I feel compelled to reflect upon the life of
America’s first true rock ‘n’ roll star as we mark the 25th
anniversary of his passing this month.
It was a time of drive-in movies, 45 rmp
singles and muscle cars. In
the early 1960s, Elvis Presley was the matinee idol of choice for a
generation of teens. Others had certainly come before him, Chuck Berry,
Little Richard, Fats Domino to name but a few. But it was Elvis who
brought the music to the masses. It was Elvis who opened the flood gates
and unleashed rock ‘n’ roll to the mainstream population. As the 25th
anniversary of his death rolls around on August 16, it seemed fitting for
me to pay a tribute to the man who is largely responsible for me writing
about music today. Were it
not for Elvis, perhaps I would have gotten “a real job” outside of the
world of rock ‘n’ roll. Some of my earliest
childhood memories include late summer nights fighting sleep and munching
popcorn at the long-torn down Ridge Road Drive-In Theatre, while films
like “Harum Scarum,” “Blue Hawaii” and “Spin
Out” flickered forth from the projection booth. My sister Marie, then
a high school senior, would load up her old ‘64 Chevy with a bevy of
girlfriends and me, the tag-a-long little brother with whom she was often
stuck baby-sitting. With wide
eyes, I would watch Elvis croon love songs, punch out bad guys and wind up
with more bikini-clad girls than one man deserved. Heated battles were
waged weekly on the home front as Marie would defend Elvis’ position as
rock’s king against our sister, Charlotte, who was enamored with the mop
tops of the British Invasion! “Elvis is dead,” she’d declare, while taping up the latest
“Sixteen Magazine” pin-up of Paul McCartney, Dave Clark or Peter Noone.
“Elvis will be around long
after all those guys are history,” exclaimed Marie.
And so it went week after week. In the end, her words
proved prophetic. Elvis is still very much with us today, a quarter
century after his death. Elvis is currently
enjoying a top international chart hit with the JXL remix of “A
Little Less Conversation” (featured in the Nike Soccer ad), which
has given him the largest breadth of charted hits of any artist in
history.
Then on September 24,
RCA Records will be releasing “Elv1s
30 #1 Hits,” modeled after the recent Beatles' #1 album. An 8-DVD collection consisting of 16 one-hour episodes including interviews with over 200 of Elvis’ friends and celebrities called, “The Definitive Elvis,” will be released by Passport International Productions on August 13. Packaged along with
the DVD set will be a 2-CD spoken word set, “Elvis...In His Own Words,”
featuring Elvis in his early years on the road, in the army, in the
studio, on film locations and throughout his years in Vegas. And those are just a
couple of the newer Elvis items on the market this year. Tons of Elvis product
–– books, TV shows, films, novelties, albums, etc. –– is forever
being pushed on the market. For
the last two years, Elvis has even gone back “on tour,” as a giant
hologram that performs alongside live band which consists of many of his
real-life former bandmates. He has become the biggest-selling pop
culture icon ever, topping even The Beatles, Marilyn Monroe and James
Dean. Elvis Presley has
generated more money in each of the respective years that have passed
since his death in 1977, than he ever made during his entire 20 year
career as a living, breathing performer. Although his real-life
career eventually bottomed out as Elvis himself evolved into a parody of
his former self, I never let go of the vibrant hip-swiveling image burned
into my senses by so many nights spent at the Ridge Road Drive-In during
the early to mid-‘60s. Even during my high
school years, while my friends were rushing out to buy the latest Led
Zeppelin and Pink Floyd releases, I was still collecting Elvis records to
their dismay. They balked when I spent month’s pay from flipping burgers
to buy tickets to see Elvis at the Chicago Stadium in May of 1977. Although my date and I were regulated to the nosebleed seats,
it was a night I will never forget. Three months later on
August 16, as I was preparing for my freshman year of college, Elvis gave
up the ghost in the bathroom of Graceland. Like so many first year university students, I had no clear
vision of what career path to follow, the thought of being a journalist
had never crossed my mind. Then a “Letters
to the Editor” submission by two teenage brothers from Munster was
published in The Times, lambasting
Presley as being -- “a
bloated former teen idol in a jumpsuit who performed out-dated mating
rituals for middle-aged women.”
I was angry as hell at
reading this. The little
bastards failed to see the importance of this boy who dared to rock. As an Elvis fan and novice rock historian, I could not leave
this disparaging commentary unanswered. Taking pen to paper
for the very first time in the hopes of having my rebuttal published, I
was compelled to shed light on how Elvis not only helped to pioneer a new
sound, but how his meteoric rise from a sharecropper’s son to rock idol
came to embody the American dream itself for a generation of Post-War
youth. As my ink trail
extended across the paper, it explained that aside from his cultural
impact, Elvis set many new standards for the rich and famous. For instance, he was
the first celebrity to ever lend his name to the research of Dr. Jonas
Salk, helping to publicize the importance of Salk Vaccine immunization
shots to combat the dreaded scourge which had crippled so many young
people of that era. Few also realized that
it was the patriotic Elvis, who raised most of the money that built what
has become one of Hawaii’s most popular tourist attractions.
A special Elvis concert, produced and promoted by Chicagoan Al
Dvorin, was given in 1961, just prior to his making the film “Blue
Hawaii.” Dvorin and Elvis
raised $67,000 to build a memorial honoring the memory of the 1,300 crew
members killed on the U.S.S. Arizona when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor
on December 7, 1941. Returning to Hawaii a
dozen years later at the age of 37, Elvis helped to usher in a new phase
of broadcast technology by being the first performer ever globally
telecast via satellite, when he performed his landmark “Aloha
From Hawaii” television special on January 14, 1973.
The technical aspect aside, that 2.5 million dollar telecast, even
reached as far as Communist China giving those people their first glimpse
ever of a Western cultural hero. As often the case with
Elvis, there was a humanitarian side to the “Aloha” project. Elvis
insisted on donating every cent raised at that concert – gate receipts
and merchandising receipts – to the Kui Lee Cancer Fund, raising $75,000
for cancer research with that single performance.
Elvis even paid for his own ticket for that concert.
Kui Lee had written the song, “I’ll
Remember You,” one of Elvis’ favorite songs.
In my rebuttal to the mud-slinging brothers, I wrote a virtual tome
about many such things that this
“bloated former teen idol” had done over the years, stressing that
there was more to Elvis than cheesecake movies and juke box hits.
Fortunately, The Times, saw fit to publish my lengthy letter in its entirety.
The response it received from others, who had felt of Elvis as I
did, was overwhelming. My
career as a writer was born purely by accident upon the publication of
that letter, for I was soon asked to compose a biographical feature on
Elvis for a Chicago music publication.
Things just snowballed and here I am today writing these words to
you. Over the years, I have been awarded the good
fortunate to be involved in many projects with people who knew, loved and
lived with the late king of rock ‘n’ roll. Among those have been
Elvis’ tour manager and best friend,
Joe Esposito; Elvis’ first drummer D.J.
Fontana; the world-renown Jordanaires
(Elvis’ back-up singers on countless hits), and the aforementioned Al
Dvorin, who in passing
years has become a very dear and treasured personal friend. These wonderful and
colorful folks have shared many stories with me about Elvis, his warmth,
his generosity, and his love of his fans.
I in turn, have taken these stories and shared them through my
articles, with the readers of Elvis International Forum, The Times,
Midwest BEAT and many other publications over the years.
eased albums through Sony Special Products, been
on staff with several national music publications, and been a featured
writer in a nationally published book on the history of rock ‘n’ roll.
Yet despite all that, I don’t think I was
ever more passionate about anything I’ve ever written than that very
first “Letter To The Editor.” Although my career has
allowed me the tremendous opportunity to work, interview and often become
friends with a bevy of wonderful entertainers, it is still Elvis Presley,
who remains the most influential source in my work. So this month’s “Soapbox”
column is being written as a late-coming “Thank
You!” from the popcorn-munching little kid who still resides in
the back of an old, blue ‘64 Chevy at the Ridge Road Drive-In.
That kid still lives inside me and still embraces all the wonderment and appreciation for all that was and is… Elvis Presley!
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