RIP Big E

Today is the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley. He was 42 when he died. Here in Atlanta, Saturday night was Elvis’s Death Day (Observed) at the Variety Playhouse. The hardest working band in town, King Sized, brought down the house with a 12-15 piece band that included a horn section and three back up singers. Of course, there were also burlesque dancers for that true Vegas feel – The Dames Aflame. Maybe piling it on a little too heavily, a Tiny E brought towels out to the sweaty singer, Big Mike, between songs. Fortunately, no photographs are available for this night out on the town.

If you’d care to mark the occasion in a more literary frame of mind, I recommend the two volume definitive biography by Peter Guralnick. (A tip of the hat to Dr J who recommended the books to me some years ago.) The first volume, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presely, is the better of the two and is a frankly incredible story. Volume two, Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley, is a slow downward spiral of despair (but still interesting and well written). Expect scholarship over sensationalism in these two volumes. If you’d like a taste of Guralnick’s style on the subject, the New York Times ran an Op-Ed piece last weekend in which Garulnick questions how it is that Elvis has become viewed as a racist.

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  By Beth (The Decatur One), August 18, 2007 @ 11:23 am

  I really wanted to hit the Variety show this week, but for once I was out of town. The Guralnick books are brilliant, aren’t they?

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