- Elvis is everywhere. Again. Still.
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- He's at the checkout counter staring from the cover of
an oversized all-Elvis issue of TV Guide. He's at the top of the British
pop charts with a kitschy dance remix of one of his obscure songs. He's
on book shelves and coffee tables in a weighty (6 pounds, 2 ounces) new
600-page authorized photo book. He's in movie theaters, singing five songs
in Disney's animated "Lilo & Stitch."
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- He'll "perform" at the Minnesota State Fair
grandstand with a live band and the man himself on a giant video screen.
He'll be on TV, his films filling up the entire schedule of cable's Turner
Classic Movies on Friday, which is, of course, the 25th anniversary of
his death.
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- With all this Elvismania, what about his music? Before
he was a rock star and a movie star, before he was an icon and an industry,
before he became the paunchline of countless jokes, he was first and foremost
a singer. But his songs have been overshadowed by, well, everything else.
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- Generations of music fans don't know the music of the
King of Rock 'n' Roll. Baby boomers know "Hotel California" but
not "Heartbreak Hotel." Gen Xers know "Devil Inside"
but not "Devil in Disguise." Gen Yers know "Who Let the
Dogs Out" but not "Hound Dog."
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- With Elvis, the discussion never seems to be about the
music. Not now or ever. That's because he has always been so much bigger
than the music.
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- "So many people who talk about him have never listened
to him," said University of Memphis professor John Bakke, who is coordinating
an Elvis symposium this week in Memphis. "Most people don't think
of Elvis as an artist; they think of him as an entertainer or as an icon."
-
- Everybody -- from 80-year-old grandpas to Garth Brooks'
grade-school daughters -- seems to know who Elvis was. And whether they
know his songs or not, they have an opinion about him. Because, Bakke says,
it's difficult to mention Elvis without someone disagreeing with you.
-
- Was he a musical treasure or low-class trash? A breakthrough
movie star or Grade-B beefcake? Trapped by stardom or self-destructive
victim? Dead or hiding in Michigan (or Ohio)? Even the postage stamp created
a controversy in '92: early Elvis (king of rock) or jumpsuit Elvis (Vegas
schlock).
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- Underrated singer
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- Bakke, 64, was a high-school senior when Elvis first
seduced young America on "The Ed Sullivan Show." For the past
25 years, the professor has studied Memphis' most famous resident, whose
image is as soiled as a scuffed pair of blue suede shoes.
-
- "Elvis is still the repository for political incorrectness,"
Bakke notes. "You can still make cheap Elvis jokes; that's about the
only thing that goes anymore."
-
- People laugh about his bad movies, bad outfits, bad diet,
bad decisions and generally bad taste.
-
- That's too bad because Elvis Presley was one of the most
talented and underrated singers of the last 50 years. He had an instantly
commanding voice, deep, rangy and lusciously warm, as emotive as his bedroom
eyes and as pretty as his pink Cadillac. And, like Ray Charles, he was
convincing in various styles -- rock, country and western, pop ballads,
rockabilly, blues, folk and his beloved gospel.
-
- Sam Phillips, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame producer
who discovered Elvis, had worked with such big-band and blues stars as
Frankie Laine and B.B. King. When he first heard the 19-year-old from Tupelo,
Miss., he thought the kid had "a beautiful voice, and his timing was
extremely good."
-
- When Presley walked into Phillips' Memphis recording
studio in 1954, he wanted to be a balladeer like Dean Martin or Bill King
of the Ink Spots, Phillips recalled last month. But the producer was determined
to do something different. As the story goes, he urged Elvis to merge black
blues with hillbilly. It took a little convincing, but the producer/radio
disc jockey got through to the former truck driver.
-
- In the early years, the two were close, and Phillips
continued to be an unofficial adviser in the middle years when Col. Tom
Parker was steering Elvis' career. The producer said Elvis was a highly
intelligent, instinctive person who loved music. "He and Jerry Lee
Lewis have the most nearly photographic memory of any people I've ever
known -- be it a musician or lawyer."
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- Phillips, 80, still talks of Elvis in the present tense,
perhaps to acknowledge that the King is still with us in many ways.
-
- "Elvis has an instinctive ability to communicate
in so many ways," said Phillips, who also produced Johnny Cash, Roy
Orbison and Carl Perkins. "When you hear his records -- and you may
not like that particular song -- but there is something about Elvis' delivery
to people in person and on record."
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- Said Bakke: "Elvis was so nonverbal that what he
does is, in some cases, more akin to a jazz musician than to a pop singer.
. . . As Marian Keisker, who was Phillips' associate at Sun Records, once
told me: 'Elvis could make you feel; you didn't know how you felt about
how you felt, but you couldn't deny that you felt something.' "
-
- Remixed hits coming
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- Elvis' songs could move to the forefront again with the
Sept. 24 release of "Elvis: 30 #1 Hits," a collection of his
chart-toppers, including "Love Me Tender," "It's Now or
Never" and "Can't Help Falling in Love." The latest compilation
in a never-ending series of repackaging could prove crucial in reaching
new, younger audiences, just as the Beatles' 2000 blockbuster "1"
did while selling more than 8 million copies.
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- Unlike other recent Elvis packages, this one has a newly
remixed, seemingly contemporary sound.
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- "There's a lot of things in there that we never
heard before," said Glen D. Hardin, Elvis' pianist from 1970 to '75
who is now touring with "Elvis -- The Concert" (which comes to
the State Fair on Aug. 26)."They dug around in the old stuff and made
it more clear. They didn't add anything or redo any instruments. They worked
strictly with what was there and with all the modern technology that we
have. It sounds really good."
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- This new collection isn't likely to get much support
from Kool 108, the Twin Cities oldies station. In December, the station
switched its emphasis to '60s and '70s hits, and thus the Elvis playlist
got trimmed to just three songs: "Suspicious Minds," "In
the Ghetto" and "Burning Love."
-
- "It's not a slam on him," said Kool 108 program
director Bob Wood, "but just a repositioning of our product."
-
- If anybody understands the notion of "repositioning
our product," it's the people behind Elvis. RCA has managed to sell
more Presley albums since 1977 than it did while he was alive. It adds
up to 93 million sold in U.S. sales -- a little more than half what the
Beatles have sold.
-
- And he's likely to keep on selling, be it recordings
(a new one this week is drawn from his mid-'50s appearances on the "Louisiana
Hayride" radio show), books (amazon.com lists 439 titles) or kitschy
knick-knacks (too many to mention).
-
- But for how long?
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- "He's become so ingrained in our culture that he's
going to be hard to get rid of," said Bakke, whose symposium is titled
"Is Elvis History? 2002 and Beyond."
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- Phillips, who launched this whole Elvis thing, agrees.
"I ain't worried about Elvis being around, and his influence, and
him selling records," the producer said. "He is the damnedest
thing that the world has ever seen."
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- Still.
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- -- Jon Bream is at popmusic@startribune.com or 612-673-1719.
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- © Copyright 2002 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
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