Journal Gazette from Mattoon, Illinois • Page 19

ENTERTAINMENT nun tfif 00 liiwiiurtl, KwUUOl LL, ivxJL VJ fttiJ'ILLlnwiJ ItLtitini Ud Presley a pop-culture icon to a new generation, 25 years after his death i I i fit1 i -k -4 4 'I'M- v-yi "Little hellion kids feeling rebellious Embarrassed their parents still listen to ElvisThey start feeU ihg like prisoners helpless.9 Eminem V. I jtft m' mm Lisa Marie Presley is trying to protect and promote his legacy by focusing on the music. In life, his career was managed by Col. Tom Parker, who wasted Presley in dozens of well-paying bad movies such as "Fun in Acapulco" and "Clambake." For many younger listeners, those movies and their parents' oldies radio stations are perhaps their only exposure to Presley. "I've seen the movies on TV once in a while," said Tiffany Sebring, 14, of Nashville.

"They're bad, but he's kind of cute. But that was a long time ago." In the past few months alone, the estate has tried to reach youngsters like Sebring with repackaged Presley music: RCA has issued a four-CD box set of unreleased material, and will release a hits package this fall modeled on last year's successful "The Beatles 1" compilation. A remix by Dutch artist DJ Junkie XL of Presley's minor 1968 hit "A Little Less Conversation" is rising on the American singles charts after rocketing to No. 1 in Britain. The Disney children's movie "Lilo Stitch" features Elvis music, and publishers will produce three books about him this year.

"In some ways, the kitsch he's been associated with for so long is starting to be canceled out through the remastered CDs, and people are focusing on the music, which is great," said Will Clemens, an English professor at the University of Cincinnati who edited a poetry collection last year that focused on Presley, "All Shook Up!" i i 1 1) phi nmid Elvis Presley, shown in an undated file photo, wears one of his white jumpsuits in concert in the later part of his career. Thousands of Presley fans will file through Graceland, his home in Memphis, in August 2002 to mark the 25th anniversary of his death. By Hit Associated Press NASHVILLE, Tenn. The reigning king of rock 'n roll or an easy punchline? Twenty-five years after his death, Elvis Presley continues to be an enormous pop culture presence both as a beloved musician and an easy laugh. White jumpsuits, big oF sideburns and "Thankyouverymuch" make easy marks.

Presley, once the symbol of beautiful, rebel--lious youth, didn't help himself much near the end. There's the specter of the pill-popping superstar crooning "My Way," or falling off the commode and dying at 42. But Presley's role in ushering in a cultural revolution also reverberates. Many performers credit him as an inspiration. His worldwide album sales are estimated to top 1 billion, and his music continues to be reach new generations.

As for the old fans, tens of thousands are expected to file into Graceland, Presley's home-turned-tourist-attrac tion in Memphis, to mark the 25th anniversary of his death on Aug. 16. For them, he's no joke. "Why are media people surprised every time they see this?" says Dave Marsh, a music critic and Presley biographer. "Forty-seven years after 'Heartbreak and they still don't get it, or still think it's going to go away." In some ways, not much has changed since the 1950s, when Elvis the first white artist to successfully take the style and sound of black rhythm and blues to the mainstream had to fight for respect critics, who derided him as a white-trash aberration.

"There are people in places that count in the world, and people in places that don't," says Marsh. "He is the son of the people who don't count, and their shining star. That's what makes him unique and what people still respond to." Country singer Dolly Parton says Presley is comparable to a deity where she grew up, in the hills of East Tennessee. "I don't think he will ever die down," Parton said. "He's "The Wonder of You" (1970) and "Bufnin' Love" (1972).

In 197.3, his "Elvis: Aloha from Hawaii, via concert Head to the Web Elvis Presley site; http:www.elvis.com considered by many to be like a religious figure, like Jesus. I don't know how to explain it, but it's there, and it's real, and people love it." In the broader culture, references to Presley are everywhere, from the Pennsylvania State Lottery, which uses his image to sell a $2 instant game, to the white jumpsuit worn by Britney Spears for her pay-per-view special from Las Vegas. Elvis impersonators appear in Hollywood movies from "Honeymoon in Vegas" to "3000 Miles to Graceland." "Elvis has left the building" remains a catchphrase, and posthumous Elvis sightings an urban legend. Echoes of Elvis' charismatic performance style are alive in old-school rock stars such as Bruce Springsteen and country singers Wynonna Judd and Tanya Tucker. Rapper Eminem, in his new song "Without Me," says his fans are embarrassed that their parents like Presley.

Then he gives Presley some backhanded respect with this comparison: "Though I'm not the first king of controversyI am the worst thing since Elvis PresleyTo do Black Music so selfishly And to use it to get myself wealthy." The accusation of cultural theft has also been raised by some black artists, but Marsh defends Presley as unusually honest about his music's origins, compared to other white singers of the time. "(Elvis) told people where it came from, without shame or hesitation. He was a race mixer, which is why a lot of people didn't like him." The Presley estate owned by Elvis' daughter, "He's been someone that people chuckle about for various reasons, but I buy more into the Image of him as a master. at taking a song to new levels." It is easy to forget how staid and homogeneous mainstream pop culture was when Presley broke on the scene in 1956 with "Heartbreak Hotel." Popular music at that point was mainly the purview of adult crooners such as Frank Sinatra and PattiPage. That year alone, Presley Was the first to be broadcast live worldwide.

But in that "jumpsuit era," which included some electrifying concerts, Presley was clearly-distanced from the main currents of rock 'n' roll, which were seized by groups such as The Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the 1960s. Rocker David Bowie, when asked about Elvis recently, allowed that he was an "incredibly compelling stage performer," but Bowie said he wasn't a fan. "There was so little of it that was actually good," he said. "Those first two or three years, and then he lost me completely." Others give Presley far more credit. leader of the rock band Wilco, calls him "a shining beacon." "Whatever his intentions were, what the world got out of it was.

'I don't have to put up with this. I can do things also released versions of such hits as "Blue Suede "Hound Dog," "Don't Be Cruel" and "Love Me Tender." After one hip-swiveling appearance oil "The Milton Berle Show," a critic for the New York Daily News wrote that popular music "has reached its lowest depths in the 'grunt and groin' antics of one Elvis I'resley." Elvis was rebelling against "a hidebound conformity -that defined' not "just, the musical roles hut, far more important, racial, social and class limitations," writes Presley biographer Peter Guralnick in "Klvis, Then Now," a magazine published to commemo- rate the 25th anniversary. Presley did not really become, a caricature -of himself until his final couple of vears. He scored 18 No. 1 pop hits from 1956 to 1969.

Strong records into the '70s included "Suspicious Minds" (1969), H(jore Elris. I here 'in is nothing." John Lennon Tupelo draws tourists with sites from Elvis hard-luck childhood Head to the Web Elvis birthplace: wwv.ci.tupelo. ms.usattractions.htm "When he grew up here this was considered the wrong side of town, and he knew the children needed to do," Buse said. A statue of Elvis as a boy, wearing coveralls and carrying a guitar, added to the park in January. "That's what he looked like when lie left Tupelo," Buse said.

"What we try to locus on is Elvis up to the age of 13 because that's ours." Concrete markers with copper plaques mark the two schools Elvis attended, the site of a grocery store where people gathered to play music and socialize, a drive-in restaurant he liked and, of course, the hardware store where he got his first guitar. The store has an old-timey feel, with worn wood floors, tight aisles and shelves packed with kerosene lanterns, screen-door latches and the like. It's not much different from many other small-town hardware stores, exceot. that is. for one elass- TUPELO, Miss.

(AP) The wallpaper is a cheap flower print, and a single, bare light bulb hangs from the ceiling in each of the two small rooms. "I knew he had humble beginnings," said Mark Moody, a tourist from Dundee, Scotland, on a visit to Elvis Presley's birthplace. "But it's a lot more humble than I thought it would be." The house lacked even those small niceties on the morning of Presley's birth Jan. 8, 1935. One of thousands of shotgun shanties that were scattered across the rural South, it's a tourist attraction drawing up to 100,000 visitors a year.

And it's the pride of Tupelo, a town of about 34,000 people two hours south of Memphis, where Presley began his rock 'n' roll career. Tupelo expects a record number of tourists this year, the 25th anniversary of Elvis' death, on Aug. 16, 1977, at Graceland, his Memphis residence. Graceland draws more than 600,000 visitors a year, and many take side trips to Tupelo; prac- ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTOS Fans view Elvis Presley's grave, center, on the grounds of Graceland, Presley's Memphis, home, in this Aug. 15, 1997, file photo.

Presley was buried with other members of his family. Below: Tourists walk past the birthplace and boyhood home of Elvis Presley in Tupelo, in July 2002. The modest house draws up to 100,000 visitors to this town of just over 34,000 residents two hours south of Memphis. tically a straight shot down U.S. Highway 78.

For some; such as Moody and his family, it's part of a larger tour of historic blues and rock 'n' roll sites scattered throughout the Mississippi River Delta. Presley's father, Vernon, built the 15-by-30-loot house on a dairy farm where he worked, borrowing $180 to buy the materials The family lived there until 1938, when Vernon went to prison for about a year for altering a $4 check. Unable to keep up payments on the house loan, Elvis' mother, Gladys, took him to live with relatives. The Presleys later lived in several homes in Tupelo before moving to Memphis when Elvis was 13.. The birthplace house can handle only a few visitors at a time.

Tour guide Nina Holcomb explains to three Japanese tourists that the' sparse furnishings were not original" to the house but were common for a farm laborer's residence in the 1930s. The wallpaper also is representative of the period. "But I understand the Presleys had newspapers on the walls," Holcomb says. The farm is now gone, and the house sits in a 15-acre park with a museum, gift shop and chapel. A walk through the house costs $2.

Admission to the museum, made up mostly of mementos collected by longtime family friend Janelle McComb, is $5. The city bought the house and land with money that Elvis provided from a coming-home concert in Tupelo in 1957. The singer wanted a park for neighborhood children, museum director Lisa Buse said. topped counter near the front door. That's where the famous guitar "purchase went down oh Presley Uth birthday.

"We try to keep this end of the counter clear," office manager Helen Logan said. "We have people coming in all the time looking for it. Sometimes tour buses stop by." On the counter is a framed letter written by Forrest Bobo, the former store owner who made the sale. The 1 iV 1 -r- 4 'C "---t hi nil. 'i I I I I ii guitar, me leuer says, cosi io pius 2 percent sales tax.

Elvis wanted a rifle, Bobo writes, though other accounts say he wanted a bicycle, before his mother talked him into accepting the guitar. "I am proud to have a little part in Elvis' life," Bobo wrote. "We all wished him a great success, and he sure made a great life for himself and the rest of the world.".