“Elvis Week”: Almost As Exciting As Shark Week
It’s “Elvis Week,” and since this year marks the 30th anniversary of the King’s demise, there’s a good chance we’ll be inundated with mawkish/contentious/revisionist TV specials/news reports/blog posts by Friday. The excellent Boogie Woogie Flu blog, a treasure trove of crackly old vinyl from the early rock’n’roll era and before, has a handful of Elvis-related MP3’s and a reprint of Peter Guralnick’s posthumous New York Times interrogation of the prevailing notion that Presley was a racist and/or an exploiter of African-American music.
While I’ve grown to appreciate the early Elvis sides, he was never much of a hero to me–too much Public Enemy in my system, I guess–and whatever his ethical and moral standing (and however much his his life devolved into tabloid ludicrousness before he expired), Guralnick’s piece is a delicate (if obviously biased in Elvis’ favor) look at an issue that can still spark vitriol from folks who weren’t even alive when Elvis died.
Walk A Mile In My Shoes [Boogie Woogie Flu]
