George Lucas and Elvis: Echoes from 1977

Thirty-five years ago, two things that fundamental changed my life happened in the same summer. In May, Star Wars was released. In August, Elvis Presley died. The arrival of Star Wars turned the thing that everyone in my small town mocked, that had gotten me teased and beaten up, into the hippest thing in the world. Spaceships, aliens and robots … Read More

Return of the REAL King

There are many books on Elvis, from treatises on his sociopolitical influence to muckraking autobiographies by those on his payroll, but it’s rare to find one that understands his impact, yet takes the time to delve into the human being behind it. Gillian Gaar’s Return of the King does just that, using as her sources mainly interviews with musicians and … Read More

The dignity of the faux dead

This is an addendum to my earlier post on P.F. Kluge’s novel Eddie and the Cruisers. And I swear it’s true. In the late 1980s I worked in Florence, Alabama for the Olan Mills Portrait Studio chain. The studio manager was a woman then in her mid-forties, and one night just after closing our conversation turned to how much I … Read More

In honor of the King

To commemorate today’s anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley, I was going to post one of my favorite clips of the King. But when I found this, I realized Elvis himself would probably rather watch it. So here you go.