It's midnight on 8/16 in Memphis now: RIP, Elvis, twenty-nine years on...

[ForrestGump]

Hard to believe it's been that long. :cry:



And he's had a busy year.

I knew about all the chart-topping rerelease singles that hit in the UK last year (in the UK alone, last year, he sold over 800 000 singles and 200 000 albums), every one landing in the top five and earning him an additional posthumous four number one hits, nine number two placings, five number three records, and one single each at #4 and #5. :o

What I didn't catch was a reissue of "Heartbreak Hotel" -- again, like the British singles, not a disco remix or anything like that, but the original 1956 recording released again 50 years on (Elvis recorded the song two days after his 21st birthday, in his first RCA session in Nashville) -- hitting number one on the US charts, the Billboard Hot 100.

Elvis has always been bigger and more respected as a musician overseas than in his own country, so the British chartings -- though staggering in their density (most contemporary performers would love that sort of chart action in their entire career, let alone over the five month period during which the singles were released) -- are not total surprises, but any time Elvis tops or nearly tops the US chart is fairly significant news.

And I can verify from my encounters with two and three-year-olds, who not only know who Elvis is but know at least some of his songs, that the whole phenomenon that was Elvis Presley and that remains Elvis even decades after the man's death is intact and, if anything growing. It is amazing, and by any measure it is unprecedented. Even if you don't know anything about Elvis or don't think much of what you do know about him, you've got to acknowledge that, in life and beyond, he was not even close to being like anybody else.

I don't think Elvis is going to fade from collective consciousness and pop culture any time soon.... :D

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. And I remember the day the news broke like it was yesterday

Only a few performers deaths got to me like that: Elvis, Lennon and Ella

[idgiehkt]

3. I can remember cause I was 7 and I saw it on tv and I told my mom

and she cried.

[ForrestGump]

8. Me, too

I remember the weather (rain) and so much from television that night, including -- very vividly -- a TV broadcaster breaking down and crying. I don't know why Elvis' death hit me so hard then, because I barely knew anything about him, but it did.

[auntAgonist]

2. I remember it well. I became engaged to

my first husband the night Elvis died.

RIP E!


aA

[ForrestGump]

9. I've met a few people, in the course of my job, who had

birthdays on August 16....and who get bummed out each time they're supposed to be celebrating their birthdays, even now... :-(

[Nicole]

4. It doesn't seem that long ago

I remember one of my friends calling me to tell the news, she was a big fan.

[ForrestGump]

10. Yeah, it's hard to believe

Just like I still go "what the hell?" when I hear Madonna's music or stuff by bands like Talking Heads called 'oldies.' Time does march on. But Elvis is immortal now... :-)

[jus_the_facts]

5. Sigh...sure doesn't seem like it's been that long ago.....

...two days before he died I stood in front of Graceland...took pictures in front of the gate...came home and was swimmin' next door and a friend from down the street came screamin' that he'd died...I called her a LIAR. :cry:

[ForrestGump]

11. Oh, wow

That would have been a serious freaking out... :hug:

Elvis was sleeping in there, most likely, in the room on the top floor to the left of the door and portico. He went out riding a motorcycle, that day, but I don't know when.

[jus_the_facts]

12. It was...m'Mom had promised my sister and I that she would take us....

..to see him on his next tour...but it wasn't to be...I cried and clipped newspaper articles for a long time after that...everything I could find...don't know what ever happened to all o'those now...sure wish I'd held on to them in hindsight...I was only 9 that year...he'd made an impression on me as a wee lass...always loved his awesome voice and think he was THE most gorgeous man that ever walked this earth.


A couple years ago when I worked as a home health aid to a girl with Down's Syndrome...I took my Greatest hits CD over to her house and played it while I cooked her supper...it made her soooo happy..she danced and snapped her fingers....she was THRILLED and it made me so very glad to have made her laugh and smile so much in one evening...she remembered listenin' to Elvis with her family and every song that came on she'd just squeel...she thought people on TV could see her dancin'...it' was priceless. :)

[ForrestGump]

6. Just found this kinda nice tribute on youtube...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1yfMUx9g80

The song is by Ilse Delange....

[ForrestGump]

7. And another youtube clip that seems appropriate...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_J34QK_6zM

"I'll Remember You," from the 1973 satellite-broadcast concert in Hawaii. Hawaiian songwriter Kui Lee wrote the song and the broadcast concert and its filmed dry-run predecessor were benefit shows to raise money for the Kui Lee Cancer Fund, in Kui Lee's memory.

[idgiehkt]

13. wow.

geez.

sad.

[Floogeldy]

14. They said that The Beatles were four Elvises.

But Ringo said it's not true. ;)

[jus_the_facts]

15. kickin' it for the KING...

:loveya:

[ScreamingMeemie]

16. :(... I was seven and sick in bed... and it came over the radio.

My older brother started crying and my mom called my grandma. It was really the only time the death of a celebrity felt like the death of a family member, until Johnny Cash died.

I really believe the music and the soul of Elvis will always be huge. No one has ever accomplished as much as he did... and did it with as much sense of self. His Mama would have been proud.

[johnnie]

17. I have been a fan since I was 5

The kid up the street turned me on to him and I really dug Elvis. I had already had Dion as my favorite, but Elvis was better in my opinion back then.

When he died I was at a friend's house and we were listening to records. At that time I wasn't doing as much listening to Elvis because I was 12 and eating up all the other music I was starting to discover. I had no one in my family to pass that stuff down for me so I searched on my own.

Anyway, we were listening to records and my friend had a copy of Live at Madison Square Garden. I said "Hey, let's play this one" and he was all too happy to do so. That was the only album we listened to all the way through that night.

When I got home that night I walked in the door and my whole family were sitting in front of the TV and they all turned around to look at me. They looked like someone had just died. Well, someone did and they all knew it would knock me out. I was just stunned. I just thought it was strange that we had listened to that album that night.

Same sort of thing happened 3 years later. I woke up to the news and looked over to my turntable. Lennon's Shaved Fish was still sitting on it from the night before. Weird.

[Jamastiene]

18. You mean

YOU are not REALLY ELVIS. I thought you were. He's really gone? :cry:

[KamaAina]

19. Elvis is dead??!!

:(

But if Elvis is dead, who's the husky guy with the sideburns who checks out at the 7-Eleven in Kalamazoo? :eyes:

[Zomby Woof]

20. When Elvis Left The Building

I was 10 years old, living in El Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain. Our family heard the news on Armed Forces Radio, our only 'real-time' lifeline to the news of the world... the Stars & Stripes newspaper was shipped in from Germany with headlines three days older than the newspaper date... so even after the initial shock, I couldn't read about it for three more days. Whatever coverage was afforded the radio, I absorbed like a sponge in the interim.

The evening after hearing it on the radio, I remember we sat at our outdoor patio table, and dinner was being prepared. I was still heartbroken over the loss of my grandmother just over a month before, and it seemed like death hung over the entire summer. Even at my young age, I knew he was gone too soon.

"The King of Rock and Roll... was only 42!", my Dad uttered, that long ago Andalusian evening. Dad was just shy of 36, and I could see the intimation of mortality hit him upon his reflection.

How different was the era before CNN, before round-the-clock news coverage. No internet chat forums. How different now when an icon dies. Elvis needed no logo, no faux-somber teleprompter reader, no endless analysis by umpteen talking heads telling us how we should mourn. In our case, we had no television at all - we only had a few minutes of bare facts on the radio one time per day, and a delayed headline story to read and re-read. We were among the very few who even had a phone. We had our thoughts, and we could converse and share them only among ourselves and a few friends.

Twentynine years out, one special legacy I have noticed: Elvis is THE shorthand cultural nom de plume - a barometer - for whichever icon means the most to us. We all have our own "Elvis", even if it isn't Elvis himself. Everyone knows EXACTLY what you mean when you say "________ is my Elvis."

But finding our Elvis is easy. It's being received at Graceland that still eludes too many of us.

[progmom]

21. we were there on Wednesday

It was nice to pay tribute to the King at his house on Wednesday. It was a coincidence that our trip took us to Memphis on such an historically important day. Lots of pilgrams there, and tons and tons of flowers. We thought of you. :hug:

[johnnie]

22. It's a trip out there huh?

I've been there in August a few times.