RAMBLIN: 45 years later, reaching new fans with 'Elvis'

Aug. 19—It's amazing to me that Elvis Presley continues to make new fans 45 years after he passed from this earth at his Graceland home in Memphis, Tennessee.

August 11 marked nearly a half-century since Elvis' passing when he was only 42. At the time his demise was attributed to heart failure, deemed in later years deemed to be exacerbated by a steady regime of prescription drugs.

Many still consider Elvis the greatest rock 'n' roll artist of all time. If he's not first, he's ranked second usually only to The Beatles. Now, there's a major push to bring him back to the forefront, not only with the sales of more albums and movies , but also to remind younger music fans of what made Elvis Presley such a phenomenon in the first place.

For some of today's music fans, Elvis had already passed from this earth by the time they were born. They didn't get to experience Elvis Presley or his music or movies in real time, like many of his original fans. Most of the video clips seen these days seem to alternate between the young, swaggering Elvis of the 1950s, when he was still called The Hillbilly Cat, or scenes from the 1970s, when he played Las Vegas and toured the nation, usually bedecked in a white jump suit and doing karate moves while backed by huge band.

Elvis also had a career in the middle, when his live performances were interrupted by a stint in the U.S. Army — although there were plenty of recordings left in the can to keep his name before the public even while he served Uncle Sam.

I've seen plenty of comparisons of the popularity of Elvis and The Beatles, with Elvis sometimes prevailing, but The Beatles more often. Sometimes the comparisons would hinge on the fact that The Beatles wrote their own songs, although they included lots of covers on some of those early albums.

Still, even John Lennon once said without Elvis to inspire him and his bandmates when they were back in England, there would have been no Beatles.

That's probably an exaggeration. After all, there, still would have been Little Richard, who so inspired Paul McCartney that McCartney even mastered the falsetto "ooh" that adorned so many of Richard's best work. Think of the line from "Long Tall Sally" — Little Richard's song that The Beatles covered, where both he and McCartney hit that trademark "ooh" in their separate, rocking versions of the song.

Some of the other Beatles had their own early rock 'n' roll favorites. Both George Harrison and Ringo Starr recorded songs by Elvis Presley's early Sun Records label mate, Carl Perkins. Harrison recorded two of Perkins' songs, "Matchbox" and "Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby." Ringo opted for "Honey Don't."

The Beatles also recorded several Chuck Berry songs, including "Rock and Roll Music" and "Roll Over Beethoven."

So the lads who became The Beatles would have been exposed to to rock 'n' roll anyway, with our without Elvis, but he no doubt served as a huge influence, especially to Lennon,

Curiously, they never covered any Elvis Presley songs on their official studio releases — as The Beatles, that is.

No solo artist had the mass adulation Elvis did among record-buying fans and the general public alike, with the possible exceptions of Frank Sinatra's appeal to the so-called Bobby-soxers of the 1940s and Michael Jackson in the 1980s.

I've seen several articles where artists speculated that the new movie Elvis" with Austin Butler playing the title role would bring Elvis back to the forefront of the music — and merchandising — markets.

It got off to a good start, with the movie hitting #1 at the box office and the "Elvis" soundtrack album topping the album charts — but that's not to say that Elvis Presley did it alone.

While there are some tracks featuring his vocals, the soundtrack contains plenty of other artists, such as Austin Butler, but there's also a duet with Stevie Nicks and Chris Isaak singing "Candy Land." Doja Cat does a song called "Vegas" and Yola takes a turn on Sister Rosetta Tharpe's song "There Are Strange Things Happening Every Day."

The soundtrack album also includes a duet with Eminem and CeeLo Green (I'd been wondering what happened to him) on a duet of "The King & I" as well as Kacey Musgraves delivering her version of Presley's big hit "Can't Help Falling in Love," with more artists also included on the soundtrack. Didn't the "elvis" movie producers trust Elvis Presley alone to bring the magic, without having to pump up the soundtrack with contemporary artists?

After all, Elvis has already sold more than 146.5 million albums on his own, without the help of these other guys and gals. For those who may be wondering where that places him on the all-time greats list, on the U.S. charts he's third in total U.S. albums sales. The Beatles are first, with 183 million albums sold, followed by Oklahoma's own Garth Brooks, with 157 million in total U.S. album sales as of 2021, the last full year on record.

Elvis didn't sell all those albums through marketing savvy — although there was plenty of that involved. He did it because millions upon millions of fans wanted to hear his music.

Still, those two years that Elvis served in the U.S. Army from March 1958 until March 1960 must have was an eternity in the rock 'n' roll music world of those days. Although he had more hit records and movies in the 1960s, by the late 1960s the music world had changed around him.

Band such as The Beatles, the Rolling Stones and a bevy of other U.S. and British bands and singers ruled the charts in those days. At best, many already considered Elvis one of rock's elder statesmen. That was about to change in a big way.

In 1968, at the age of 33, Elvis launched what's known today as the '68 Comeback Special."

It featured a svelte Elvis, dressed in black leather, performing in the round on a small square stage resembling a boxing ring without the ropes, surrounded by a bevy of fans, most of them females. His backing band included his original guitarist and drummer from his Sun Records days, Scotty Moore and D.J. Fontana, along with a few of Presley's pals.

On that small stage, Elvis had nowhere to hide — and he didn't need it. He delivered fiery and raucous versions of some of his earliest hits and even played some electric lead guitar himself a few times.

Even the big production numbers, including the gospel songs backed by the Blossoms and a great take on Jerry Reed's "Guitar Man," sounded visceral and straight from the heart.

The show proved an instant success, demonstrating anew why Elvis had been such a major artist to begin with and catapulting him back into the then-contemporary music scene.

When Elvis did resume the concert trail in the 1970s, his shows were instant sellouts — and many of the fans packing his shows presumably went out and bought Elvis albums. He had more hit records, too — not exercises in nostalgia but songs that were in the spirit of the times: "Suspicious Minds," "Kentucky Rain," "In the Ghetto" and "If I Can Dream," to name a few.

We'll have to wait and see if the latest moves to bring Elvis back to the forefront continue beyond 2022.

Oh yes, I mentioned earlier that The Beatles had not recorded and released any Elvis Presley songs on their official albums, even though John Lennon had once said that without Elvis, there would be no Beatles.

Maybe, The Beatles didn't record any Elvis songs, but Lennon did — and the anniversary of when that occurred is coming up.

On August 30, 1972, Lennon stepped onstage at Madison Square Garden for one of his few solo concerts following the breakup of The Beatles, backed by an ensemble called the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band. In 1986, Yoko Ono authorized the posthumous release of an album from the concert called "John Lennon — Live in New York City" (not to be confused with another Lennon release, titled "Some Time in New York City.")

On the "Live in New York City album, Lennon delivered live performances of some many of his solo hits and a few Beatles songs, including "Come Together."

Following Lennon's live rendition of his song "Cold Turkey," he paid tribute to the artist who he said had influenced him so much while he was still a lad back in Liverpool..

Lennon then tore into a rousing rendition of song familiar to Elvis fans everywhere when he sang its opening line: "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog."

He followed it with — what else? — "Give Peace a Chance."

Contact James Beaty at jbeaty@mcalesternews.com.