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BS: Elvis - 75th Birthday

09 Jan 10 - 11:04 AM (#2807504)
Subject: BS: Elvis
From: 3refs

Did I miss it?
No one mentioned that it would have been Elvis' 75th birthday yesterday!

Happy Birthday!!!!!


09 Jan 10 - 11:44 AM (#2807528)
Subject: RE: BS: Elvis
From: Rapparee

You think he could get better hip action with replacements? And how would he hold his guitar and use the walker at the same time?


09 Jan 10 - 11:52 AM (#2807533)
Subject: RE: BS: Elvis
From: Leadfingers

You couldnt miss it in UK ! BBC had trailers for a whole day of Presley stuff on Radio 2 for the last month !


09 Jan 10 - 12:26 PM (#2807551)
Subject: RE: BS: Elvis
From: 3refs

There was lots of stuff on TV and radio here in Canada too, but not a word on Mudcat that I could find!
I really enjoyed the Aloha From Hawaii Anniversary concert, with Elvis on tape, and all the band members playing live. I only wish James Burton's fingers were what they used to be, and I wonder why John Wilkinson wasn't there! I didn't think Ronnie Tutt missed a beat on the drums!


09 Jan 10 - 12:59 PM (#2807566)
Subject: RE: BS: Elvis
From: Bobert

Actually, refs, I did mention it over at "Big Mick's" birthday thread...

Elvis meant alot to me in the 50's... His mini-LP 45 record with "Hound Dog", "Don't Be Cruel", "I Want You, I need You, I love You" and "Be Mine" on it was the firsy 45 record I ever owned... I got it and a record player for Christmas in 1956... From there on, I had graduated from the sandbox to the music box... Before long, I owned at least a half a dozen Elvis 45s...

Then I heard Link Wray and thought to myself "Sheet Fire, I think I'd like to learn up some of that stuff" and got me a little drum kit and, like they say, the rest is history...

Long live the King...

B~


09 Jan 10 - 01:26 PM (#2807582)
Subject: RE: BS: Elvis
From: GUEST,Tunesmith

Why isn't this in the music section?


09 Jan 10 - 01:52 PM (#2807598)
Subject: RE: BS: Elvis
From: bankley

'He broke the Colonel's contract, slipped away on an eternal wind
to finally leave the building, so go tell Graceland
That he won't be back again'

from 'Aaron'   and bless Scotty Moore too...


09 Jan 10 - 02:38 PM (#2807643)
Subject: RE: BS: Elvis - 75th Birthday
From: Bee-dubya-ell

In about 10½ years, Elvis will have been dead for as long as he was alive.

John Lennon will achieve that same milestone about six months later.

Jimi and Janis passed that mark a dozen or so years back and are working toward the goal of being dead for twice as long as they were alive.


09 Jan 10 - 03:00 PM (#2807664)
Subject: RE: BS: Elvis - 75th Birthday
From: Geoff the Duck

Thanks, Bee-dubya-ell, I was getting confused. I THOUGHT that he was dead, but was starting to wonder if I was mistaken?
Quack!
GtD.


09 Jan 10 - 03:07 PM (#2807669)
Subject: RE: BS: Elvis - 75th Birthday
From: Ebbie

Well, as far as that goes, Hank Williams Sr. has been gone almost twice as long as he lived. In case you are not familiar with the man and his songs: In a six year career and dying at age 29 HW had more songs on the charts than most anyone else and his songs - and style - influence performers to this day.


09 Jan 10 - 03:27 PM (#2807682)
Subject: RE: BS: Elvis - 75th Birthday
From: Ed T

An interesting article from the Times of India. In addition to music, he acted in 31 film..http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-interviews/In-death-Elvis-still-kicks-ass/articleshow/5427022.cm


09 Jan 10 - 03:31 PM (#2807685)
Subject: RE: BS: Elvis - 75th Birthday
From: Ed T

For some reason it will not link" Here is the article:
here: Home » Entertainment » Hollywood » News & Interviews
        
In death Elvis still kicks ass
SHONE BABU , TOI Crest, 9 January 2010, 12:34pm IST

Elvis was to music what Picasso was to art. After all, he was the first poster-prince of entertainment. He has spawned a cottage industry of

impersonators who imitate him for a living. In death, Elvis rakes in perhaps more money than Albert Einstein and John Lennon put together, and there is enough auctionable material in Elvis's estate to keep those headlines coming for decades.

Around the time MJ died, Facebook and conversations were abuzz with exclamations of how this was going to be bigger than (the deaths of) Elvis and Lennon put together. Not too different from the innocent but virulently annoying query of a 10-year-old about a confrontation between Superman and the Green Lantern.

So far, Elvis seems to be leading the poll. MJ's funeral was impressive, but six months later, the awe and endearment with which everyone took his name has taken a bow. Do we, for example, remember how, on hearing the news that it was actually Susan Boyle's album that outsold MJ's posthumous releases, there was just a whimper of disappointment?

MJ was the Pope of pop, but, in the words of Lennon, it all started with Elvis. He wasn't a musical genius . He didn't write any of the songs he sang on stage. But he brought with him an ensemble of orchestrated performances that left audiences wildly entertained and teary-eyed .

The songs were composed and written by others, but Elvis had the

unique ability to make them his own. The voice that reigned supreme on the charts for decades possessed a soulful lilt that was unique for a white man.

President of the Elvis Presley fan club India, and an RJ with Rainbow FM, Fali Singara says (see box), "In the initial days, when Elvis was heard on radio, people would stop their kids from listening to him, thinking it was a black man singing. Only after he staged an appearance on a TV show did people know he was white."

However, for us there are good reasons to believe Elvis was a very Indian icon. And not just because he was installed as a deity in a temple in Karnataka a few years ago. Singara says the early Bollywood movies were just like Elvis movies, with a dash of James Bond thrown in. "The handsome hero but loveable rebel woos the girls, beats up the villains, has a couple of 'amorous' escapades and bursts into song and dance without notice," he says. And what to say of Elvis' love for bling and kitsch? His spangled jumpsuits, knuckleduster rings, golden belts and flamboyant style paved the way for Bappi Lahiri's iconic image.

Mahesh Punwani, a retired engineer from Mumbai, who attended an Elvis concert as a student in the US, says it was a chance encounter that left an indelible impression on him. "Elvis had come for a concert in Phoenix in 1969. I remember the football stadium was packed, and he arrived two hours late, driven to the stage in a limo. I saw his face, and you could see the blood rushing to his face every time he spoke. He was charged and the whole scene was truly ethereal."

It also comes as a surprise that long before The Beatles made it look cool, Elvis already had an Indian guru. He was really interested in exploring Indian mysticism in his later years. "His song Kismet, and his dutiful devotion to Indian mysticism reveal that Elvis was acutely interested in India. It was part of his attempts to achieve self-realisation ," says Singara.

Growing up in the eighties, an entire generation got to see Elvis on the few channels that aired at that time. In the pre-satellite era, MTV would play movies starring Elvis or The Beatles.

More than his sense of fashion, more than the baritone voice, more than the stage acts, perhaps Elvis's greatest contribution to music would be the way he made his fans relate to him," says Nikhil Mawkin, a budding musician who started out doing Elvis covers across the capital. "Like very few celebrities, Elvis had the unique ability to make the fan feel he/she was the only one he was communicating to," says Mawkin.

At one point, Elvis was doing 60 concerts in 30 days at the behest of the Las Vegas studios. And ,unlike Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin, Elvis didn't just sit on a stool. Performing stars burn out faster. Michael Jackson met with the same exhausted end too.

For musicians, however, Elvis remains an indirect influence. "He's called the King of Rock 'n' Roll, but everyone knows he was only one of the pioneers in this field. There were other greats like Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Muddy Waters who were virtuosos in their own right. But this white man sang the black man's blues and brought rock 'n' roll to the mainstream," says Bruce Lee Mani, lead guitarist for Thermal and A Quarter, a Bangalore-based band. In fact, for any musician playing rock and its various paraphernalia, Elvis' influence has trickled down in the form of the stage acts, the sound and the very act of singing.

There were better singers than Elvis, and there were truly greater actors too, but surely Elvis was the greatest entertainer of the 20th century.

'Before anyone did anything, Elvis did everything'

The message on the T-shirt is typical of the passion that drives the Mumbai-based official Elvis Presley Fan Club of India. A look at the rest of the Elvis memorabilia - painstakingly put together by founding member Zahir Chinoy - will put the T-shirt in perspective.

Edgy and electric - much like the king of Rock 'n' Roll himself, the treasure trove of moods, moments and turning points narrates a story scripted over the last 50 years. From a plaque commemorating Presley's debut with That's All Righton July 5, 1954, to menu cards from each of his shows to a boarding pass from a flight on the Lisa Marie airplane to movie posters, Elvis mirrors, tickets and pictures from Graceland and more, every piece of the collection tells its own tale.

Holding pride of place is a picture of Elvis from Blue Hawaiiautographed by the man himself. "My grandma sourced that for dad while on a trip to Hollywood," says 36-year-old Sajjid, Zahir's son. "It was a weekend, and the studios were shut. She happened to meet a waitress who knew Elvis' director. So grandma gave her my dad's name and address - and forgot all about it. But the waitress had not made a tall claim. The photo did arrive in due course," he says.

With over 100 active members from across the country, the first Elvis Presley Fan Club of India was formally founded by Chinoy and Rajiv Jacobi in 1981 - though the shared mania for his music had brought them together much before that. "When Elvis passed away in 1977, the Elvis Presley enterprise made the name a trademark. No business venture or club could be named after him unless they registered. We applied and succeeded," narrates Jacobi. "We once sourced some Elvis music for an American fan who lived in a city less than 200 km from Memphis. I guess that's saying something. Even Patsy Anderson (former manager at Graceland) said our understanding was incredible," he recounts.

From networking with fans across the world, to getting together to discuss his music and its roots, to organising his movie screenings, to addressing audiences on Elvis, the club does it all. "On his 75th birthday, plans are afoot to organise an Elvis concert in the city. And step up the screenings as well, not to forget redoing the basement which was damaged in the monsoon floods some years ago," says Sajjid.

And thus, the quest continues. The King Lives. But we know that, don't we?


09 Jan 10 - 03:48 PM (#2807701)
Subject: RE: BS: Elvis - 75th Birthday
From: Bill D

Last night, at our sing, SongBob sang this... Galway to Graceland

It says a lot about how *I* feel about the Elvis phenomenon.


10 Jan 10 - 11:18 AM (#2808285)
Subject: RE: BS: Elvis - 75th Birthday
From: Dave Roberts

Elvis was the greatest.