>>>>Or, when you first heard about it?
>>>>
>>>>Me - Branson's Lodge, Great Bear Lake, NWT Canada
>>>>
>>>>Drinking coffee and shooting the breeze in the guide shack.
>>>
>>>What was the date he first appeared in that white jumpsuit?
>>
>>Must have been the Vegas years. To me it's sad what happened to him, the wreck he became. Probably less sad to you -- I remember us discussing Elvis eons ago and your opinion that he was marginally talented, mainly the creation of Col. Parker.
>
>Actually I thought he was talented with a great voice. But he stopped being a roadhouse whiteboy doing credible black music and became a lounge act parody of himself. Too bad. I don't like to see artists become "stars". I understand why it happens the way it does, but I seldom like the outcome.

Fair enough.

Elvis was really the first of his kind. There were other stars like Frank Sinatra who made fans weak in the knees but Elvis kicked it into another dimension. These days we get a celebrity a week so it's easy to miss how big he was. I highly recommend Peter Guralnick's bio if you find yourself in the mood for a rock biography. There is one indelible scene where Elvis and his bandmates, still nobodies but starting to make a local name, are barnstorming around the South. They are driving themselves in a car, late at night, the bass guitar strapped to the hood. Elvis talks nonstop, barely sleeping, as the roads to Birmingham and Jacksonville and Baton Rouge fly by. A young man in a hurry. I love that image of him, and that's the one I prefer to remember.