early March 2008
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Please note that there is currently some vicious media coverage of Lisa Marie. For more information, go to Lisa Watch.
- Step aside, Elvis: comics change it all: though he exaggerates their importance, the author unearths a fogotten story of censorship [Book review]
(philly.com, March 16, 2008)
The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America
By David Hadju Farrar, Staus & Giroux, 434 pp., [US] $26.
Reviewed by Dan DeLuca
David Hadju loads the lowly comic book with a mighty burden. Conventional wisdom has it that when time came to set off the youthqake of the 1950s, Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry were the agents of change, with help from Marlon Brando, James Dean, and the Beat poets. Hajdu is here to tell us different. ...
- Empire Film Group Closes Major Acquisition for All North American Rights to "Hounddog" Starring Dakota Fanning, David Morse and Robin Wright-Penn
Source: Empire Film Group, Inc.
(Financial News - Yahoo!
Finance / MARKET WIRE, March 14, 2008)
Empire Film Group, Inc. ("Empire Film") (http://www.empirefilmgroup.com) has acquired all North American distribution rights to the highly anticipated and controversial independent film, "Hounddog" starring Dakota Fanning, Robin Wright-Penn, Piper Laurie and David Morse. Empire has initiated a marketing campaign to release the film to more than 500 theaters on July 18, and anticipates box office revenues of more than $15 million.
"We believe that 'Hounddog' will be one of the top, independent films at theaters this summer," said Dean Hamilton-Bornstein, CEO of Empire Film Group. "It is a powerful, coming-of-age drama that deals with serious issues that should resonate with audiences. Dakota Fanning delivers an Oscar-worthy performance and we expect to see a lot of media attention."
"Hounddog" generated tremendous media interest when a promo reel was shown at the Sundance Film Festival last year. The character played by 12-year-old Dakota Fanning is sexually assaulted in a scene that enraged conservative media pundits, even though the attack is implied and not actually shown.
"I think we all wish that no children were ever assaulted," said Deborah Kampmeier, writer and director of the film. "But it's not helpful to the victims for our society to ignore the subject and pretend that it's not real. 'Hounddog' takes this dark moment through an emotional recovery brought about through friends, family and music, to a message of hope."
Dakota Fanning is the most successful young actress in the motion picture industry. She has starred in over a dozen major hits including "War of the Worlds," "Charlotte's Web" and "Man on Fire" with her last six theatrical films averaging over $46 million in USA box office gross. David Morse has starred in over 35 major films, with recent hits such as "Disturbia" and "16 Blocks." Morse is currently starring as George Washington in the $100 million-dollar-budgeted HBO miniseries "John Adams." Robin Wright-Penn has starred in over 30 major films, ranging from her Golden Globe nominated role as "Jenny" in "Forrest Gump," to the recent hit "Beowolf."
"Hounddog" features original music tracks and performances by Elvis Presley, including the title song. The film was produced by Scott Franklin, Jen Gatien, Terry Leonard, Lawrence Robbins and Deborah Kampmeier for Motion Picture Group, Deerjen Productions and Full Moon Films. Executive Producers include Stacey Bakula, Rebecca Cleary, Sam Froelich, Heidi M. Kessler and Robin Wright-Penn. Director of Photography was Jim Denault, ASC. The 93 minute film is expected to receive a PG-13 rating. The film's release campaign will be designed and implemented by Eric Parkinson for Empire Film Group, Inc., utilizing Empire's internal distribution and marketing staff as well as key outside service providers. ...
- Dennis Brown and Paul Friswold suss out the local theater scene
By Dennis Brown
(riverfronttimes.com, March 12, 2008)
Bye Bye Birdie If anything, this 1960 musical spoof inspired by Elvis Presley's entry into the army is growing even more charming as the contrasts to the world of Webber become ever more pronounced. Michael Stewart's book is still funny, and the songs by Lee Adams and (a pre-Annie) Charles Strouse practically hum themselves. This student production entertains in fits and starts, but the primarily young audience loved it, which speaks of them. In addition to lots of kids playing kids, Mike Dowdy is amusing as the overwhelmed father whose home becomes the eye of a hurricane when Conrad Birdie arrives in town to kiss his daughter. The set design by Michael Kantz provides an original way for director Janet Strzelec to stage the classic "Telephone Hour." Performed by Lindenwood University's theater department through March 15 at the Jelkyl Theatre, Roemer Hall, 209 South Kingshighway, St. Charles. Tickets are $12 ($10 for seniors, $8 for children). Call 636-949-4878 or visit www.lindenwood.edu.
- Theatre Review (LA): All Shook Up with the Music of Elvis Presley
By Robert Machray
(blogcritics.org, March 12, 2008)
Elvis is still the King, at least in Long Beach. I attended the final, sold-out performance of the regional premiere of "All Shook Up", which features the music of Elvis, albeit made suitable for Broadway and minus sexual overtones, and a book by Joe Dipietro. It is touted as Shakespeare meets Elvis because it borrows from "Twelfth Night" and even "As You Like It".
This is not an original concept. A combination of rock music and Twelfth Night resulted in the highly successful 1968 musical Your Own Thing. In fact, most of the plot of "All Shook Up" feels borrowed. There are elements of "Grease" and "Bye Bye Birdie".
There have been other attempts to make a musical out of one artist's music: "Moving Out" (Billie Joel), "Jersey Boys" (Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons), and "Mamma Mia" (Abba). And there have been many shows dealing with the '60s: "Hairspray", "Bye Bye Birdie", "Saturday Night Fever", "Dirty Dancing", and soon "Crybaby". Still, "All Shook Up" succeeds, mainly because of Elvis, but also because of the powerful performances by its two stars, Derek Keeling and Bets Malone, the lively direction by Steven Glaudini, and the choreography of the ubiquitous and talented Lee Martino.
Derek Keeling plays Chad, a roving minstrel who is part Elvis, part James Dean, and part Marlon Brando in "The Wild One". He sings the hell out of the songs and gyrates his pelvis with the best of them. Bets Malone, one of my very favorite performers, brings her usual vulnerability, acting chops, and unique singing skills to the role(s) of Natalie and then a male impersonation of a roustabout who wins Chad's heart and, should I say, loins.
Sexual longing and ambiguity is all part of the brew (this is where the Shakespeare comes in). Glaudini keeps things moving in order to accommodate 26 Elvis songs. Martino keeps things rocking in her choreography. It was fun to see ensemble member Charlie Williams, who first caught my eye in Pajama Game. I expect him to move up to a principal role soon. I also loved Traci Lore vamping it up as the local museum head and Barry Pearl as Natalie's father. Both were delightful.
At the end the audience jumped to their feet, having thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Apparently the show broke box office records. Count on Paul Garman to produce shows his audience wants to see. Produced by Musical Theatre West at The Carpenter Center.
- Elvis Fest cuts away costs, vows quality
By CARLIE KOLLATH
(Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, March 12, 2008)
The 10th Annual Elvis Presley Festival is scaling back from last year, but festival organizers still promise it will be a "quality weekend." At this month's board meeting of the Downtown Tupelo Main Street Association (DTMSA), Treasurer Keith Henley said the executive committee approved a festival budget of $251,750, which is about $100,000 less than last year. In 2007, the festival lost about $50,000.
... One of the biggest cutbacks this year is having one outdoor stage in the Fairpark District instead of two downtown stages. The Lyric Theatre, which DTMSA members say has its own Elvis lore, will be used for the Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist Contest. In addition, the festival will not have a car giveaway, freeing up another $25,000. And 2008 festival chair Amy Nash said she has had several meetings already to come up with "fresh ideas to make the festival new and exciting." ...
- The night Elvis reclaimed his crown: 'The '68 Comeback Special,' a seminal moment for TV and Presley, will screen at the Cinerama Dome
By Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times
(calendarlive.com, March 10, 2008)
In summer 1968, Elvis Presley taped a television special to be broadcast that Christmas. Fifteen years earlier, he had walked into Sun Studios in Memphis to make a record as a present for his mother, or so the story goes, and changed history.
In the years between those events, he had been adored, reviled, imitated, parodied, packaged and finally, if not forgotten exactly -- he was still a working movie star -- then no longer taken quite seriously in a world remade by Bob Dylan, the Beatles and the 20-minute guitar solo.
Elvis went to Hollywood early in his career, but his first films at least, arriving as they did in the era of "Rebel Without a Cause" and "Blackboard Jungle," exploited his actual rock energy and outsider roots; they played melodramatic variations on the story he was already living out.
The movies he made after getting out of the Army in 1960, however, were, with certain rule-proving exceptions, the merest fluff. They have their charms, but by and large they show an Elvis domesticated, marginalized and to all appearances barely interested in music. (Ladies and gentlemen, "Do the Clam.")
And then in one of those confluence of forces that in retrospect looks like fate but is just good timing and good luck, Presley contracted to do a television Christmas special, whose director -- Steve Binder of the pop series "Hullabaloo" and pop film "The T.A.M.I. Show" -- approached it with a sense of mission that happened to accord with the singer's own reported desire to distance himself from the mediocrity of his film career.
What resulted was so clearly a turning point that what was originally known as "Singer Presents Elvis" -- the sewing machine company sponsored it, strangely -- has since almost always been referred to as "The '68 Comeback Special." It is getting a 40th anniversary really-big-screen showing Friday to open the 25th annual William S. Paley Television Festival, which this year moves to the Cinerama Dome. (Also on the docket are tributes to Judd Apatow, "Gossip Girl," "Pushing Daisies" and a "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" reunion.)
The special begins in darkness, to the sound of a whomping, Muddy Waters-ish blues riff, and then a famous face fades in, turning toward the camera, filling the screen, meaning business.
If you're looking for trouble
You came to the right place
If you're looking for trouble
Just look right in my face
I was born standing up
And talking back
My daddy was a green-eyed mountain jack
I don't know what a "green-eyed mountain jack" is, but as Elvis hits that line his body tenses and quivers, his arm goes straight toward the camera, and there is no doubt that not only is something happening but that something is happening to him.
Television was, of course, central to Presley's early career; he appeared frequently, as a performer and as a curiosity. But he disappeared from the small screen in the 1960s (excepting reruns of his films) and from live performance as well. He was an actor in musical pictures, but less obviously a musician and more and more remote a figure.
But television is a medium of the here and now, and for Elvis to step back into the small screen was for him to engage the world in an intimate and immediate way. (Notwithstanding the six months that elapsed between the taping and the broadcast.) "Singer Presents Elvis" is a great moment in music, in television, and in the narrative of his own life -- a moment of change, when what was lost is found again. He regains his voice -- and in so doing becomes at once who he was and who he'll become. His singing has the lilt of youth but with a mature edge. He is 33 years old, lean and chiseled and -- what he had not seemed in years -- a little dangerous.
The show is specifically designed to take him back to his roots. In a sequence that would now be called "unplugged," Elvis sits in a circle with guitarist Scotty Moore, who played on his earliest recordings; drummer D.J. Fontana, who came along not long after, keeping time on a guitar case; and some of his Memphis pals. Dressed head to toe in black leather, with a big, head-framing collar costume designer Bill Belew based on paintings of Napoleon, Elvis sweats real sweat as he sings the old songs with new energy.
It is not all equally a revelation. There are two extensive, heavily choreographed production numbers, energetic but amusingly dated; Elvis, who has marks to hit and pre-recorded vocals to lip sync, is relatively contained. The first is a gospel medley, the second a picaresque adventure built around Johnny Reed's "Guitar Man" that is like an Elvis movie in miniature, with a little sex, some fisticuffs and the singer on the road to stardom.
Getting Elvis a Christmas single seems to have been part of the original deal, and the show was at one point slated to close with him singing "I'll Be Home for Christmas." Instead he closes with a song called "If I Can Dream," a late contribution from vocal arranger Walter Earl Brown -- a plea for peace and understanding that in the murderous year of 1968 had a timely urgency. Dressed all in white, planted before his name in lights 40 feet high, he folds his body into the song as if in pain, a pain he means to kill with hope.
It is, for all the planning that went into it, as raw and real as any performance I've ever seen.
It's the beginning of the last phase of Presley's career: He would make his return to live performance in Las Vegas the following July.
If much of what followed look like decline, it was also an apotheosis. He had nine years to live.
- NYC bar bans singing of 'Danny Boy'
(rte.ie, March 7, 2008)
The traditional ballad Danny Boy is not known for being controversial, but this St Patrick's day a New York bar has decided to ban it while a Michigan cafe will sing it 1000 times.
It is depressing, it is not usually sung in Ireland for St Patrick's Day, and its lyrics were written by an Englishman who never set foot on Irish soil.
Those are only some of the reasons why a Manhattan pub owner is banning the song 'Danny Boy' for the entire month of March. The ban has been implemented by Shaun Clancy, who owns Foley's Pub and Restaurant, across the street from the Empire State Building.
... But a bar owner in Michigan is taking a different approach. AJ O'Neill, who owns AJ's Cafe, is getting his patrons to perform 1000 renditions of 'Danny Boy'. Mr O'Neill says it will take from three days to complete the task if each rendition were to last three minutes. He has lined up some 600 participants so far including soloists, duos and choral groups.
The lyrics for 'Danny Boy,' published in 1913, were written by English lawyer Frederick Edward Weatherly, who never even visited Ireland, according to the book 'Danny Boy: The Legend of the Beloved Irish Ballad.'
'Danny Boy' was recorded by Bing Crosby in the 1940s, served as the theme song of television's 'Danny Thomas Show' from 1953 to 1964. It was also recorded by Frank Patterson for his album 'Ireland in Song'. It has been performed by singers ranging from Judy Garland and Elvis Presley to Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson.
- Great music doesn't need a lot of instruments
(jsonline.com, March 5, 2008)
Q.The last time I heard "Love Me Tender," I noticed how little instrumentation is heard. Besides Presley's vocal, there is nothing but the subtle strumming of an acoustic guitar. It's practically a cappella. My thoughts then turned to another classic hit, Peggy Lee's "Fever," also with very sparse orchestration. What instruments are behind Peggy on that recording?
Lisa Edgewater:
A. Peggy Lee's backing on "Fever" has only slightly more instruments than "Love Me Tender" - two. There is only a stand-up bass and a bongo drum, making for a nearly deserted studio. But, "Is that all there is?" Well, not exactly. There is one other bit of accompaniment prominently heard on "Fever," that doesn't involve the musicians union: Peggy Lee's finger-snapping.
Funny you mentioned Elvis in this regard, since his version of "Fever" features nearly identical backing, and is just as close to a cappella as Peggy's. ...
- 'Elvis' shows up at Kentucky court drunk
(Yahoo! News, March 5, 2008)
A central Kentucky judge had a suspicious mind when an Elvis Presley impersonator showed up for court apparently drunk and sporting sunglasses and a rhinestone-studded shirt with a scarf draped around his neck. County Attorney Brian Goettl said that as a result, the judge had David Blaisdell, 64, tested for intoxication and sentenced him to three days in jail for contempt of court when it was determined that the man's blood-alcohol level was nearly twice that at which a person in Kentucky is considered legally drunk. Blaisdell, who was in court for a pretrial conference on misdemeanor charges of stalking and violating a protective order, told the judge he had had a few drinks the night before, Goettl said.
- Graceland's longtime public voice found dead
By Jody Callahan
(commercialappeal.com, March 2, 2008)
Todd Morgan, the public face of Graceland for more than a decade, was found dead in his East Memphis home Sunday morning. Early indications, friends said, point to a massive heart attack, although an autopsy is planned. Morgan, director of special projects for Elvis Presley Enterprises, was 45. "We've lost a great friend and a great part of the Graceland family," said Jack Soden, chief executive officer of Elvis Presley Enterprises. ...
- Retro Redux: Revisiting Elvis In Hawaii
By Eric Olsen
(blogcritics.org, March 2, 2008)
I've written before about my affinity for some of the early movies of Elvis Presley, and especially Blue Hawaii. Even though it can be viewed through the prism of hindsight as Hollywood phony and politically incorrect to the Nth degree, to a teenager in small-town Midwestern America at that time it was very appealing.
I was actually in my late teens by then and should have been old enough to know better, but I really enjoyed the movie. The music was pretty good too. The title song along with tunes such as "Moonlight Swim" and "Hawaiian Sunset" entertained members of the audience, and a lot of them (like me) later bought the soundtrack album.
Apparently I wasn't the only one who enjoyed seeing Elvis in Hawaii, since he revisited it a few years later in the inferior film Paradise, Hawaiian Style, and then later still it was the site of his Aloha From Hawaii concert.
But even though I always felt that Blue Hawaii was one of Elvis' better cinematic efforts, it wasn't until I was recently going through some old pictures that I realized how much I'd been affected by the movie. I found a picture taken the same year as the movie came out, and it's of me proudly modeling what was obviously a brand-new Hawaiian shirt! ...
- Norwegian Psychic Communicates With The Spirit Of Elvis Presley
(PRWEB, March 1, 2008)
Grethe Svendsen has communicated with the spirit of Elvis Presley for the last six years. Read what the King has to say in her heart-warming new book 'Conversations with Elvis'.
"As a Spiritual Medium I have always tried to help people through the use of my guides, in addition to helping them by drawing on my own life's experiences and knowledge. I consider it a great privilege to be able to use my gift in this way and my work has been very fulfilling. Nothing however, could have prepared me for what happened six years ago when I found myself being contacted by the spirit of Elvis Presley." Grethe explains.
"Every Medium is taught to embrace their gift, never questioning what is being said or revealed to them through spirit, but I couldn't help but wonder 'Is this really happening? Am I really talking to Elvis?' But feeling his soothing energy, hearing his voice and then finally seeing him, I was left in no doubt; 'this really is Elvis'."
Talking to the King certainly hasn't been easy though as Grethe reveals "this has been a very emotional spiritual journey and has admittedly been my most difficult task as a Medium. I can understand writers saying that they feel attached to the subjects or people they write about, because it becomes a huge part of your everyday life."
It would be fair to say that Conversations with Elvis is not your average Elvis book. After all, this is Elvis talking and his personality shines through as he talks about his life. This book is about the man behind the Legend, a man who simply wanted to help people through his music and acts of kindness. An extremely sensitive human being who was searching for answers on his spiritual journey through life. It touches upon the heart and soul of Elvis and within its pages you will find there is a message from him -- one of love.
About Grethe Svendsen:
Born in Oslo, Norway, Grethe now lives in the UK and works as a writer and Spiritual Medium. For more information about Grethe and her new book 'Conversations with Elvis' please visit www.conversationswithelvis.com
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