Do you remember what you were doing when you found out that Elvis Presley had died?
I was stationed in Hawaii at the Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Station and had, ironically, just purchased the Elvis in Person at the International Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada" cassette, and was heading back to the barracks to listen to my new tape when I was offered a ride by a fellow Marine who broke the bad news. Everybody was stunned and every radio station on the island played Elvis music. I was told later that Elvis was worshiped like a god in Hawaii.
I got back to the barracks and immediately turned on the cassette player and just laid down on my rack and listened to the King over and over...
Later, I put on my favorite tape and settled in to listen to one of the most inspiring live performances: Elvis at the Garden in New York City. The tape shattered the bridge which was holding back those memories of Elvis: my mind was flooded with images of him dancing on stage, singing, swaying, gyrating, and controlling.
Elvis Presley controlled an audience like a puppeteer controls his puppets, with precision, at will, instinctively. He was a performer in the purest sense of the word.
As the strains of the theme from 2001, A Space Odyssey, filtered through the speakers, I recalled the electrifying anticipation that had surged through me the first time I listened to this performance. The long wait was over...Elvis was only seconds away....
When he burst on stage, the crowd's reaction was at the wrong end of the spectrum: instead of screams, claps and cheers, there was silence. A respectful silence, the type reserved for presidents, illuminaries, .....and kings.
The night went much too quickly as Elvis slipped from past to present, teasing you with an old cut, then shoving you roughly into today by doing a contemporary song. But the thought of Elvis not being among the living was as far away from my mind that night as the thought of him never existing. I was content to rock, roll, and remember.He teased us that night but we loved it. And after the tape was finished, I just sat there, remembering Elvis in concert when he was full of energy, emotion, and music.
Even now, twenty years after his death, he is all that. Elvis is dead. His music isn't. His awesome affect on music isn't. Everything he left us isn't. The mortal Elvis had died. The immortal Elvis lives on.......
