"Elvis & Kathy" achieves new record price on ebay

The highly sought after book, Elvis & Kathy, by Kathy Westmoreland reached a new high on ebay earlier this week. After 32 bids the final selling price was a whopping US$356.00, easily surpassing the $200.00 sale price achieved only a few weeks ago.

"Elvis Cinema and Popular Culture" by Douglas Brode

On 30 June McFarland Publishing in the US will publish a serious and intellectually challenging examination of Elvis' film career. In Elvis Cinema and Popular Culture, Douglas Brode demonstrates how Elvis, through his films, reflected a shifting social, cultural and political landscape in America. Encompassing all 31 movies and two 1970s documentaries, it provides a film-by-film study of Elvis Presley and America, and argues that each film reflects the society for which it was made. Throughout his career, most of Elvis's characters combined rebellion with wholesome, traditional ideals, but the public's perspective changed, and what was considered radical in 1954 was called reactionary by 1970. Studied sequentially, his films reflect those cyclical ideals, and unconsciously portray America's process of renewal and redefinition of self.

In a notable sequence involving a put-down of the elegant European, Lucky – serving as a waiter at Mancini’s expensive suite – purposefully engages in a series of supposedly accidental mis-haps that culminate in the ruination of the Count’s initially suave, ultimately embarrassing attempt to seduce Rusty. She is dressed in high style for the occasion. Here again, the class- consciousness motif reveals a heightened if often unnoticed ambition: Elvis is the poor white boy who (not unlike the subtle slave of African American folk literature) wisely employs his servile position to cleverly outwit the upperclass ‘master’ via a seemingly sincere clumsiness that expresses a social anarchism, the film containing implications that are truly political.

Click to pre-order Elvis Cinema and Popular Culture

Recently announced first Dutch Elvis stamp

Elvis' contract with RCA

On the FECC messageboard, 'likethebike' posted this interesting message:

"Eileen brought this up in a post a few weeks back and I think the idea deserves a thread of its own. Has anyone ever heard of Colonel Parker trying to hook other record labels or testing the waters to try and get RCA to up their contract? I haven't. This makes me wonder why.

This seems to be one of the most logical things a manager would do. How do you know Elvis' worth unless you determine what the market will bear? In some ways it almost borders on criminal negligence. In the early 1960s there were a number of big label signings for rock and soul influenced artists that basically redefined the rules of the industry. Ray Charles asked for and received eventual ownership of his masters when he switched to ABC. The Everly Brothers and Roy Orbsion received either million dollar advances or guarantees when they switched to Warner Brothers and MGM respectively. Ricky Nelson got a huge deal and an unheard of 20-year contract with Decca in 1963.

Shouldn't the existence of these deals triggered an immediate renegotiation with RCA to guarantee Elvis some of or any of these perks? After all, while all these artists were great hit makers they were dwarfed by Elvis in popularity even in their greatest periods. A deal that Elvis could have obtained in 1960, 1961 and 1962 based on these deals would have been record shattering. Instead, he never received a stake beyond royalties in the masters, a decision that cost millions upon millions even within his lifetime and he was at a royalty rate lower than the industry average upon his death. This is well documented in books like Sean O'Neal's Elvis inc. So, we know RCA wasn't keeping Elvis on board with insane deals to cut off the competition.

Even before the March 1973 agreement wouldn't it have made sense to test the market? After all Elvis was a red hot commodity at this time. The MSG album was a million seller, "Burning Love" was another million seller, "Aloha" was on its way to #1 and the TV special had basically rewritten the rules of worldwide popularity. This was a hot streak far greater than the one on which ABC based their Charles' decision. Even Elvis' semi-reluctance to record played well for a new deal. Why not seek out a less demanding contract? One album per year was already becoming the industry standard.

Think even at this time what Elvis could have gotten. Berry Gordy's Motown label was dying to break into the white mainstream at this time signing artists like Bobby Darin and the Four Seasons. Elvis would make more sense to the label than these artists because unlike them he wasn't five years away from the Top 40. He may have given Elvis something outrageous to come aboard. And Elvis for his part would have had the chance to work with creative personalities like Smokey Robinson who were familiar with the Top 40 landscape of the early 1970s. Sure it's a fantasy but we never know how close to reality it could have been because Parker never bothered to find out.

In Hopkins' Final Years there's a toss off about Elvis wanting to record for White Whale an LA based label that was home to the Turtles. Otherwise in the Presley literature there is little to no mention of other labels after the initial RCA deal.

Was it Parker's kickbacks and collusion with RCA that kept him from exploring this most logical of all options?

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