He didn't really appreciate how popular he was, worldwide. Sure, when he played Vegas or on tour he knew he had fans flying in from the UK, Japan, and everywhere else, and he regularly received gold and platinum records from overseas as well as from the US, but I think it's safe to say that he never understood the impact that he had not just on popular music but on
culture and history, in and beyond the borders of his native land. Rock critic Greil Marcus probably came as close as anybody in figuring it out in his (1976?) book,
Mystery Train.
As for Elvis, the "why me?" question is one that dogged him throughout his short life in the public eye, providing the impetus for his spiritual quest and delving into esoteric philosophical texts, Eastern religions, and what's now called 'New Age' stuff. He never figured it out. And he never answered the question "what am I
really here for" because he never realized that he was already doing what he was meant to do -- he thought that he was here for a purpose more meaningful than singing songs when, really, what he did was more than enough for a lifetime even longer than his own.
Look at it today: Mojo Nixon is still right, in that Elvis is literally everywhere. Newsapers, magazines, films, TV -- on any given day, you're likely to see some kind of reference to Elvis Presley, direct or not. And this almost 30 years after his physical demise. Little three-year-old kids see me dressed up as Elvis and they scream "Elvis! Elvis!" -- born 25 years after he died, how can they even know who he is, let alone be little fans? And most know him as more than just the dude from
Lilo and Stitch. Whatever provoked this unparalleled mass adulation (and a smaller backlash of haters) is not going anywhere in a hurry so, in a very real sense, Elvis has not yet left the building.
I sometimes wonder why Elvis is the one who truly has been elevated to a status enjoyed in the past solely by religious icons. Nobody else -- not even those who died young and left their own psuedo-religious mark on pop culture (Marilyn, James Dean, Jim Morrison,
et al.) -- has reached that level of fame...no, 'fame' is not quite the right word...it's an iconic status that is basically unique to Elvis.
Impersonators exist for many celebrities, and here in Vegas there's one for most of the bigger stars who've ever lived, but the Elvis impersonator has long been a thing unto itself, a phenomenon that crosses national, racial, and even gender lines and that has resulted in an international army of Elvises that spans the world. Why Elvis? Why aren't there comparable numbers of Little Richard or Carl Perkins imitators, or even Beatles tribute bands? I can point to his unprecedented success, his breaking the racial and musical barriers in the '50s, his so fully fitting the 'King' sobriquet (a title he hated, by the way) in his '70s concert performances, his physical grace and beauty (yep, even as a straight man I would be a liar if I denied that cat was
beautiful), and his tremendous personal and public charisma, but that's not really the answer. Honestly, I don't know why. I don't know that anyone really does. Elvis just...
is.
I think he was the greatest performer who ever lived, and an amazing singer who -- along the way -- totally altered the landscape of American (and, therefore,
world) music and pop culture...even affecting mainstream history. But that may have only a passing effect on his enduring popularity or, more accurately, why he is still very much among us as a vital force and as a focus of national and international obsession.
And maybe Mojo Nixon knew more than some would think: everyone has a part inside them that we can label, for want of an other word, 'Elvis.' Everyone but Michael Bolton, I mean (Michael J Fox was a red herring....the name of the
true anti-Elvis can now be spoken). And in Elvis we see both the potential for tremendous good as well as our own collective potential for self-destruction. He was a force of nature beyond his own understanding and, ultimately, it did him in.
Let's go to the expert testimony in search of enlightenment:
"...it was like he came along and whispered some dream in everybody's ear, and somehow we all dreamed it." - Bruce Springsteen
"He was as big as the whole country itself, as big as the whole dream. He just embodied the essence of it and he was in mortal combat with the thing. Nothing will ever take the place of that guy.' - Bruce Springsteen
"Elvis is the greatest cultural force in the twentieth century. He introduced the beat to everything, music, language, clothes, it's a whole new social revolution - the 60s comes from it." - Leonard Bernstein
"When I first heard Elvis' voice I just knew that I wasn't going to work for anybody; and nobody was going to be my boss...Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail." - Bob Dylan
"There'll never be another like that soul brother." - James Brown
"I hope that nobody will ever forget how he influenced us all..he isn't just a historical phenomenon but rather something very lasting." - Roy Orbison
"That’s my idol, Elvis Presley. If you went to my house, you'd see pictures all over of Elvis. He's just the greatest entertainer that ever lived. And I think it's because he had such presence. When Elvis walked into a room, Elvis Presley was in the f***ing room. I don't give a f*** who was in the room with him, Bogart, Marilyn Monroe. - Eddie Murphy
"...if any individual of our time can be said to have changed the world, Elvis Presley is the one. In his wake more than music is different. Nothing and no one looks or sounds the same. His music was the most liberating event of our era because it taught us new possibilities of feeling and perception, new modes of action and appearance, and because it reminded us not only of his greatness, but of our own potential." - Greil Marcus
"The things he did during his career,the things he created are really something important" - Bing Crosby
"There will never be another beautiful Elvis; Elvis was truly a Force of History."- Paul McCartney
"Elvis was God-given, there's no other explination. A Messiah comes around every few thousand years, and Elvis was it this time." - Little Richard
"There just ain't no words to describe him. Elvis was the greatest who ever was, is or ever will be." - Chuck Berry
"I can guarantee you one thing: we will never again agree on anything as we agreed on Elvis" -Lester Bangs
"I'm an Elvis disciple. The man was incredible - heaven and hell wrapped up in one body" - Mojo Nixon
"It was a Wednesday night in May 1960 that changed my life. I went to bed, sank into my bunk, when all of a sudden out of the bleak stone-block nowhere down the hall from some other inmate's radio I started to hear this song. I'd heard it before, I don't know, twenty-five, thirty times, but it never hit me like it did that night. It was, of all people, Elvis Presley! The song? "It's Now or Never". It became my personal message, meant only for me. "Stop wasting your time, Barry," it said. "When you get out you better change your ways. It's Now or Never!" - Barry White
“People don't realize what they had till it's gone. Like President Kennedy - nobody like him. Like The Beatles, there will never be anything like them. Like my man, Elvis Presley - I was the Elvis of boxing.'' - Muhammed Ali
"The transformation was incredible. We knew instantly that we were in the presence of a phenomenon, electricity bounced off the walls of the sound stage. One felt it as an awesome thing - like an earthquake in progress, only without the implicit threat. Watching this insecure country boy, who apologized when he asked for a rehearsal as though he had done something wrong, turn into absolute dynamite when he stepped in the bright lights...he believed in it, and he made you believe it, no matter how ‘sophisticated' your musical tastes were. I had not been a fan until that point, but to deny his talent would have been as foolish as it was impossible. He was a force, and to fail to recognize it would be the same as sticking a finger into a live socket and denying the existence of electricity." - Alan Weiss (screenwriter)
"Elvis is kinda shy, reserved, but confident...most people's reactions to him are incredible. You can have twenty people in a room, all of them looking one way and Elvis can walk in behind you and you'll feel him. You'll feel his presence. You'll turn around cause you know something's behind you. Nobody can explain it; there is no explanation. But I've seen it with my own eyes....I've heard musicians (who have never before worked with Elvis) say, ‘Man, I don't care about Elvis Presley - it don't shake me up to play on his sessions'. And then they get on the session and they just go to pieces; just completely go to pieces when he walks in the room. And then after he leaves, they'll say, ‘Now I see why he's Elvis Presley, man I ain't never been around a guy like that'." - Felton Jarvis (Elvis' RCA Producer)
"...no one who was in those audiences could ever forget the feeling, the electric energy which flowed back and forth. There's no way you can explain this, there's no way you can say it. If you were there, you know what I am talking about, if you were not there, you probably think I'm exaggerating..." - Sean Shaver (concert photographer)
"Unless you understand that Elvis was more than anything a spiritual leader of our generation - there is really no way to assess his importance, much less the meaning of the music he created...Uniting opposites, of course, is the essence of religion...he obliterated distinctions between musical forms, between races (for a moment at least)." - Dave Marsh (rock critic)
“Elvis Presley was an explorer of vast new landscapes of dream and illusion. He was a man who refused to be told that the best of his dreams would not come true, who refused to be defined by anyone else’s conceptions. This is the goal of democracy, the journey on which every prospective American hero sets out. That Elvis made so much of the journey on his own is reason enough to remember him with the honor and love we reserve for the bravest among us. Such men made the only maps we can trust.” - Dave Marsh
"I'm just a singer, but Elvis was the embodiment of the whole American culture. Life just wouldn't have been the same without him." - Frank Sinatra
"Elvis Presley's talent brightened millions of lives. He widened the horizons of my world certainly.... Elvis Presley more than made me feel good, he enriched my life and made it better." - Stephen King
"Elvis Presley is like the 'Big Bang' of Rock 'n' Roll. It all came from there and what you had in Elvis Presley is a very interesting moment because, really, to be pretentious about it for a minute, you had two cultures colliding there. You had a kind of white, European culture and an African culture coming together - the rhythm, okay, of black music and the melody chord progressions of white music - just all came together in that kind of spastic dance of his. That was the moment. That's really it. Out of all that came the Beatles and the Stones, but you can't underestimate what happened. It does get back to Elvis." - Bono
"Elvis Presley's death deprives our country of a part of itself. He was unique, irreplaceable. More than twenty years ago, he burst upon the scene with an impact that was unprecedented and will probably never be equaled. His music and his personality, fusing the styles of white country and black rhythm and blues, permanently changed the face of American popular culture. His following was immense. And he was a symbol to people the world over of the vitality, rebelliousness and good humor of this country." - Jimmy Carter
"No-one, but no-one, is his equal, or ever will be. He was, and is supreme." - Mick Jagger
"We've lost the most popular man that ever walked on this planet since Christ himself was here." - Carl Perkins
"When I was 13, I saw him perform live and I suddenly understood what sex is all about. I was screaming at the top of my lungs." - Raquel Welch
"There were very few real threats to Elvis' person - threats as a result of malice - but there were threats that sprang from the love Elvis' fans had for him. They all wanted a piece of him, and there were millions of fans and only one Elvis. I've taken Elvis into hotels and places where fans would literally pull his hair out. They didn't want to hurt him, but they wanted a piece of him. After every show, Elvis would have claw marks on his hands, and he would have to wear Band-aids; if you see pictures of him during and after shows, you'll see Band-aids. People would accidently claw him when reachng for him and reaching for scarves. Somewhere out in the Midwest, I took a lady offstage who had scratched Elvis in an attempt to get to him. As I was taking her off, she was yelling excitedly to her friends, "Look, Elvis' skin!". It was bizarre." - Sam Thompson (bodyguard and brother of Elvis' girlfriend in the '70s)
"Girls would try to get onstage with him, especially when he was throwing those scarves out. In Oklahoma City one night I saw a girl get so excited she jumped out of the balcony. It might have killed her, but the people below her broke the fall. It was scary sometimes in those concerts." - Mae Axton (wrote "Heartbreak Hotel" - Hoyt Axton's mother...Elvis also did Hoyt's "Never Been To Spain" live)
"He used to give me impromptu karate lessons. Interesting guy, I really liked him. He had a good sense of humor. I felt sorry that he was the king of his own little world but he wasn't allowed to live outside that world. I felt sorry for someone who is that big that they can't go grocery shopping." - Alice Cooper
"The Fact that someone with so little ability, became the most popular singer in history, says something significant about our cultural standards"-Steve Allen (f*** you, Steve, you ironic hipster motherf***er :D )
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