Elvis Presley

     I'm always struck by a couple things when I visit the Elvis exhibit at the Rock Hall. First, his purple Lincoln is exquisite. I would love to spend a day tooling around town in that ride. Second, it's funny that his personal jukebox only has Elvis records in it. In fairness, I don't know if that was his doing or the Rock Hall's. The third thing has to do with people's perceptions about Elvis. There are two commonly accepted phases of Elvis' life; skinny Elvis and "fat" Elvis. I was as guilty as anyone else in this regard. "I love skinny, Jailhouse Rock Elvis, but I hate fat, In The Ghetto, La Vegas Elvis", I'd say. However, part of the exhibit is one of his "fat" Elvis jumpsuits. It's tiny. I would guess that about 90% of adult males roaming the Earth today, stuffing their pie holes with Big Macs and doughnuts, couldn't fit into that outfit. I know I couldn't. The other day, during their pledge drive, a local PBS station aired Elvis' Hawaiian concert. My wife randomly commented, "He wasn't fat". And he wasn't.
     I've mentioned before that my parents were Elvis fans who didn't like The Beatles. Therefore, I grew up watching Elvis movies, especially Blue Hawaii. Back before cable TV and VCR's there were no movie channels or video rentals. So, I would see these movies periodically when a local station ran an Elvis marathon on a Saturday. They always played Blue Hawaii. As a kid, Elvis' movies were fun. I'd fantasize about living in Hawaii and singing to girls. As I grew older, I realized that the movies were just a vehicle for other people to make money off of Elvis. I began to write off Elvis as a sell-out. To this day, I really only like his songs from the 50's, before he was drafted. That stuff is amazing.
     I don't have much Elvis in my collection. I inherited some LP's and 45's, but they aren't in great shape. Even at the record store, the used Elvis is usually pretty jacked up. I think the problem is most people who bought Elvis records back then were teenage girls. So, they drew hearts all over the covers, then their brothers would come along and draw on Elvis' face. And they didn't take very good care of the actual record either. I recently bought a CD box set of his output from the 50's and it's very good. The main reason I bought it was it had the song "Baby I Don't Care", which is one of my favorite Elvis songs, but it's hard to find on any of his albums. I would recommend it to my kids as a good introduction to Elvis. If they are interested in his releases from the 60's and 70's they are on their own. Anyhow, I thought I'd do a list of my favorite Elvis movies. Maybe I'll check at work and see if we sell any of them. It's been awhile. Peace.

1) Jailhouse Rock

2) Blue Hawaii

3) King Creole

4) Wild In The Country

5) Follow That Dream