Elvis at 75: Long live the king

I was young and cheered for Elvis and saw the Beatles arrive in the US. As an African American raised in the church I never thought I'd live to see the church be Satan's house. Elvis lived with a teenager and had sex with her, he used drugs and did so much during his life. He looked like a baloon and high on stage until he overdosed. His music was great his life was sad, but now he's admired as one we look up to. Michael Jackson was spied on by the US, set up with fake molestation charges, and never had one Church ever want anything but money from Michael while giving him nothing. Yes Michael followed the teaches of God and he helped the World. When Elvis died the US cried and when Michael died the World cried. At lease the Bible was correct as it was written Satan would move in the Church and even used God's name and we see that today.

Sorry but this is the stupidest topic. Seriously, are you kidding? Who has more religion and will anyone care in 50 years and who wins the big posthumous prize, Michael or Elvis? Cripes, the freaking planet is dying. Wake up!

Mr. Maddock you are very much wrong. Elvis was a great etertainer and in fact the best ever, but he did not take our guilt away nor did Jesus. Jesus took away our sins by taking those sins upon himself thereby giving us life eternal. Even Elvis would disagree with you or anyone else putting him on the same level as Jesus. During one of his concerts a group of women who had bought out an entire section of seats and during the show they picked their moment and stood up with a huge sign that read "Elvis you're the king!" Elvis stopped signing the song he was doing and said,"no there is only one king and that is Jesus Christ."

Sounds like to me that the poster who goes by "QQDDEYZW" is jelous that Elvis is still more famous that Michael Jackson. Don't forget all of the drugs that Jackson did which led to his death. In fact there are alot of simularities in the life and death of both Presley and Jackson.
I'm black and a fan of both, just that I like Elvis better. Now as far as the things both did when they were alive, well just remember we all have sinned and come short of God's glory. I hope that was taught to you in church. So we all need the grace of God through Jesus who is the Christ.

The true Elvis has been censored. His early B&W films show why he was called "Elvis the Pelvis." the Christian fundamentalists attacked him, so he toned down his sexy image. Too bad.

Hey David Waters, do you actually make a living with this drivel?????

BTW, god who???????

Elvis died taking a crap, he blew a gasket pushing too hard.

You can't make this stuff up.

Only time will tell... Different styles (apples and oranges) ... Their music will still be listened to and carry relevance 100 years from now, when we all are dead and gone. But crowning one or the other the winner or king is silly.

As long as someone can continue to make money off their music, their life and/or their death, Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson will each still be 'popular'.
Personally, I can't imagine either of them at age 75, still trying to sing the same songs they sang at age 25. A 75-year old Elvis still trying to have the famous 'hips' singing "Jailhouse Rock"? Pitiful. A 75-year old MJ grabbing his crotch while singing "Billie Jean"? Creepy!!!

People are still ooh-ing and aah-ing over (and buying at very high cost) Marilyn Monroe's clothes----how many years after she OD'd?

Elvis Presley was the story of the success of a poor boy from the South. The name Presley is french.

imagine that...
the jackson church of the pedophile...
can you not see what you are implying...

Any Sookie Stackhouse fans out there? If so, you know Elvis (well, Bubba) is still out there.... loving cats!

Well, a carpenter once became a god born of a virgin and was duly executed for his crimes. So anything is possible, I guess. Just give Elvis 500 years of myth-making and gullible, desperate worshippers...

Elvis has and will continue outshine and outlast other entertainers. There will never be another like him because he was the first. Without him, there is no Michael Jackson, John Lennon, or Bono. (Two of them said as much.)
Elvis was an extremely deep and spiritual man, and, would laugh at the comparison to Jesus.
Long live the King. Happy Birthday, E.

This is such an iconic article for the current state of Christianity. It's hysterical that this inanely stupid piece of frippery is probably one of the hot topics among Christians today. Irrelevant, impotent, and annoying: thy name is Christian.

Michael Jackson was WAAAAY PAST Elvis popularity. Are you kidding? Elvis? He took black music and made it his own. The songs Elvis were singing in his early days were done by small town black blues artist in rural areas on Tennessee.

Looking at old footage of both concerts, Elvis concerts look like a Conservative Tea Bagger rally. Jackson has a crowd that was WAAAAAY MORE DIVERSE! I'm still looking at elvis footage....nope....no black people passing out! Michael has people from all over the age and race demographic passing out.

Nope....no concerts in Africa for elvis.

Elvis was cool with the white crowd.

Michael had the white crowd.....AND THE REST OF THE WORLD. When Michael died...the world cried from Africa to Japan and back to Australia. No other artist can say that.

DwightCollins wrote:

"imagine that...
the jackson church of the pedophile...
can you not see what you are implying..."

How old was Elvis' (at the time) mate? Yep...let me help you out......A TEENAGER!!! Get your facts straight.

I wasn't much of an Elvis fan until I went to Graceland. If you haven't gone I recommend it. Sunstudios too. Elvis was what people needed in a critical time in our history -- an unsuspecting poor hero with style and magic. Put aside your memories of the old Elvis and think about the mysterious young man whose enthusiasm for music broke the rules of race and conservativism pervasive at that time. Love him or hate him at least give him some credit and try not to compare him to anyone else.

Sorry to burst your bubble GOT2CLIMBSWIM....

elvis didn't do anything for different races but still black people's blues music from Tennessee, added a rock appeal, and sold it as his own.

(correction): I meant to write "stole black people's music" Not "still"

So far, I believe one variable is being ignored--Elvis had a beautiful voice! I suggest this is the overriding reason for his continued popularity. Even my mother, with her classically trained voice, liked his VOICE!

Not only will Elvis live forever, he will eventually replace Jesus in Christianity. Think about it: he was a beloved messenger who spread his word to all who would welcome it, then after his death, a cult developed around his memory and message, a cult so devoted that its adherents claim he had come back to life. Sound familiar? Admittedly, no Christians have ever claimed to have seen an elderly, overweight Jesus pumping gas in a station outside Nashville, but the parallels are there.

Now, let that myth of Elvis build upon itself for, say, about two thousand years, and presto! You have a new version of Christianity.

Someday maybe this column will be about Faith.

'The true Elvis has been censored. His early B&W films show why he was called "Elvis the Pelvis." the Christian fundamentalists attacked him, so he toned down his sexy image. Too bad.'

I grew up with Elvis, and it was actually Ed Sullivan that was singularly responsible for the Elvis phenom in the early days - and he took a major hand in toning down early Elvis the Pelvis for national consumption.

When Jim Morrison of the Doors refused to tone down his act with his blatant Elvis-like displays, he was banned permanently from Ed's variety show.

BTW, Morrison remains no small competitor to Presley's 'eternal' fame - the fact that he's buried in Paris probably creates a lot of jet lag for his most devoted fans. Graceland is a whole lot closer....

Both were consummate showmen......

"His music was great his life was sad, but now he's admired as one we look up to."

I know of no one who admires Elvis as a role model - his personality and behavior toward the end of his life have generated both ridicule and sadness. The Elvis that people admire and adore is largely a fiction, an idealized person with little connection to the real performer.

Richard Maddock's theory is an incredible reach. Elvis' music may have roots in church, but it also has roots in many other genres. The liner notes to Sun Sessions explain the syncretism in much more detail:

http://www.albumlinernotes.com/The_Sun_Sessions.html

I think the author has forgotten why people seek entertainment in the first place.

To get their minds off of what's bothering them.

Elvis accomplished while alive in records, movies, appearances and speculation and rumor. He continues to do so, thanks to those same records and movies. Why is this a big deal? It shouldn't be.

It never cease to amaze me to see religious types try to hitch their bandwagon to purely secular stuff.

Hello Carstonio,

"I know of no one who admires Elvis as a role model.."

Then I have to guess that you do not know many people. Leastwise not a wide array of them. I know loads that look up to Elvis and still find him to be an inspiration and a role model. One needs look no further than the obvious continuing popularity that he enjoys, posthumously. That his estate earned $47 million last year, over thirty years after his death, is amazing. That is not done by people that look down on the dude! They are not making pilgrimages to Graceland and buying Elvis product! The ones that still love him do it, and there must be millions of them.

There are few, if any, of the rich and famous that escape the microscope, and none that measure up to the ideal of perfection that they are held against as a role model. Not even Jesus, the Perfected One, was a Perfected One. And look at how many adore Him!

Perhaps half the work is managing the celebrities image after death that is the real Trick!

"I know loads that look up to Elvis and still find him to be an inspiration and a role model. One needs look no further than the obvious continuing popularity that he enjoys, posthumously."

We're talking about two different things. When someone is a role model, that means people want to emulate him and his behavior. Elvis has been a musical role model for aspiring performers. And many young men have wanted to emulate the swagger of the early Elvis.

But what you are talking about is deification, where people think of him as being far above and unlike themselves that emulating him as a person is pointless. They're not deifying Elvis as he really was, they're deifying a mythical construct. The same goes for the Elvis impersonators, who emulate the image but not the full person. The real-life Elvis had numerous faults like many other people, such as drug abuse, and his later years were almost a preview of his future son-in-law Michael Jackson.

"The planet is dying?"
Talk about ridiculous religious ideas...

"So I bought a .44 Magnum with solid-steel cast/ And in the blessed name of Elvis well I just let it blast/ 'Til my TV lay in pieces there at my feet/ And they busted me for disturbing the almighty peace."

Bruce Springsteen, "57 Channels (And Nothin' On)"

The King is honored by the Boss. Elvis is well on his way to deification.

Can't resist commenting here. I lived in Memphis for a couple of years and did attend the candlight vigil one year. While the majority of the participants were in the "fan" or "gawker" category, there were also people there having a very clearly religious (or religious-like) experience -- One woman ahead of me in line was dressed in all white and was doing her Rosary beads for hours.

I don't think it's a "redemption/forgiveness" thing, but I think that for some of those who are really into the Elvis thing there may be something about acceptance and outsider-ness that he represents for them. You get the feeling from the paraphrenalia (sp?) and stories shared at Graceland that Elvis was a pretty open-armed persion, and that may be a refuge that means something to some people more than others. I don't think that's really religious, but maybe more in the demi-god category of experience.

Hello Carstonio,

"We're talking about two different things. When someone is a role model, that means people want to emulate him and his behavior."

Not two different things, I think, but two different perspectives on the same thing. Elvis IS a role model, has been since he busted on the scene and continues to be today. That is just the obvious truth about it. Now he may not emanate the qualities that you either want to see in a role model or misses the definition of it in your book. That does not change the fact that he continues to be a role model to this day.

There is a lot that is known about Elvis and his life. Books, stories, interviews, investigations... The degree that people 'don't get the real Elvis' eludes me, particularly as you suggest that you are aware of the truth here and that admirers are not. Sounds a bit suspicious, Carstonio! Do you have Elvis Knowledge that the rest of us do not? :-)

"But what you are talking about is deification..."

Of course it is a mythical construct. All forms of deification is, I am sure. Whether it is a religious figure or the Beatles, we never worship the flesh and blood, traumatized and fallible human, unless of course that serves us. We worship qualities in humanity, and some people present that symbol better or more clearly than others. If they get known for it, they may become famous. Then they enter collective awareness and become a collective symbol.

Elvis was one of the most powerful symbols and role models for more than a generation of Americans, and then more. His fame was not limited to the States.

Again, what famous person is not affected by the aura that they nurtured that made them famous?

fr justtillthennow:

>...Then I have to guess that you do not know many people. Leastwise not a wide array of them...

Your bff was a bloated, overweight, boozing druggie. Find someone else to emulate.

Hmmm, "Carstonio" returns yet again. Remember, this is an anonymous blog and imposters abound violating blog rules and the Torah's ninth commandment.

And what human commandments did Elvis and Michael violate? Just about all of them!!!

And both blessed with such talent! How very tragic and sad!!!!

If you're unhappy with Elvis as a favorite dead celebrity, you can pick your own at the link just below - it's a peculiar world where the dead are more popular than the living! But the list doesn't go back near far enough......

The roster should of course include Jesus, Mohammed, Zoroaster, Plato, Pythagorus, Abraham, Moses, Plotinus, the Buddha, and a host of assorted pagan and christian saints, arhats, sages, and assorted imaginary avatars.

The Mind is a creative entity.......

http://www.stiffs.com/

Ah, Persiflage! Cheers again and merry met!

I like your own personal list, (perhaps not unlike a personal Jesus...), for celebrities and famous visages that ought be included into the List of Stiffs. Religious and Spiritual figures all. I can see your bias all the better with the list... In fact, I can see and relate.

Who was it that decided that rock and roll musicians should be in the company of The Elite? Well, I suppose it must have begun well before Handel and Brahms and Beethoven and Mozart and Vivaldi and their Ilk.

Indeed, I believe that the early Drummers were the first Rock Deities.

Santihom.

"That does not change the fact that he continues to be a role model to this day."

Can you provide examples of people emulating Elvis's personal life, as opposed to his public persona as a performer?

"The degree that people 'don't get the real Elvis' eludes me, particularly as you suggest that you are aware of the truth here and that admirers are not. Sounds a bit suspicious, Carstonio! Do you have Elvis Knowledge that the rest of us do not? :-)"

No way. I merely maintain that one can appreciate an artist's work separately from the personal life. I can condemn the crimes of Phil Spector and Roman Polanski while appreciating the artistry of the Wall of Sound and of "Chinatown." I can be repulsed by the bizarre personal lives of Elvis and Michael Jackson while enjoying their music. Treating those people as role models other than artistically means emulating their personal conduct. In the case of Elvis, that might mean having one's own Memphis Mafia and being addicted to prescription drugs.

"Again, what famous person is not affected by the aura that they nurtured that made them famous?"

Good point, and that goes along with my point about keeping the person and the art separate. You're right that the performers have some complicity in the deification process. But their fans are also complicit in this. The deification gets in the way of what is really important, which is the art. Not only does it corrupt the artist's self-image, it also corrupts the artistic process, where the artist believes that everything he produces either is a masterpiece or has to be one.

Justtilthennow, greetings and salutations!

'Indeed, I believe that the early Drummers were the first Rock Deities.'

I thought it was all about guitar gods, Clapton, Hendrix, Page, et al.......

Carstonio's Sunsessions link is revealing, in terms of the diversity of influences that helped create and shape the Elvis phenomenon - thanks mainly to the production genius of Sam Phillips.

Following on the heels of a similar public reaction to Frank Sinatra, early Elvis experience bordered on the religious - seeing him live on TV was similar to having a religious epiphany for many teens, to be followed later by a similar reaction to the Beatles and other musical celebrities.

The accessibility and mystique of Graceland does much in the way of keeping the eternal Elvis flame burning, IMO. He somehow seems imbedded in the culture.

I do know the Elvis hair style with the big wave in front and the DA (duck's a$$) in back was emulated by anyone who could pull it off - including yours truly. Oh to have all that hair today.......

For all the psychological hype, these kinds of 'crazed' public responses are as hard to explain as the apocalyptic visions of the Virgin Mary at Fatima and UFO sightings. Most write it off as mass hysteria accompanied by hallucinations - but often shared by large crowds of people!

I think poor old Elvis was the hapless victim of arrested development, where his public persona completely supplanted any kind of inner self-actualization that might have otherwise occurred naturally i.e. getting sucked dry by what Joni Mitchell referred to lyrically as the 'star maker machine'.

This probably happens a lot with celebrities, given their tendency to exhibit similar self-destructive behaviors.

Oh well, long live Elvis!!

Hello Persiflage,

Certainly rock musical guitarists and their vocalists did become the modern eras Musical Deities, supplanting the Pantheon of Classical Composers as Demi-Gods of the culture. Mozart and his peers were the adored greats for quite a while. But the aura of religious and transcendent ecstasy that was associated with the Beatles and Elvis and Jackson and many more was neither new nor unique in societal consciousness, as devotion to classical composers could attest.

I think that the roots of it go quite deep in human culture, back in fact to a stone age brain, (still works today!), that could go into Ecstatic Union with tribal ritual, and the help of the Drummers.

And, of course, Eywa!

Hello Carstonio,

You are really attached to maintaining a separation between the personal life of Elvis and the public persona. I do not doubt that there is quite a difference between the two, but so what? He is still revered as a role model, even to this day, the 'good' of it and the 'bad'.

Feel free to condemn the failings of Elvis or Polanski or Spector, or any of the other rich and famous that we hold up in the public eye. You will not be alone. It is a certainty, once famous, that one's failings will become a matter of public debate, reviling and revering. Rebellion was one of the pillars of "rock and roll" as well as in the psychology of the societal evolution of the 50's and 60's in the west. Rebellion against entrenched Authority and social mores was desirable. Elvis was one of the more influential, for his time, advocating individuality and rebellion against 'the Man'.

The person and the art are not separate. The two go together. One does not listen to Bruce Springsteen without taking in his Image, and his politics as well. As with the Beatles. The art and the phenomenon are inseparable. Sorry.

Justilthennow:

'I think that the roots of it go quite deep in human culture, back in fact to a stone age brain, (still works today!), that could go into Ecstatic Union with tribal ritual, and the help of the Drummers.'

You may be on to something very primitive in the human psyche - surely the history of ritualized speaking in tongues (glossolalia) is not confined to modern day practitioners of Pentacostal religions.

And was Elvis unknowingly engaged in shamanic activities? A question that needs to be asked. Unfortunately the magic took it's toll, as it always must....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trance

http://www.answers.com/topic/projection-and-participation-mystique-analytical-psychology

I was born in 1935 a few months after Elvis, and have never been baptized, unless it was done surreptitiously by a-religious-zealot-officious-intermeddler who thought she was saving my soul.

So where does that leave me?

A few minutes ago a television played a about 15 seconds or so of Elvis singing "Love Me Tender".

I sighed. That gorgeous voice.

That is why I remember Elvis.

It defeats me what the hell this has to do with faith. I realize that there are a number of 'Churches of Elvis', so that indeed he is the posthumous founder of a cult or two. Yes, he had a good voice, and was a decent person, but... churches?

Hello Persiflage,

Well, the magic may have taken 'it's toll', but that is not necessarily a bad thing. It was a hell of a ride, and the journey continues in it's own way.

Surely for many participants, experiencing live the music that they loved and aligned with has connections to more ancient shamanic tribal ritual. It makes explanation of the sense of a spiritually altered experience all the easier.

Thanks for the links!

Justilthennow:

'Well, the magic may have taken 'it's toll', but that is not necessarily a bad thing. It was a hell of a ride, and the journey continues in it's own way.'

And continues without end....is my guess. As another poster speculated on another thread...things only end if there's a beginning. And believing this as implicitly as we do, might be our most erroneous assumption!

Arminius:

I gather certain parallels are being drawn here between Presley's early religious background in Pentacostal churches and his wild and abandoned stage persona in later years.

He was also deeply inspired by black gospel music and delta blues players, among other diverse influences. I don't see a valid connection with the Mormons, however - or what proxy baptism has to do with anything at all.

In the end, Elvis, Tom Jones, and a whole host of celebrity hip shakers may owe more to our Pagan roots that anyone has cared to mention. I can almost hear Pan's satirical chuckle at that observation!

IMO, the Elvis phenomenon says alot about the power of Eros and nothing at all about theology.

It's easy to see direct links between this primal force and all kinds of religious expressions that are generally attributed to a much holier, more sacred source - because they occur on hallowed ground. It could be that such differences are negligible, depending on who you ask.

That's what I finally gleaned from the essay.

regards, Persiflage

Hello Persiflage,

I am sad that my last post to you did not fly through the Eye of Eywa and come to you. It did seem so beautiful and valid.

Oh well. Between Eros and theology there may be less of a chasm than would at first be assumed.

As always, my best.