RateItAll: The Opinion Network

I remember well the day Elvis died. I was eleven years old and ticked off because my dad made me wash both cars. When I asked him to pay me, he said I was paid everytime I got a ride somewhere. As to edt's review...Elvis's last show before his death was in Indianapolis, Indiana. His next stop would have been Asheville, NC. So I have no idea what small southern town he would have been in that last week. I doubt he would have gone from SC or Ga to Indiana, then back to NC. Secondly, rock and roll was already popular, primarily due to black artists like Little Richard, even before Elvis came onto the scene. No white people had any problem making Nat King Cole a mega star even before that; so one can hardly say that Elvis was "needed" for a white audience. As to calling him a "garish Las Vegas lounge act"...he was still one of the biggest concert draws coast to coast at the time of his death, and still holds the record for album sales to this day- I hardly think that is fair. As to his movies, yes, most of them were tripe, but he had some good ones as well, like "King Creole" and "Flaming Star", where even his harshest critics said he showed some real acting ability.

I do remember where I was when I heard that he had died, which is odd, because I was never a fan. I didn't hate the guy; he simply made little or no impression upon me when I was growing up. When he was having his greatest impact on the culture, I wasn't a gleam in my father's eye, and by the time I did became aware of him, he was a pudgy, garish Las Vegas lounge act with an occasional radio hit ("In The Ghetto" was played a lot during my childhood) and performer in a series of dull and duller movies. About a week before he died, my family was driving down to Florida on vacation, and we passed through a small southern town (the exact state it was in escapes my memory now; I'm thinking Georgia or South Carolina, but I could be wrong). The local concert hall or arena was advertising on its marquee that Elvis would be performing there a few weeks hence. A week later, I was swimming in the ocean at St. Petersburg, when I heard the news. It didn't really hit me in any personal way other than a sadness at anyone's premature death. That night, I forced myself to watch one of his early movies that was being televised. I guess it was less boring than "Blue Hawaii" or "Kissin' Cousins" but not by much. Maybe if I had been alive during his heyday, I would have been more effected emotionally. It was sad that he seemed to take so little joy in his success (there's an infamous photo of him posing with Nixon after Nixon made him some sort of honorary drug enforcement agent; Elvis is obviously zonked out of his mind-- too bad he didn't offer Nixon some of whatever it was he had ingested). As I got older, I had to conclude that a lot of his early allure was the result of a cynical stratagem by record company executives to take music done by relatively unknown black artists (and done a lot better) and make it palatable to a middle-class white audience. Then again, as Camille Paglia once observed, putting a more positive spin on it, a lot of people were exposed to a great style of music that they might not otherwise have been exposed to as a result of that stratagem. Also, you have to take into account that he brought a lot of pleasure into people's lives, and that has to count for something. All I can say...whoever bought a ticket at that concert hall in Georgia or South Carolina, and held onto it, has a sure-fire way to make some real good money on ebay...

You know, at the time, it was the biggest thing that had ever happened in music. The King was dead! It was on every channel for days. Looking back, I was truly shocked. But now, I can see what an idiot Elvis was. Yes, he was talented. But he was also a wimp, allowing people to use him and take advantage of him. The colonel screwed him royally. His entourage could have cared less about him; he was just a source of money and attention. Elvis is a sad case, because he could have been truly great!

it was quite a shock when they announced Elvis died I like his music and when I was a kid watched his movies. he was so young. I only found out later that he did not take such good care of himself, used too many pills. his mother died at the same age. he was not my favorite but listen to his greatest hits CD.

Died on the crapper like a man...