Elvis

I remember where I was in August 1977 when the news came down. I was 22years old, in Lubbock TX, stocking the shelves on Aisle 1 in the grocery store I worked at when I heard the news - the King was dead. Like the world, I couldnt believe it. And a quarter-century later, I would love nothing more than to go back in time just to be in his audience one more time. Elvis's beauty, power, and lack of calculation make him one of music's enduring greats. Some argue Elvis was less an artist than contemporaries because he didn't write his own songs or push the envelope with the knowing sense of purpose that they did. Even some of those who grant Elvis his '50s greatness will argue that it was all but canceled out by his sad manipulation at the hands of the Colonel and decade-and-a-half-long artistic decline, a deceleration that could only be halted by an almost merciful death.

But I say cleanse your mind of extraneous images of white leather or those very large belt buckles. Picture the naive young man so pretty he can still make the men take notice,accidentally inventing rock and roll, and pretend that that moment is an eternal one. From the very first recordings on Sun records, we knew he was important and inadvertently heroic. He was something special. If only we had performers today with this combination of gut instincts and pure lack of calculation, the music might not be stuck on the evolutionary ladder the way it is now.

And what of the fat Elvis? I say we have to embrace the fat as well as the skinny Elvis. We need to block out our pictures of the declining Elvis while we're reveling in the youthful joy of the early work -- and then remember them when we suppose that our own lives are destined to be portraits of unyielding greatness.

It's the singer, not the song.
He didn't write songs like Dylan or Lennon and McCartney. But he could deliver them. He made us feel the song, as if we had written it ourselves. No one could make us feel a song like Elvis did. So here's to Elvis -- eternal proof that it's the singer, not the song. And may we always remember where we were when we first really ''got'' ''In the Ghetto,'' ''Heartbreak Hotel,'' or whatever it was that made us realize that Elvis is still alive.

Take care....Ric