Its now or never, come hold me tight.

[B. Goren.]

Today is the king's birthday. He could have been 73.

[JSngry]

I'll listen to some Public Enemy in his honor!

[Alexander]

Happy Birthday, King!

Anyone see "Walk Hard," btw? Jack White does a wonderful Elvis!

[Jazzmoose]

I don't have any Presley; can I play some McManus instead?

[Chuck Nessa]

Elvis was my personal/emotional start in music. I had been in church choir, heard all the "standards" by Sinatra, etc on the radio but he riveted me. Elvis, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash made music personal to me. I was not yet a "teen" but was moved. The reaction against Little Richard, by a Des Moines dj, made me pay special attention to black performers (Thanks to Don Bell). This inspiration and the transition to Armstrong and Ellington took about 2 years.

I still really enjoy early Elvis and cringe as he "went off track" in the late '50s.

[Van Basten II]

I played a game of bowling with him yesterday, scored 185, rhumatism is creeping up on him, can not give a spin to the ball like he used to.

[AllenLowe]

if you want to hear the first avant garde vocal recording, listen to Elvis's Sun version of Blue Moon -

I kid you not -

[BruceH]

if you want to hear the first avant garde vocal recording, listen to Elvis's Sun version of Blue Moon -

I kid you not -

Quite right, Allen.

By the way-

"...the man who can sing when he hasn't got a thing he's the king

of the whole wide world..."

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Elvis was my personal/emotional start in music. I had been in church choir, heard all the "standards" by Sinatra, etc on the radio but he riveted me. Elvis, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash made music personal to me. I was not yet a "teen" but was moved. The reaction against Little Richard, by a Des Moines dj, made me pay special attention to black performers (Thanks to Don Bell). This inspiration and the transition to Armstrong and Ellington took about 2 years.

I still really enjoy early Elvis and cringe as he "went off track" in the late '50s.

Same here, only I heard Fats Domino first. So Elvis was never quite so riveting, for me, as for everyone else I knew. And it was four years before I started buying jazz albums. So I think I'll play some Fats later

MG

[paul secor]

Elvis was my personal/emotional start in music. I had been in church choir, heard all the "standards" by Sinatra, etc on the radio but he riveted me. Elvis, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash made music personal to me. I was not yet a "teen" but was moved. The reaction against Little Richard, by a Des Moines dj, made me pay special attention to black performers (Thanks to Don Bell). This inspiration and the transition to Armstrong and Ellington took about 2 years.

I still really enjoy early Elvis and cringe as he "went off track" in the late '50s.

Never took to Elvis early on - back then, thought that he was for the girls. Chuck Berry was my main man - to me, he was "The King". Took me til the mid 70's to hear Elvis' Sun stuff and to appreciate what he did.

[AllenLowe]

to get Elvis it helps to understand the whole evangelical/gospel style of singing - which in many ways is what makes him different - his whole personal singing approach was tied to group religious singing -

[BruceH]

Elvis was my personal/emotional start in music. I had been in church choir, heard all the "standards" by Sinatra, etc on the radio but he riveted me. Elvis, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash made music personal to me. I was not yet a "teen" but was moved. The reaction against Little Richard, by a Des Moines dj, made me pay special attention to black performers (Thanks to Don Bell). This inspiration and the transition to Armstrong and Ellington took about 2 years.

I still really enjoy early Elvis and cringe as he "went off track" in the late '50s.

Same here, only I heard Fats Domino first. So Elvis was never quite so riveting, for me, as for everyone else I knew. And it was four years before I started buying jazz albums. So I think I'll play some Fats later

MG

Fats Domino RULES!!

From my first serious music listening to my first serious consistant jazz buying was only 11 years.

Allen is so on target it's scary!

[ghost of miles]

I'll listen to some Public Enemy in his honor!

He was a hero to most, you know.

[JSngry]

It also helps to understand the fatally symbiotic love/hate relationship that so many poor White Southern folks have with Southern Black peoples. It's a world of taboos that are feared and flaunted in equal measure, such that what many have heard as the whole "white guy singing colored" trip (as I've heard it described by many over the years) is so damn pseudo-liberating and ultimately oppressive - for all concerned - in equal measure that it's hard for me to have a response to Elvis and others of the same "ilk" other than one of...discomfort. There is no real "solution" in any of this stuff, nor is there any "progress" other than in ways for people to profit. There for damn sure ain't no "colorblindness" in any of it. In fact, it's just the opposite, and in that regard, how "revolutionary" was it, really? One could call it Same Story, Next Chapter, and not be wholly inaccurate, could one not?

America's problem, to be sure. But one which I find resolved (or being ongoingly resolved to be more accurate) in many better ways in many other places. Whatever Elvis and others did to facilitate that resolution (and I guess you could argue that he paved the way for the Memphisian interracial stone soulfullness of Stax, et al, although that all came crumbling down when "crisis time" hit America, didn't it...) is duly noted. but that's it for me.

Edited January 9, 2008 by JSngry

[AllenLowe]

interestingly, Sam Phillips, in describing the young Elvis, said he was so beaten down and shy that he was the most-like-a-black-man white man he had ever met -

[B. Goren.]

Chuck Berry was my main man - to me, he was "The King".

Chuck Berry was also my King.

Johnny B. Goode

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I see the go-go dancers couldn't do the duck walk

Was playing my Chuck Berry albums sometime over Christmas.

MG

[JSngry]

interestingly, Sam Phillips, in describing the young Elvis, said he was so beaten down and shy that he was the most-like-a-black-man white man he had ever met -

That statement is very telling, and maybe not how you maybe think...