More Than Pop Progeny:

LISA MARIE PRESLEY

A Tough & Talented Woman

by Tom Lounges

From the time she was born –– Lisa Marie  Presley –– has always fascinated the public and the media.  

              After all, she is the only offspring of the hip-swiveling hillbilly cat who booted complacency in the ass back in 1956 and ultimately kick-started the rock ‘n’ roll engine that still revs loudly today.             

Lisa Marie was the apple of Elvis’ eye (he even named his private jet after her), and next to Caroline Kennedy, was the closest thing America has ever had to a princess.                 

For thirty-five years, Presley has been enduring and surviving many strange ordeals and unusual situations, all of which have contributed to making her the strong-willed and outspoken woman that she is today.              

Along the way, she has collected many memories –– most of them painful –– which she therapeutically put to music and released earlier this year through Capitol Records.                   

After years of persistent rumors that The King’s daughter would be cutting an album, the moment finally arrived.  This past spring, To Whom It May Concern, hit retail racks and hit a nerve with both music critics and fans alike.           

Nobody in the record industry really expected to like Lisa Marie Presley’s record.  Most anticipated a well-calculated and highly commercial “product” with little musical substance and lots of sheen.  In short, something solely to capitalize on her famous surname.             

After all, her only real claim to fame up until this point was having being born a Presley, along with having been briefly married to Michael Jackson, and even more briefly to actor/director Nic Cage.   Given the public’s disturbing obsession with celebrities and their special obsession with anything Elvis-related, Lisa Marie seemed like a double marketing whammy for a savvy spin doctor.              

Well shame on all of us!  Kudos to Presley for delivering against all odds, what is hands down one of the best new artist releases of the year.               

The 11 songs that populate To Whom It May Concern –– all of which she has written herself –– are largely dark and haunting story songs drawn from within; an audio licking of the wounds that is simultaneously disturbing and gripping.

           By now, most people within ear shot of a radio have heard her first single, “Lights Out,” where she comes to terms with her heritage and snarls out lyrics about her family being -- “buried and gone in Memphis in the damn back lawn.”           

The remainder of the album is largely introspective as well, and delivered with a smokey-throated rawness that’s more akin to the likes of Bonnie Raitt or Bekka Bramlett, than to the many faceless pop chanteuses who populate the singles charts today.           

Just as her famous daddy once surprised the jaded music scribes [who dismissed him after his Hollywood years] by embracing the Southern-fried R&B Muscle Shoals/Stax sound in 1968, Lisa Marie has thrown a curve to those who were so ready to dismiss her as simple “pop progeny.”           

Even her rough and tumble “black leather look” recalls Elvis’ most creative and mature period between the Hollywood and Vegas eras.   And if you watch the “Lights Out” video closely, there is a slight, sub-conscious semblance of that famous Presley sneer when she sings the word “Memphis,” along with just trace of that famous family leg swivel.

            Watching Lisa Marie on stage, it quickly becomes clear that these very subtle performance traits are simply inherent to who she is and what’s in her genetic code, rather than a conscious attempt to emulate her father in any way.           

“Having the Presley name did help me get a foot in the door,” Lisa Marie admits during a phone interview with Midwest BEAT.  “But at the same time, it is a sword that cuts both ways.  [The Presley name] puts a lot of pressure and attention on me that wouldn’t be there if my name were Smith or Jones.”              

For a time, she contemplated releasing her long-awaited album as simply –– Lisa Marie –– as a means of avoiding the kind of marquee expectations that come with having a famous last name.   “But people still know who you are, so what’s the point of that really,” she pondered.              

Such is true.  It is no secret that Jakob Dylan is Bob Dylan’s son, even though he downplays it and records under the name, The Wallflowers.   The expectations from the public are the same for him as they are for other famous rock progeny like Julian Lennon and Jason Bonham.           

“In the end, it [taking the Presley name off] seemed wrong, considering the songs are about me and who I am,” she said.  “I’m honored to be who I am.  I’m very proud of my father and my family.  So here I am... putting my ass out there on the line with this record.  Whether it sells well or not...I’m proud of the songs, because they really reflect who I am and what I am.   Everything is in this record somewhere !”           

It would actually belie her whole reason for writing her songs and recording To Whom It May Concern if she had not embraced her musical birthright and the Presley heritage.   “I think it was just a case of me needing to put my own thumb print out there for my own dignity; for my own existence and not for just sensationalistic purposes,” she said of making this album.  “I did this album for myself.  I think it justifies my existence a little bit more, I guess you could say.”

            Not knowing the business she was born into, has been something of a blessing according to Presley, when asked about her reaction to learning that To Whom It May Concern debuted in the national “Top 5” on the “Billboard Top 200 Albums” chart and sold over 150,000 copies in its first week of release.

            “You know, I didn’t know about what all that meant and what constituted a successful record or an unsuccessful record until after all that happened,”  she laughed.  “Thank God!  Because I would have been a neurotic mess.   I was very happy about it of course. It kind of took my breath away, but I’m glad I didn’t know prior that I needed to land in any kind of specific area.  I would have been a nervous wreck.”           

Even so, once the shrink wrap was on the CDs and the tightly packed boxes shipped out from Capitol, Presley said her nerves kicked in big time.   Asked what her thoughts were once she knew the trucks were on the way to stores and that the world would soon hear her first stab as a recording artist.

            “I was thinking -- ‘I’ve done it!’  Then of course you start to thinking, maybe I could have done this different or added that or whatever...  So I told myself -- ‘That’s it. It’s out of my hand’ -- so that I wouldn’t drive myself crazy,” she said.           

“I knew I had made the best record I could and I just hoped people would really take the time to listen to it,” she said.   “I really didn’t have any sort of expectations, because this is all so new to me, that I really don’t know what to expect from any of it. I didn’t have any particular aim or goal to become a pop star or go mainstream...or whatever.  I just knew that I made an album that I was happy with and that I was proud of... I just crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.   By and large, the critics [who had gotten advance copies] seemed to like it, so I felt good about that.”

            When asked about the many years that rumors circulated about her “recording an album,” the singer/songwriter thinks it was just talk from people who knew that she was writing poems and songs to help her deal with things in her life.  

   “I’ve been writing since I was about age 22, as a sort of cathartic thing for myself.  Someone was always saying -- ‘Hey, you should make a record’ -- but I never felt I wanted my words to be for the public.”

            As to why this was finally the right time to heed the advice of friends and release an album of her writing, Presley summed it up simply to the passage of enough time.              

“Honestly, I just hit a point where I felt I had enough life in me and enough stuff that I’d been through to be able to use this record as an outlet for it; in the hopes that it will affect people who listen to it,” she said.   “Music has been such a huge part of my life and has done so much for me, that I thought this might be a way I could give back to music, that maybe this record can justify my mere existence as opposed to always being associated to something weird I’ve done or who I was married to or where I came from...”

            Not being savvy to the business of making records, but being adamant on making a record that represented her honestly and with integrity, one might wonder if Capitol tried to “guide” or “mold” their fledgling artist into something she is not.   “No, not at all, this record is all me and they were very respectful of what I was trying to do,” she said.           

“The only time that anything like that happened was when I was working with Glenn Ballard and he was running the show.  He tried to get me to go more pop and that was a struggle we had, because it was very hard for me to write anything poppy or radio-friendly, or to service anyone...,” she said.   Ultimately Ballard’s role in the project was taken by Andrew Slater (Fiona Apple, Macy Gray), who collaborated with Presley and primary producer Eric Rosse (Tori Amos).

            “The only thing I really argued with anyone about was the first single,” she said.  “The record company picked ‘Lights Out’ as the first single. I was not too happy about that, but they tested it and Andy [Slater] and everyone [at the label] really liked that one a lot.   I love the song, but I was apprehensive because I didn’t want a song pointing to my lineage to be my first introduction... like I needed to use that...”           

For that reason, Presley had refused offers to collaborate.  “There were some people who offered to write and get involved with this record, but I didn’t want anything aligning me to anything or anyone.  I just wanted to do my own thing this time and be recognized as having done that,” she stressed.  “That’s why I wrote everything myself and even co-produced some of the songs.  This was all my ‘child’ basically.  I thought releasing ‘Lights Out’ as the first single, because of the strong references to my family,  might compromise what I was trying to do.”

            Presley said her personal choice for the first single was “Sinking In,” which at press time was being readied as the album’s second radio single.   “Radio and all this [business] is so damn political, that there is no way of knowing how a single will do or how many singles we will release from the album or anything,” said Presley.

            With the album released and the singles spinning on the airwaves, Presley is doing her part to support the music that has so passionately driven her and consumed so much of her life these last few years.   “It’s been a real experience,” she said of touring.  “It’s scary to get up there and stand in front of all those people.” 

            Presley hits the Chicago House of Blues stage on August 8, supporting avowed Elvis fan Chris Isaak, who credits Lisa Marie’s dad as a primary influence and who owns the actual black leather jumpsuit Elvis wore in his famous “‘68 Comeback Special.”           

“There’s only about four weeks that I’ll be out with Chris.  Then I have a few shows after that with the Goo Goo Dolls,” she said of the current summer tour that began in Spring with her doing a whirlwind run of radio station-sponsored “festival dates” with other cutting edge artists.           

“I don’t really know how the record is doing internationally, but it has been released in Japan and in most countries in Europe,” she said, noting that she recently flew to London to perform on the BBC’s “Top Of The Pops” program.  

            Elvis Presley never toured outside of North America and never outside of the USA except for a brief smattering of dates in Canada during the late 1950s.  Lisa Marie is not sure of all the logistics, but she has high hopes of touring all around the world behind this album.           

“This is all new to me,” mused Presley.  “I’m pretty much being told where to go and what to do at this point.”

            Aside from performing the album cuts live, Presley’s current concert set will include “a couple of favorite cover songs,” though she declines to say what those songs will be or if either are linked to her father.  

 Backing Presley up on this first tour is a six-piece band that she said has been rehearsing to the point of exhaustion.   “I’ve got five guys, one girl and me,” she said.  “We’ve worked really hard and I think they are a great band.”           

To Whom It May Concern is enough of a musical melting pot –– with elements of rock, Southern blues and country –– that Presley could evolve into the type of crossover artist her father had been.   “Right now the songs are on ‘rock’ radio, but I don’t know what will come next.  I never know what a song is going to be until I’m sitting down and writing,” she shrugged, though the notion of not being pigeon-holed into one musical genre makes her happy.

            As to where it’s all heading, only time will tell.  “God knows where this is going,” she concluded.   “I can’t see myself premeditating what I’m going to do next.  Whatever will happen, will just happen on its own.  I don’t like to think or look that far ahead.  I’d go crazy if I did.   For now, I’m just focusing on getting on stage every night and doing the best I can do...”              

LISA MARIE PRESLEY will return to perform a headline concert at Chicago's House of Blues 

                                                             Monday, September 29

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