Today, 8 January, would have been Elvis Presley’s 80th birthday. In remembrance of his fascinating life we’re sharing a slideshow from the beautiful images in Elvis Presley: A Southern Life by Joel Williamson. How did this Southern boy make it from Nashville and Vegas, to Grafenwoehr and the White House?
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Elvis with his parents, 1950. Joseph A. Tunzi/ JAT Publishing.
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Elvis Presley with Scotty and Bill poster, Cape Girardeau, Mo., July 1955. Taken at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee. Thomas Hawk, photographer. Available via Flikr.
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Elvis on his way to fame at the Louisiana Hayride, 1956. LSU-Shreveport Archives and Special Collections.
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An impromptu session with Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley, and Johnny Cash at the Sun Record Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, on December 4, 1956. Originally published in the Memphis Press-Scimitar. Courtesy of the Memphis and Shelby County Room, Memphis Public Library & Information Center.
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Headline and 1956 photo from article on Elvis and Mae Axton, who wrote “Heartbreak Hotel,” just after the record sold 1 million copies, 1956. Published in the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Courtesy of the Memphis and Shelby County Room, Memphis Public Library & Information Center.
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Elvis Presley in Grafenwoehr, 1958. Courtesy of U.S. Army Garrison Grafenwoehr.
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The façade of Graceland in the late 1950s or early 1960s.
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Elvis during his ’68 Comeback Special on NBC. Available via Joseph A. Tunzi/ JAT
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Elvis and Priscilla’s wedding at the Aladdin Hotel, Las Vegas, May 1, 1967. Available via Getty.
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Priscilla and Elvis at a dinner. Memphis and Shelby County Room, Available via Memphis Public Library & Information Center.
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Elvis after a performance in Las Vegas, January or February 1970. Available via Joseph A. Tunzi/ JAT Publishing.
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Elvis rehearsing in Las Vegas for his 1970 documentary, “Elvis: That’s the Way It Is. Available via Joseph A. Tunzi/ JAT Publishing.
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Elvis Presley meets President Richard Nixon on December 21, 1970. White House Chief Photographer Oliver F. Atkins. General Services Administration. National Archives and Records Service. Office of Presidential Libraries. Office of Presidential Papers. Collection RN-WHPO: White House Photo Office Collection (Nixon Administration), 01/20/1969–08/09/1974.
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Marquee of the International Hotel, Las Vegas, 1971. Available via Joseph A. Tunzi/ JAT Publishing.
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From just behind the gates at Graceland, a look at the mourners gathered on the day Elvis died, as the police try to hold back the crowds, August 16, 1977. Photographed by Saul Brown. Memphis and Shelby County Room, Memphis Public Library & Information Center.
Featured image credit: Headline and 1956 photo from article on Elvis and Mae Axton, who wrote “Heartbreak Hotel,” just after the record sold 1 million copies, 1956. Published in the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Courtesy of the Memphis and Shelby County Room, Memphis Public Library & Information Center.
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There comes a time when virtual commiseration, applause, counsel and butt-kicking isn’t enough. And so my online critique group, the YAckers, meets in person about once a year.
We live in all parts of the country, and so we vary the meeting place. We try to go where the weather suits the clothes we wish we were wearing, with things to do and see when we can no longer squint at the screen and printed page. Ever since certain noisy people got scolded by hotel security in Wilkes-Barre, PA, we try to rent a house or B&B so we have a place to ourselves. We’ve been to Park City Utah, rural Pennsylvania, and San Antonio. And this year we chose Memphis, TN, where we rented the Lake House, a large house on a small lake in Cordova, TN.
At first, I was cool to the idea of Memphis. After a long winter and cold, rainy, snowy spring, I was ready for beach time. As far as I know, Memphis doesn’t have a beach. But as I read about the city, I was intrigued. There’s a lot of history there, much of it important to me. And music—the kind of throbbing rhythm and blues that gets your body moving in unanticipated ways. Finally, Memphis is warm and blooming in April, a cruel month where I come from.
More importantly, I was just beginning to realize that one of the characters in my current work in progress is FROM Memphis. Who knew?
It was a quick visit—a long weekend, really, and we had four novels to review. We knew we had to prioritize, to focus on good music, good food, and the celebration of a fallen hero.
We visited Graceland, because the Elvis Presley story is fascinating and that man could sing. We ate at the Rendezvous and Gus’s Fried Chicken. We had dinner stage-side at B.B. King’s Blues Club. Afterward, we walked down Beale Street, past narrow alleys spilling music into the street, past signs that said, “drinks to go.” I collected sights, sounds, and memories.
And, of course, we visited the National Civil Rights Museum.
The Civil Rights Museum is located at the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King was assassinated in the bloody year of 1968. King had come to Memphis to support striking sanitation workers. The motel rooms have been restored to that period. A wreath marks the spot on the balcony of the motel where he fell, and you can see where somebody replaced the bloodstained concrete.
Displays follow the history of the movement to the present day—including the bus boycotts, the Freedom R
It's Elvis Week in Memphis, and as thousands of fan gather to celebrate the King this week, we have just one bit of advice: All you need to know is in The Elvis Encyclopedia. Published last year by Overlook, Adam Victor's monumental testament to Elvis is an indispensable reference guide. The Elvis Encyclopedia is also a visual compendium of Elvis’s life, offering hundreds of photographs, ranging from never-before-seen unposed moments to the extraordinary iconic images the world has come to love. With this definitive one-stop resource, fans and scholars have easy access to all of the information on Elvis’s life and times, testing what is real against legend. The facts are represented in full—a childhood mired in poverty, his unstoppable rise to the top with over 150 gold, platinum, or multi-platinum albums, 31 feature films, and 14 Grammy awards, his marriage to Priscilla, his early death. Entries cover every significant aspect of Elvis and his world from family members, lovers, benefactors, mentors, agents, directors, co-stars, and coaches.Complete with cross-referencing and a comprehensive bibliography, The Elvis Encyclopedia surpasses everything that has come before it.
★ The Elvis Encyclopedia has received a starred review in Publishers Weekly: "This obsessively detailed and completely entertaining chronicle by Adam Victor (The Marilyn Encyclopedia) of every possible aspect of Elvis Presley’s life is mesmerizing and deserves a wide audience. Elvis fans will delight in the many famous and rare photos illustrating entries on the King’s every song, album and movie as well as his complete last will and testament. But nonfans will marvel at such meticulously researched entries as “Religion” (a vision of “Stalin and Jesus in a high bank of cloud” made Elvis consider “joining a monastery”), as well as a comprehensive state-by-state list of “Hotels Where Elvis Stayed.”
