JSngry

I can't speak for inside the stalls, but on the whole, you're 100% correct!

Was he lazy? No, not really. King of Cool (as a reissue of some of his stuff a few years ago was so-labeled and logoed)? Could be. I don't know much about that type of thing myself. However, he lived and died long enough to sing "I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm" in a Waco barbecue restaurant men's room in 2010 without having to actually be there. How much more of a triumph is there to be had?

"Fan" in 2010, almost 2011, more than a few years and albums later, is just a bit strong, and reveals a failure to keep up with the evolution of what it is you seek to "attack" and/or "challenge". Keep trying, though. If/when you get some new schtick it should be pretty good! Now there's a challenge! Yes it is. Just like there is so much Wynton-envy.

Have scanned the book, not read it, probably won't unless I get laid up in bed for a long time...don't care that much overall, but read enough reviews to get the gist and what I suspect are all the pertinent insights. A lazy man's approach, as befits the subject, perhaps. As for Dean's music, there's some...pretty good, not great, things to be heard on both Capitol & Reprise. And "Houston", hey, if you don't like "Houston", then what's the point, right? But The Selling Of The Dean Myth is ALL about The Image. The actual music, fine as more-than-you-might-think of it actually is, is just there as an excuse. Not that it wasn't always that way...

You know, you talk about Dean...I was on my way to a gig in Victoria weekend before last, and we made a stop at the Rudy's in Waco to take a pee and leave with some cue (both of which are essential elements of any road trip worth being called such). Well, ok, walk into the men's room and some Country/Christian thing is finishing up and before you know it, here's Dean Freakin' Martin coming on with "I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm'. The combination of place, function, and soundtrack really threw me for a loop, but not nearly ass much as listening to how Dean was bouncing his phrases off of what I assumed to be Joe Comfort's bass lines (if it wasn't Comfort, oh well, it was still right in there). The whole thing was just TOO DAMN COOL, a first-ballot shoo in for the Road Trip Urination And Barbecue Stop Hall Of Fame. I love it when stuff like that happens.

Above or below sea level?

I don't necessarily like everything I care about, and vice-versa.

No "possibly" to it...which would be ok, welcome, even, perhaps, except that the pigs that brought us here will not yield graciously, and will not hesitate to use any and every measure on us "common people" to hold on to as much as they can by any means necessary. They were gangsters when they could afford to be, but will open a plantation in a heartbeat if they have to. And they will have "Love Me Tender" on a 24 hour loop. Dude - you didn't even recognize the greatness of Andy Williams. I'm supposed to take you seriously?

That statement was not made by the thread opener. No any healthier at all. There aren't nearly as many immediate ramifications, but no, it's not healthy at all.

Dream With Dean.

No, what started this thread was a link to an article about a forthcoming box set of every Elvis RCA master ever recorded, and how what an important accomplishment that is, albeit one for a specialized market. If that's not playing directly from the myth, I don't know what is. Everything else has just been gravy.

Everything else, eh? Sure....

OH yeah!

That comment, sir, was made in the Johnny Mathis thread, which remains open and was never locked.

Whose version? Tea Party, Nazis, Elvis, Wagner, the mob; all that is missing is a pair of superb tits, and you got yourself a screenplay, kid. A pair of superb tits and an agent....

The "actual person" is meaningless. The myth killed the actual person long before the actual person actually died, and the myth is all that exists, and has existed, for as long as really matters. Mo myth = No Elvis, just Elvis Presley, a guy who made some popular records for RCA. Him we can talk about (and I still am not enamored, but not to the same degree), except for that he doesn't exist. Not now, not really, and hardly ever.

Intoxication causes all sorts of behavior, not all of it rational. Some of it is, however, driven by the marketplace, and Monroe's move could/should at least be considered in such terms. It would be naive not to. As for the rockabilly cats, would have happened anyway, maybe even better (well, actually, it did, but...psychos never really have a chance in The Marketplace). But of the names you mention, I think that Perkins was too bashful for his own good from jump to ahve any long-term importance, Buddy Holly was somebody who I respect (ok, "respect") but personally have little to no use for, although his combination of perpetually juvenile lovestruckness and wholesome/harmless energy certainly makes him a logical candidate for Elvis-influence, and Charlie Feathers, uh...ok. Charlie Feathers. Why not?

Y U NO LIKE CAVEMEN? OK, the series was truly awful, but the ads were nearly always good. I really dug 'em at first, and for a while, but for my taste the ads ran out of freshness about year before the ads stopped production. Does anybody else do a campaign like GEICO, with more than one distinct "theme" and character set running simultaneously? I'm wondering what would happen if some of those worlds collided....

Made a significant contribution to the mindset of the way it is quite possibly on the verge of becoming. Alarmist, perhaps, but perhaps not. "Too big to fail" is not a guaranteed benevolent proposition, or even a probably benevolent one, and in the face of that, Tea Partiers seem more than ready to act out on their proclivities to give themselves up to them that mean them no good. Sounds like Elvis to me!

The cavemen jumped the shark long before they actually got eaten by it...the talking gekko keeps threatening to jump the shark, but they keep pulling back just in time, at least for my tastes. But that's some thin ice they're on, to be sure. The latest batch, though, the drill Sargent, the bird-in-the-hand, the little piggie, and the woodchucking woodchucks have a certain deadpan insanity to them that I find wuite appealing, at least for now.

Doesn't really speak for America. Or does this tie in with what you say about America becoming one big jail and a certain mindset being produced by a certain music? Any guarantee that - if there had been no Elvis - this tendency of America becoming one big jail would NOT have happened just as much with mobster-dictated Las Vegas lull-in lounge music as dispensed by Frankieboy et al? :crazy: See, real mobsters know that it's good business to have an illusion of freedom. That way, people can more or less conduct their nice little insignificant personal business as they think they see fit. The businessmen make their's and everybody stays happy. That's the good old America that is now on the verge of forced extinction. The new guys are ready to plantationize everything. No freedom on a plantation, especially the delicious illusory kind.

Dude - America loves it's mobsters. Don't kid yourself. America, otoh, does not love it's rednecks other than as cash/vote crops. The rednecks, however, love themselves, far too often for the wrong reasons, Elvis being one of them. Come visit and see for yourself!

Which half? Simply that America is on the verge of becoming one big jail for all but a few, and that the mindset that resulted from Elvismusic is a primary tool of the enslavers. And please note that I did not make an exact analogy. I said it was almost like. Am I not being fair to Wagner?

All of the above, and then some. Sometimes I'm Palladin, sometimes I'm Pal Joey. Depends on what day it is, what the subject matter is, and how much I really care. And you?

Image/hype-wise, absolutely. But they had enough truly great (and yeah, that's totally subjective) songs - and actual creative evolution - to warrant further consideration beyond the hype of the "popular" realm. In my opinion of course.