Entertainment scene The legend lives on

Press, 1 September 1977, Page 13

Entertainment scene The legend lives on

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SANDY SOLTHON

Are Elvis Presley fans mourning the loss’of an era, or their idol Some of both, perhaps. Elvis cap•ured the imagination of thousands way back in the 50s — when the world was young, or so it seemed. Everything was much more simple then. We even had a few rules we believed in. Everyone loves a rags-»o-riches story, because there seems to be an innocence about it. In Presley’s case a $4 recording session turned into a multi-million dollar forune. Is it true that he was discovered while making a pay-for-your-own” record for his mother? It probably is. There were few gimmicks, and much less commercialism in those days. Then, talent sold itself, it did not need to be packaged and sold. Elvis was once reported to have said: “The first time I went on the stage I was scared to death. I heard all this screaming and didn't know what was wrong.”

After the number I apologised to the manager, saying I must have done something wrong?' The manager said: “Whatever you did wrong, go out and do it again.” Elvis Presley’s unmistakable sexuality challenged the ways of the 1950’5, an era when a first-date kiss was considered bold. Parents heard his throbbing, smouldering, driving sounds and shi-

vered with premonitions of the permissive societv still to come. For a time American television would not show any part of Elvis below the waist. He was behind entirely on many radio stations across the South because most white owners thought he had to be black to sing like that. Elvis had studied the styles of Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley and Fats Domino who were stars when Elvis was a teen-age electrician. He learned froi.. them as the Beatles, Elton John, Tom Jones, ant. Mick Jagger learned froi. him. He integrated music, only slightly "whitewashing” what was then called “race” music. As in “Heartbreak Hotel” in 1956 this style cut across pop, rhythm and blues, and country and western chart:. His gospel church upbringing may also have influenced his style. “Not since Samson was there such a celebrated haircut when he joined the United States army in 1958,” says New York correspondent Marsha Dugrow.

In a time of scalp haircuts his hair oozing hair cream onto an upturned collar, was a forerunner of hair as a symbol of radicalism in music and politics.

There was an undertow of sexual tension in his sensual, plaintive sounds. The parents of the day often felt as threatened by him as many of today’s parents feel about the more real dangers of drugs.

Presley was not only popular as a sex symbol and a figufe of defiance in a time of conformity, he was an excellent musician

and entertainer. Radio. television, cinema, and record companies are making sure that the death and legend of the king of rock-and-roll will not be forgotten and will reap lucrative rewards all over again. Re-releases of six Elvis albums are planned by

RCA in the next two months. Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols, a punk rock group, has pronounced his own epitaph on the “King.” “Really he came to represent everything we’re trying to react against. I don't want to become a big, fat reclusive star. Elvis’s gut was so big it cast a shadow over rock-and-roll in the last few years. Our music is what’s important now.”