It may have some folk roots but Elvis is a commercial product.

Elvis is of deep folkloric significance in spite (or is because of?) of his commercialism. How deep does this stuff go? In terms of Americana, pretty deep for sure. But how it comes to be running in my blood is a different issue, much less the folklore-rich holiday-makers of Blackpool on a rainy bank-holiday Saturday; when the moment is right it sparks with such an vivid immediacy the effect is, as I say, transcendent.

I had a similar epiphany a few years ago when weary of Xmas muzak I walked into an off-license to buy a seasonal bottle of Talisker to hear Joy Division's Atrocity Exhibition blasting out. I swear, at that moment I wept. It wasn't just the music - known & cherished since the day of its release - it was hearing it out of nowhere in a kindred context; a human link as I caught the smiling eye of the bloke in the shop - that resonant sense of knowing which I accepted as a blessing. For those of us without religion this is as spiritual as it gets.