Damn, that hillbilly was pretty.

[ohiosmith]

"I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to."

[ForrestGump]

1. As a solidly heterosexual male, I'd have to say that,

yeah, the cat was beautiful.



As Muhammad Ali told him, "you're the most beautiful white man I have ever seen; and I am the most beautiful black man" :D

[Deja Q]

2. Given that he, like any real businessman, simply took others' creativity,

I'm not entirely surprised he said that.

Still, during the Korean war when he was drafted, he demanded he get no special treatment. That's respectable... and a far cry from the celebs of today...

[ForrestGump]

3. How did he 'take' someone else's creativity?

He wasn't some music executive who exploited recording artists, he was a poor boy from (literally) the wrong side of the tracks in depression-era East Tupelo, Mississippi who grew up organically infused with the black and white gospel traditions, blues, and country music that surrounded him and melded it with influences as diverse as Roy Hamilton, Dean Martin, and Enrico Caruso to create something quite his own. If there's a revisionist leftist version of Elvis' life, it'd have him as the proletariat hero being taken advantage of by people who sought to alternately exploit and squander his creativity.

Elvis never stole a thing, and he was an original. He didn't come from within a vacuum, but he nevertheless came from himself. As he told secretary Marion Keisker that first day at Sun Records, in answert to her question regarding who he sang like, "I don't sound like nobody." And yet, at the same time, he sounded like everybody he'd ever heard.

And the Korean war was over five years before Elvis entered the US Army... :P

[ScreamingMeemie]

5. Thank you Forrest.

:thumbsup:

There will never be another.

[ForrestGump]

7. Nope

Sure hasn't been yet. :hug:

[ScreamingMeemie]

8. Although...

...you are a reasonable facsimile as I've been told. :loveya:

[ForrestGump]

29. I wish!

I mean...look at this:



And that's a candid shot.

How can we mere mortals compete with even the memory of that? :cry:


You're holding us up to impossible standards of beauty!!

[ScreamingMeemie]

30. I have it on good authority that you are quite beautiful, sir.

;) :hug:

[ForrestGump]

31. I paid her to say that

Oooo...thanks for the reminder -- the next installment is due. :D

[Deja Q]

11. Shouldn't I be saying that?

You weren't incorrect in your belief of Elvis. :)

Or are you just taking sides? :D

[idgiehkt]

13. I've always wondered about this lyric:

"Elvis was a hero to most
But he never meant ---- to me you see
Straight up racist that sucker was
Simple and plain
Mother---- him and John Wayne"

Public Enemy
Fight the Power


(because I always have to step in it)

[johnnie]

14. Oooo...Public Enemy is on the edge.

Who the hell is that anyway?

[idgiehkt]

15. I said:

"I've always wondered about this lyric."

I don't know what they are basing it on. Maybe someone here does?

[johnnie]

16. Sorry

I don't really know what they are talking about. I guess it is some rapper calling a white man racist or something. I know that seems strange.

[idgiehkt]

17. lol

is there a backstory?

damn, nobody wants to argue this afternoon. What's a girl to do...

[johnnie]

18. I know a bit about Elvis, and there is no backstory

Although the story might stem from this:

http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/presley1.asp

Elvis was no racist, but I think a lot of people are under the impression he stole music from the blacks..lol. He didn't steal anything.

[idgiehkt]

19. wow.

icky, never heard that before.

This is interesting:

Firstly Elvis’ supposed 1957 "racist comment", that is often bandied about, has never been verified and seems highly unlikely considering the timing, as well as Elvis' deep involvement with the black music of the era. This was just an early tabloid smear of the type that would sadly continue way past his death. In fact the rumour should have stopped then & there since, on the set of Jailhouse Rock, Elvis was directly challenged about the statement by reporter Louie Robinson from the prominent black newspaper 'Jet'. Elvis honestly replied, "I never said anything like that, and people who know me know that I wouldn’t have said it."

Secondly the Chuck D quote (from Public Enemy’s ‘Fight The Power’) is again regularly used to denigrate Elvis but is never fully explained. What Chuck D actually says - should anyone bother to ask him or check the facts – is that what he actually disliked was Elvis’ "culture-blurring genius". This is because it happened to play into the hands of a racist music industry that, at the time, was hungry for a white artist who could play black music. Chuck D in fact agrees & says that, "Elvis was a door, a gateway through to the roots. In the beginning of his career Elvis admitted where the roots came from, but did anybody care?"

http://www.elvisinfonet.com/spotlight_elvis_not_racist.html

So according to this, Chuck D thinks Elvis had bad timing. Wonder why he used the word 'racist'...kind of imprecise if above is what he really meant.

[ForrestGump]

21. The word 'racist' sells records. I mean, people are still talking about

that lyric long after its expiration date.

And Chuck D later said that he didn't hate Elvis but felt more like he didn't necessarily so much feel like Elvis influenced him but that he and Elvis were very much likely both influenced by some of the same people.

Yeah, the whole "Elvis said the only thing a black man can do for me is shine my shoes" was debunked by no less than Jet way back in 1957 and yet I still hear that sorry urban myth today, in the exact same words that were bandied about 50 years ago. There's been a whole book written on the subject, for that matter, and it, too, exonerates Elvis. Hell, when I met James Brown we mostly talked about Elvis -- he's been quoted as saying "Elvis was my brother" and he meant it.

And Elvis was, remember, a product of the segregated South with his formative years spanning the end of the Depression and the beginning of the Civil Rights movement, so it wouldn't even have been all that odd for him to be racist. But he was never like the people around him -- getting his hair coiffed even pre-fame in beauty salons in crewcut Memphis and sneaking into 'coloreds-only' blues clubs and churches were only two of the things that made him stand out in people's memories and that helped make him a target for jealous boyfriends and redneck toughs.

He wasn't a saint, but he was a good man by all accounts.

[idgiehkt]

27. okay, I see what you are saying

but this whole Chuck D thing seems to be getting more confusing. I wasn't into rap when they were hot, (or I wasn't into them anyway) and I've never heard that quote until today...that quote just sounds ridiculous though, I don't know hardly anything about Elvis but it doesn't seems like he would say something like that, or that way, or whatever. I guess I feel kind of stupid if it's been debunked that long and I never heard it in the first place...but I guess that's what debunked means. Chuck D seems pretty articulate so I wonder why he would veer so far off the mark about something like that if that's not what he meant. Are you saying he was talking about that remark and used it to sell records even though he knew it wasn't true?

[ScreamingMeemie]

28. It wouldn't be the first time. Of all of the stuff that has been written

and said about Elvis, I'm going to side with the multitudes who say he was overly polite, shy and respectful. While he had the bad boy persona, he didn't truly live the bad boy personna... This is a man who came from absolutely nothing and was probably looked down upon as a child by whites and blacks alike as the son of a sharecropper. Just my opinion.

[johnnie]

12. Thanks

That should be written up and given to everyone on their first day of school. If anything, Elvis was one of the few who gave *back* to those before him.

[Joe Fields]

20. Not only did Elvis give back to those who came before him, but it

is a well known fact that Elvis was extremely generous, period. He probably gave away more than he kept, during his lifetime.

[ForrestGump]

22. And he gave in tangible ways, too, to those who influenced his music

In 1969 he met Roy Hamilton, who was one of his topmost musical heroes (listen to Roy Hamilton's recordings, with that strong voice, and you see a lot of Elvis' approach to singing), when the two were recording int he American Sound studios in Memphis. Elvis had a song called "Angelica" that he was set to record but he gave it to Roy, instead. Roy hamilton died not too long after.



And when bluesman Arthur Crudup died ('Big Boy' Crudup wrote "That's All Right," that really started it all for Elvis, as well as two other blues songs Elvis recorded in 1956), while Elvis was on tour in March of 1974, Elvis paid for his funeral.

For that matter, though this wasn't one of the people who influenced his music, in 1971 Elvis recorded a song called "Miracle Of the Rosary" as a favor to help out its author, a childhood friend (a man who'd grown up in the projects of Memphis alongside Elvis and who needed the financial boost provided by royalties from even an obscure Elvis recording).

[johnnie]

23. Jackie Wilson too

Didn't he pay his hospital bills until Wilson died?

[ForrestGump]

26. Yeah. They formed a very strong mutual admiration society

Pretty incredible foreshadowing, really, when Elvis (in the Million Dollar Quartet jam in December '56) talks about the dude in Vegas who was nailing "Don't Be Cruel" and making Elvis feel like his original was nothign by comparison...at that time, Elvis didn't know Jackie Wilson's name. They were so similar, too, in their sex appeal, their sweat, and their voices -- vocal range and range of material (both did blues, country, pop, rock 'n' roll, and Neapolitan operatic-type stuff). I think that, at least among acts that people have heard much of, Elvis, Jackie, and Ray Charles are among the very few who've had not only hits but were (darn, they're all gone now :-( ) top of the game in each of several musical genres.

And I love the Jackie Wilson tribute in the vocal and, especially, the onscreen moves in "Return To Sender." :D

[enigmatic]

25. Absolutely

Great posts :thumbsup:

[jpgray]

6. I view him in the same category as Sinatra

Not a songwriter, but a talented fellow nonetheless.

[Aristus]

24. Elvis didn't serve in the Korean War.

He served from 1958-60 in Germany. Years after the Korean cease-fire had been signed.

[ScreamingMeemie]

4. He was... I have my very own replica...

My grandpa used to call MrG "Elvis" all the time. I miss that. :hi:

[ForrestGump]

9. And here we see the source of all those

"Elvis is alive!" stories... :D

Another beautiful cat!

[ScreamingMeemie]

10. in Michigan even!

:rofl:

He gets either Elvis, Chris Isaak or (and I hate this one) Jim Carrey. My grandpa would call up and say,"Is Elvis there? I need to ask him a question about the gasket on the Ford..." I swear he loved him more than me... but that's okay. :hug: