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This blogger, Richard Gehr, is not an employee of AARP. The opinions expressed in the blog are not necessarily the opinions of AARP and AARP assumes no liability for the content posted by Mr. Gehr or any other participant

Richard Gehr | August 16, 2007

2 Comments

Elvis Week peaks tonight at Memphis's FedEx Forum with "The Thirtieth Anniversary Concert" at 8 p.m. and "Midnight in Vegas" at midnight. Each event blends film and video footage of you-know-who with an orchestra, singers, and lots of musicians—most notably guitarist James Burton, bassist Jeffy Scheff, drummer Ronnie Tutt, and the Sweet Inspirations vocal group—who worked with Presley prior to his premature death while at home in Graceland on this day thirty years ago.

I'm not the world's biggest Presley fan. I've always found it too much of a struggle to hear beyond the big vulgar icon far enough to really enjoy his music in and of itself. But I try to appreciate his legacy, especially when it's conveyed as elegantly as Peter Guralnick did in his August 11 New York Times Opinion piece, "How Did Elvis Get Turned Into a Racist?"

When a reporter referred to him as the "king of rock 'n' roll" at the press conference following his 1969 Las Vegas opening, he rejected the title, as he always did, calling attention to the presence in the room of his friend Fats Domino, "one of my influences from way back." The larger point, of course, was that no one should be called king; surely the music, the American musical tradition that Elvis so strongly embraced, could stand on its own by now, after crossing all borders of race, class and even nationality.
The excellent mp3 blog Boogie Woogie Flu is celebrating Elvis Week with tracks about his life and death here and with various versions of Joe South's "Walk a Mile in My Shoes," which Guralnick says Elvis sang during the seventies to dramatically convey his message of racial harmony, here.

Comments

Laura says:

Elvis lives!

08/16/07 11:54 AM

Gina says:

I love Elvis. Even my 9 year old daughter has a new appreciation for Elvis, she made me buy his greatest hits album and plays it on her portable CD player all the time. She even makes me turn on the Elvis channel on my Sirius receiver everytime we get in the car. His music is timeless!!

08/17/07 07:50 AM

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