30 Years After Elvis’s Death, Graceland Set For $250 Million Makeover
Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 08.14.07 | 11:26 AM ET
Or, as the groan-inducing headline in the Los Angeles Times reads, Graceland About to Get All Shook Up. According to the AP, CKX Inc., the company that controls Elvis Presley’s name and image as well as Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee, plans a new visitors center, a convention hotel and a museum with high-tech displays. “As great as it is,” CKX Chairman Robert F.X. Sillerman said of Graceland, “it can be so much better.” The project will take approximately three years.
The news comes in advance of the 30th anniversary of Elvis’s death on Aug. 16, 1977, which is being recognized at Graceland with “Elvis Week.” Among the events accessible outside Memphis: Tomorrow night, CNN’s Larry King will broadcast his show from within Graceland. His guest: Priscilla Presley.
King’s broadcast will likely be cheesy, as so much involving Elvis unfortunately is these days. (And, after watching King’s show with surviving Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr last month, I wouldn’t count on him to raise the bar.) Despite being caricatured as a bloated, jump-suited, TV-shooting has been, Elvis still remains an important part of American culture. Just check out these three terrific stories from recent days:
* From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: At Graceland, a Father and Son Get in Touch With Their Inner Elvis
* From the New York Times: How Did Elvis Get Turned Into a Racist?
* From the Washington Post: King Blelvis
The last story focuses on Blelvis, aka the Black Elvis, aka Rondy Andrew Wooten. ‘I don’t want to sound braggadocious or anything,” he tells the Post’s Monica Hesse, “but I’m sort of a D.C. institution.”
He is. I met him last summer on U Street when he walked up to me and my wife and asked us to pick any Elvis song and he’d serenade us with it. He’s been wowing locals and tourists alike with pipes and his knowledge of all 1,112 songs Presley ever recorded. Here’s a little taste via YouTube:
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Michael Yessis is the cofounder and coeditor of World Hum.
MauriceColgan 08.14.07 | 12:18 PM ET
Mocking Elvis Presley, and his fans, has become a regular pastime for certain sections of the media. The less intelligent sections.
Like the great Ludwig Van Beethoven (Also often caricatured) Elvis Presley’s best work will endure simply because discerning listeners recognise the beauty of his voice, the most versatile and exciting voice in popular music ever!
John Lennon appreciated that fact. Remember his, “I Love you Elvis!”, during his rendition of “Hound Dog” at the Madison Square Concert 1972.
Kathy 08.16.08 | 11:21 PM ET
The other night I was at the gym and flipped through the stations on the tv and found Elvis in “That’s the Way It Is” - one of his Vegas shows. I get so sad and melancohly when I watch Elvis in his “prime.” I miss him so much it just makes me sad that he is gone. What a waste! I can still get chocked up everytime I hear him sing “Memories” and especially when they show the hearse carrying him to his resting place. What can I say? I’m just another Elvis fanatic!