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ROTARYDOWNUNDER.ORG | 57 || 56 | ISSUE 579 DEC-JAN 2015-16

Words By John Bishop

Thirty-eight years on, it is easy to forget just how big a star Elvis was and just how much he mattered

to so many people. I wasn’t raised on Elvis; he started just after I was born and my parents weren’t particularly musical and probably would have disapproved of him anyway. My older male cousins adored him, imitated his moves, mouthed his music and wanted to be like him.

Certainly his hip-wiggling shuffles, provocative stance, curled lip and insouciant sneer seemed to shout disrespect, and many of the 1950s generation took this as his greatest

the moon landings just four years earlier. The resulting LP sold over five million copies.

He is still idolised by millions. As an attraction, Graceland is a showcase of Elvis the man, his life and his achievements.

Yes, it is the sanitised version. His death is not explained (his weight and eating issues are not mentioned); but perhaps contrary to my expectations the overal l presentation is not particularly romanticised.

A bus takes visitors from the visitors’ centre where you purchase tickets and see the other displays across the highway to Graceland, the house that Elvis made his home, where he raised

at home in GracelandGraceland and its associated attractions are a living tribute to the legend that was Elvis Presley; a man whose music shook up America and the world from the 1950s through to his untimely death in August 1977.

attribute. Miley Cyrus’s “twerking” and pseudo sexual acts are curiously tame because they are commonplace. Elvis was never that. He set the standard, even if he was thought lewd and lascivious.

Sixty years on we forget just how new, how raucous, how revolutionary and how different rock ‘n’ roll was. While there is much debate about what was the first rock ‘n’ roll record, Elvis’s That’s All Right, Mama, recorded at Sun Records in 1954, is usually a favourite. My own preference is for Rocket 88, a 1951 recording by Ike Turner’s Kings of Rhythm, recording as Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats. (You can easily find it on YouTube.)

Certainly by the time Elvis was

belting out “Blue Suede Shoes” (1956) and “Jailhouse Rock” (1957), there was clearly a new genre of music. It wasn’t country, western or rockabilly; not R&B, jazz, blues, swing, jug band or Dixie big band, although it did draw from all these wells. It was rock ‘n’ roll, and Elvis was the pioneer, the leader and the master. That was the Elvis I admired then and later.

Later, Elvis became a Las Vegas entertainer and I moved on.

So I arrived at Graceland a fan of the young Elvis, but a bit sceptical and even scornful of the later Elvis – gold-trimmed white lamé jumpsuits not being my scene.

However, I left Graceland very much more respectful of his status as a great entertainer. After all, he has sold a billion records, a feat no one else has come close to matching, as well as being in 33 films and doing the first global concert satellite broadcast. As a fun fact try this: more people saw Elvis’s “Aloha from Hawaii” concert by satellite in 1973 than watched

daughter Lisa Marie and where his parents lived, too.

Yes, the pictures are all tasteful, but the house shows perfectly his tacky style (even for the ’70s it was wealth unsuccessfully in pursuit of taste).

The number of people in the house and gardens at any one time is carefully controlled, and that is good. However, there is work to be done. The display of his two aeroplanes – a Convair 880 named Lisa Marie, and a Lockheed Jetstar named Hound Dog II – is ordinary.

The Convair has gold-plated fixtures in the bathroom, a conference room, dining table and a double bed. Most of the furniture is covered in thick polystyrene to protect it, so it’s look and don’t touch.

The separate buildings where his various cars can be seen and the “I shot Elvis” exhibition of photographers’ work need a revamp. There is no sense of evolution and growth of the man, the father or the entertainer, and frankly there’s not enough quality

pictures to hold the audience for long. Nothing here that hasn’t been seen before and often portrayed better.

There are multiple gift shops with similar ranges of merchandise (all the usual stuff: T-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.), but no posters and no CD compilations of either music or films, which personally I was looking to purchase.

The rooms with cabinets displaying his costumes, awards and trophies, with wall after wall covered in gold records, are impressive. The garden where he is buried along with his parents and twin brother is moving.

Is it worth a visit? Absolutely. It is a good (but not perfect) monument to one of the giants of the 20th century.

See www.graceland.com.

John Bishop is a travel writer based in Wellington where he is a member of the Rotary Club of Port Nicholson. He blogs on travel at www.eatdrinktravel.co.nz.

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