Quote:

"Elvis Presley is the greatest cultural force in the 20th century."

(Leonard Bernstein)


Quote:

"If you're an Elvis fan, no explanation is necessary; If you're not an Elvis fan, no explanation is possible."

(George Klein)


Quote:

"For a dead man, Elvis Presley is awfully noisy."

(Professor Gilbert B. Rodman)


Quote:

"History has him as this good old country boy, Elvis is about as country as Bono!"

(Jerry Schilling)

 

 

 

 


 

EIN E-Alert #156.................Saturday, 29 January 2005

Hi everyone

Another big week in the Elvis world with over 50 items added to the site!

Nigel (& Piers)


Just some of the items added this week on: www.elvisinfonet.com

News

  • Lisa Presley knows nothing about Michael Jackson case
  • Is Lisa engaged again?
  • Bill E. Burk talks to EPEs new owner, Bob Sillerman
  • New cast members announced for CBS mini-series "Elvis"
  • Billy Rebel "Tribute to the King" CD details
  • Fight to save Presley Chapel
  • BMG UK to releasse unlimited number of the 18 #1 Elvis singles
  • BMG accused of chart rigging
  • Charlie Hodge to visit Sweden
  • Elvis DVD re-releases
  • It's Now Or Never selling strongly mid-week
  • A Fool Such As I debuts at #2
  • FTD release schedule update
  • Elvis meets Led Zeppelin

Articles

  • How Elvis vs. Jerry Lawler in the ring in a karate vs. wrestler match almost happened!

Reviews

  • Love, Elvis (Billboard review) - (to be added Sunday 30 Jan)
  • Dirty Laundry - EIN reviews the new Lisa Presley single
  • Follow That Dream (FTD soundtrack)
  • We Have Not Rehearsed Them (CD)

Interviews

  • Bill E. Burk talks to EIN

 

"Breaking News"


Confederate Elvis Flag Leaves a Colorado Building

A Denver Post columnist has mischaracterized as racist a school media center display of a Confederate flag with an image of Elvis Presley superimposed on it, according to Monarch High School librarian Lanene Dente and Principal Chris Rugg. The January 25 column by Cindy Rodriguez quoted from a protest letter that characterized the image as “screen-printed bigotry.”

The letter was signed by 15 area high-school speech coaches who first saw the flag hanging from the Louisville, Colorado, media center ceiling while they attended an October 20 tournament at the school. Rugg told American Libraries that he and Dente had researched the image and were confident that it “did not represent the Confederacy.” He explained that the one complaint he received about the flag prompted them to discover that the Confederate symbol is part of the Mississippi state flag and that Elvis was born in Tupelo. They concluded that the flag was symbolic of nothing more than Mississippi’s pride in being Presley’s birthplace. Dente added, “I felt I had made an informed decision” about retaining the flag.

As to the protest letter, Dente and Rugg said that they had not known of its existence until the Post article appeared. Dente explained that the Confederate Elvis appeared along with 17 other flags “only as a colorful display” to make the high-ceilinged media center more inviting. She bought them as a bagged lot at a Salvation Army sale last summer; the resulting exhibit included the bag’s contents, which also contained a checkered NASCAR racing flag and the flags of several Asian and European countries. Citing her 34 years of school library experience, she added, “As a librarian, my responsibility is to provide displays that are representations of different ideas.” (Source: American Libraries)



The Bradford Exchange, at least in Australia, is once again promoting its EPE authorised Elvis gold clock.


Elvis Presley - A Cherry Lane Sampler This is a very rare promo double CD set from Cherry Lane Music Publishing. This sampler was made in Canada and has a sticker on the back cover with details on their L.A. and New-York Offices. It features also the mention that this is for '' Promotional Use Only ''. Disc one is titled '' The Hits '' and contains 21 tracks while the second CD titled '' The Hidden Gems '' has 16 tracks. (Source: Barry McClean)

E-Alert Special:

Elms uncovers secret lives of famous politicians, writers

Alan Elms, psychology professor at UC Davis, has written an interesting book "Uncovering Lives: The Uneasy Alliance of Biography and Psychology'' (Oxford University Press, $25) but those who know what his next book's going to be about can't help but ask about it.

"Tell me something about Elvis,'' I asked Elms during an interview with Elisabeth Sherwin.

"Albert Goldman was wrong on both counts,'' he replied, ``but that will be another book.'' Goldman, you may recall, wrote a highly unflattering book about Elvis Presley a few years ago that included a diagnosis of the rock star as a split personality and a delusional paranoid.

Elms says Goldman is a good example of an author who tried to employ a psychobiographical technique and failed utterly. Goldman attempted to augment his Elvis biography with a serious psychological analysis when all he really did was shove this famous person into a pathological pigeonhole, said Elms. (If you can't wait, Elms has written an essay on Elvis that's included in a book by Davis resident Geri DePaoli, ``Elvis + Marilyn.'' DePaoli will be signing copies of that book at noon on Dec. 17 at The Avid Reader in downtown Davis.)

Elms says bad psychobiographers are usually scornful of alternatives to the theories they choose. Good psychobiographers are usually open to several interpretations and give detailed evidence for choosing whatever theory they back. An example of a good psychobiography is Doris Kearns Goodwin's ``LBJ and the American Dream.'' Bad would be Fawn Brodie on Richard Nixon or Nancy Clinch on the Kennedy family. Elms say a good psychobiography can rival the very best traditional biographies in the insights it offers Ï in fact, the best biographies today include psychobiographical elements.

In "Uncovering Lives'' Elms uses examples of his own work taking closer looks at Sigmund Freud, B.F. Skinner, Isaac Asimov, L. Frank Baum, Vladimir Nabokov, Jimmy Carter, George Bush, Saddam Hussein and Henry Kissinger. He includes a wonderful how to chapter Ï literally, how to gather the clues, published and unpublished, that when painstakingly assembled will form a portrait of the person you want to write about. And again, he gives us clues about his Elvis work-in-progress.

"I never requested an interview with Elvis Presley, but I did address a series of questions to him and his managers fairly early in his career. I got answers, too, from Colonel Tom Parker's top assistant, Tom Diskin...but his protectiveness toward Elvis was already quite clear.'' In the years since the death of Elvis, Elms says he's dreamed several times that he has interviewed Elvis at length.

"Alas, I'm never able to remember his answers when I wake up,'' Elms writes. Elms has been working on his Elvis book on and off for 10 years, as well as other works of scholarly research, fiction and even poetry. He is a member of the Davis Writers' Group and acknowledges that group for helping him with "Uncovering Lives.'' Indeed, Elms has a strong interest in fiction. He says he's about 80 percent of the way through a psychobiographical novel called "Jung in Africa,'' which he put aside when he got the contract for "Uncovering Lives.''

"I now plan to go back to it,'' said Elms. ``I'm trying to stay as true to his character and events as possible.'' Carl Jung did take a trip through East Africa and down the Nile to Cairo with three interesting traveling companions over a six-month period. That much is known, but Elms is filling in the blanks with a reasonable yet fictional account. Elms went to high school in Kentucky, spent his undergraduate years at Penn State and went to graduate school at Yale.

"But for me, California was the promised land,'' he said. His family lived in San Diego for a while when Elms was in grade school. He wanted to get back to the West Coast. So after teaching at Southern Methodist University in Dallas for three years, he came to UC Davis in 1967. After all these years on the job, he says there are still professional drawbacks for those starting out in psychobiography.

"One of the realities of writing a psychobiographical thesis is this--you may have difficulty getting a job in psychology,'' said Elms. Still, a recent UCD graduate student who wrote his thesis on the alcoholic, self-destructive writer James Agee was able to land a university job.

"It is getting somewhat easier to be a psychobiographer in the psychology field,'' said Elms. ``We're developing clear guidelines about what is good research and what is not.''


    Elvis Pic of the Week


Elvis Trivia Question

Who wrote the book "Elvis' Man Friday"?

(Last edition's answer: True...Sam Phillips was listed as co-writer of Mystery Train)


Contact EIN

 

piers@elvisinfonet.com ...........or........... nigel@elvisinfonet.com

 

The EIN E-Alert is a free information service from the Elvis Information Network (EIN) for Elvis fans. If you do not wish to receive future editions of the EIN E-Alert simply reply to this message with REMOVE in the subject line

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviews
Book: Presley Arrangement
Book: Rough Guide to Elvis
CD: Continuing Legacy of Memory Records
CD: Christmas Peace
Book: The Memphis Lullaby
DVD: '68 Comeback Special
DVD: Elvis In Concert (3 hour version)
DVD: This Is Elvis
FTD: One Night In Vegas
CD: Movin' Mobile
CD: Fort Baxter's Greatest Hits
Book: The Tupelo-Memphis Murders
Articles
SFX filing to buy EPE
Thank God 1981 sale of EPE didn't happen
Sale of EPE - good or bad?
Bridge over troubled water
New owner of EPE
Long live the King!
Elvis richer at 69
Elvis Fans - The Following
Redefining Elvis
How did Elvis die?
Elvis Film Bio
500 million fans can't be wrong?
 
Interviews
Red & Sonny West
Paul Simpson
Ed Bonja (Part 2)
Ernst Jorgensen
Phil Aitcheson (Presley Commission)
 
Did you miss?
Online Elvis Symposium
Exclusive excerpts from "The King Is Dead"
All about Lisa Presley
All about Graceland
FTD review- Elvis: New Year's Eve
FTD review: The Impossible Dream
DVD Review: Elvis Presley The Last 24 Hours
Elvis vs. Bing: who really was The King?