------------
10:00 a.m. - Noon
Elvis Fan Club Presidents' Event
Memphis Marriott East
Elvis Fan Club Presidents from around the world gather to
speak with EPE representatives and exchange ideas. Special
guest speaker will be Lance LeGault, the popular character
actor and voice artist who was Elvis' stand-in and castmate
in Elvis movies and the '68 TV Special. This is his first
appearance at an Elvis celebration event.
8:00 p.m.
The Elvis Presley Birthday Pops
Cannon Center for the Performing Arts
The Memphis Symphony Orchestra presents a concert of Elvis
music performed from the original music charts from Elvis'
concert tours. The Terry Mike Jeffrey Band performs as the
rhythm section. Lead vocals performed by Terry Mike Jeffrey
with special guest vocalists, The Imperials.
Sunday, January 7
--------------------------------------------------------------
6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Elvis Insiders Reception & Graceland Evening Tour
Graceland
An "Elvis Insiders" evening tour of Graceland Mansion in its
holiday splendor, with a reception across the street in
Graceland Plaza, which includes Elvis' airplanes, the
"Sincerely Elvis" exhibit and The Elvis Presley Automobile
Museum. Appearances by some of Elvis' friends and associates.
Monday, January 8
--------------------------------------------------------------
9:00 a.m.
Graceland
The annual birthday proclamation ceremony on Graceland's front
lawn presented by city, county and Graceland officials to
proclaim Elvis Presley Day. On behalf of the US Army, members
from the 95th DIV (IT) will present to the Presley Estate a
special certificate and medal, earned but never received by
Elvis, in recognition of his service with the army. The
military group will also make a formal color guard
presentation as part of the ceremony.
For additional information, visit Elvis.com. For access to Graceland and events, please contact:
The Beckwith Company
David Beckwith, 323-845-9836
- Lyrics 'stretch reading skills
(BBC News, December 17, 2006)
Millions of adults in England have reading skills too poor to enable them to belt out many favourites from a karaoke autocue, research suggests. The lyrics of the 10 most popular karaoke songs have been assessed and rated by government literacy experts. Those tackling Robbie Williams' Angels needed the reading skills required to pass five good GCSEs (Level 2). Experts from the Get On literacy campaign said 17.8 million adults would not be able to follow the song. Those adults are estimated not to have not reached Level 2 reading skills.
They would also have trouble following the lyrics of Gloria Gaynor's I will Survive, the Commitments' Mustang Sally and Queen's Don't Stop Me Now, the research says. These people may also have trouble working out a household budget or comparing products and services. And the 5.2 million adults thought not to have attained Level 1 reading skills would struggle with Summer Lovin' from the film musical Grease, Elvis Presley's Suspicious Minds and Abba's Dancing Queen. Those without this level of skills may not be able to check a pay slip or read bus and train timetables accurately. ...
Wannabe
Anyone who is a wannabe Elvis or a secret Olivia Newton-John who sometimes struggle with the words should think about brushing up their skills in the New Year, [Skills minister Phil Hope] says. "After all, getting help with your reading and writing could help you get on in your job, as well as improve your turn in the spotlight." The government is offering hundreds of free courses to boost the basic skills of those who have a difficulties with literacy, language and numeracy. The prime minister launched the Skills for Life Strategy in 2001 to tackle the legacy of adults with poor literacy, language and numeracy skills within England. ...
- Fun facts about Elvis
By LISA CHINN
(Free Lance-Sun, December 17, 2006)
Graceland: An Interactive Pop-Up Tour
By Chuck Murphy, Priscilla Presley
(Quirk Books, 18 pages, $40)
More than 600,000 people visit Graceland each year. If you, too, have always wanted to see the home of the late, great Elvis Presley, but never have made it to the Memphis mansion, here's your chance. "Graceland: An Interactive Pop-Up Tour" by touted paper engineer Chuck Murphy is an ultra-cool way to see the celebrated home of the king of rock 'n' roll.
The book is packed with fun facts pertaining to Presley's decorative tastes, and the ways he used his home to accommodate his family and entertain his friends. With eight full-color pop-up spreads, the pages take readers beyond the velvet ropes, and straight inside Elvis' bedroom, living room, kitchen and more. The 3-D scenes are so realistic, you want to shrink yourself, climb inside and cozy up on Elvis' custom-made couch or sprawl across his circular, faux fur-covered bed, bedecked with a canopy that includes an 8-track cassette player and a TV that can be viewed while lying down.
The unfolding-paper tour kicks off with a pop-up view of the mansion's exterior and its surrounding columns, statues and shrubbery, with Elvis' pink Cadillac parked out front. Although its size is relatively modest, Graceland seems gargantuan compared with the pop-up version of the tiny Tupelo, Miss., home of Presley's poverty-stricken parents. The spread of Elvis' 1970s-style kitchen includes a list of items he insisted on having stocked at all times.
Even better are the gold-toned refrigerator and the knotty pine cabinets, both of which allow readers to peek inside. Open the fridge to find a huge jar of pickles, a pack of Hormel bacon, orange-flavored sodas and more. Plunder through the cabinets to find a can of Nestle Quick drink mix and a package of Hostess cupcakes. You may even spy the peanut butter and bananas Elvis used to build his famous late-night sandwiches.
The king kept as many as 14 televisions throughout Graceland, according to the book, and the pop-up TV room inside the book is an interactive treat. A television lets tour-takers tune into the program of their choice--"The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson, a black-and-white football game or "The Dick Van Dyke Show." And a projection screen above really pulls down. The room also lets readers flip through a handful of albums included in Presley's personal collection, and offers a 3-D view of the basement bar where his friends liked to party.
Also included are unfolding views of the mansion's den (dubbed the "jungle room" by friends) and meditation garden, plus other visual delights. Readers can peer through the clear covering on a case that holds a sample of Elvis' firearms, see a selection of his honorary law enforcement badges and try on a pair of his signature sunglasses.
It's a super-fun book that would make a unique coffee-table conversation piece or a campy Christmas gift. The book's foreword by Presley's ex-wife and forever friend, Priscilla, makes the tour of the mansion even more meaningful: "Graceland was his private corner of the world, a place where he felt comfortable, secure, and happy. Some part of Elvis' spirit is imprinted on this place."
- Mighty Mississippians in the world: B.B. King, Oprah Winfrey, other notables entertain us in '06
By KATHY HANRAHAN
(Sun Herald / ASSOCIATED PRESS, December 17, 2006)
Mississippi may be the birthplace of the late Elvis Presley, but another King dominated the state's entertainment headlines in 2006. Now 81, B.B. King, embarking on his final international tour during the year, captured his 14th Grammy Award and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award. ... Another prominent Mississippian in the news this year was Oprah Winfrey. In addition to launching her own station on XM Radio, the talk-show diva also gave back to her birthplace of Kosciusko. ...
- Art Buchwald's Alive Again: Columnist Entered Hospice Fully Expecting To Die, But He Had To Cancel His Funeral
(CBS News, December 15, 2006)
Earlier this year, humorist and columnist Art Buchwald, 81, went into a Washington D.C. hospice with every intention to die. His kidneys were failing and he refused dialysis, a horribly painful process that he had undergone before. ... Two weeks in hospice extended to two months and Buchwald's doctor told him that, inexplicably, his kidneys stopped failing. At Buchwald's 81st birthday, he was surrounded by family and famous friends famous like Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn. It was also the a celebration for the launch of his book, "Too Soon To Say Goodbye."
... [In the book h]e even wrote a piece about seeing Elvis Presley, when he was in the Army in Germany and came on leave to Paris. Buchwald took him out for the night. "I took out Elvis Presley and the funny thing is everyone I've ever said that to says, 'You took out Elvis Presley?'" Buchwald said. "I said 'Yes, I took out Elvis Presley!'" ...
- Standards, stand aside: New holiday music a welcome change
(Bangor Daily News, December 15, 2006)
It wouldn't really be Christmas without Bing Crosby and Elvis Presley. But, let's be frank about it (and I don't mean Sinatra): there's such a thing as overkill. Especially when you're at the mall, or waiting to see the dentist, or doing pretty much anything in a public place during the month of December. James Taylor and Sarah McLachlan's new Christmas albums should carry a warning sticker: may cause sudden, acute narcolepsy. And I don't know about you, but the yearly glut of pop and country stars trying to cash in by warbling a couple bars of "O Come, All Ye Faithful" makes me seriously bah humbug. ...
- Elvis: Entertainer or Educator?
(PRWEB, December 15, 2006)
With Elvis Presley's seventy-second birthday just around the corner on the eighth of January, it would seem there would be little new to learn about him, but it turns out there is. Although he may not have realized it, Elvis Presley's sexy moves actually modeled the ideal physical techniques for supporting a rich, warm singing voice - techniques still studied today by some of the recording industry's biggest stars.
With Elvis Presley's seventy-second birthday just around the corner on the eighth of January, it would seem there would be little new to learn about him, but it turns out there is. Although he may not have realized it, Elvis Presley's sexy moves actually modeled the ideal physical techniques for supporting a rich, warm singing voice - techniques still studied today by some of the recording industry's biggest stars.
"Elvis was the perfect singing machine," says celebrity voice coach Renee Grant-Williams. "He had all the right moves." "I constantly reference Elvis in my teaching," claims Grant-Williams. "He had very strong legs, which he used as the basis for his support. He literally pushed into the floor using that karate-type crouch. He kept is entire upper body very loose so that it could resonate. And the way he cocked his head over the microphone really allowed the sound to vibrate freely." "Did he know what he was doing?" Grant-Williams asks. "Probably not, but he had extraordinary instincts and in his own way, I think he truly studied singing. He used to sit out on the back porch for hours on late summer nights with the guitar his mother gave him, trying to imitate the singers he heard at gospel churches and nightclubs."
Grant-Williams teaches the wisdom of using Elvis' techniques to stars such as Hannah Montana, Faith Hill, The Dixie Chicks, Tim McGraw, Larry Gatlin, Bo Bice, and Huey Lewis. "My students are surprised and grateful to have someone familiar they can relate to," Grant-Williams says. "In fact, the first time I worked with Tim McGraw on using his body to support his voice, he looked up with mischief in his eyes and mumbled in true Elvis-style, "Thank you. Thankyouverymuch."
Grant-Williams feels that even Elvis' famous lip curl gave his voice an edge. "As sound leaves the body it needs to resonate against something specific," she says. "There are options - you can direct that flow of sound to the nose, the throat, the jaw or to the sinus cavities in the face. But, I think what Elvis did - as evidenced by his lip curl - was to aim the vibration stream right at his teeth." "This was ingenious," Grant-Williams says. "There's a kind of sweet spot at the front of the teeth where vibrations can focus and still pick up resonance from all the other areas." "Because his moves and techniques live on, Elvis will never completely leave the building," adds Grant-Williams.
Grant-Williams offers more advice in her book, "Voice Power: Using Your Voice to Captivate, Persuade, and Command Attention" published by AMACOM Books, New York. This book is endorsed by Paul Harvey and was selected by "Soundview Executive Book Summaries." Grant-Williams coaches aspiring performers as well as celebrities including Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana), Faith Hill, the Dixie Chicks, Tim McGraw, Christina Aguilera, Linda Ronstadt, Randy Travis, and Huey Lewis. She has been quoted by Cosmopolitan, the Associated Press, Business Week, UPI, Southern Living, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, and San Francisco Chronicle. She has appeared on many broadcast outlets including ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Bravo, USA, MTV, GAC, BBC, PBS, and NPR. Grant-Williams is a former instructor at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as well as the former director of the Division of Vocal Music at the University of California, Berkeley.
For more information or to schedule an interview with Renee Grant-Williams, call 615-244-3280 or visit www.MyVoiceCoach.com
- Ertegun was a quiet force that reshaped the pop landscape
By Robert Hilburn
(Los Angeles Times, December 14, 2006)
The popular notion is that without Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard, there wouldn't have been rock 'n' roll. But it may be closer to the truth to say there wouldn't have been rock 'n' roll without Ahmet Ertegun. The co-founder of Atlantic Records loved to say he was just lucky to have worked with such landmark artists as Ray Charles, Led Zeppelin, Aretha Franklin and Cream. Yet everyone who has cared about pop music over the last half century should consider themselves fortunate that we had Ertegun. The son of a Turkish ambassador to the U.S., he made contributions to the American pop scene that were as passionate and irreplaceable as any of the artists on his label.
... Along with Sam Phillips, who launched Elvis Presley on Sun Records in Memphis, Ertegun helped guide artists to a musical vision that he felt was both exciting and could serve as a bridge to what he felt so keenly from his foreign background was a missing piece of the American Dream: racial equality. Ertegun and his older brother, Nesuhi, who also had a prominent career in the music business, grew up with a love of jazz. They saw Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway as youngsters in London, and their father later played host to jazz musicians, black and white, at the embassy in Washington, D.C., a move that raised some eyebrows in that segregated era. In his teens, Ertegun sponsored what was believed to be the first integrated jazz concert in Washington. ...
- Before Elvis left the building - time stands still
By Phil Gifford
(nzherald.co.nz, December 10, 2006)
We're staying at Heartbreak Hotel, the Elvis Presley Enterprises hotel on a site in Memphis across Elvis Presley Blvd from Graceland. The little lane that runs down to Heartbreak Hotel is called, I am not kidding, Lonely St. If you want directions you just sing the song. Heartbreak Hotel is a pleasant surprise. We agree that the designer was a fan of the young, cool Elvis, not the cheesy Vegas jumpsuit Elvis. The only decorations in the two-roomed suites are classic black-and-white framed photographs of Elvis on the wall.
The multi-channel television has one hotel-only channel that plays nothing but Elvis movies, and about the only disappointment is that you can't get deep-fried banana and peanut butter sandwiches on room service.
There's no compendium of hotel services, and the hotel's name is not embossed on anything. "The guests kept stealing thangs. Every darn thang that had Heartbreak Hotel on it, they took. Ah swear we would have lost a bathtub if that had the name on it," says the receptionist.
Next day it's Graceland time. Having paid the US$55 fee (NZ$82), we get on a small bus and sweep up a short drive, past the wrought iron gates with the outline of a young, gyrating Elvis welded in them, to the columned front door. This is a spot we've seen all our lives. Now we're standing there, at the steps of Graceland, on a balmy spring morning, trying to work out how we got lucky enough to be right where in 1958 Elvis and his parents threw snowballs for a home movie, where in 1961 Elvis posed with his Rolls Royce, and where in 1977 they brought out to a white hearse the massive copper casket holding Elvis' 42-year-old body.
Elvis fans from childhood, we prepared to visit the epicentre of the Elvis universe, our emotional overload well into the red zone. Graceland was the second house Elvis bought for his family. They left the first, at Audubon Drive in a suburban development in Memphis, largely because it wasn't private enough.
Sometimes they would look up from their dining room table and a dozen or so teenage girls would be gazing adoringly through the window. Elvis bid for Graceland (named for the daughter of the original owner) in March, 1957, and his offer of US$102,500 easily trumped the US$35,000 the Memphis YMCA offered for it.
One of the first things he did was to fence the property with Alabama fieldstone. The fence is cleaned every couple of months so fans can add their signatures.
Graceland, open to the public since 1992, polarises people. Is it high camp or a place of worship? Tacky or tasteful? Overblown or impressive? We all agreed: people who sneer at it for being tawdry were ready to sneer before they'd even been there. For a start, at 23 rooms it's not considered a mansion, and it doesn't feel like a mansion either. Its rooms are big, but not massive.
The first two rooms you find, the dining room to the left and a living room to the right, are heavy on blue velvet drapes, and faux antique decorations, but not ridiculously garish in the context of 1977 home design. And there's the rub. Graceland is locked into the year that Elvis died. If some of it - like the purple and yellow television room - looks dated, that's because it is. No changes in style and fashion over the past 30 years have been made.
In the television room are three 25-inch TV sets, which, at the media-innocent time Elvis bought them, was enough to have all the national channels covered. It was an earlier TV set, according to Marty Lacker of the Memphis Mafia, that Elvis shot with a handgun. "Crooner Robert Goulet, who tried to steal one of Elvis' early girlfriends, was singing. He just put down his breakfast, drew a gun, blew the TV out, and said, 'That'll be enough of that shit'."
When people want to have a dig at Elvis they cite the Jungle Room, but the room itself proves to be so amazingly over the top it actually has a surreal charm. If the chairs with carved animal heads on the arms don't catch the eye, then the mirrors framed with pheasant feathers, or the ceramic tigers, or the miniature running waterfall, or the fur-covered lampshades, or the green-shag carpet that covers the floor and the ceiling, probably will. Proof that Elvis was a hick with taste that would make a hayseed gag? Possibly not.
After his mother died in 1958 Elvis was the effective head of the Presley family, and went out of his way to do the opposite of anything his father, Vernon, might suggest. Vernon returned from a visit downtown horrified by the ugliness of a new shipment of Witco furniture he had just seen. In the 1960s in the US, Witco was a company that sold Tiki-decorated rough-carved wood furniture to homes, Polynesian-themed bars, and the Playboy Mansion. Elvis casually asked at which store Vernon had seen the chunky monstrosities. Within a week a truck arrived at Graceland, closely followed by tradesmen. The Jungle Room was born, to the everlasting disgust of Vernon and delight of Elvis.
If the Jungle Room goes past kitsch into some whole new world of weirdness so bizarre it's funny, the hall of gold that houses his gold records, and dozens of other awards, staggers the senses with its sheer volume.
The 12m-long area, once used by Elvis and his Memphis Mafia buddies to play with slotcars, was converted into a trophy room during his lifetime. Astounding sales have continued after his death, and it is constantly being packed with new awards - 131 gold records in the US alone.
You do not see upstairs in the main part of the house. It was in the bathroom that, after playing on the racquetball court until five o'clock on the morning of August 16, 1977, Presley tumbled unconscious from the toilet.
The racquetball court, built in 1975, is part of the tour, but is now used as an exhibition space for the 1972-77 period of Elvis' career, an era dominated by live shows in Vegas, and dozens of jump suits that shout bling.
Three horses still roam the field behind the house, and living there is pretty good for them. They have a barn for shelter in the Memphis winter, and a horse-sized shower. "Ah tell ya," says our guide, "Ah wouldn't mind leadin' the life those ol' horses do."
Our last visit in Graceland is to the graves. Lined up beside the swimming pool are the grave markers of, in order, Elvis' grandmother Minnie Presley, Elvis, his father Vernon, and his mother Gladys. Given the bond that he shared with his mother, you get the feeling that in death, Vernon, the last of the four to die, may have got his revenge for the Jungle Room, when he was buried between Elvis and Gladys.
* This is an extract from Cadillac Dreams: Baby Booming Across Southern America (Willson Scott, $39.95) by Phil Gifford which tells the story of four Kiwis (Gifford, his wife Jan, and friends Darryl and Lenore Potier) living the dream of a lifetime, a musical journey across the southern states.
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