- NEW TARTAN - PRESLEY OF LONMAY - LAUNCHED APRIL 2004
(Mither Tongue, April?, 2004)
In Scots
Twa famous Kings hiv come thegither,
Eence far removed fae ane anither,
Philip King o Aiberdeen
An the King that wore the blue suede sheen.
This bonny tartan's been designed
Wi the King o Rock 'n' Roll in mind
In shades o Scotland's fields an skies
Tae celebrate his Scottish ties.
Fae Grampian, its place o birth
Tae traivel widely ower the earth,
Ane o the finest o its day,
The tartan? Presley o Lonmay!
In English
A special Presley tartan has been design to honour Elvis's Scottish connection.
The King of Rock 'n' Roll's distant roots were traced back to the village of Lonmay in Aberdeenshire recently - creating headlines across the world. Now an official Presley of Lonmay tartan has been designed in blue, grey, green and yellow, made of pure wool. The kilt comes complete with gold accessories, including a sporran engraved with thistles and a bald eagle to highlight the Scottish/American link.
An Elvis lookalike launched the tartan in Lonmay in April 2004,and it is shortly to be used to enhance the décor of Lonmay's hotel, The Ban-car.
Designer, Mike King, a director of the Aberdeen menswear and tartan hire family-run firm, Philip King, is an Elvis fan and hopes that Presley of Lonmay will win favour throughout the world.
Allan Morrison, the author who traced Elvis's ancestors back almost 300 years to the Parish of Lonmay for his book, The Presley Prophesy, discovered that Andrew Presley married Elspeth Leg at Lonmay on 27 August 1713. He believes the first Presley in America was their son, also Andrew Presley, who arrived in North Carolina in 1745.
Anyone interested in the Presley of Lonmay tartan can contact Philip King Kiltmakers on 01224 633127 or via their website www.kiltmakers-philipking.co.uk/.
- DISTANT RELATIVE OF ELVIS FLIES TO SCOTLAND FOR TARTAN
(thisisnorthscotland.co.uk / Press and Journal, April 30, 2004)
A DISTANT cousin of Elvis Presley jetted into Aberdeen yesterday to be fitted out with the newly designed Presley of Lonmay tartan. Archie Bennett's visit comes just months after Elvis's family history was traced back to the Aberdeenshire village. The star's third cousin flew to Scotland with his wife, June, after learning that the new tartan was available. Mr Bennett, 66, who met Elvis in the 1970s, only discovered a month ago he was related to him. And yesterday he gave the new blue, grey, green and yellow tartan his stamp of approval, calling it a "great colour". Mr Bennett, from Dallas, Texas, discovered the family connection through a friend, Phyllis Lyons, a geneaologist in Houston.
It turned out that Mr Bennett, who is chairman of a group of hotels in the US, and Elvis shared the same grandfather, Abner Tackett, making them third cousins. A Scottish friend then told Mr Bennett about the Presley tartan, and he made a flying visit to Aberdeen yesterday to get himself fitted out at Philip King 2 in George Street. He didn't have time to squeeze in a trip to Lonmay, but may visit later in the year when he returns to collect the kilt.
- DISPLAYIN AA THE FAULTS AT ITHER TIMES THEIR TROOSERS HIDE
(thisisnorthscotland.co.uk / Press and Journal, April 12, 2004)
There wis lads wi far ower lang kilts An squint an hingin-doon kilts ... Much as I admire the business opportunity ahin't, I'm nae ower shuitit wi es new Presley tartan. Bonnie though it looks wi its blue, grey, green an yalla, jist cis King Elvis micht or michtna hae reets in Lonmay, disna justifee a tartan image. Elvis in the kilt? Weel, we hae seen waur es last wikk and maybe, in my case, the pottie shidna ca the kettle black as fray't elastic saw me step oot o ma drawers on the Lonach Mairch an eer or twa back. ...
- Elvis Presley to be honoured with 'Presley tartan'!
(Yahoo! India News, April 12, 2004)
The late singing sensation Elvis Presley had visited Scotland briefly in 1960. Now a special Presley tartan has been designed to honour the King of Rock and Roll's north east of Scottish roots. According to the BBC, Elvis's alleged roots can be traced back to a small town called Lonmay in Aberdeenshire. Therefore, an official Presley of Lonmay tartan has been invented and it is made up of four different colours - blue, grey, green and yellow. The kilt even comes complete with a sporran engraved with thistles and a bald eagle, marking the Scottish and American link. The report says that Lonmay's only hotel now plans to deck itself out in the tartan in recognition of the Elvis connection.
The Presley of Lonmay tartan inventor, Mike King, is a known tartan designer and director of the Aberdeen menswear and tartan hire family firm, 'Philip King'. King hopes that the Presley of Lonmay tartan will win him fans throughout the world. ...
- Elvis honoured by Presley tartan
(BBC Online, April 10, 2004)
A special Presley tartan has been designed to honour the King of Rock and Roll's north east of Scotland roots. Elvis's alleged roots can be traced back to tiny Lonmay in Aberdeenshire. Now an official Presley of Lonmay tartan has been invented. It is made up of four different colours - blue, grey, green and yellow. The kilt even comes complete with a sporran engraved with thistles and a bald eagle - marking the Scottish and American link. Lonmay's only hotel now plans to deck itself out in the tartan in recognition of the Elvis connection. The Presley of Lonmay tartan inventor, Mike King, is a known tartan designer and director of the Aberdeen menswear and tartan hire family firm Philip King.
Elvis link
He hopes the Presley of Lonmay tartan will win fans throughout the world. Mr King, 59, said: "I am very proud of this Presley of Lonmay tartan as I bought his records when I was younger and am a fan. "We used blue to represent the nearby town of Peterhead - the Blue Toon - as well as grey for the skies, green for countryside grass, and yellow for local cornfields. "The sporran is gold and engraved with thistles and a bald eagle to show the Scottish and American link." David Gibbins, owner of Lonmay's Ban-Car Hotel, said: "It's a great idea and I wish the kilt maker luck. "It's a nice tartan. We are refurbishing our lounge so we plan to use the Presley of Lonmay tartan to re-decorate." Ian Hainey, Aberdeen and Grampian Tourist Board's spokesman, said: "Hopefully this is the start of entrepreneurs and local businesses moving in to take advantage of the Elvis link and help tourism in the area."
- Who needs blue suede shoes with a Presley of Lonmay tartan?
By Ken Banks
(Scotsman, April 10, 2004)
A SPECIAL tartan has been designed to honour Elvis Presley's Scottish roots. Experts recently traced the singer¹s roots to the village of Lonmay in Aberdeenshire. Now an official Presley of Lonmay tartan has been created, in blue, grey, green and yellow.
The kilt even comes complete with gold accessories such as a sporran engraved with thistles and a bald eagle - linking Scotland and the US.
An Elvis lookalike launched the Presley of Lonmay tartan in the village yesterday.
Mike King, who designed it, is a director of the Aberdeen menswear and tartan hire family firm Philip King. He hopes the tartan will appeal to fans throughout the world. Mr King, 59, said: "I am very proud of this Presley of Lonmay tartan as I bought his records when I was younger. We used blue to represent the nearby town of Peterhead - the Blue Toon - as well as grey for the skies, green for countryside grass, and yellow for cornfields. The sporran is gold and engraved with thistles and a bald eagle to show the Scottish and American link. Elvis's death was a great loss to the world." David Gibbins, the owner of Lonmay's Ban-Car Hotel, said: "It's a great idea and I wish the kilt-maker luck. It's a nice tartan. We are refurbishing our lounge, so we plan to use the Presley tartan to redecorate."
The tartan was modelled yesterday by 19-year-old Matthew Noble, a barman at the hotel.
Allan Morrison traced Elvis's ancestors back almost 300 years to write his book, The Presley Prophecy.
- EPE & Scotland - False Press
(Elvis Presley The Official Site, dated March 25, found March 31, 2004)
This week, a story came out of Scotland regarding a possible ancestral link between Elvis and the village of Lonmay. Reporters started calling. A couple of the stories have created negative backlash against EPE, portraying us as issuing warnings to the leaders in Lonmay about Elvis trademarks. That's simply not true. Here's the truth:
A couple of reporters doing a stories on Elvis and Lonmay asked us how we'd feel about Lonmay's using Elvis to promote tourism there and to do merchandising. We said we're always open to proposals. One reporter asked if we object to unauthorized use of our trademarks - yes, what trademark holder doesn't? One asked what the procedures are for licensing and how we deal with infringements. These two reporters chose to make stories suggesting that we were "warning" Lonmay or something like that. Absolutely not true.
We've actually not heard from any officials in Lonmay, but we'll probably try to get in touch to let them know that a couple of recent news stories are terribly misleading. We work with communities, museums, festivals, charities and such all over the world with Elvis promotions all the time and we'll look forward to hearing from the good people of Lonmay should they want our assistance with something.
We all know how inaccurate the press has been over the years in their stories about Elvis. It's painful that some of the fans who know this don't stop and think that the things they read about EPE could be just as inaccurate. The press, once again, has created a controversy where none exists. They're very good at that.
- When copyright is king
By Campbell Deane
(The Scotsman, March 30, 2004)
There's an old line that one of the perks of the job for lawyers who look after the estates of dead people is that their clients aren't around to tell them what to do. It came to mind last week when it was revealed that Elvis Aaron Presley may have roots in the village of Lonmay, Aberdeenshire, where one Andrew Presley was born before he sailed across the pond to the United States in 1745.
It was a story which inevitably tempted sad men in ill-fitting wigs and white jumpsuits to the scene, and invited speculation that the village could become somewhere the King's fans might want to visit. Maybe the local bed-and-breakfast could change its name to the Heartbreak Hotel?
Elvis spent only two hours of his life in Scotland (that famously brief stop-off at Prestwick Airport), but might have been slightly tickled by the idea of his fame being marked in the rather backwater location from where his forefathers came. He came from Southern poor white trash, but was always proud of his family and his roots.
In any event, it has now been decreed that no such thing will ever happen by lawyers for the Elvis estate. They greeted the happy news of their deceased client's Scottish connection with their customary heavy-handed copyright warning. Within 24 hours of the discovery, Elvis Presley Enterprises had issued a reminder that it owns all the intellectual property (IP) rights in his name, his image and his songs, including the trademark of the very words Heartbreak Hotel.
To any lawyer who works in IP, this is not what you could call news. Over the past 20 years, Elvis has become something of a case study in defending artistic rights, as the company has not only enforced the laws vigorously but has even managed to change them - in its favour.
It has closed a nightclub named Velvet Elvis, ordered a fan website to take down a virtual tour they had created of Graceland, and is currently trying to block the development of an Elvis Dream Home on a site where he spent his honeymoon.
Even the vast number of (good and bad) Elvis impersonators don't escape its wrath.
Elvis Presley Enterprises is also credited with lobbying for laws to be passed which result in Tennessee now having the tightest copyright laws in the US, if not the western world. Only there can you enforce the "right to publicity" to prevent others using likenesses of someone - even if they are long dead.
They did lose out once in the UK, when the Court of Appeal threw out its attempt to close down Sid Shaw, a fan who marketed souvenirs under the title "Elvisly Yours". It was reassuring that an English court was not prepared to recognise that someone could "own" the image and name of someone who died more than a quarter of a century ago. But it took Mr Shaw a total of 12 years of litigation before his victory.
Elvis Presley Enterprises argues that it is enforcing the Presley IP rights because it doesn't want his name or his work subjected to tacky exploitation. But one of Mr Shaw's arguments was that he only began to produce his own ornaments when he visited Memphis and was appalled at the shoddiness of the goods on show.
Critics point out that the company is always prepared to allow someone to use the songs or the image if they pay for the right, and more money will be generated for the estate.
Two years ago, it allowed a DJ to remix the track A Little Less Conversation as a trailer for the release of a compilation CD that summer. The single went to No1 across Europe, and so did the CD. It's as a result of business decisions such as these that Elvis is worth more now than he ever was alive.
The firm was back in court in the US in November to prevent the distribution of The Definitive Elvis, a high-quality documentary lasting 16 hours that attempted to cover his entire career in a DVD boxed set. It argued, successfully, that the documentary had used too much television footage of his songs. A 16-hour Elvis documentary which featured none of his songs would, of course, not have any of these copyright problems. But then again, it might get a bit dull.
The principles of intellectual property law, and the attempts to get around them, frequently throw up situations which appear to defy commonsense, and in London this spring we have a classic case in Jailhouse Rock, a musical based on the Elvis film. It will be about Elvis, but it won't feature the actual song Jailhouse Rock, or indeed any other songs from the film.
While the lawyers fight on, the Elvis fans are the ones left scratching their heads and, who knows, in a supermarket somewhere, maybe there is someone wearing a white jumpsuit who is doing likewise.
As the appeal judge, Richard Tallman, put it, in the documentary judgment: "The King is dead. But his legacy, and those who wish to profit from it, remain very much alive."
- VIVA ROSS VEGAS!
By GORDON COUTTS
(Evening Express, March 30, 2004)
The spangly white jumpsuit is far too big. The slicked quiff is nowhere to be seen and the trademark curl of the lip isn't quite there. But squint your eyes and 10-year-old Aaron Ross might just pass for a pint-size version of his famous distant relative, the king of rock 'n' roll. For the Ross family claim to have recently discovered they are related to Elvis Presley.
Cove grandmother and Elvis fanatic Wilma Ross, 58 - who was born Williamina Handsley - reckons she shares the same great, great, great, great, great, great grandparents with the snake-hipped crooner.
Andrew Presley and his wife Elizabeth Leg had two sons, James and Andrew. Andrew moved to America and is claimed to be Elvis's ancestor. His brother James remained in the UK and was Wilma's ancestor. That, she claims, makes she and the rock 'n' roll king distant cousins. And if Elvis hadn't died in 1977 aged 42, he would have been just 11 years older.
Wilma lives at Creel Gardens, Cove, with husband James, 61, who works as a buyer for an oil company. They have two sons, James, 36, and Derek, 29, and two grandsons, Jordan, 12, and Aaron, 10, who has Elvis's middle name.
Wilma is laying claim to the famous link after reading that Elvis's family originally hailed from the Lonmay in Aberdeenshire. Greenock author and Elvis fan Allan Morrison discovered the link while researching a new book. The story goes that Elvis was descended from Andrew Presley, who left Lonmay for the United States in 1745.
On a hunch, Wilma went to examine the family tree she has spent the last 15 years working on. According to Wilma, her own line went back eight generations to the same Andrew Presley. She said: "I couldn't believe it was real at first so I double checked. "It was the right one and I was absolutely thrilled. "Never in my wildest dreams did I think we might have been related. "I've been a huge Elvis fan since I was at school. When I was at Northfield Academy I used to stick pictures of him all over my schoolbag. He's the perfect man - his looks, his singing, everything. My favourite song is definitely The Wonder of You, it's brilliant."
Oddly, the Ross's secret could have remained so forever were it not for a stroke of luck. Wilma said: "I haven't had time in the last few years to continue the family tree. I had got back as far as Andrew Presley, the father of the Andrew Presley who went to America. If I hadn't got that far back I'd never have known we were related. It's a bit creepy that that's exactly where I stopped." ...
- ELVIS VETERAN HAS ADVICE FOR LONMAY
By CAROLINE PAGE
(Press and Journal, March 26, 2004)
A Man who spent 19 years locked in a legal battle with the Elvis Presley estate said last night the Buchan community of Lonmay should make the most of its newly discovered links with the King of Rock 'n' Roll. Sid Shaw, owner of the Elvisly Yours merchandising company in London, has warned Lonmay not to be put off by Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee. He used to sell Elvis merchandise to Graceland when he started exporting his line to the US. But after his relationship with Elvis Presley Enterprises (EPE) broke down, a legal battle ensued. In 1991, after years of court appearances, Mr Shaw was finally defeated in the US courts and cut out of an estimated 70million US market for Elvis souvenirs.
But Mr Shaw did not lose heart and when EPE applied for a number of UK trademarks in the early 90s, he decided to fight back. In 1999, he won the case against EPE in the Court of Appeal on three trademarks - Elvis, Elvis Presley and his signature Elvis A. Presley. He has now told the residents of Lonmay not to be put off by Graceland's reputation for jealously guarding its trademarks.
"If Elvis Presley's ancestors came from Lonmay, then it has every right to promote the fact. What you have got here is historical fact. The Presley name is known all over the world and, if the marketing is done right, Scotland could do good business out of this. You have a potential goldmine in that area, but it has got to be done properly. You could have a chapel there; people could get married. You could build a theme park and attract people from all over the world. But you need something that is worth travelling to see. You could do a lot with a bit of imagination. But it means investing - these things do not happen without a large amount of funding."
Mr Shaw said he had already written to the local MP, SNP leader Alex Salmond, and to Banff and Buchan MSP Stewart Stevenson and the Scottish Tourist Board to offer his services in future ventures. Greig Morrison, a consultant with the intellectual property and technology unit at Aberdeen solicitors Paull and Williamsons, said that, no matter who owns the trademark, Lonmay should be able to capitalise on its links. He said: "The mere fact of their registration will not stop the residents of Lonmay using the terms 'Elvis' or 'Elvis Presley' in a descriptive sense. To amount to a trademark infringement, it must be used in a trademark sense, such as an attempt to brand goods or services. It is hard to see how the opening of an Elvis Presley museum, for example, would infringe any of the trademarks owned by Elvis Presley Enterprises Inc.
"That being said, the production of memorabilia on which the words appeared, or which were marketed in conjunction with the words, would be likely to infringe one of the numerous trademarks in the Presley Enterprises portfolio. "If Lonmay chose to style itself the home of Elvis Presley's ancestors, any resulting threat from Presley Enterprises might, under UK legislation, amount to an unjustified threat, which would leave Presley Enterprises open to legal action by those against whom such threats are made."
- Elvis's Scottish roots welcomed
([Pakistan] Daily Times, March 26, 2004)
A leader of the Scottish National Party has welcomed claims that Elvis Presley had his family roots in Scotland. Scots author Allan Morrison says Presley's roots can be traced back to Lonmay in Aberdeenshire, from where an Andrew Presley emigrated to North Carolina in 1745.
Alex Salmond, the SNP's leader at Westminster, has now tabled a House of Commons motion to welcome the news. Mr Salmond, whose constituency includes Lonmay, said: "The area has a rich musical tradition - much of which did travel to America with emigrants - and now we discover that it is the ancestral home of the King of rock and roll."
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