Thoughts on the Passing of PRESLEY

Rip It Up, Issue 4, 1 September 1977, Page 4

Thoughts on the Passing of PRESLEY

Peter Thomson.

At the time of writing Elvis has been dead a mere 24 hours. The news made front-page headlines in both Dailies, television plans and extravaganza and no doubt Time will do a special feature, maybe even a cover. Why add to the media blitz? Simply because Elvis was not just a cultural phenomenon who made news; he was, and, despite the decline of his later years, he remained one of the few rock artists of genius. He was the spearhead of a movement that turned popular music inside out. Put bluntly, without Elvis this paper probably wouldn’t exist.

The established media will discuss and dissect the details of his life/legend: the truck driver who sang nigger music, the two-way hysteria of teens and parents, the army, those movies, Las Vegas, blah blah. Hopefully, in all the orgy of information they will mention the music and its performance. The poet Thom Gunn once wrote of Elvis: “He turns revolt into a style.’ It is true Presley created rebellious fashions in greased-up hair, tight trousers and drape jackets, but the revolt went a lot deeper to his art. Presley, almost single-handedly, brought the raw sexual excitement and rhythms of Black music to a world-wide white audience. His sound overlapped all the American fields of popular music; to the white strains of tin pan alley and C & W, he blended R & B and original rock & roll. Those early recordings “That’s Alright Mama”, “Mystery Train”,

“Heartbreak Hotel” and so on still retain a power and energy that is incandescent. Great Elvis records are not just classics to remain respectfully filed in archives; they get thrashed regularly at parties all over town. Check out the pub juke-boxes; they’ll be there too. Thom Gunn went on to write: Whether he poses or is real, no cat Bothers to say: the pose held is a

stance. Therein lies the Presley enigma: a rock genius who could alternate intensity with effortless nonchalance: who could take greater risks in his music with greater success than any comparable singer, yet who increasingly palyed it safe as his career developed. He exhibited brilliant intuitive musical taste in early years but later showed a distressing inability to distinguish his strengths from his weaknesses. Did Elvis really lay waste to his talents or simply squander them on efforts not worth his energy? The latter interpretation seems more accurate.

After his army stint, Elvis went into isolation, protected by his ‘Memphis Mafia’ from the world in general and his adoring fans in particular. The problem was that this very inaccessibility isolated him from all cultural input. Coupled with this lack of feedback from the outside world went

Elvis’ absolute faith in the judgement of manager Tom Parker. These two factors combined are said to account for the poor films and steady decline in the quality of Presley’s recordings. He simply did what business advisors considered most profitable, and so his career slowly sank beneath the accumlated weight of saccharine ballads and the sad imitations of his own imitators (Tom Jones et al). Evidence of this can be readily identified in the last two Elvis musical films seen in New Zealand: That’s the Way It Is and Elvis On Tour. Gone is the lean young man in white shoes and black shirt with, (as Mike Farren put it) ‘the sullen good looks of a successful hub-cap thief.' Instead, we see a paunchy, sequined, posturing, Las Vegas lounge singer crooning “The Impossible Dream’’. Yet that is by no means the whole picture. While there is the lamentable self-parody there are also sparks of that original rock’n’roll fire; it’s just that they are carefully modulated within a context that is glorifyingly middle-of-the-road. The pretentious “American Trilogy’’ is there but so is a dynamite version of “Polk Salad Annie” that has all the verve and swivelling snap of vintage Presley. When the camera pans the audience we get some indication of the breadth of this man’s appeal ranging from pre-teen to post-menopausal. Elvis had, and has, a devoted following that covers the whole spectrum of society in age, race, and social class. Perhaps in recording and performing some of his, to my mind, inferior material, he was simply catering for different elements of his huge audience. And like the flashes in those films, there was always an occasional performance to prove that Elvis was still a master of rock, (for example: the Memphis T.V. special, the Back In Memphis album, the singles “Guitar Man” and “Suspicious Minds”.)

It is testament to Presley’s greatness as a rocker that he generated enough energy during those first five or six years to carry him through the minimal creative activity of the following one and a half decades. Any lesser star would have burnt out long ago. Stardom in any medium is the goal that becomes a burden. It is frequently antithetical to the growth of the individual’s art, and in rock music it frequently becomes self-destructive at high personal cost. Elvis was not just a star, he was a superstar, the biggest of them all, yet he came through superstardom without ever forgetting what it meant to rock. There are a lot of people who would rock to Elvis who wouldn't consider listening to Rod Stewart or the Stones. I know of two grand mothers who will miss the King as much as I do.:- -T-'' 'f •;