Talk:Elvis Presley

Elvis is Dead?

I came here surprised to find that this article had absolutely no mention of the widely held belief that Elvis is still alive. Given the widespread nature of this view (even if often referred to jokingly) and what I assume would be a large pool of resources documenting this, wouldn't this merit inclusion? On a slightly tongue-in-cheek note, but strangely halfway seriously, does this article violate WP:BLP as Elvis should be assumed to be living?

"Persons are assumed living unless there is a good reason to believe otherwise (for example, persons born prior to 1885 can be safely assumed dead)."

Cmiych (talk) 22:37, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it is a "widely-held" belief; some crackpots may believe this, but their claims shatter into nothingness when tested. The only "sources" taking this seriously are the usual lunatics and per WP:REDFLAG, we ignore them. Rodhullandemu 22:41, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

See Elvis Presley phenomenon which documents (albeit relatively poorly) the belief. I know I'm kinda playing devil's advocate with the BLP claim, but do the theories about his death not at least justify inclusion in the main article? Growing up in Memphis, TN I've seen the candlelight vigil's and the belief is more prevalent than you would believe (I know, that original research, just pointing it out). Note: I do not believe Elvis is alive. Cmiych (talk) 22:52, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Paul is dead, but Elvis is alive ... yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah :)

The Legacy section contains a link to Elvis Presley phenomenon. I'd say the link is sufficient. PL290 (talk) 09:25, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I would go as far to sugest Elvis Presley IS NOT dead is actually alive and to say this article should be edited accordingly. Also I have strong evidence to suggest that my theory IS NOT original reseach and is reliably sourced. Jack Quinn UK (talk) 15:36, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Present such evidence here for discussion first. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:01, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

This is my evidence[1] . Jack Quinn UK (talk) 11:33, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Jack, that "evidence" is the same Wikipedia article that was discussed above. We can't cite our own articles as a reliable source. As to the content, I still don't think it would be appropriate to bloat the main article with any more details about that; the existing link is sufficient. PL290 (talk) 12:25, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

User:PL290 you are correct. Discussion terminated. Jack Quinn UK (talk) 15:58, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Discography section

While other editors ably improve the primary text of the article, I thought I'd focus on the ancillary material: images (where I already did a considerable amount of work today), audio samples (the article's crying out for some), and the "Discography" chart, which I'd like to address here. In short, I'd like to radically revise it to cover all of Presley's #1 albums and singles. At some point, it was decided to include chart positions from three charts and I think that choice is worth maintaining: the primary U.S. chart; the U.S. genre chart with which Presley was most identified (country); and the most significant overseas chart (U.K.)--I'd guess a #1 on the U.S. country is roughly equivalent in sales to a #1 on the main U.K. chart, maybe even higher. Anyway, here's my rationale:

(1) Presley is historically--commercially and aesthetically--more important as a singles artist than an album artist. I don't believe any major music historian or critic differs with that basic perspective. To cover albums and not singles in his summary discography is thus historically inappropriate.

(2) While, in terms of albums alone, a focus on official "studio" albums is appropriate in the case of many artists we cover, it's simply not in the case of Presley. For most of the 1960s, he focused on and his recording career was identified with soundtrack albums. For the most part, in the 1970s his biggest, most heavily promoted LP releases were concert, not studio, albums. At a finer level of detail, so-called original studio albums such as the debut actually compile many previously recorded tracks, while for better (never) or worse (usually much worse) several of the soundtrack albums reflect more unified recording efforts. We also avoid in this way such complications as how to classify From Memphis to Vegas/From Vegas to Memphis, whose lead LP is a live album and whose backing, studio LP is a (superb!) collection of B-sides and outtakes. Admittedly, with this approach we lose his three gospel albums from the discography (none hit #1), but perhaps that absence will encourage the greater coverage in the primary text that they deserve. On the other hand, this approach gains us such important releases as Aloha from Hawaii: Via Satellite and ELV1S (appropriately reflecting his exceptional posthumous popularity).

(3) The existing chart is entirely redundant of the lead chart in Elvis Presley discography. There's little point to that.

I'll be interested to hear what people think about my proposal. DocKino (talk) 01:55, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. In the absence of any objections I suggest you proceed along those lines and see what falls out. PL290 (talk) 13:49, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

OK. I done done it. DocKino (talk) 09:22, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Looks good. I suggest we also trim the 4-line "For... see..." to a single "See also" hatnote and I'll do that in a mo. PL290 (talk) 10:11, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

It's a shame that you're glossing over his gospel music. 74 songs and 3 Grammy-winning albums is really significant output. This number doesn't even include his Christmas songs. Plus Amazing Grace after his passing. All his backup groups were gospel singers: The Imperials, the Stamps, The Sweet Inspirations, The Jordannaires. Elvis' whole life was gospel music, the rest was just a depressing job, under the thumb of Col.Parker. Is there any chance we could include the stuff he really liked to do? The article looks really unbalanced without it. Santamoly (talk) 07:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Not sure how you arrive at the conclusion that Presley's connection to gospel music is "glossed over". The article currently includes the following:

• The family attended an Assembly of God church where he found his initial musical inspiration.
• The Southern Gospel singer Jake Hess, one of his favorite performers, was a significant influence on his ballad-singing style. He was a regular audience member at the monthly All-Night Singings downtown, where many of the white gospel groups that performed reflected the influence of African American spiritual music. He adored the music of black gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
• To close, displaying his range and defying Sullivan's wishes, Presley sang a gentle black spiritual, "Peace in the Valley".
• His first LP of sacred material, His Hand in Mine, followed two months later. It reached number 13 on the U.S. pop chart and number 3 in Great Britain, remarkable figures for a gospel album.
• During a five-year span—1964 through 1968—Presley had only one top ten hit: "Crying in the Chapel" (1965), a gospel number recorded back in 1960.
• Only one LP of new material by Presley was issued: the gospel album How Great Thou Art (1967). It won him his first Grammy Award, for Best Sacred Performance. As described in The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, Presley was "arguably the greatest white gospel singer of his time [and] really the last rock & roll artist to make gospel as vital a component of his musical personality as his secular songs."
• His gospel album He Touched Me, released that month, would earn him his second Grammy Award, for Best Inspirational Performance.
• Recorded on March 20, it included a version of "How Great Thou Art" that would win Presley his third and final competitive Grammy Award. (All three of his competitive Grammy wins—out of 14 total nominations—were for gospel recordings.)
• Presley's earliest musical influence came from gospel. His mother recalled that from the age of two, at the Assembly of God church in Tupelo attended by the family, "he would slide down off my lap, run into the aisle and scramble up to the platform. There he would stand looking at the choir and trying to sing with them." Later, the family sang together as a gospel trio. In Memphis, Presley frequently attended all-night gospel singings at the Ellis Auditorium, where groups such as the Statesmen Quartet led the music in a style that, Guralnick suggests, sowed the seeds of Presley's future stage act:

The Statesmen were an electric combination ... featuring some of the most thrillingly emotive singing and daringly unconventional showmanship in the entertainment world ... dressed in suits that might have come out of the window of Lansky's. ... Bass singer Jim Wetherington, known universally as the Big Chief, maintained a steady bottom, ceaselessly jiggling first his left leg, then his right, with the material of the pants leg ballooning out and shimmering. "He went about as far as you could go in gospel music," said Jake Hess. "The women would jump up, just like they do for the pop shows." Preachers frequently objected to the lewd movements ... but audiences reacted with screams and swoons

• In 1957, his first gospel record was released, the four-song EP Peace in the Valley. Certified as a million seller, it became the top-selling gospel EP in recording history. Presley would record gospel periodically for the rest of his life.
• [Caption to audio sample of "Run On":] From How Great Thou Art (1967), a traditional song popular in the black gospel tradition. The arrangement evokes "the percussive style of the 1930's Golden Gate Quartet."
• Presley was always "able to duplicate the open, hoarse, ecstatic, screaming, shouting, wailing, reckless sound of the black rhythm-and-blues and gospel singers".
• Addressing his '68 Comeback Special audience, he said, "Rock 'n' roll music is basically gospel or rhythm and blues, or it sprang from that."

That accounting doesn't even include the references to his Christmas music. So: If this constitutes "glossing over", please tell us exactly what you're looking for, while remaining mindful that length limits mean we can't include everything we might like. DocKino (talk) 18:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Elvis the Pelvis - clarification

I think the quote: "one of the most childish expressions I ever heard" omits the final words he spoke in that sentence, and should read something like: "one of the most childish expressions I ever heard coming from an adult." (my emphasis).

I don't have a cite for the latter version - spoken in an interview I think. Can anyone help with this? I think it's important, because Presley obviously didn't connect the expression with his fans - typically teenaged girls - whom I'm sure he would have forgiven for any light-hearted, if juvenile, expressions. Many thanks for any help - and a happy new year to you all!!Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 14:21, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

It's no doubt in one of the countless books I've rummaged through and I do have the interview on CD somewhere (I think, I'm sure I've heard it?) Anyway, this site here lists a number of quotes including the one that you have above. :) ElvisFan1981 (talk) 14:39, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

In fact, here is a great link to the actual interview praise Youtube! lol I know that youtube isn't a suitable cite, but perhaps with the above link and actual audio evidence to back it up it can be included. ElvisFan1981 (talk) 14:52, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I would (and do!) argue that, regardless of current policy, anything on YouTube that is "footage" of an event or a recording of an interview is "archival" in quality. I've made this argument in relation to what we can SEE Elvis doing in his TV appearances vs what people have WRITTEN about what he did. Surely, film, video, or a sound recording is a more primary source than a review or book that was written, in some cases, decades later, and completely misrepresents the actual event. I think it is only a matter of time before Wikipedia changes any policies to reflect the primacy of actual footage, where ever it is available as a "verifiable" source. Steve Pastor (talk) 17:04, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Steve, I certainly agree with you in theory--I cited a variety of multimedia recordings in the Sex Pistols article for the sourcing of accurate quotes and visual descriptions--but there is a legitimate concern about the stability of many items posted to YouTube. In any case, I found a "hard" source for the full quote, and added the YouTube ref as a supplement. DocKino (talk) 22:53, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I sympathise too. I recently tried to prove a certain actor appeared in a film, but because his role was uncredited, it wasn't mentioned in any reliable source. But of course, if you actually watched the film... Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 07:36, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Good work all--the full quote is a definite plus, and the YouTube link is the icing on the cake. PL290 (talk) 09:23, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Recent change

"After the divorce, Presley became increasingly unwell, and prescription drugs exacerbated his health problems as well as affecting his mood and his stage act."

Without any evidence, this well-intentioned revision suggests Presley had underlying health issues that prescription drugs exacerbated. Available evidence suggests his health problems were probably caused by long-term drug abuse - and his bad diet, so this may need reverting or amending. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 18:10, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Glad you brought this up--this was my change, and it seems we need to get to the bottom of exactly what is being said here. Previously we had, "After the divorce, Presley became increasingly unwell, with prescription drugs affecting his health and mood, as well as his stage act.". The combination of the linking word "with" with "increasingly" and "affecting" (positively or negatively?) leaves it unclear what effect prescription drugs had at that time, or their part in the overall story. Perhaps we should axe the sentence altogether, unless we can we identify a specific, prescription-drug-related development that occurred at that point. PL290 (talk) 19:09, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Per Guralnick 1999, Presley was admitted to hospital in a semicomatose condition just 6 days after the divorce. The second half of the sentence under discussion is vague and inconsequential and breaks this immediacy—I've axed it. PL290 (talk) 19:54, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Good move. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 21:26, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

On August 18 1972 Presley filed for divorce,(Guralnik/Jorgensen Day by Day p.312) but the couple weren't legally divorced until October 9 1973. (Day by Day p.329) PS. Happy New Year! ElvisFan1981 (talk) 11:34, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, thanks, will tweak accordingly in conjunction with another change I'm just making to that section. Happy New Year to you too (and everyone else)! PL290 (talk) 11:39, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Summary of health issues

A good point raised previously by ElvisFan1981 is this line in the intro:

"Weight problems and prescription drug dependence precipitated his death in 1977 at the age of 42."

The question is whether this, especially the specific reference only to weight and drugs, adequately summaries everything that precipitated his death. I have my doubts after previously thinking it was OK, but more details have since been added about other specific health issues: liver damage, enlarged colon, etc. Any thoughts? Also do we need to have "National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences" in the same section, when Grammy links to this? Thanks. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 12:34, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I've had my eye on that line for a while. It used to say "health problems" and got changed to "weight problems" quite recently. Needs more thought to become comprehensive. PL290 (talk) 13:03, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I've had a stab at improving it. I judge the word "weight" not to be key here, being an effect rather than a cause. Certainly a vicious circle, in that weight problems exacerbate health problems, but it's clear from the sources I've seen that the extraordinary bloating that occurred was not merely obesity but a severe disorder brought on by the drugs. I know it was recently changed from "health" to "weight" (by a drive-by editor) but I think mentioning weight in the lead misses the point. PL290 (talk) 14:48, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Where's the rockabilly?

The intro states Presley was one of the first performers of rockabilly, but there's no direct reference, or use of the term in relation, to Elvis in the rest of the article. We simply go from 'the sound' Philips was looking for to the actual Sun sessions, and then to 'rock and roll' - and rockabilly doesn't figure. Should this be addressed? Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 13:07, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Good point. I don't know enough about the history of Rockabilly to properly know the difference between that and all the other forms of music associated with Presley, but I would believe that he was considered Rockabilly early on in his career simply because they didn't know what else to class him. Possible? Of course, Rockabilly is also sometimes used to describe a song that has a very strong reverb effect, something many early Presley songs had at Sun. ElvisFan1981 (talk) 14:05, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I remember listenting to a couple of Wanda Jackson CD's a couple of years ago. This lady is noted as the "Queen of Rockabilly". The reason for my doing so, was because be were bringing her out for an event we organise each year. One of the CD'S I listened to, was her tribute to Elvis and she gave a brief interview about her involvement with Presley and if my memory serves correctly, she was saying back in 1955, they didn't really have a name for it just yet. I think she described it as Western Bop.--Jaye9 (talk) 11:34, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The Rockabilly article says:

“ When "That's All Right" was played on Memphis radio, listeners called to ask about the song. Nevertheless, from August 18, 1954 through December 8, 1954 "Blue Moon of Kentucky" was consistently charted at a higher position. [50] Nobody was sure what to call this music, so Elvis was described as “The Hillbilly Cat” and “King of Western Bop.” Over the next year, Elvis would record four more singles for Sun. Together, the upbeat numbers can be used as a touchstone for the rockabilly style: “nervously up tempo” (as Peter Guralnick describes it), with slap bass, fancy guitar picking, lots of echo, shouts of encouragement, and vocals full of histrionics such as hiccups, stutters, and swoops from falsetto to bass and back again.[51][52]

By the end of 1954 Elvis asked D.J. Fontana, who was the underutilized drummer for the Louisiana Hayride, "Would you go with us if we got any more dates?" Presley was now using drums,[53] as did many other rockabilly performers; drums were then uncommon in country music. Each of Presley's Sun singles combined a blues song on one side with a country song on the other, but both sung in the same vein.[54]

”

Guralnick mentions Hillbilly a lot and I suspect we need to make more of that, while including perhaps just one definite statement about Rockabilly rather than just mentioning it in passing—if it's to be retained in the lead, that is. As Jaye9 says, Rockabilly, being a fusion of Hillbilly and Rock 'n' Roll, was a fledgling thing in those days. PL290 (talk) 12:02, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid (given the article's length, that is), what the article sorely needs is a "Musical style and evolution" section like that in The Beatles (though shorter, I should think) that would summarily explicate rockabilly, the classic rock 'n' roll sound of his early RCA sides, the straight pop that dominated in the 1960s, and the soul/country/rock hybrid of the 1970s. We also need to devote a paragraph to his voice--which is currently relegated to a one-sentence note referring the reader to WikiQuotes. He's now widely recognized as one of the great popular music singers, and we need to explain why. DocKino (talk) 12:30, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

DocKino has, I feel, hit the nail on the head. I suggest a top-down approach whereby we add a stub section and then gradually add detail to it, along with any needed subsections, until it's right. PL290 (talk) 13:24, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

This quote, or variations of it, used to figure in the article, regarding his voice and singing ability:

"Elvis Presley has been described variously as a baritone and a tenor. An extraordinary compass - the so-called register - and a very wide range of vocal color have something to do with this divergence of opinion. The voice covers two octaves and a third, from the baritone low-G to the tenor high B, with an upward extension in falsetto to at least a D flat. Presley's best octave is in the middle, D-flat to D-flat, granting an extra full step up or down. Call him a high baritone. In "It's'now or never", (1960), he ends it in a full voice cadence (A, G, F), that has nothing to do with the vocal devices of R&B and Country. That A-note is hit right on the nose, and it is rendered less astonishing only by the number of tracks where he lands easy and accurate B-flats. Moreover, he has not been confined to one type of vocal production. In ballads and country songs he belts out full-voiced high G's and A's that an opera baritone might envy. He is a naturally assimilative stylist with a multiplicity of voices - in fact, Elvis' is an extraordinary voice, or many voices" - Henry Pleasants, "The Great American Popular Singers" (1974) page?

There are other wikiquotes relating to a musicological analysis. eg:

"With the way he was marketed, he didn't even need to be able to sing the way he could. But Elvis had talent, plain and simple. The guy had a variety in his vocal styles and approach, he could make more vocal tones, with just his voice, than a guitar player with 50 pedals and gadgets. If you never even saw the guy, you could plain feel, not just hear, the emotion and passion in his voice, and you are immediately taken in, one hundred percent. On the merit of vocals alone, he had more talent in the barbecue stuck in his teeth than the singers who sell millions of records do today".- Country singer Roger Wallace, in "Soapbox":

"He rarely over-sang when recording, delivering a vocal to suit the song. So, he can rasp and rage for "Jailhouse Rock", loudly accuse in "Hound Dog", bare his soul and beg on "Any Day Now" and sound quietly, sadly, worldly-wise on "Funny How Time Slips Away". This gift may explain why his music endures so powerfully and why his performances remain so easy to hear."- Paul Simpson, in "The rough guide to Elvis" Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 18:28, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi everyone. Some of that stuff in the Rockabilly article used to be here, too, but has been lost along the way with the countless edits that go on. There is no doubt that the early, Sun phase is considered to be rockabilly. In fact people knowledgeable about the subect use that stuff as a definition of the style. (See Emory Univerity Rockin Country Style site if you are interested) Before going to RCA and "breaking out" Elvis was popular with young southern audiences, partly because he was doing stuff that sounded familiar, but different, than what they already knew. Blue Moon of Kentucky, a hughly popular Bill Monroe tune is a perfect example. By the time he did Hound Dog he had moved away from the style, although the musicologist whom I referred to regarding the "I got it from the blacks" quote wrote that he still influenced people making "rockabilly" songs. (Again, note that he got the idea for Hound Dog Freddie Bell and the Bellboys, a white group that was playing in Vegas when Evlis bombed there.) I intitally came here to try to find out about who did what and influenced whom years ago. I didn't find anything useful, and am still learning about it myself. I'll be sharing, and I think this is a good idea. Steve Pastor (talk) 19:30, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Steve it was interesting to read your comment that Elvis got the idea for Hound Dog Freddie Bell and the Bellboys. I have a CD called "The Complete Million Dollar Quartet" with Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash. When listening to tracks 6,7 & 8 Elvis is talking about this guy he saw in Vegas, he was a member of "Billy Ward & Dominoes". I am assuming that he saw this act when he bombed there in the 50's. Well he goes on and on about this singer and how he sang "Don't Be Cruel" and the guy did it much better then his version and that he could never sing it as well as him and he mentions he went back four times in row to see this group. When listening to these types of recordings, makes you want to send a copy to Mary J Blige and others like her and say LISTEN TO THIS.--Jaye9 (talk) 00:18, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I might follow up on that one day since it isn't mentioned in the current Don't Be Cruel article. People have no idea how often songs were "covered" by other musicians. Bill Haley's Comets sometimes performed Hound Dog, for example. Steve Pastor (talk) 20:38, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Rik, may I respond to the above comment you made on Presley's voice and singing ability etc, I carn't help myself. Over the year's I have been asked this question, what made Presley so unique? I never knew how to respond. Or why are you a fan? I can only say that I am a music fan, who appreciates all types of music, that goes without saying. But what made Elvis unique? You know when you read something and it hits you and say to yourself, that's why. This is what I read many years ago by Kathy Westmorland and she answered my question, this is what she had to say: "When I was working with Elvis, I could not imagine how he could do it. He encouraged me to try it, to sing rock and then the head tones, and to switch vocally. He would use a whole different thought concept and a different set of muscels in the same night. I would compare it to a dancer doing an extremely modern dance, real rock and pop dance, and suddenly attempting to jump into Swan Lake, a ballet. The muscles you use are just different. In one dance you are trying to stretch the muscles out and in the next dance you are contracting those same muscles. Elvis freed me vocally and made me attempt to widen my range of songs, but I don't have a percentile of the versatility that Elvis had. The writer who said that Elvis had a weak voice also had a tin ear.

I happen to have been with the Metropolitan Opera and I have studied voice for 25 years. I know a strong voice when I hear it. Elvis' voice may have been untrained, and sometimes his vibrato would be weak or wobbly in places as any untrained singer's voice would be. But Elvis' voice was so strong and he had such a feeling and natural ability that he was able to do things with his voice that a trained singer could not or would not even try to do. And he did them all the time. He sang a high "B" natural wide open. Most baritones can't even reach a "G" without struggling". Source: "Elvis and Kathy" by Kathy Westmorland p.227 & 228 --Jaye9 (talk) 06:37, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

"others deny it was Denny"

Afterwards, the singer was supposedly told by the Opry's Jim Denny to not give up his day job,[52] though others deny it was Denny who made that statement.[53]

Not sure this speculation deserves space in the article. I think if it's retained, it needs to expand to say what's going on. Currently we're left not knowing who "others" are (nor who they are "other" than), or whether such others attribute the statement to someone else or deny it was ever made. Currently we imply it was indeed made, but it's not clear whether this is really known. I suggest one of three things:

1. Afterwards, the singer was supposedly told by the Opry's Jim Denny to not give up his day job,[52] though others deny it was Denny who made that statement.[53]
2. Axe the sentence
3. Expand to address all the issues.

I don't really have a strong opinion which of these (or other) suggestions should be taken up, but something needs to change. Thoughts? PL290 (talk) 13:36, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I've looked this up in three separate books so far, trying to get to the bottom of this for you. Victor Adams' Elvis Encyclopaedia refers to it as a myth, although Presley was not impressed with Denny's insistence that he always liked the singer when they met again years later. Alanna Nash, writing in Elvis and the Memphis Mafia, again states that it has passed into legend as something Denny said, although again there is no concrete evidence to back it up. And thirdly, Elvis: Day by Day by Peter Guralnick and Ernst Jorgensen doesn't even mention it at all, and actually says it was a Bill Denny, manager of the Opry, who arranged the performance, not a Jim Denny. Forgetting the name difference (possibly just a printing mistake? I don't know any Jim or Bill Denny outside of reading about Presley) it seems to me that most are of the impression that Denny never really said any such thing. Possibly it was used by Parker later on for publicity reasons? Sounds great to say that possibly the greatest vocalist of the 20th century was told to go back to driving a truck? ElvisFan1981 (talk) 13:59, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

To that end there's a more explicit example earlier, in May 1954; according to Gurlanick 1994 p. 83: after Presley's performance at the Hi Hat club, Eddie Bond told him "that he had better stick to driving a truck 'because you're never going to make it as a singer.'" So another option would be to work that in somewhere instead. PL290 (talk) 14:18, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Good find, and it led me to this in Guralnick's Day by Day p.15:-

"May 15 1954 - Elvis and Dixie go to the Hi-Hat on South Third. Elvis is wearing his bolero jacket with a pink shirt and accompanies himself on the guitar, singing two songs. The try-out does not get him a job, and in later years Elvis will dramatize the rejection by saying that Eddie Bond told him to go back to driving a truck."

Make of that what you will, makes it even more confusing! lol ElvisFan1981 (talk) 14:23, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, Guralnick 1994 continues, "We were on a train going to Hollywood to make Jailhouse Rock, and Elvis said, 'I wonder what Eddie Bond thinks now. Man, that sonofabitch broke my heart.'" PL290 (talk) 14:27, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I've substituted the Bond utterance. PL290 (talk) 15:04, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

This originally got included because it was a (in)famous story about rejecting Elvis. In Clayton & Heard's Elvis. By Those Who Knew Him Best (p. 49): Faron Young said, "I don't know how the hell it got started, [but someone said that Jim Denny told Elvis that he shouldn't give up truck driving]. ... I knew Jim Denny very well, I loved him. ... I'll bet you ten million dollars to a doughnut that Denny never made that remark to Elvis Presley.

The book goes on to quote Denny's son (Bill) and his efforts to establish if his father had said it, and includes Chet Atkins apparent denial that Jim Denny said it. Hence the original edit in the Presley article. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 20:25, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Good, thanks; seems to confirm that the speculation isn't really central to Presley's own story—happy with how it's ended up, with the Bond quote instead? PL290 (talk) 20:41, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Suits me. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 01:42, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Influence of Colonel Parker and others

Looking in detail at this section for the first time, my expectation that it would be an endorsement of Parker's positive contribution was not met! It all seems negative. Perhaps at least some balancing is needed. PL290 (talk) 21:12, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I guess this section was originally conceived because there seemed to be so many negative influences on Presley. Maybe it should have been titled as such. Having said that, Geller seems to have been a benefit from a spiritual perspective, and Marty Lacker's defense of the Memphis Mafia is included. Also, the Moman paragraph highlights his own (brief) positive influence, as well as the overall banality and grip of RCA's stewardship. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 01:55, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Cite verification needed to replace last dead link

... Elvis' Christmas Album. The latter would later become the second best selling holiday release of all time, according to the RIAA. ^{(dead link here)}

Best-selling Christmas/Holiday albums in the United States makes the same statement (giving Merry Christmas (Bing Crosby album) as the first best selling). However, the plot then thickens: to back up the statement, that article cites this NYT article which itself says, "The best-selling Christmas album of all time, with nine million sold in 50 years, is Elvis' Christmas Album (1957), by you know who." So, does anyone have a citation that confirms second place? PL290 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

It looks to me like the cite is right--Elvis' Christmas Album is number one, by far. Here's a well-researched article posted last year on Elvis Australia: [2]. Der Bingle's "White Christmas" is the top-selling Xmas single of all time, but that's not the issue here. DocKino (talk) 12:59, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Interestingly the Bing Crosby claim doesn't list a citation, and so that in itself may require a cite request and without one I fail to see how it could be considered a bigger seller. The above link to Elvis Australia is a very detailed article from 2008 and claims total sales of over 12 million for Elvis' Christmas Album; 3 million for the original between 1957-1969, and a further 9 million for the budget release from 1970-2008. I can only assume that Bing Crosby's album, if it has sold more than 3 million copies, is being compared to the original release of Elvis' Christmas Album with sales of 3 million. Although, the page for the Crosby album Merry Christmas (Bing Crosby album) doesn't list any citations for the claim of over 15 million sales, either. ElvisFan1981 (talk) 13:26, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I've corrected the "Best-selling Christmas albums" article. Stand by for any hornets flying out... :) PL290 (talk) 13:58, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The host was actually actor Charles Laughton

We read that for Presley's first Ed Sullivan Show, "(The host was actually actor Charles Laughton.)" Given the involvement of an actor, this presents an ambiguity: does it mean viewers were intended to think it was Sullivan? Or just that it turned out that an alternative presenter, Laughton (who, incidentally, happened to be an actor), hosted the show in his own right that day? PL290 (talk) 15:35, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Actor Charles Laughton served as substitute host the night of Elvis' first appearance because Sullivan was recuperating from a car accident which meant he was unable to present. ElvisFan1981 (talk) 15:47, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, got that much thanks... maybe it's only my imagination that makes the ambiguity possible, but it seems to me that in those circumstances there could have been an attempt to impersonate Sullivan ... Laughton was an actor, after all ... perhaps we can recast to remove the ambiguity for the reader. PL290 (talk) 16:19, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I apologise, I wasn't thinking straight when I wrote that. Forgot it mentions the reason in the article already, I wrongly thought you were asking why Laughton was the host at all. My mistake. Possible rewrite of the line to include all of the above to explain better what is meant instead of throwing it in brackets? Something along the lines of "Due to Sullivan being injured in a car accident shortly before Presley's first appearance, actor Charles Laughton was invited to host the show in his place."

I also note that the citation for the line about Sullivan's accident in the article states that 72 million people tuned in for the show, not 55-60 million that is currently in the article; Elvis attracted a record-breaking audience of over 72 million people--more than 80% of the television-viewing audience--which equalled one of every third man, woman and child in the U.S. at that time. It may be wrong and another source may be more accurate so it's up to you if you think it's worthwhile altering it. ElvisFan1981 (talk) 16:55, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

No worries!—actually I'm feeling bad for dwelling on what may be a trivial question, since I suspect the answer is that impersonation is my own far-fetched idea and was not done! Thanks for the extra info; I'll incorporate it and will probably tweak the wording for the non-impersonating meaning unless someone beats me to it. PL290 (talk) 17:06, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

"Elvis attracted a record-breaking audience of over 72 million people." Query: was it really Elvis or was it the famous actor Charles Laughton who attracted the record-breaking audience? Both were announced in the newspapers. Onefortyone (talk) 05:12, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I should start by saying I worship Charles Laughton as the director of the greatest movie in American history. In fact, I introduced the fact that he hosted the first show to the article--only so readers wouldn't reach the mistaken conclusion that Sullivan hosted all of the relevant episodes of his own show. But Laughton did not draw that audience. In the United States, by the 1950s, he was regarded as a well-respected character actor, a "star" only in the most generous terms. Imagine Jeremy Irons filling in for Letterman while Jay-Z and Alicia Keys and Lady Gaga and Britney and the Black Eyed Peas appeared together. Look, it's not easy to find a source that even recognizes Laughton hosted. Does anyone have a source that so much as hints that he might have been the draw? DocKino (talk) 07:05, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

141, this particular question is actually academic, since that wording is not used in the article--its just in the cite EF gave to confirm the figures. The article states that the show "was seen by more than 72 million viewers" which is all it needs to state. PL290 (talk) 11:57, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh 141, your so deep--Jaye9 (talk) 07:00, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Claim about the sleeping habits of Elvis and his mother

A few attempts have been made to introduce the claim that Elvis and his mother shared a bed until he was a young teen. Aside from the point of the claim being redundant (it is otherwise made clear that they were very close), it is dubious as a matter of fact. The source provided is Patrick Humphries' Elvis the #1 Hits: The Secret History of the Classics. This is a poppy book with virtually no original research (yes, we want our scholarly and historical and journalistic sources to conduct "original research") published by a house that is well shy of top-of-the-line. We currently cite it at only one other spot, where it is readily replaceable--and I believe should be replaced--by a higher-quality source.

Here is the cited passage for the bed-sharing claim:

There is a widely held belief among psychologists that the disappearance of Vernon from Elvis' life when the King was three ... had a profound effect upon Elvis's emotional development. At that age a child naturally goes through a separation anxiety from its mother, which fathers can often help with. Elvis only had Gladys. They slept in the same bed until Elvis was a young teen.

There is--big surprise--no referencing of the many psychologists who share this "belief" about Elvis's development. There is a failure to note that Vernon disappeared for only eight months--one is left to infer much longer. Most relevantly, if you're going to announce that a child shared his mother's bed until he was a young teen, you'd think you might take a sentence to explain where the father (whom all agree that Gladys loved) was sleeping all those many years. I have not come across a serious biographer who verifies this claim. If anyone else has, please cite them forthwith. DocKino (talk) 05:59, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Humphries also says about Elvis and his mother,

When he entered the Army it marked the longest and furthest distance from her that he'd ever been. For a man who'd slept in the same bed as his momma until his early teens, that was a cruel reality. (p.99)

There are even claims that Elvis may have had an incestuous relationship with his mother. Greil Marcus writes in Double Trouble: Bill Clinton and Elvis Presley in a Land of No Alternatives (2000):

Newsbreaks included the National Enquirer's Dee Presley explosion: HIS OWN STEPMOM REVEALS SHOCKING TRUTH AT LAST-ELVIS AND HIS MOM WERE LOVERS. (p.3)

About his mother, it's said"—Gladys Presley, who died in 1958, at forty-six, after, if Dee Presley is right, years of bliss with Elvis in her bed, or she in his. "It makes sense," said Adrian Sibley of the BBC's The Late Show. "America has brought Elvis up to date: now he needs therapy just like everybody else. Don't they have twelve-step programs for incest survivors?" (p.6).

There are similar accounts of Elvis's close relationship to his mother in other publications on the singer, for instance, in Earl Greenwood's book, The Boy Who Would Be King. On p.96, the author says,

When he was ... sharing her bed ..., Gladys told him he was her little man. Not only was Elvis Gladys's son, she also made it clear he was her mate.

On another occasion, when they

were ready to walk out the door, Gladys grabbed Elvis and held him close. "Jus' you 'member, nobody loves you like I do. You always got me." Translated to mean: You best not put any girl before your mama again. ... Gladys wanted to be everything to Elvis and wanted more from him than what was right or healthy to expect. (p.116)

Peter Guralnick writes in his book, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley (p.13), "Elvis grew up a loved and precious child. He was, everyone agreed, unusually close to his mother." His father still openly talked about this fact after his son had become famous. Throughout her life, Guralnick writes, "the son would call her by pet names, they would communicate by baby talk, 'she worshiped him,' said a neighbor, 'from the day he was born.' " According to the reputed biographer, Elvis himself said, "My mama never let me out of her sight. I couldn't go down to the creek with the other kids."

Guralnick describes Elvis as a very shy person, as a "kid who had spent scarcely a night away from home in his nineteen years" (p.149) and who was teased by his fellow classmates: "My older brother went to school with him," recalled singer Barbara Pittman, "and he and some of the other boys used to hide behind buildings and throw things at him - rotten fruit and stuff - because he was different, because he was quiet and he stuttered and he was a mama's boy." (p.36) These early experiences had a deep influence on his clumsy advances to girls. According to Guralnick (p.149), he loved playing with the girls and teasing them, but "it didn't go too far. ... In between shows at the auditorium he would peek out from behind the curtain, then, when he spotted someone that he liked, swagger over to the concession stand, place his arm over her shoulder, and drape his other arm around someone else, acting almost like he was drunk, even though everyone knew he didn't drink." Guitarist Scotty Moore attested that Elvis's parents were very protective: "His mama would corner me and say, 'Take care of my boy. Make sure he eats. Make sure he-' You know, whatever. Typical mother stuff." But Elvis "didn't seem to mind; there was nothing phony about it, he truly loved his mother. He was just a typical coddled son, ... very shy – he was more comfortable just sitting there with a guitar than trying to talk to you." Guralnick writes that Gladys was so proud of her boy, that she "would get up early in the morning to run off the fans so Elvis could sleep" (p.280). She was frightened of Elvis even going out of the house: "She knew her boy, and she knew he could take care of himself, but what if some crazy man came after him with a gun? she said ..., tears streaming down her face." (p.346)

In Elvis: The Last 24 Hours, Albert Goldman cites Presley's closest friends and relatives in order to support his view that the star was an undisciplined, self-indulgent hillbilly with a sickly Oedipal relationship with his obese, smothering, mother. Greenwood even suggests (p.245) that "Long-buried Oedipal desires scratched at the surface of his consciousness and threatened to come forth," when Elvis "put Priscilla on a pedestal alongside the gilded image of his deceased mother."

When his mother died, Elvis was "sobbing and crying hysterically", as Guralnick relates (p.478). "He was grieving almost constantly, the papers wrote." According to several eye-witnesses, "He'd cry all day," and when they had get him calmed down, "the next day it would start all over again." (p.480)

Elaine Dundy's book, Elvis and Gladys, says about Gladys's close relationship with Elvis:

it was agony for her to leave her child even for a moment with anyone else, to let anyone else touch Elvis. Maternal love was not for Gladys a prettily sentimental attachment. Rather it was a passionate concentration which deepened into a painful intensity when her son was not there, directly in her sight. She imagined all sorts of horrors. She imagined he was being tortured and she was not there to stop it. It was physical torment for her to be separated from him. Maternal devotion is constantly misrepresented as either grasping, clinging, stifling or pathetic. It is none of these things. Every mother of a very young child has the primordial conviction, deeper than reason, that as long as her child is within her eyesight she will be able to protect him from all harm. Generally the mother outgrows this as the child grows up but Gladys all her life remained anxious over each one of Elvis' separations from her. (p.71)

Here are some further sources: On page 19 of their book, Elvis Presley, Richard Nixon, and the American Dream, Connie Kirchberg and Marc Hendrickx refer to the "already common 'mama's boy' teasing he had endured since the first day of school, when Gladys walked him to the door." On page 2 of his book, Rockabilly: A Forty-Year Journey, Billy Poore writes that it is "a fact that in 1953 Elvis was a shy, introverted mama's boy in a town full of bullies." In his book, Elvis After Elvis: The Posthumous Career of a Living Legend, Gilbert B Rodman calls Elvis "the dutiful mama's boy" (p.104) and mentions, with reference to Guralnick, "the humble modesty of a Dixie-bred mama's boy: In many ways I am sure that the picture is accurate, and it undoubtedly conforms to the image that Elvis Presley had of himself." (p.142) Interestingly, Joe Harrington, on p.166 of his book, Sonic Cool: The Life & Death of Rock 'n' Roll calls Elvis's "Kissin' Cousins" an "incestuous Rock n Roll song." According to Jim Green, the record, The King and Eye "incisively portrays Elvis's life and work as a misguided abandonment of innocence in favor of a sad yet comedic Oedipal journey" (quoted in George Plasketes, Images of Elvis Presley in American Culture, 1977-1997: The Mystery Terrain, p.37).

Parts of this material may be included in the article. Onefortyone (talk) 07:40, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

No, there's quite enough on the topic as is. Thanks, though. DocKino (talk) 07:44, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Sexual psychologists say that Presley is a "classic example of the mother/Madonna/whore split." It is said that Elvis never made love to Priscilla again "after the birth of his daughter, and would never have sex with a woman who had had a baby." See Carol Martin-Sperry, Couples and Sex: An Introduction to Relationship Dynamics and Psychosexual Concepts (2004), p.24. Onefortyone (talk) 07:51, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Given the length limits and content requirements of an encyclopedia article, we simply can't delve into these issues in the depth they require. This is not the place for psychobiography. Of course, you could create the article Psychobiography of Elvis Presley. It would actually be fascinating. But we can't do it here. DocKino (talk) 08:06, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Would you agree to simply reinclude the Humphries passage you have removed? Furthermore, I do not agree with this edit and some other of your edits, though, in general, you are doing an excellent job here. It is of some importance to say that Elvis, the sex symbol, was not primarily interested in sex. Onefortyone (talk) 08:18, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

No, I absolutely do not agree to reinclude the Humphries passage. I have explained in great detail why his claim is dubious on its face, and why he does not qualify as a high-quality source. (And any Presley expert should already know the same about the notorious Goldman.) The article already states, "He was occasionally bullied by classmates who viewed him as a 'mama's boy'". And as for the linked edit with which you disagree, I address that in the new thread below. DocKino (talk) 08:45, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Given the length limits and content requirements of an encyclopedia article, we simply can't delve into these issues in the depth they require. This is not the place for psychobiography. Of course, you could create the article Psychobiography of Elvis Presley. It would actually be fascinating. But we can't do it HERE.

Agree with the above statement 100%. This article, in only the last 6 hours, is in danger of losing hard-earned veracity and focus. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 08:40, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I also agree with leaving out the speculative psycho-babble. Elvis was a typical 1950s Christian young man who didn't engage in random sex with casual dates. Hardly anybody did that in the 1950s, and if they did, it definitely wasn't normal dating behavior, even for recording stars. Specious speculation about his sex life only degrades the encyclopedic quality of the article. Santamoly (talk) 06:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Characterization of Presley's dating habits

A few attempts have been made to use Guralnick 1994 to imply that Presley in some lifelong fashion was unusually uninterested in having sex with the young women who were readily available to him. I read Guralnick very differently--to the effect that Presley was uninterested in emotionless, meaningless, soulless sexual activity; that he really enjoyed the company of women; and that he liked to have sex with women whom he could imagine being in love with...all this when he was 22 years old. Here is what Guralnick actually writes (p. 415):

For the most experienced girls it wasn't like with other Hollywood stars or even with other more sophisticated boys they knew. They offered to do things for him, but he wasn't really interested. What he liked to do was to lie in bed and watch television and eat and talk all night—the companionship seemed as important for him as the sex—and then in the early-morning hours they would make love. "He had an innocence at that time" [Editorial note: 1957!!], said one of them. "I'm sure it didn't last. But what he really wanted was to have a relationship, to have company."

To cite this passage from Guralnick to support article text hinting that Presley over the course of his life had an unusually low libido, or was sexually repressed, or even dysfunctional, as appears to have been the intent, is perverse. DocKino (talk) 08:37, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

More agreement with DocKino from me here too. There seems to be a rather worrying persistence to such claims on these talk pages, and it's not helping this article to improve. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 08:46, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with DocKino's interpretation of the said paragraph. Guralnick writes that when Elvis "got bored he just had to tell the guys to hunt up some girls in the lobby of the hotel. He would have them brought up to the suite, offered one observer, "and Elvis would go in the other room, he'd go in the bedroom or somewhere, and then when they came back with the girls, the girls would sit there for maybe ten or fifteen minutes, and finally one of the cousins would go in the bedroom and come out himself and another ten minutes would go by - and then in would come Elvis. And there would be like a silence, and then the cousins would say, 'Oh, Mary Jane, this is Elvis,' and the girls would be totally gone." For the most experienced girls it wasn't like with other Hollywood stars or even with other more sophisticated boys they knew. They offered to do things for him, but he wasn't really interested. ..." etc. Does this sound as if he was primarily interested in sex? No, he wasn't, as Guralnick also writes that there were other things he wasn't interested in. He was primarily looking for company, not sex. "What he liked to do was to lie in bed and watch television and eat and talk all night" - these are Guralnick's words. And this is also confirmed by the statements of most girls who had dates in the singer's bedroom. Onefortyone (talk) 08:55, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

(1) Do you have some reason to believe he didn't like the part where sexual intercourse occurred in the early-morning hours? Do you have any reason to doubt that he enjoyed sex more having spent a few hours getting to know the person with whom he was having sex? If your answer is yes to either or both of these questions, please explain in detail how you reached your conclusions.

(2) How, in any event, does delving into this private behavior by a 22-year-old Presley significantly further our understanding of the encyclopedic topic of his long-lasting public persona as a sex symbol--especially given our length limits and need to maintain focus? DocKino (talk) 09:30, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

DocKino, reading Gurlanick as I have, I concur with what you have said, and I believe so does everyone else for that matter, all except for this gentleman above. I have spent countless hours, both with my research and discussions with him in the past, all to no avail. In saying that, I've noticed his used Earl Greenwood yet again, and I have brought up with him, I believe were reliable sources as to why one shouldn't. His response to me was, I don't know how reliable he his? Well isn't that terrific and this fellow believes he has such an insight into all things Elvis, he even commented that he thought Gurlanick was naive, at one stage of the game. Quite some time ago, I wrote and complimented the editors for their great work on the John Lennon article, on the Elvis Talk page and that I appreciated how they had structured the article, particulary the relationship side of things, for obvious reasons. I must admit, that I had thought to myself, will this editor, after reading my comments, go over to the Lennon article? Surely not. He did, the very next day. I had noticed that he hadn't been there for a few years prior to that. His comments he made on the Lennon article I had noticed, were a cut and paste job, and yes, he recieved alot of oppostion for these comments, as he does here. Did he stay very long with the Lennon article? No, just a couple of days and you ask yourself these questions, is all this just a game, or is his sole focuss purely on Presley and Presley alone and is it a healthy one.--Jaye9 (talk) 13:12, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, we've had this on going "debate" with one editor for years now. Just weighing in, again, that most editors think that some material does not belong in this article. Engaging in further debate over issues that have been resolved repeatedly does not serve the best interests of wikipdeia, its users, or its editors. Steve Pastor (talk) 20:45, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Three quotes on Presley's acting career

A recent attempt was made to add three quotes concerning Presley's acting career to the "History" section--at least two (and I believe all three) of these quotes formerly impacted the article, and were extracted in a successful, painless operation last month. Aside from questions of, yes, length!! and the general desirability of limiting unregurgitated quotes from secondary sources (lively historical quotes from involved figures are g-r-r-r-e-a-t!), here is why I believe these quotes do not belong in the article, either in the "History" section or in the "Acting career" section, where they might also have been placed.

1:

According to John Mundy, these films, "so often criticized for their bland musical and filmic aesthetic, seem the logical outcome of Presley’s assimilation into the dominant commercial mainstream which began with his very first films."

This, like much bland, mainstream film criticism, is both achingly obvious and highly arguable. In other words, there is no need to say it, but it does deserve to be picked apart and challenged in detail. May I point out to anyone who still finds this critical claim about Presley's supposed "assimilation into the dominant commercial mainstream which began with his very first films" worthwhile and finds the homoeroticism of Jailhouse Rock highly significant that there is a rather blatant tension between one and the other. If someone wants to start the article Acting career of Elvis Presley and introduce this quote there, I will be happy to grind it into philosophical dust (employing high-quality sources, of course!) But THERE. Not here. Here, we have already made very clear that the vast majority of Presley's films were bland and formulaic. Mission accomplished.

2:

Although Presley was praised by directors, like Michael Curtiz, as polite and hardworking (and as having an exceptional memory), "he was definitely not the most talented actor around."

Well, I suppose there's an encyclopedia that might want to use this quote, which appears in a footnote of a book by a writer who's not really a writer (let alone, you know, a critic) ((let alone, you know, a well-respected critic)), but rather a Hollywood interviewer. But that encyclopedia isn't Wikipedia, is it? By the way, the first paragraph of the "Acting career" section already contains a juicy historical quote by an involved party that establishes the conventional view of Presley's acting talent. Mission accomplished. Oh, and this will shock the more sensitive among you, the cited page offers absolutely zero support for the claim about Curtiz. In fact, if we can believe Google Book Search--and I spent a chunk of my life I'll never get back on this--no page in this book supports the claim about Curtiz. But if someone wants to track down support for the claim that Presley was "polite and hardworking" on set, that'll be a genius add to Acting career of Elvis Presley.

Just for your information. The first part of the sentence was not written by me, as far as I can remember; only for the second part the quotation was used. However, I did some further research. Here is another quote: “Presley was the product of a pop music revolution; he was a natural screen personality with a built-in audience. Usually, the quality of the piece he starred in didn't matter...” See Roy Kinnard and R. J. Vitone, The American Films of Michael Curtiz (1986), p.102. Onefortyone (talk) 02:26, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

3:

Thus, the movies received harsh criticism from professional reviewers. Sight and Sound, for instance, wrote that in his movies "Elvis Presley, aggressively bisexual in appeal, knowingly erotic, [was] acting like a crucified houri and singing with a kind of machine-made surrealism."

Yep, no one does harsh likes those cruel British critics writing a quarter-century after the fact! Thank God no hound doggin', green-eyed mountain jackin' U.S. male could ever be bothered to understand this!

Kidding aside, "crucified houri" is clever and funny enough that it hardly matters how inaccurate it is, and "singing with a kind of machine-made surrealism" is intriguing enough that it makes me want to read more to figure out if it's the pauncey tripe I bet it is.

POV aside, sadly (weep!) I'll never be able to read more, because, guess what, the "citation" doesn't give me a clue what the title of the article was, or who wrote it, or even in which of the twelve issues of Sight and Sound that were published in 1992 it appeared in.

Nitpicking aside, this is the kind of idiosyncratic, highly subjective, recondite (speaking of recondite!) aesthetic interpretation that we just don't have room for in an encyclopedia article that must efficiently and clearly introduce the reader to the life and career of its subject. May I suggest Acting career of Elvis Presley or Interpretations of Elvis? DocKino (talk) 11:56, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

This quotation from one of the most reputable British film magazines clearly shows that these films were made in order to attract both heterosexual and homosexual audiences and that the songs were all sang in the same surreal manner. A nice quote. Onefortyone (talk) 02:48, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

A worthy dissection of said quotes, one with which I am in full agreement. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 13:52, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Indeed so—and, I might add, most engagingly presented to boot. Thank you, DocKino. PL290 (talk) 14:37, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if this helps, but Joe Moscheo, who often performed with Elvis as a member of the gospel group The Imperials, said that Elvis "had a truly gifted memory. [He] was an unbelievably quick study . . . he could learn the script for the day's shooting on the drive to the set." One reason that his backers liked doing movies with Elvis is that they could produce them quickly since Elvis was so fast at learning his roles. Thus, the movies were reliable "money machines" for his producers. Santamoly (talk) 23:00, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Good point, that often has been said to have been the case with him. His friend Lamar Fike who was on the set with him and sometimes was even an extra in his movies, had said that not only did Presley no his lines, but would memorized everyone else's as well. The sad part about it all, was by the early 60's, he hated doing these pictures, and as Lamar has stated, Presley would suffer from these horredous nose bleeds, brought on by stress.--Jaye9 (talk) 23:21, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Elvis hated everything about Col.Parker's agenda, including the rock-n-roll and the films. Elvis mostly wanted to sing gospel with his friends and be married to Priscilla. Even though he was a skilled actor, producer, and arranger, the rest was just an unpleasant job to him. Santamoly (talk) 07:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Automate archiving?

Does anyone object to me setting up automatic archiving for this page using MiszaBot? Unless otherwise agreed, I would set it to archive threads that have been inactive for 30 days and keep ten threads.--Oneiros (talk) 23:33, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea in principle, but I'm also aware that there have been issues with archive bots in the past, with the bot effectively trashing the page in one way or another; for instance, producing incorrect behaviour if certain characters are encountered in talk page text, or fishing out only parts of conversations and archiving them away, leaving the residue appearing to any who subsequently come across it to be a complete conversation. The issue was raised here, but there's probably more to be found about it elsewhere. In summary: good idea, but I'd prefer it if we can do a bit of research first and only do it if we can have confidence in the bot not compromising things in any way. OK, you could resort to History (assuming you realized there was a problem, which wouldn't always be the case) but the talk page and its archives are important information not to be placed at risk in my view. PL290 (talk) 23:50, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, both bots (MiszaBot and ClueBot) needs to be watched and fish out completed threads (and ClueBot seems to leave talk pages empty). But MiszaBot seems to work quite well elsewhere. If you want to do it manually, you are welcome—currently the page is quite long.--Oneiros (talk) 00:17, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

My suggestion would be to leave it for now, particularly if there's no stronger reassurance than "seems to work quite well". I'm not knocking the work bot-writers do (I'm a software developer myself, though not (yet) on WP, and I know the challenges and am aware these editors do a lot of useful work here) but as I said before, I'd prefer not to compromise this information. Let me put it this way, in question-and-answer form, to try and illustrate my point:

• Is it a problem if the page gets long? Well, yes, it would be more convenient for it to be truncated periodically.
• Shall we just delete the old info? No, certainly not (in my view); it may be very useful in the future. That's not to say it will be accessed very often, or even ever, but if and when it is, it may well be exceedingly useful and forms part of the build-up of knowledge behind WP, in relation to the particular area of the article in question.
• Given the previous answer, does it matter that the archive bot might introduce errors and omissions into both the archived data and the current talk page? (That one was rhetorical.)

The talk page has grown a lot recently because there's currently a focus by several editors to overhaul the article. Two things arise from that:

1. The archiving away of conversations applicable to this current phase may be unwelcome;
2. Using the current rate of traffic on the talk page to reach the conclusion that automated archiving should be set up may be misleading.

My £0.02. PL290 (talk) 08:40, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

No software is perfect, but errors in these bots seem to be quite rare. I'd say go with it and be bold—or archive manually. But someone should archive.--Oneiros (talk) 12:13, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Some critical remarks about the recent copyedits

It is interesting that mainly critical, well-sourced voices that gave a lively expression of what some critics thought about Elvis, his relationships, his movies etc. have been deleted. Other critical remarks have been toned down, if not mangled, by copyediting. For instance, a previous version of a paragraph read:

According to the FBI files on the singer, Presley was even seen as a "definite danger to the security of the United States." His actions and motions were called "a strip-tease with clothes on" or "sexual self-gratification on stage." They were compared with "masturbation or riding a microphone." Some saw the singer as a sexual pervert, and psychologists feared that teenaged girls and boys could easily be "aroused to sexual indulgence and perversion by certain types of motions and hysteria—the type that was exhibited at the Presley show."

This has now been changed to the following version, thereby misrepresenting much of the harshness of the original accusations:

... an urgent letter to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, warn[ed] that "Presley is a definite danger to the security of the United States. When Presley came on the stage, the youngsters almost mobbed him. ... [His] actions and motions were such as to rouse the sexual passions of teenaged youth. ... After the show, more than 1,000 teenagers tried to gang into Presley's room at the auditorium. ... Indications of the harm Presley did just in La Crosse were the two high school girls ... whose abdomen and thigh had Presley's autograph."

By way of compromise, the material of both versions should be used for an adequate quotation.

Another example. Why has the following paragraph been removed?

Even Presley’s reputation as the most successful popular singer of his day has been doubted. Though he has featured prominently in a variety of polls and surveys designed to measure popularity and influence,Template:Fn sociologist Philip Ennis writes, "Perhaps it is an error of enthusiasm to freight Elvis Presley with too heavy a historical load" because, according to an opinion poll of high school students in 1957, Pat Boone was nearly the "two-to-one favorite over Elvis Presley among boys and preferred almost three-to-one by girls..."

The Wikipedia article primarily cites statistics from the record industry in order to stress the immense popularity of the singer. However, for reasons of balance, differing voices, in this case from a university study, should not be omitted, especially in view of the fact that Pat Boone was seen by many as the good guy, whereas Elvis was more seen as the bad guy at that time.

Even the “critical voices” section I had created, as a kind of compromise, two weeks ago has been completely removed. Indeed, there are not only positive voices concerning the singer and his life to be heard. Some examples.

• During the early years of his career, Country blues guitarist Mississippi Slim constantly criticized Elvis.
• According to Jennifer Harrison, "Elvis faced criticism more often than appreciation" from a small town in South Memphis.
• "Much criticism has been heaped on Elvis, the Colonel, and others who controlled his creative (or not so creative) output, especially during the Hollywood years."
• According to Robert A. Segal, Elvis was "a consummate mamma's boy, who lived his last twenty years as a recluse in a womblike, infantile world in which all of his wishes were immediately satisfied yet who deemed himself entirely normal, in fact 'all-American.'"
• When a CBS special on Presley was aired on October 3, 1977, shortly after the singer's death, it "received such harsh criticism that it is hard to imagine what the public response to Elvis's degeneration would have been if he had been alive." This special "only seemed to confirm the rumors of drug abuse."
• In his study on the analogy of trash and rock 'n' roll, professor of English and drummer Steven Hamelman demonstrates that rock 'n' roll productions are often trash, that critics often trash rock 'n' roll productions, and that rock 'n' roll musicians often trash their lives. The author uses the tortured lives and premature deaths of Presley, John Lennon and Kurt Cobain in his section on "waste" in order to underscore the literal and figurative "waste" that, in his opinion, is part of rock 'n' roll.

Everybody knows that I have a more critical view of the singer (seeing him as a star who had immense personal problems) than those Wikipedians who lay more emphasis on the superstar image of Presley. As so many sections of the Elvis article are mainly talking in superlatives about the singer, the many critical voices that exist should also be heard and must not be omitted.

By way of comparison, it is also interesting to note that the early years and Beatlemania sections of the Beatles article, also heavily copyedited by the same users who recently started to copyedit the Presley article, do not include any critical voices, as far as I can see, though there were many at the beginning of the band’s career. For instance, a Life article of September 13, 1968, reports, p.105, that, when Epstein first visited the Beatles, “They were not very tidy and not very clean. They smoked as they played and they ate and talked and turned their backs on the audience and laughed at their private jokes.” According to Ian Inglis, The Beatles, Popular Music and Society: A Thousand Voices (2000), “the Beatles found the US press less positive: The music was ridiculed along with the haircuts.” (p.144) See also the attacks in the New Statesman concerning the group and their negative influence on the fans cited in the same volume, p. 145. Furthermore, “the Beatles' accent was often ridiculed and regarded as a kind of impenetrable gobbledygook, especially by the southerners.” See Janne Mäkelä, John Lennon Imagined: Cultural History of a Rock Star (2004), p.45. The Beatles have also been accused of overtly shunning “adult values and adult behavior.” See Carl Belz, The Story of Rock (1969), p.128. It has even been said that, while “touring in the 1960s, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones constantly contracted venereal diseases.” See Theodore Gracyk, Rhythm and Noise: An Aesthetics of Rock (1996), p. 190. Does the Wikipedia article make mention of these or similar details? No, it doesn’t. It only mentions in passing that Paul McCartney and Pete Best were arrested for arson in 1960, that there was “riotous enthusiasm by screaming fans” and that the group’s “mop-top” hairstyle, unusually long for the era, was “still mocked by many adults.” It is to be hoped therefore that the copyeditors may change their mind as far as the critical voices about the Beatles or Elvis Presley are concerned.

Some general questions concerning the article's content

1) Why isn’t there a special section on the Las Vegas jumpsuit era in the article? Could it be that details about this era have been omitted so far as there was so much ridicule concerning the feminisation of Elvis during these years? In that era, Presley was distanced from the main currents of rock 'n' roll, which were seized by groups such as The Beatles and the Rolling Stones during the 1960s. This moving away from his roots was much criticized by critics and other rock musicians. "There was so little of it that was actually good," David Bowie says. "Those first two or three years, and then he lost me completely." One of the most frequent points of criticism is the overweight and androgyny of the late Las Vegas Presley. Time Out says that, "As Elvis got fatter, his shows got glammier." According to several modern gender studies, the singer had, like Liberace, presented "variations of the drag queen figure" in his final stages in Las Vegas, when he excessively used eye shadow, gold lamé suits and jumpsuits. Although described as a male sex symbol, Elvis was "insistently and paradoxically read by the culture as a boy, a eunuch, or a 'woman' – anything but a man," and in his Las Vegas white "Eagle" jumpsuit, designed by costumer Bill Belew, he appeared like "a transvestite successor to Marlene Dietrich." Indeed, Elvis had been "feminized", as Joel Foreman put it.

2) Why is there so little on Elvis’s personal life? A section dealing with his male friends is missing. It is known that he spent more time with these friends than with the girls he dated. The problems he had with his stepmother are not even mentioned.

3) Where is the paragraph about his violent behavior and his predilection for guns? Where are the paragraphs about his personal habits? For instance, Anna Paterson writes about the singer’s eating habits, "binge eating led him to gain large amounts of weight. It wasn't just the quantity of food that he was eating which caused the problems. Elvis frequently consumed very high fat foods. His favourite meal was reportedly peanut butter and banana sandwiches grilled in butter. Another famous meal he enjoyed was 'Fool's Gold Loaf'. This was a hollowed out white loaf, drenched in butter and then stuffed with peanut butter, jam and bacon." This harmful behavior was "coupled with a heavy prescription drug problem."

4) We have a “first movies and draft notice” section including almost nothing about the content and crticism of the first movies.

5) Where are the critical remarks about the world-wide Elvis industry and the Elvis cult at Graceland? There can be no doubt that it was primarily "the recording industry, which made Elvis Presley a mythical media demigod." Some further suggestions.

• "An excessive enterprise, empire and entity, Elvis appears on memorabilia and merchandise, in roadside relics and Graceland's gift shops; at fast food chains, in front yard flea markets and backyard shrines; World-Wide Web sites in cyberspace and sporting events; at parties and parades or as part of promotions, protests and pranks."
• The ritualization of the Elvis cult is also manifested most prominently through the many live performances by Elvis impersonators. According to Marjorie Garber, "The phenomenon of 'Elvis impersonators,' which began long before the singer's death, is one of the most startling effects of the Elvis cult."
• David S. Wall has shown that many authors who are writing books and articles on Presley are part of a "worldwide Elvis industry" which has a tendency towards supporting primarily a favorable view of the star. The content of the majority of these publications can be characterized as based on gossip about gossip, only occasionally providing some new surprising details. There are not many critical, unfavorable publications on Elvis's life. An example is Albert Goldman's controversial biography, Elvis (1981), in which the author unfavorably discusses the star's weight problems, his performing costumes and his sex life. Such books are frequently disparaged and harshly attacked by Elvis fan groups. Professor Wall has pointed out that one of the strategies of the various fan clubs and appreciation societies to which the bulk of Elvis fans belong is " 'community policing' to achieve governance at a distance... These organisations have, through their membership magazines, activities and sales operations, created a powerful moral majority" endeavoring to suppress most critical voices. "With a combined membership of millions, the fans form a formidable constituency of consumer power."
• According to David Lowenthal, "Everything from Disneyland to the Holocaust Museum, ... from Elvis memorabilia to the Elgin Marbles bears the marks of the cult of heritage." "When it's an exhibition of Elvis memorabilia," even Marilyn Houlberg, professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, "puts on the campy art-world hat and becomes a priestess of the Elvis cult." A collector in Newark, New Jersey "paid nearly a billion dollars for a messy nap-kin said to have been used once by Elvis Presley." Paul A. Cantor goes as far as to call the American Presley cult "a postmodern simulacrum of the German Hitler cult."
• Some fan groups even refuse to accept the fact of the star's death in 1977. In his book Elvis after Elvis: The Posthumous Career of a Living Legend (1996), Gilbert Rodman traces in detail Presley's manifestations in contemporary popular and not-so-popular culture. He draws upon the many Elvis "sightings," from Elvis's appearances at the heart of the 1992 presidential campaign to the debate over his worthiness as a subject for a postage stamp, and from Elvis's central role in furious debates about racism and the appropriation of African-American music to the world of Elvis impersonators and the importance of Graceland as a place of pilgrimage for fans and followers. The author further points out that Presley has become inseparable from many of the defining myths of US culture, enmeshed with the American Dream and the very idea of the "United States," caught up in debates about race, gender, and sexuality, and in the wars over what constitutes a national culture.
• Neal and Janice Gregory critically discuss the media attention on the subsequent Elvis religion as a means to discredit his fans. Indeed, after his death, Presley had been seen by fans as "Other Jesus" or "Saint Elvis".
• In his book Elvis Religion: The Cult of the King (2006), Gregory L. Reece describes the presence of Presley in books, songs, art, movies and on the Internet. The author sets out to appraise the religious significance of the star for popular culture. For instance, Paul Simon's 1986 song "Graceland" presents Graceland as a holy place. Movies like "Finding Graceland" and "Mystery Train" have Presley as the central character, bearing spiritual messages. In Portland, Oregon, a woman opened the so-called Twenty-Four Hour Church of Elvis. There, visitors could slip a quarter into a machine, — The Mystery of the Spinning Elvis — to supposedly contact the spirit of Presley. Some Internet sites even invite people to post accounts of their spiritual encounters with the singer. Several artists use Presley as a recurring theme because he is such an icon of pop culture. The Naked Art Studio in Birmingham had a showing of Elvis art. A mosaic entitled "The Last Supper (Elvis)," shows Presley enjoying a turkey leg at a table littered with pill bottles — allusions to Presley's religion and drug abuse. However, "Elvis stands for violence, uncertainty and loss," says Reece. "Elvis is the apocalyptic messenger. One doesn't seek him out for spiritual advice, but shudders at his presence." The author concludes that Presley is the sort of god the public wants today. Elvis was overweight, he dressed out of date and he took too many prescription drugs, just like us.

There are many more questions of this kind. The problem is that an Elvis biography can never offer us a life without subjective views and perspectives. Biographic narratives always select and emphasize particular facts from the vast amount of details that constitute the singer's life. All narratives are constructed by their writers and their interests. Authors whose primary focus is on music would certainly lay much emphasis on Elvis's songs and his musical career. Fans focus on superlatives concerning the million sellers of their star. When the singer died in 1977, Radio One director Johnny Beerling found so little information available on Elvis's personality that his unit could not make a planned memorial documentary. Indeed, at the time of his death there were only 4 books on the star in print. Elvis’s private life remained a mystery, but things changed soon after. There are the books written by the Memphis Mafia members (or their ghost writers) dealing with Elvis's non-professional relationships and his drug abuse from a very biased point of view. The different biographies now available portray Elvis in a wide variety of ways. We cannot separate his life from our knowledge and our personal interests in it. All of these publications take different approaches. And I am of the opinion that a Wikipedia article should endeavor to deal with all of these approaches in order to present a balanced view of the singer's life. Since the 1990s, many race and gender studies appeared dealing with Elvis's attitude toward blacks, his androgyny or the actual sexual orientation of the so-called "sex symbol", etc., among them several university studies. A Wikipedia article must deal with all the different aspects of Elvis's life. As not all of these aspects are covered by the current version of the article, it may be entitled, "Elvis's career as a multi-million selling superstar". Onefortyone (talk) 01:19, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, Elvis was a "multi-million selling superstar"; there's no escaping that. With so many contending sources, and so many aspects to be considered, it seems to me that if this article, or parts of it, can be split into notable sub-articles, that should be done within the normal process for discussion. This article can be a broad overview, with important sub-topics dealt with in more appropriate detail in those articles. I don't understand why this is an issue. Rodhullandemu 01:32, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The problem is the general focus of the entire article. Several critical voices that were part of previous versions have been removed. The Legacy section, for instance, includes only positive voices, though Elvis is also one of the most ridiculed stars. Onefortyone (talk) 01:51, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

May I suggest you start Ridicule of Elvis Presley? DocKino (talk) 03:11, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Critical voices are not needed in an encyclopedic article about a deceased person. He's not a living politician, he's a dead singer. There is nothing to be gained by being critical of a deceased person. If you really wish to go on and on about his weaknesses, you might want to start a separate article such as Elvis Presley: Speculation on his Various Character Flaws. Santamoly (talk) 03:22, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I think that's a truly wonderful idea User: DocKino and Santamoly have suggested and you can use it to release all the pent up frustration you must be feeling within. May I suggest also you put up an Elvis Fan Free Zone Banner on the top of the article and you can write all the secret squirrel shit you care to add and read it back to yourself with pride, but while doing so, don't forget to grab on to your nuts.--Jaye9 (talk) 03:59, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Although individual edit suggestions can be judged on merit, this tired yet persistent overall agenda to drive home nails of criticism with a sledgehammer is not what wikipedia is about. Moreover, in 2) above for example, we have yet another attempt by 141 to concentrate on 'male relationships'. Previously, this has led 141 to list the usual reams of quotes attempting to show that Presley was bi/homosexual, that he had a sexual relationship with Nick Adams, and which culminated in asking us to attach credence to an isolated, tawdry chat show claim by a man who says he 'gave oral sex' to Presley. Based on the evidence of these talk pages, no one should be under any illusions about where, and how far, 141 would like to push and skew this article. It has been and is being made clear that this is not a psychobiography, that many claimed aspects of Presley life can be written about elswhere and, just because they can be written about, does not mean they constitute ommissions in a general biography. How many more ways can this be said? Pass me a sledgehammer...Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 04:11, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

It is very interesting that you are not earnestly dealing with the questions raised above. Just the same kind of biased accusation. And of course, some psychological aspects are part of every biography, as well as sociological and other aspects. Onefortyone (talk) 04:40, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

If I agreed with you about the questions raised, you'd know about it. Any accusations I make are based on my experience of dealing with your suggestions and accusations and the talk page archives prove their own point. I have stated on a number of occasions that you seem to have the ability, sources, etc. to move this article towards FA status. Unfortunately, this has never seemed to be your aim. I refer you once again to my last post. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 05:13, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

1970s studio sessions

I have a couple concerns about the following paragraph, which currently ends our "Medical crises and last studio sessions" subsection:

For much of the 1970s, Presley's recording company had been increasingly concerned about making money from Presley material: RCA often had to rely on live recordings because of problems getting him to attend studio sessions. Once in a studio, he could lack interest or be easily distracted, which was often linked to his health and drug problems. A mobile studio was occasionally sent to Graceland in the hope of capturing an inspired vocal performance.

First concern: The citation is to "Guralnick 1999, passim". We can't simply do passim for a 500-page book. We need specific pages or page ranges that support this. Rikstar, I see you added the material back in May 2007: [3]. I know it's been a while, but do you think you could track down the passages that you summarized here?

Second concern: Accuracy and balance. We're just looking at the period between March 1973, when the historical subsection begins, through his death, right? During this period he recorded two concert albums: Elvis: As Recorded Live On Stage In Memphis and Elvis in Concert (yes, yes, and the ludicrous Having Fun with Elvis on Stage--37 minutes of Elvis cracking jokes and humming, and it still charted). At the same time, during those four-and-a-half years, Presley recorded six studio albums:

• Raised on Rock/For Ol' Times Sake
• Good Times
• Promised Land (#1 country)
• Today
• From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee (#1 country)
• Moody Blue (#1 country)

While this period produced no major pop hits, of the singles he recorded in the studio during this period eleven became Top 10 country or Adult Contemporary hits: ""I've Got a Thing About You Baby", ""If You Talk in Your Sleep", "Help Me", "It's Midnight", "My Boy" (#1 AC), "Hurt", "Moody Blue" (#1 country/#2 AC), "Way Down" (#1 country), "Are You Sincere", "There's a Honky Tonk Angel", and "Loving Arms" (the last three posthumously). How many recording artists would kill to have these sorts of problems in the studio? DocKino (talk) 04:58, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I'll dig around and see what I can find. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 05:18, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

My shovel's turned up this for starters: "Elvis had failed to deliver a single studio cut in 1974. ... there was little question of RCA's anxiety about their longtime star." (Guralnick, 1994 p.560). Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 09:36, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Anxiety yes, but what I'm seeing is that we need to bring in the fact that this was alongside significant continuing commercial success. PL290 (talk) 10:30, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. And good quote, Rikstar. Yes, I can see from the material I have access to that there was a gap between a studio session in December 1973 and one in March 1975.

But mind you, that week-long December 1973 session produced 18 songs--almost all of the Good Times album (released March 1974) and almost all of the Promised Land album (released January 1975). (And in between those there was a concert album release.) So, yes, RCA might have been experiencing some anxiety; now, can we find a source suggesting that maybe a label would tend to feel anxiety in such a production context only if they'd gotten using to riding Presley like a mule through the 1960s? .... But, really, any specifics like the one you've provided are great. So far, we still have no support for the following explicit or implicit claims in the paragraph as currently phrased:

• "For much of the 1970s...RCA...had...problems getting him to attend studio sessions." Maybe they did in 1974. What, if anything, does Guralnick say about they actually did to get him to attend a studio session that year? Or their failed attempts to do so at any other time?
• "Once in a studio, he could lack interest or be easily distracted." Any evidence for this? You might think it might be true toward the end of his life, but his final studio session in October 1976 produced "Way Down" and "Pledging My Love", two classics. Or were they wanting more, but he lost interest when Hill and Range ran out of decent songs for him?
• "A mobile studio was occasionally sent to Graceland in the hope of capturing an inspired vocal performance." The phrasing makes these sound like they were off-the-cuff events. I find two Graceland sessions: the one in October 1976 and one in February 1976 that lasted 6 days and yielded 12 songs--all of From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee, plus "Moody Blue" and its B-side. Aside from Presley, over a dozen professional musicians were present at each. Are these the "mobile studio" sessions? If they are, they don't sound like "hope", but serious business with strong returns. I also see a small-group session at "Elvis's home in Palm Springs" in September 1973. Does Gurlanick explain the circumstances?

My resource, by the way, is the book--"booklet" doesn't fairly capture this foot-high, 90-page entity--that accompanies Walk A Mile In My Shoes, the 1970s box set. Among other things, it gives extremely detailed recording and release data for all of his official recording sessions, studio and concert. DocKino (talk) 12:22, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

DocKino, here is a little of what Marty Lacker and Billy Smith had to say about two goups of recording sessions, of which RCA pulled two albums out of them - being the From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee album and the Moody Blue Album.

Marty Lacker: "At the end of '75, and all through January of 76. RCA tried to get Elvis to record another album. But he just didn't want to fool with it. Finally, somebody suggested bringing the portable recording truck to Graceland. The first week of February, the truck rolled in, and Billy, and Earl Pritchett, and Mike McGregor and Ricky Stanley turned the den into a recording studio. There were two groups of sessions, one in February and another in October. RCA pulled two albums out of them-the From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis Tennessee album and the Moody Blue album, although Felton pieced the Moody Blue album together from various recordings, because Elvis wouldn't give him any more studio time. The song "Moody Blue" came from the February sessions. And "Way Down," where J.D. hits that really low note, came from the October sessions. From listening, it's obvious how sick Elvis was. And how tired."

Billy Smith: For some reason, Elvis played bass guitar on "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain." Felton bragged on him, I remember. He had fun on those sessions. When J.D. hit that real low note on "Way Down," Elvis just fell out laughing. He walked over to J.D. and put his arm on his shoulder and said J.D. that's lower than whale shit." Souce: "Elvis and the Memphis Mafia" by Alanna Nash p.661--Jaye9 (talk) 13:38, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Excellent. So these are mobile studio sessions, it's just that the implication of "occasionally sent" is off. Turning to the opinionated part of the first quote, I don't believe Lacker's claim that Presley sounds "sick" and "tired" reflects the general view. "Hurt" is pretty widely considered one of Presley's great recordings, and again, "Moody Blue" and "Way Down" were number one country hits. As we all know, it's not that hard to bring soulless pap and outright crap to number one, but "sick" and "tired"? DocKino (talk) 16:41, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, this dissection is all very embarrassing, coming back from my naive efforts of three years ago to bite me in the ass! Let's try:

Now both Colonel and RCA were in full agreement: they needed to obtain product from an artist who appeared to have developed an almost pathological aversion to the recording studio. (Guralnick, 1994 p. 593)

"A mobile studio was occasionally sent to Graceland in the hope of capturing an inspired vocal performance.":

Felton was confident the [temporary home studio setup, which included the mobile studio) would ... allow them to catch Elvis whenever the mood happened to strike him. Elvis seemed enthusiastic about [home recording] ... But then he left just days before the session was scheduled to start. (Same)

"Once in a studio, he could lack interest or be easily distracted." Ok, he could be distracted in his own studio:

They got three cuts on the first night, though Elvis' lack of focus and energy was evident to all. ...On the second night [he recorded only one song]. ... spending most of the time trying to avoid accomplishing even that. ... The third night was no better; most of the time Elvis appeared to be struggling just to wake up, even when he was cutting "Moody Blue". (same book, p. 595)

"For much of the 1970s...RCA...had...problems getting him to attend studio sessions."

Ok some examples, Guralnick again (there may be more). A Jan. 20, 1977 studio session was planned in Nashville. Everything arranged, booked, everyone turned up, except Elvis who brooded in his Nashville hotel before going home. (p.621) Jorgensen covers it on p. 402 of his book too;

September, 1975: Guralnick writes: The Colonel had been doing his best since the beginning of September to get Elvis Back into the recording studio ... [and he didn't succeed]. (584-5);

The Colonel had scheduled a recording session for March 10 [1975], ... but Elvis was determined to stick around Memphis ... (Guralnick 1994, p. 559), and;

The tour ended in Memphis, where the Colonel, no doubt recognizing the problems of getting Elvis back into the studio again without a struggle, had sold RCA on yet another live recording ... (Same, p. 528)

If the mobile studio wasn't despatched 'occasionally', let's ditch it. I think the general point of the disputed paragraph is valid - but my bad efforts at summarizing Guralnick needs addressing. If the whole thing is ditched, that's fine by me. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 20:02, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Rikstar, please don't beat yourself up here. Given the evidence you've adduced, it looks like your summation of Guralnick is well supported and entirely fair. The facts I've presented tend to suggest that it's Guralnick's perspective that is a bit skewed, not yours at all. Look I respect the hell out of what Guralnick has done for Presley historiography, but the fact is this is a man who has written a two-volume biography on Presley: the first book covers the first 4.5 years of Presley's professional life, the second book covers the last 19. I'm not surprised to discover that his focus strays a bit from what Presely actually accomplished in the 1970s. DocKino (talk) 20:49, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

'Preciate your comments - just annoyed that it was pain digging around for pages I shoulda cited properly. I admire the way this article is being modified, although the rapidity of editing leaves me a bit dizzy at times! No complaints though... Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 23:33, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Claim verification request

Discussing 1974, we currently have this without a source:

In April, rumors spread that he would play overseas after years of offers. A $1,000,000 bid came in from a source in Australia for him to tour there, but Parker was uncharacteristically reluctant, prompting those closest to Presley to speculate about Parker's past and the reasons for his apparent unwillingness to apply for a passport. Parker ultimately squelched any notions Presley had of overseas work by citing poor security in other countries and the lack of suitable venues for a star of his status.

I see in edit history that a citation used to trail this after an intervening phrase that was trimmed: Stanley and Coffey, The Elvis Encyclopedia (1998 edition), p. 123. Does anyone happen to have that volume? In Google Book Search, I can also see a snippet of something that may be relevant in Guralnick, Careless Love, p. 523: "Well, Elvis laughed, but then he started talking about going to England and Australia, and he said, 'I really want to go, but Colonel doesn't want to do it.'" But I've exhausted my page views... DocKino (talk) 17:54, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes the Stanley & Coffey source mentions about the rumours and the $1million bid from Australia and about Parker turning it down with "insiders speculating why". For the Guralnick part I have this from p.523;

Quote from Prelsey's bass player, Norbert Putnam, jokingly commenting on Presley being the reason he got into music because Blue Moon of Kentucky only had three chords. "We were having lunch as usual around midnight, and just by accident we were sitting together on a riser that had been pushed over in a corner. I remember I said, 'Elvis, I've got to tell you something. If it hadn't been for you, I wouldn't be here. I mean, thank God Blue Moon of Kentucky only had three chords in it!' Well, Elvis laughed, but then he started talking about going to England and Australia, and he said, 'I really want to go, but the Colonel doesn't want to do it. He thinks if we put them off, that will just keep their interest up.' I said, 'What are you going to do?' He said, 'Put, I'm thinking about pulling away from the Colonel.'" It was as if, Norbert thought, he was trying out an idea he couldn't voice to any of the others, covered by a cloak of anonymity. And when the brief interlude was over, he simply said, "Okay, I guess it's time to go back to being Elvis."

Hope that helps. :) ElvisFan1981 (talk) 19:27, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Terrific. Thanks. DocKino (talk) 20:03, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Online citation update request

The citation at the end of the "Since 1977" subsection, currently #232, references a Forbes article on the "Top-Earning Dead Celebrities" from 2007. I can see there's a 2009 version of this piece, but Forbes.com repeatedly and without fail crashes my apparently hardcore Communist/redistributionist browser. Could someone check this and update the data and cite info? Thanks. DocKino (talk) 20:08, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

The Forbes site won't open for me, strangely, but I've found this on NME which is a report on the Forbes article; NME link

I don't know if NME counts as a reliable source or not. ElvisFan1981 (talk) 20:18, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Forbes let me in, so I've now added it to the article. (Ranked 4th in 2009, so I've left the 2007 #1 ranking for info too.) PL290 (talk) 20:22, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Just Keep's Right on a Coming

If anyone's interested in taking a look or purchasing these newly released or soon to released books on Elvis Presley, they are: "The King and Dr. Nick: What Really Happened to Elvis and Me" by Dr. George Nichopoulos; "Baby, Let's Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him" by Alanna Nash; "An Uncommon Journey" by Lamar Fike.

Thought they may be helpful with confirming or improving what has been written in the Elvis Article, as in presently stands.--Jaye9 (talk) 23:48, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. One of the most important of all recent publications about Elvis is certainly Alanna Nash’s well-researched study, Baby, Let's Play House.

Nash reports the book is the first comprehensive look at Elvis purely from the female prospective. 'For all his maleness, Elvis was a very woman-centered man, because of his closeness with his mother', she says. 'It was women he could really talk with, and from whom he drew much of his strength. The book looks at a number of his relationships, both platonic and romantic. And part of it will consider how his status as one of the greatest sex symbols of the 20th century informed his stage act and his interactions with the opposite sex'.

According to Philip Norman, New York Times, bestselling author of John Lennon and Shout!, Nash's book is “by far the best study of Elvis Presley I have read. 'The King' emerges more clearly from this mosaic of his troubled love life than from any linear biography to date ... Impressively researched, written - and felt.”

Nash says about her book,

*“I wanted to know how a man who genuinely loved and revered women and who sought their company, could not find a single long-lasting romantic relationship.”

*“In terms of emotional maturity, Elvis never really got past the age of 15 to 18,” Nash says. “He never quite grew up. That’s part of his charm. But that’s also part of his tragedy with women. When he does find a grown-up woman — an Ann-Margret or a Linda Thompson — he doesn’t really know how to relate to them. Instead he keeps picking young girls who can’t give him what he really needs...”

In Baby, Let's Play House, the author presents Elvis in a new light: a charming but wounded Lothario who bedded scores of women but seemed unable to maintain a lasting romantic and sexual relationship. His problems, rooted first in the death, at birth, of his twin brother and his unhealthily close relationship with his mother, and later in his reliance on prescription drugs, drove him to channel much of his emotional and sexual energy into his performances which defined the erotic dreams of his generation. While fully exploring the most famous romantic idol of the twentieth century, Baby, Let's Play House pulls back the covers on what Elvis really wanted in a woman, and was tragically never able to find.

The most important woman in the book turns out to be Presley's mother, Gladys, who influenced every relationship of Presley's life.

The book presents, in a bombshell of reporting, never-before-published legal information about Priscilla Presley's lawsuit against Currie Grant, the man who introduced her to Elvis. Grant challenged the fairytale myth Priscilla cultivated; he has claimed that Priscilla (at fourteen) set out to meet, bed, and marry Elvis, and he dispels the myth of Priscilla as the virgin bride. His claims were met with Priscilla's allegations that Grant tried to force himself on her. Nash examines both sides of the story and the subsequent legal settlement.

The book deals with the two categories into which Elvis separated his women: the girls at home (virginal innocents to be protected and molded into his ideal of young womanhood), and the girls on the road (sexually eager fans, showgirls, and strippers). "Elvis separated sex and love. He had good girls at home and whores on the road,” Nash says. She further reveals a need in Elvis to play Pygmalion and father to very young girls, whom he delighted in making over. A late-blooming "Mama's boy," young Elvis was a flop with girls and super-religious. Because of a fear of sexually transmitted diseases he wouldn't actually go "inside" women, never undressed, and was more into watching elaborate tableaux, often involving feet.

Nash also writes that "Elvis had a two-way mirror that he used to spy on his band and their dates when they were in the den,” supporting Goldman's view that Elvis was a voyeur.

According to the author, one of Presley's most bizarre relationships involved stars Natalie Wood and Nick Adams. "When Nick took Elvis to a hotel in Malibu where Natalie was spending the weekend with her bisexual boyfriend, actor Scott Marlowe, Natalie got along well with Elvis - and Marlowe was soon out of the equation," said the source. "Nick, who was also rumored to be bisexual, Natalie and Elvis became a hot threesome, having a lot of fun together."

Winner of the 2004 Country Music Association Media Achievement Award, Alanna Nash is the author of six books, including The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley (winner of the 2004 Belmont Award for the best book in music), Dolly: The Biography, Behind Closed Doors: Talking With The Legends Of Country Music, and Elvis and the Memphis Mafia. She also co-edited Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America, for which she won another Belmont Award. She has written about music for such publications as Vanity Fair, People, The New York Times, USA Weekend, TV Guide, Playboy, Entertainment Weekly, Ladies Home Journal, and Reader's Digest, where she was a contributing editor from 2004 to 2008. By the way, Nash, whom Esquire magazine named one of the "Heavy 100 of Country Music", was the first journalist to see Elvis Presley in his casket.

For some, Nash's book will be viewed as a sad and poignant portrait of Elvis’ emotional fracture and decline. For others, it will be a unique gateway to Elvis’ inner feelings, his thoughts, desires and reaction to handling fame. However, you can be sure that most Elvis fans will hate the book because of its unpleasant truths. Onefortyone (talk) 01:57, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Just clear up one thing: He impregnated Priscilla with his foot, or hers? DocKino (talk) 02:46, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

An editor with a sense of humour, love it.--Jaye9 (talk) 02:53, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Yep, it just keeps right on coming... More fascinating content for the Psychosexuality of the King article, one to which I won't be making any contributions - there's a mainstream encyclopedic biography to write, dammit! Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 08:52, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay where do we start, firstly my intention was not to cause any problems here, quite the contray. I havn't as yet read this book, but I have read two interviews by Elvis Information Network with Alanna Nash, part 1 & part 2, three is on it's way, re: about her new book. Reading those interviews so far, I have found nothing offensive by what the lady has said at this stage and I was told that the gentleman who runs that website has received and read the advance copy of this book and enjoyed it, except 4 pages, that are pretty expliciate details of Shelia Ryan and Elvis' lovemaking. Yet, you go over to elvis.com and the person who has also receive an advance copy and read it, didn't give it a favourable review, but to say most elvis fans 141 will hate it, at this stage, is a pretty premature statemant to make. Okay, I'll cut to chase and yes, it is a personal opinion sorry, but it is my view that we have a problem here with this article and I thought by reading this book, people could appreciate how complicated relationships can be, one that can be identified not just with Elvis, but with all of us, this bit of information here and bit there that's put into this article, to be fair on it's subject, I believe deserves more explanation, but unfortunately how interesting it may be, the article can not cater to it, we don't have the space. As Alanna Nash has interviewed many women who knew Elvis, both in a romantic and platonic relationship, we could then decipher who was important to him, and give a brief discription of each women and what that intailed, that to me is much more suitable for an encyclopedia article and I final note, Rikstar I appriciate what you have said 100 percent.--Jaye9 (talk) 12:03, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Article has improved

For the first time in quite awhile, I read the whole main page of this article tonight, what an improvement, though we've got quite a little ways to go, for someone who has been watching and commenting on the talk in regard to the main article, for just over three years now and sadly more times then I care to admit, had the opinion we were going around in circles, let me say this in encouraging.--Jaye9 (talk) 10:29, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Parker & Aberbachs

According to Mike Stoller, interviewed in 2008 [4], his working relationship ended as follows:

"We went up to the Hill & Range office 'cause Elvis Presley's music was co-owned by Elvis and the Aberbachs. Jean was there, and Julian came in. The Colonel was somewhere else. The whole thing was laid out for them. They said, 'We will have to speak to The Colonel. Can you wait outside?' So we waited outside and we figured The Colonel would be over the moon about this. We waited a long time, and we were summoned in by Jean and he said [adopts Viennese accent], 'The Colonel says if you ever dare try and interfere in the career of Elvis Presley again you will never work in New York, Hollywood, London or anywhere else in the world'. That was it."

Point being, Jean said it was Parker who disapproved of their 'interference' - not Jean Aberbach himself. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 02:55, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

The version currently quoted is Jerry Leiber's version--originally quoted in Guralnick--where it's implicit that Aberbach is speaking on behalf of Hill and Range as well as Parker. The Stoller quote is great; in this case, I think the Leiber quote is more pertinent, because it focuses more on the Parker/Aberbach view of Presley. DocKino (talk) 05:33, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree it's implicit if you look carefully, but I also agree it needs bringing out more that the comment (allegedly) wasn't independent of Parker. I've tweaked the wording to this effect. PL290 (talk) 10:33, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Elvis has left the building

I'd say Happy 75th, though hopefully you're Eternally Happy up there with all those other greats in Superstar Heaven! Best, --Discographer (talk) 04:08, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Happy Birthday to the King!!! Thank you for your contribution to music. A Star Is Here (talk) 23:52, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Matters of length

A bit more on my rationale for cutting the Rubin and Melnick quote:

First off, Prelsey's debt to African American music is already made clear and specifically detailed throughout, including in this subsection (though I added a phrase to further emphasize it). I'm not sure that a philosophical "influence" passage about (a) something that's already well-established factually and that (b) references musicians who made their first recordings after Presley made his (Berry, Diddley) has a place in a biographical article. In a history of American popular music, certainly, but here...? If we're going to have a philosophical/historical passage about a decades-long tradition of African American music, then we'd need to have one as well about how the country and hillbilly music he also knew and loved is rooted in a centuries-long tradition of Appalachian folk/old time music, which itself is rooted among Prelsey's Scots-Irish forbears...but we don't want to head down that road, right? And why not? Because...

This article is just about ready for an FA nomination. There's only one significant issue at this point. It's too long, yes? And I'm as responsible as anyone for that. I think we've all been driven by a desire to make sure the essentials are all here, and I believe they pretty much are now. Which also means, unless I'm mistaken about the amount of readable text at this point, we may need to make a few tough decisions in the direction of paring down, not adding. DocKino (talk) 23:42, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Influences

I've just read the comment about further paring down, and will give consideration to that and respond separately if necessary. Re. the Rubin and Melnick quote: as the person who added it I want to respond a bit about that. First off, I have no particular attachment to that quote--it was rather long-winded--, and the purpose of this response is just to ask that we consider the Influences section and whether it still needs a bit more. Yes, the A-A influence is abundantly clear from the main History section (though perhaps that's not in itself a reason not to mention it again in a section devoted to Influences, so I'm happy to see that's now been done). But the point that I want to make is: clearly Presley was influenced by specific artists (as witness, for instance, his "No, that's the real king of rock and roll" remark about Fats Domino we report). Having said that, I had difficulty finding a definitive list of such influences. It seems to me the section should mention at least a key selection of those artists--hence the Rubin and Melnick quote. So, thoughts on whether this is in fact the case and, if so, who it should mention? PL290 (talk) 12:10, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

From what i see PL290 you have made the right decision at all turns is this article....I would say fell free to do what you think is best...having someone like you take interest in this article is a godsense..... DO WHAT YOU THINK IS BEST !!!! Buzzzsherman (talk) 19:50, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Length

How about more or less moving the Acting career section to Elvis filmography?

I think the On tour and meeting Nixon section could go too, with just basic references to its main contents added to the rest of the article (much like the efficient reference to the Beatles-Elvis meeting became part of the Nixon section. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 02:56, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Just looked over the article with this question in mind: my initial reaction is that there's now no discrete part remaining that should go. I think even the two sections Rikstar mentions are needed, and anyway they're both comparatively small so their removal wouldn't contribute a great deal. This leads me to conclude that what's now needed is further condensing to reduce what's there to a terser form--i.e., more of the same working away at the prose that's been going on already. Ultimately, if done with care, this enhances the quality of the prose as well as reducing its size, so readability gets a double boost. For the record, I just did a rough check of readable prose size per WP:SIZE, for both this article and the quite large The Beatles. Guess what folks: The Beatles 80K, Elvis Presley 120K. DocKino was not wrong... PL290 (talk) 13:00, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Great work. From that analysis, my first thought is that the section that could stand the most trimming--given its length relative to what makes Prelsey significant--is "Health deterioration and death".

On the earlier point, I agree that the Nixon section is necessary--that is a very well known incident. Where I would think to vastly condense, or maybe eliminate entirely, are the sort of anecdotes that however fascinating, are not part of the general discourse about Presley: the kidnapping threat (just before Nixon), the rushing of the stage and the consideration to murdering Stone (in the next subsection). On those specifics, I'd advocate simply cutting the first and reducing the second by a half to two-thirds.

Then there is a category of lengthy detail sentences that don't really contribute to the narrative. I'm thinking of something like this from his last benefit concert in 1961: "The event was held at Bloch Arena in aid of the USS Arizona Memorial Fund, which was $50,000 short of its target: the concert raised over $62,000." Nice, but entirely unnecessary to understanding Presley, his music, or the arc of his career. Even something like this, from the International debut: "[Parker] intended to make Presley's return the show business event of the year. For his part, hotel owner Kirk Kerkorian arranged to send his own plane to New York to fly in rock journalists for the debut performance." Again, nice, but we already know Parker was a promoter and we just read the facts of his promotion, and the Kerkorian detail is secondary to the actual reviews by the rock press quoted in the next paragraph. What do you think about those as examples of "unnecessary detail"? DocKino (talk) 15:56, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh, another thing: Having busted my ass to create the revised discography focusing on number one records, let me ask, How useful do people find it in the article? If there's a consensus that it's not crucial, I--deep breath--am prepared to move the whole thing to a new Elvis Prelsey number one records article. That would leave us with a Discography section that was purely links, like Filmography. Or we could do a half measure--a much simpler (i.e., non-table) listing of U.S. pop chart number one albums and singles (there are 10 of the former and 18 of the latter)...though I'm not sure how much readable text that would actually save us. Interested to hear what people think. DocKino (talk) 16:16, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't even think of axing the revised discography--it's a nice touch here, and anyway, per WP:SIZE#What is and is not included as "readable prose", tables and lists are not counted as readable prose. As to your other suggestions, yes, I suspect those are the kind of things that will be, if not the first, at least among those up against the wall when the "unnecessary detail" revolution comes; but let's try and keep the best till last, so to speak. PL290 (talk) 21:16, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually I now think Rikstar's suggestion of moving Acting career out to the filmography is a good one. Focus on movies in the chronology does a good job of informing the reader about Presley's acting involvement at that time. As no one else has spoken out in support of keeping it here, I'll intend to move it out shortly. PL290 (talk) 08:31, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Done. After some condensing and trimming and the removal of the 5K Acting career, readable prose is now down from 120K to 105K. I would think we ought to have the 80K Beatles figure in mind as a ball-park target. We've made a fair jump towards that already. PL290 (talk) 10:35, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

A further update after more trimming today: still a long way to go. The current approx figure is still 104K. It seems to me we are going to have to look at those tough decisions after all. Two thoughts currently: (1) Breakout is huge (17-19K), and relates only to the year 1956-57... (2) We may need to drastically summarize some of the post-History sections, such as Influence of Colonel Parker and others, Sex Symbol, Racial Issues. Thoughts? PL290 (talk) 19:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to be away and won't be back untill Friday,but when I return,I'll be your huckleberry.--Jaye9 (talk) 21:08, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I took a whacking to "Sex Symbol". I'm not sure that the other post-"History" sections can bear similarly deep cuts. DocKino (talk) 23:37, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I totally support taking the weed-wacker to "Racial Issues" and "Sex Symbol". Neither add anything useful to the article. That would yield a haircut of about 10kb. At the same time it would be nice if we could add a little more info on "The Gospel Side of Elvis" as per Joe Moscheo's recent book. Joe (of the Imperials) actually performed with Elvis. Three of Elvis' gospel albums were Grammy winners, a serious accomplishment. Santamoly (talk) 01:40, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi Santamoly,do you know I couldn't agree with you more,as I believe "The Gospel Side of Elvis" and the fact that this was the only music by which he received 3 Grammy's for,yes was a serious accomplishment and by rights,deserves more information,however may I say and also point out to you, that I also love his gospel,and blues,his sense of humour,fashion sense and at times for his occassional eccentricities,the whole box and dice. But if I am to ask certain editors,to cut back somewhat on what appears to be his or her interest,for sake of length etc and then over emphasis on subjects that interest me,I would come across as pretty hypercritical wouldn't you say. What I'm trying to bring across,is would should touch on different subjects,but not to much emphasis on subjects that say interest us,let the reader make up there mind as to whether they wish to look into it more. I hope I'm making some kind of sense here,as I don't wish to offend.--Jaye9 (talk) 03:42, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I cannot agree that "Racial issues" section adds nothing to the article. Presley brought the topic of race and all that entailed into a sharp focus. It would be crazy not to emphasize the effect his music, performance style and attitudes had on the course of popular music for blacks and whites alike. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 04:33, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I, too, respectfully, but strongly disagree. And, having devoted a fair amount of my energies the past couple of weeks to ensuring this article pays appropriate attention to Presley's gospel roots and recordings, I feel perfectly comfortable doing so.

As for why I disagree, there are two main reasons:

• At this point, we already give considerably more weight to the gospel side of Elvis than does any other general interest survey of his career. If anyone doubts this, just compare the Rolling Stone bio. See how many times the words "gospel" and "spiritual" turn up there. Let me tell you: 3 times. Our article's a bit over three times as long, so we might expect "gospel" and "spiritual" to turn up 10 times. In, fact, they turn up 36 times. In addition, we make sure to name (and link) not only all three of his gospel albums, but his gospel EP, as well. We now give this topic the coverage it deserve, folks. No more is necessary.
• Given the structure of our encyclopedia, more--much more--can be learned about Presley's gospel recordings via distinct articles devoted to them. However, there is no other article suitable for surveying the racial issues raised by his career. The topic is absolutely crucial, but it is not of the nature--and certainly not of the length, at this point--to warrant its own article. It's exactly the sort of thing that merits a topical section in a biographical article. The notion that it does not add "anything useful to the article" is simply misinformed. DocKino (talk) 04:50, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm with Rikstar and DocKino on this one--the remaining sections don't "add nothing" (though I suspect that was not meant literally), and we give gospel good coverage. I think the point here is, how much (if at all) can we condense the remaining sections, i.e., shrink their size but retain their message. While I've yet to look at it in detail, I see DocKino's already performed a good Sex act along these lines. PL290 (talk) 13:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm looking at the Sinatra quote and seeing four things: (1) it's trenchant and striking and nice to have in the article, (2) it's long, (3) it's off topic in this section, leading to (4) that section would be more coherent and a more manageable size without the paragraph this quote takes up. Can we countenance dropping that quote from the article? PL290 (talk) 14:10, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

It's famous, it's juicy, it's certainly on-topic in terms of the broader "1956–58: Commercial breakout and controversy" section, and it's integral to our narrative via its relation to the later discussion of the Sinatra-Timex Special. I trimmed the fat from it. DocKino (talk) 15:13, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Stats

I've now done a quick check of the approx readable prose size of each section (no, that wasn't "approx readable", btw!), and I can report that 110K of the 120K quoted is made up as follows:

79K:   1
6K:    1.1 1935–53: Early years
13K:   1.2 1953–55: First recordings
17K:   1.3 1956–57: Commercial breakout and controversy
5K:    1.4 1958–60: Military service and mother's death
7K:    1.5 1960–67: Focus on movies
16K:   1.6 1968–73: Comeback
13K:   1.7 1973–77: Health deterioration and death
2K:    1.8 Since 1977

31K: sections 2-8:
7K:  2 Musical style and evolution
2K:  3 Questions over cause of death
4K:  4 Racial issues
6K:  5 Influence of Colonel Parker and others
3K:  6 Sex symbol
5K:  7 Acting career
4K:  8 Legacy

Hopefully this breakdown will help us to see which sections to tackle if we want to make a meaningful impact by removing unnecessary detail. PL290 (talk) 14:40, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Background info: the breakdown is indicative only--the figures were obtained by using the method given at WP:SIZE, then deleting a section at a time and noting the size reported in Preview. From doing similar things again subsequently, I have the impression that due to rounding etc. the figure reported is not exact and so different figures are obtained by deleting in a different order etc. So far I'm only excluding infobox, TOC, and everything from Discography table to the end--I am not bothering to remove alt text and the like--so the actual figure will be a bit lower than the one I'm reporting. PL290 (talk) 19:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Current readable prose stats using Doc PDA's brilliant device:

• Elvis Presley: 91 KB
• Ketuanan Melayu (longest FA): 88 KB
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture (most recently promoted giant FA): 78 KB
• Punk rock (longest music FA): 74 KB
• The Beatles: 71 KB

In other words, we're getting there. DocKino (talk) 23:53, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Great find! (Certainly is "brilliant"--I needed sunglasses!) That tool is a weapon of heroic proportions. Took my own copy and made it silver. I've updated WP:SIZE to give it a mention. PL290 (talk) 13:33, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The tool reports we're now down to 87K (which is, I note, less than the "longest FA" 88K DocKino cites above). Hard to see what else should go. Are we there? PL290 (talk) 12:25, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Great work. I feel like we're there. It'll be interesting to hear what others think. DocKino (talk) 15:20, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Lack of Common sense

Maybe its wiki, maybe its the editors, but to believe that Elvis sold one billion records is downright nonsensical. There is no evidence beside bad circulated media reports given to hype up his estate. Im a Elvis fan too but there is no official worldwide sales figure for Elvis/Beatles/Jackson. This debate spilled over from months back from list of best selling artist. The beatles/Jackson has changed there sentencing to add estimated sales or one of the best. Allowing Elvis to say the best selling ever is kinda of forgeting about that discussion. A Star Is Here (talk) 00:50, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

"Bad circulated media reports given to hype up his estate." Huh? You've got three (3) sources backing up the "approximately 1 billion" figure, and one of them is the Associated Press (via CBS). Time magazine is a perfectly acceptable source as well. It's best to read the sources carefully before deciding to revert as "nonsensical""... Doc9871 (talk) 01:09, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

They are an acceptable source. Do you really beleive that Elvis sold a billion or the beatles or Jackson at 750 million? There terrible estimates.

The other Doc paid a house call first! Here's the medicine I was preparing to apply...

This is the article on Elvis Presley, not the Elvis wing of the Fab Four/King of Pop/King of Rock 'n' Roll fansite. We have a 2002 article from Time magazine that states, "He's sold more records (1 billion worldwide) than any other artist in history". We have a 2002 Associated Press article that states, "His worldwide album sales are estimated to top 1 billion". We have a well-researched article from 2008, published under the aegis of Elvis Presley Enterprises--admittedly a biased source--but with transparent research sourcing and methodology that supports the claim and to which the well-respected Ernst Jorgensen has leant his name. In addition, (a) we do not claim, even at this point, that Presley has surpassed 1 billion in sales, merely that he has approximated that figure; (b) we make no claim relevant to The Beatles; (c) Presley indisputably has higher certified sales than Jackson (see List of best-selling music artists), and all the evidence indicates that Presley's uncertified sales are much higher than Jackson's. I see no reason at all to change the current wording of the lead section.

All

P.S. If it's any consolation to you, Star, some measurable percentage of Presley's sales are of his epochal 1964 single "Do the Clam" (no, not from Clambake, but Girl Happy). MJ had to sing about a rat once (and hit number one!), but never a bivalve. DocKino (talk) 01:16, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Your sarcasm is as smart as logic for believing in the billion figure. Maybe its ignorance or pure obsession but there is no official body that has complete record sales of Elvis/beatles/Jackson. Keep in mind that Ernst Jorgensen is a huge Elvis fan but common sense should tell you Elvis did not sell a billion but I'm barking up the wrong tree here. I see that the sales stayed at 600 million to one billion for a while yet it was changed. Thats fine. As for he's uncertified sales what do expect every album not certified to be around 1 million? Elvis management has a history of overhyping numbers. Do you believe he sold 300 million in between 1977 and 1981 but no proof on the charts. Just say yes lol. Keep in mind that Elvis is not the only artist with uncertified sales but I bet there tally doesnt end up being 2.5 billion or 1.5 billion. I have seen the List of best-selling music artists and keep in mind its Harouts individual research and he is a huge Elvis fan. I wont win this battle so no need to continue writing on this discussion but when I find Sources that says "one of the best" it will be all in my right to bring in the source in. I will keep my eye on this page as I have been doing. Good day A Star Is Here (talk) 01:51, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Suggestions for more cuts

A few crucial quotations appear in this article, but I think some could be shortened, paraphrased or cut. e.g.:

1)The Sinatra quote regarding rock and roll and cretinous goons could be severely shortened and still convey his feelings;

2)The quotes about Presley's decline by Tony Brown and John Wilkinson could be paraphrased, and/or maybe one of them deleted, as they both say similar things.

And there may be others. Not major reductions to article length, but every little helps. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 09:31, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Good point, but as I mentioned earlier, let's try and keep the best till last, as it were. It would be a shame to lose/dilute quotes and then find there hadn't been many and it had made no significant impact. PL290 (talk) 13:37, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Another quote that looks lame is Julie Parrish's: "couldn't stop laughing while he was recording" one of the songs for Paradise, Hawaiian Style. I've listened to the out-takes, of "Datin'", and others. The overwhelming impression is that Presley is laughing maniacally and inappropriately primarily because he was high as a kite on drugs. I think a more suitable quote should be found regarding his hatred/boredom, or lose the quote altogether? Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 02:53, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I substituted a more encompassing observation from the Jordanaires' Gordon Stoker. DocKino (talk) 09:49, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Good spot, and good replacement--a vast improvement. Well done both. PL290 (talk) 09:57, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Question on lead

PL did well to bring Sam Phillips and the Colonel into the lead. I'm wondering if Scotty and Bill belong there as well. It would involve changing this:

Presley was one of the first performers of rockabilly, an uptempo, backbeat-driven fusion of country and rhythm and blues.

to this:

Accompanied by guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, Presley was one of the originators of rockabilly, an uptempo, backbeat-driven fusion of country and rhythm and blues.

Aye or nay? DocKino (talk) 23:34, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

It's an "aye" from me. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 08:16, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

And me, so I've added it. PL290 (talk) 12:21, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Black, Moore and Phillips were important contributors to his early recordings and performances, but the article is about Elvis. Also, again, Elvis can be heard mentioning Carl Perkins in one of the out takes for one of the first two songs these guys made. And there were many others who did similar things before these guys did. Again, consult the Rockabilly article. Give credit where it is due, but don't overdo. Steve Pastor (talk) 16:37, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, I see, by your next remark, you already have. Too bad. Steve Pastor (talk) 16:39, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

What exactly is "too bad"? There's no claim that Presley "invented" rockabilly. He's identified as "one of the originators". That's well-supported by published sources in the field. In fact, many texts go farther than we do. Paul Friedlander, for instance, in Rock and Roll: A Social History, published by the very respectable Westview Press: "Following high school graduation, Elvis began to mold elements from these roots of blues, R&B, gospel, and country into the style known as rockabilly" (p. 43). Or simply read page 1 of Craig Morrison's Go Cat Go!: Rockabilly Music and Its Makers, probably the best known history of the form and again from a very respectable publisher--the University of Illinois Press. I believe referring to him as "one of the originators" is well within the bounds of both verifiability and truth. DocKino (talk) 17:20, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

It's rather disingenuous to argue that someone is an originator of rockabilly, but "There's no claim that Presley "invented" rockabilly." Is it possible to originate but not invent? A search of the url and book you list for words such as "origin" "originate", etc. as well as a reading of the initial pages reveals no statement that Elvis originated the style. The only occurance of the word "originator" has nothing to do with Elvis. This url will show MANY songs in the style that Elvis made famous, a full year before he recorded his first published songs in the style [5]. Although you posted this for "Discussion", the change was implemented within a day. Three of you have agreed to this change. Nevertheless, I will again urge a revision back to the more neutral wording. Steve Pastor (talk) 18:19, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

There is a big difference between these two claims:

Presley invented rockabilly.

Presley was one of the originators of rockabilly.

The current language (a) allows that there were other originators of the form and (b) is a responsible paraphrase and accurate summary of the sources I have just cited for your benefit, along with many others. One might observe that it is disingenuous of you not to acknowledge those facts. Again, if anything, the claim is restrained, compared to those of available sources. To wit: "Elvis, Scotty Moore, Bill Black, and Sam Phillips somehow created rockabilly music in Memphis in 1954" (Stephen Tucker, "Rethinking Elvis and the Rockabilly Moment", in Chadwick, In Search of Elvis: Music, Race, Art, Religion, p. 21); "Elvis all but created rockabilly style"—and yes, they're referring to the music, not just the clothing (Michael Campbell and James Brody, Rock and Roll: An Introduction, p. 87). Et cetera. Now, shall we discuss the propriety of accusing your fellow editors of being "disingenuous"? DocKino (talk) 19:01, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Steve, I'm trying to see your point here; mainly this was about ensuring the key actors are covered by the lead, which should summarize the article per WP:LEAD. On the rockabilly concern, did you look at the link to Go cat go!: rockabilly music and its makers by Craig Morrison? On the very first page, of a book whose subject is "rockabilly music and its makers", Morrison emphasizes Presley, Presley, Presley. On that page, to introduce the whole book, he refers to "Elvis" twice, "Presley" another twice, and "Elvis Presley" once--and no other artist. He states that "With a little help, Presley showed the way out of the old and into the new." I would concur that referring to Presley as "one of the originators" accurately reflects the cited source, and does not imply he is the sole "inventor" whether or not that is considered synonymous. PL290 (talk) 19:07, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Sight and Sound

Assuming a Sight and Sound critic did describe Presley's screen persona as "aggressively bisexual" back in 1959, I actually think that's worthy of note. However, our contributor does not seem to realize that the citations in this article are now being held to Featured Article (i.e., ethical and scholarly) standards. If you're going to quote this phrase from Sight and Sound, you need to actually be able to access the original source. We need the name of the author. We need the title of the article. And we need to know in which of the four issues of the periodical published in 1959 that article appeared in. If you can't provide that information, then you're not legitimately citing the quote, and we can't use it. DocKino (talk) 02:13, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

To reiterate the point made in edit summary: We are not going to accept grossly inadequate citations, and now a completely fabricated attribution. It's terribly, terribly sad for couch potato scholarship, but sometimes Google Book doesn't come through with proper citation and attribution info, especially for periodicals. (Penelope Houston edited Sight and Sound, but she didn't write the article in question. If you really knew how to manipulate Google Book snippet view, you could at least have come up with the correct attribution, and not shamed yourself.) There is an institution available to most English-speaking inhabitants of the free world known as the library. I've used it often to improve articles on Wikipedia. Tell us, 141, have you? DocKino (talk) 19:55, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, because some of us actually care about doing proper research, I can confirm that in 1959 a Sight and Sound critic described Presley's screen persona as "aggressively bisexual in appeal". I can provide complete citation information—including the proper attribution. Do we think this should be added to (or substituted for one of) the two existing quotes in the second paragraph of "Sex symbol"? (Your opinion on this, 141, will be given precisely the weight it deserves.) DocKino (talk) 20:22, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I am of the opinion that a quote from 1959 is of historical importance. It should be included in the said paragraph. Onefortyone (talk) 20:30, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, if it can be fully sourced, I think it's a good addition right as you had it last time. PL290 (talk) 20:37, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Opinion polls

The "Legacy" section says, “In polls and surveys, he is recognized as one of the most important popular music artists and influential Americans.” The same section includes similar superlatives of this kind. Other opinions have been removed, for instance, sociologist Philip Ennis has written, "Perhaps it is an error of enthusiasm to freight Elvis Presley with too heavy a historical load" because, according to an opinion poll of high school students in 1957, Pat Boone was nearly the "two-to-one favorite over Elvis Presley among boys and preferred almost three-to-one by girls..." See Ennis, Philip H., The Seventh Stream: The Emergence of Rocknroll in American Popular Music (Wesleyan University Press, 1992), pp. 251-252. This is an independent source that has not been manipulated by the record industry, and it strongly suggests that Elvis’s music wasn’t favored by the middle and upper-class youth. For reasons of balance, this information should be reincluded in the article. Onefortyone (talk) 21:20, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

No, it shouldn't. A poll of high schoolers in 1957? Really? Pray tell us, what respected polling firm conducted this poll? What was their sample size and methodology? And what the hell does this have to do with Presley's legacy? Get real. DocKino (talk) 21:29, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

The source is a university study partly dealing with statistics. It shows that Elvis's reputation as the most successful popular singer of his day has been doubted. Onefortyone (talk) 21:40, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't say any of that belongs in Legacy. 141, would you please explain, in terms that involve the word "legacy", the relevance? PL290 (talk) 21:49, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Also 141, you didn't answer the question: What organization conducted this poll? Oh, and how did you determine the economic class distribution of the high schoolers polled? I have to assume that you just made it up, like you did with your false attribution of the "aggressively bisexual" quotation (a "fumble", I notice, for which you have yet to apologize).

Do you really think that a university study would cite an unimportant poll? As for the Sight and Sound quote, you are right in suggesting that I discovered the source on the internet. I simply was of the opinion that the editor of the journal has written the article. That’s all. Sorry for the mistake. However, I still do not think that the author’s name is of much importance, as the passage was accurately cited, but I take your note that his name might be necessary in a featured article. Thanks again for adding it. Query: as a film expert, you seem to have access to specific resources. So why did you remove my contribution? Instead of removing it you could also have added the correct author’s name. In many other cases, you are also simply adding what is missing. Onefortyone (talk) 23:02, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

By the way, as a deep believer in balance for balance's sake, you must be appalled at how we fail to properly express the magnitude of Presley's success. It's safe to assume you also want us to include this passage from his Rolling Stone bio, yes?

The RIAA has awarded Presley the largest number of gold, platinum, and multiplatinum certifications of any artist in history; as of early 2001, 131. His chart performance, as tracked by Billboard, is also unmatched, with 149 charting pop singles: 114 Top 40, 40 Top 10, and 18 #1s.

If an editor is of the opinion that this quote is of some importance, I have no problem with this. Usually, I do not delete what others have written. However, for reasons of balance, other voices must also be added. Onefortyone (talk) 23:22, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

You are once again being disingenuous; you have a track record covering this and other articles that shows your idea of 'balance' is grossly at odds with others. You also "do not delete what others have written" to achieve your idea of balance not out of agreement and magnanimity, but so you can stamp your feet when others have the temerity to legitimately delete your own edits. Not a mature or desirable approach to editing. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 09:51, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

So tell us, how's that balancing act goin'? DocKino (talk) 22:05, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, several critical voices have recently been deleted. For instance, John Lennon, who had once been famously quoted to the effect that "before Elvis, there was nothing", opined in 1980 that Presley "died when he went into the army...that's when they killed him, that's when they castrated him, the rest of it was just a living death." See Lennon, Ono, and Peebles 1981, p. 74. Music critic and Presley biographer Dave Marsh says about the singer's fans: "There are people in places that count in the world, and people in places that don't. He is the son of the people who don't count, and their shining star. That's what makes him unique and what people still respond to." See "How Big Was The King? Elvis Presley's Legacy, 25 Years After His Death." CBS News, August 7, 2002. This quote certainly supports the view that Elvis’s music wasn’t favored by the middle and upper-class youth, as the opinion poll also shows. And it is a fact that “In general, the press has been critical, clueless, or contemptuous when writing about Elvis Presley.” See Doll, Susan, Elvis for Dummies, p.260. Indeed, many critics were not impressed—very few authoritative voices were complimentary. For instance, in August 1978, The New York Times remarked, “Which will seem more absurd to students of our time, the nation-wide flap in the 1950’s that kept Elvis Presley’s gyrating hips from being televised or the hysteria with which his fans ... commemorated the first anniversary of his death?” Cited in Doll, Elvis for Dummies, p.253. It has also been stated that while "Elvis’s success as a singer and movie star dramatically increased his economic capital, his cultural capital never expanded enough for him to transcend the stigma of his background as a truck driver from the rural South... 'No matter how successful Elvis became... he remained fundamentally disreputable in the minds of many Americans... He was the sharecropper’s son in the big house, and it always showed.'" See Linda Ray Pratt, "Elvis, or the Ironies of a Southern Identity," pp.43, 45, cited in Rodman, Elvis after Elvis, p.78, and Marcus, Dead Elvis, p.156. Query: why are sources like these not mentioned in the article? Not to mention that there is a star cult manipulated by the Elvis industry uncritically feeding the fans with information they like. Onefortyone (talk) 23:02, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Millions of people have said millions of different things about Elvis Aaron Prelsey. Essential to the art of encyclopedia writing is choosing what to cite out of the vast universe of what might possibly be cited. I'd say the wide variety of viewpoints on the man are already fairly well represented in this article. "If we had but world enough and time", eh, friend? Thanks for your input, though. DocKino (talk) 23:53, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, if there is the opinion cited in the Legacy section that "at the age of 21, within a year of his first appearance on American network television", Elvis "was arguably the most famous person in the world" (by the way, a questionable opinion as far as the mainstream views of 1956 are concerned), another opinion that contradicts such a quote must also be cited for reasons of balance. And there are many different voices. You cannot select only positive ones. Onefortyone (talk) 00:26, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Um...are we discussing the same article here? What information have you presented that contradicts the claim that Presley was arguably the most famous person on Earth by the end of 1956? Your beloved poll addresses the question of whom high-schoolers regarded as their favorite. Do you understand the difference between favorite and famous? Do you understand the difference between the U.S. secondary school system and the planet Earth? I know you don't understand what the word "positive" means, because it's impossible that anyone could read the article and sensibly claim that only "positive" voices have been presented. DocKino (talk) 00:48, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

We are talking about the quotations being used in the Legacy section. Do you really think that in 1956 most adult people believed that Elvis "was arguably the most famous person in the world"? I have additionally shown that in 1957, Pat Boone was favored by high-school students. I am just arguing that for reasons of balance, other voices must be added. Here is another source dealing with today's views. In an article entitled "Getting today's teens all shook up over Elvis", Woody Baird says, "Teenagers in the 1950s and '60s went wild over Elvis Presley, much to the consternation of their parents, but kids in the new millennium aren't so stirred by rock 'n' roll's original rebel. 'I can't try to sell somebody Elvis who doesn't know who he is . . . that he's not just some guy who's been gone for 30 years,' said Paul Jankowski, chief of marketing for Elvis Presley Enterprises Inc." Therefore, "the multimillion dollar Elvis business will try to connect with a new generation of teenage fans." They endeavor to show up more film clips, photos and other material from the vast Presley archives online. 'We will take our MySpace page and we will focus on expanding our number of friends on MySpace, that kind of thing,' Jankowski said..." However, Baird concludes, "Moving Elvis content online should be easy; making Elvis cool again will be more difficult. After all, for most kids, Elvis is the music of their parents' - or grandparents' - generation." See Woody Baird, “Getting todays teens all shook up over Elvis”, The Plain Dealer, Saturday, December 30, 2006. So why is it not mentioned in the "Legacy" section that most teens nowadays have no interest in Elvis's music? Onefortyone (talk) 01:18, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

For the same reason it is not mentioned in the articles on Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven that most teens nowadays have no interest in their music: it's not particularly relevant to an assessment of their legacies. And you still have yet to explain what high-schoolers' presumed love for Pat Boone in 1957 has to do with Presley's legacy. Waiting...waiting...waiting... DocKino (talk) 01:29, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Not relevant in your opinion, but other polls and views are relevant, I see. Perhaps we should rename the Legacy section. What about saying, "Legacy for Elvis fans". This would be more accurate. You still have yet to explain what the opinion that "at the age of 21, within a year of his first appearance on American network television", Elvis "was arguably the most famous person in the world" has to do with Presley's legacy, especially in view of the fact that other sources contradict this opinion. I would agree that the Pat Boone quote may indeed be cited in another section of the article because the same author who has cited the poll has also shown that Boone was seen by many as the good guy and Elvis as the bad guy. As an alternative for the Legacy section, here is the opinion of David Bowie: "There was so little of it that was actually good." "Those first two or three years, and then he lost me completely." See "How Big Was The King? Elvis Presley's Legacy, 25 Years After His Death." CBS News, August 7, 2002. I simply argue, if the opinion that Elvis in 1956 was "the most famous person in the world" is cited in the Legacy section, then a different voice must also be heard, since there are lots of sources seeing the singer in another light. Onefortyone (talk) 01:36, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

As is your wont, you have blithely misrepresented the article's content. The passage in question reads, "Presley also heralded the vastly expanded reach of celebrity in the era of mass communication: at the age of 21, within a year of his first appearance on American network television, he was arguably the most famous person in the world." That is relevant to the question of legacy. Most of what fascinates you is not. Furthermore, you are still confusing favorite (i.e., especially liked or loved) with famous (i.e., widely known). You still have failed to explain what Boone love has to do with Presley's legacy—indeed, you appear not to understand what constitutes a legacy. You continue to ignore the wealth of quotation and description already incorporated in the article demonstrating that many Americans regarded Presley as "the bad guy" during his first era of fame. And you appear, as always, to be entirely oblivious to the questions of length and focus. In sum, you have suggested nothing that will add to the quality of the article and much that will detract from it. I believe I've articulated these matters clearly and that there is no need to engage in further discussion. Hail and farewell. DocKino (talk) 02:24, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

The Legacy section claims that in polls and surveys, Elvis "is recognized as one of the most important popular music artists and influential Americans." The Boone quote would have slightly contradicted this view. That's why it is of some importance to mention it here. However, as you do not accept the addition of any critical voices, the section should indeed be renamed, "Positive legacy." I see that you and a few other editors seem primarily to be interested in stressing the mega-star image within the said section, but I still do not think that this is O.K. "No matter how successful Elvis became... he remained fundamentally disreputable in the minds of many Americans." This opinion has been cited by reputable Elvis biographers such as Greil Marcus. It has not been cited in the Legacy section of the Wikipedia article. Just one further example. If you are looking at the many different impersonators, Elvis is certainly one of the most ridiculed 20th-century celebrities, but of course, this is also not mentioned in the Legacy section. Onefortyone (talk) 02:58, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Reverted. Irrelevant where it was placed. Redundant where it might have been. Oh, and Marcus does not cite the observation--not in Dead Elvis anyway. I have the book in my lap. Do you? DocKino (talk) 04:13, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, you are right. Marcus has cited another paragraph from the same source, Rodman was the Elvis expert who cited the said passage. The opinion that Elvis "remained fundamentally disreputable in the minds of many Americans" can also be found in Janet Podell's Rock Music in America (1987) and other sources. This fact is certainly not irrelevant, but the tendency to omit such quotes from reputable sources in order to stress the mega-star image is very characteristic of some contributors here. Onefortyone (talk) 14:22, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

For the record, I'd like all editors to know that this is the umpteenth such thread, over more than three years, in which 141 has doggedly pursued his agenda to have 'balance' given to this article. I agree with DocKino's responses; it is both infuriating and disturbing to see that 141 continues to unilaterally argue points that have been dealt with time and time again, and that a consensus of opinion is against many of his edits, actual and proposed. And once again, I note that 141 has avoided expressly stating that he has any intention of making this a Featured Article. This kind of impediment and nuisance cannot be tolerated. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 09:29, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

You must be joking, Rikstar. You can be sure that I'm interested in making "Elvis Presley" a featured Wikipedia article. Many of the current edits are indeed improvements. There is only one problem: the recent removal of more critical voices. Onefortyone (talk) 14:28, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Ancestry

From time to time my eye alights on the "ancestry" sentence in Early years. It strikes me as a little long-winded, with talk of his mother's great-grandmothers and great-great-grandmothers. There's also the question of what we mean by Jewish in this context. The source just says that according to a cousin, "Nancy [the ancestor] was Jewish. She and Abner had met as schoolmates in Tenessee." All of which said, no obvious improvement jumps out at me. It gives good background information, is only a short sentence, and may be adequate exactly as it is. Thoughts? PL290 (talk) 09:39, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah... the ancestry! This has been a problem for a couple of years. At one time, everyone with a national or racial claim wanted there tuppence-worth included, and the article read like a boring shopping list before it had even got going. If there's a single good source that discusses this, I'd like the article to say he was "of mixed ancestry", add the citation, and leave it at that. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 10:00, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

The passage offers a bit more detail than we might usually expect, but I think it offers good value to the reader, given that one is likely to come across claims that "Elvis was part Cherokee" or "Elvis was really Jewish". Dundy has established as precisely as seems possible the extent to which this is true (1/32 Cherokee) or might be true (1/16 Jewish [ethnically], if the verbal but otherwise unevidenced family accounts are accurate). DocKino (talk) 14:05, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Where's the proof/link that his great-great-grandmother or whatever was Jewish? I've looked but I see no evidence. If I say my great great grandmother was a Martian, does that make me a Martian? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.161.172.235 (talk) 05:50, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Depends. Please head over to the mirror and report. Antennae? Head shaped like a top (or, you know, a dreidl)? Epidermis a fetching shade of green? Yep, you could be on to something! DocKino (talk) 06:57, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Lost in Hollywood

Regardless of the songs' quality, it has been argued that Presley generally sang them well, with commitment. Rock critic Dave Marsh heard the opposite: "Presley isn't trying, probably the wisest course in the face of material like 'No Room to Rumba in a Sports Car' and 'Rock-a-Hula Baby.'"

The Matthew-Walker citation actually says Presley "songs are sung well and played by the distinguished musicians assembled." However, this is only in reference to the (poor) material for the Paradise, Hawaiian Style soundtrack recording session, and is not about his film recordings generally. In my opinion, the Marsh quote implies that "Presley isn't trying" in any of his soundtrack recordings. Matthew-Walker certainly cites cases where he thinks Presley not only tries, but achieves, good performances of some soundtrack songs, even if some are sub-standard compositions (I'm sure Jorgensen, et al give similar examples). Personally, it's hard to listen to film songs like I Need Somebody To Lean On, and They Remind Me Too Much Of You and not think Presley was committed and singing well. So, I'm wondering if there's anything to address here. May be one such movie song could be embedded in this section. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 06:18, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

As you say, the Marsh quote does indeed imply Dave Marsh thinks "Presley isn't trying" in any of his soundtrack recordings. Therefore I suggest the first thing we need to do is to establish is whether that implication accurately reflects Marsh's overall position. (Can someone with the source confirm?) If it is indeed an accurate reflection, meaning there is a disagreement of opinion among WP:RSs, we should try to present a balanced mix of WP:RS opinion per WP:UNDUE. If Marsh simply said that about one or more specific recordings, then that is the statement we should make. PL290 (talk) 11:20, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Elvis' movie soundtracks from the Sixties are routinely written off as filler by many but there were some gems that deserve further investigation.

The Viva Las Vegas material is good. It was better than so many of the other soundtracks. It's a shame that it wasn't recorded in proper stereo. I'ts recorded in this funny three track way of having Elvis on one channel,the backup singer's on another one and then the whole band on another track. That band that's playing on that material,especially the title song,is really cookin' there. That's a fantastic track. If I were to look for gems on the movie soundtracks of the Sixties I'd cite 'Doin'The Best I Can,the doo-wop song that Elvis sings on GI Blues. It's a fantastic recording. The lyric is full of self pity but he sings it incredible well. But there are great songs of Girls,Girls,Girls. There are good songs on almost every soundtrack album but there are also bad songs on most of the soundtrack albums as well. The strongest Sixties soundtrack is Blue Hawaii,there's nothing that even comes close." Source: ElvisPresley.com.au interview with Ernst Jorgensen,September 8, 2006

I've also remember reading comments made by Peter Gurlanick,in pretty much in the same line. It's also interesting to note the songs "No More" and "Hawaiian Wedding Song", both from the movie Blue Hawaii were really liked by Presley. He was also very fond of "You Don't Know Me" from the movie Clambake,of which was his least favourite of his 31 films. "Suppose" was another he liked,which was originally intended for use in Easy Come,Easy Go,but was eventually recorded for inclusion in Clambake. However,it didn't make it into that one either and was cut before the film was finished. Overall,even though there are some good ones like the "Live A Little,Love A Little" soundtrack and various other songs. I think it's fair to say that the quality of the songs started to decline after Viva Las Vegas,and Presley's interest in his film songs fell as well over the following five years.--Jaye9 (talk) 12:19, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Added to "Also known as"

I added some names that he was known as. "Ellie", "The Prez", The Atomic Powered Singer, E.P., The Hillbilly Cat, Elvis the Pelvis, Tiger (which was his Karate nickname). My uncle was a PFC and KP in the army and knew Elvis well, and they all called him "Ellie", as well as "The Prez". All the guys in his unit called him "Ellie and "The Prez". They were affectionate nicknames. Other guys in his unit, my uncle said, had some less than affectionate nicknames, which would be inappropriate for Wikipedia's high standards because they would be considered obscene. One time, one of my father's friends, who was also a PFC, called Presley one of these names. They fought it out, and my father's friend won the fight EASILY, my father said. My father said that Presley fought like a sissy. Now, my father told me this, and it's most likely true. If you'd like verification, my fathr gave me authorization to give out his phone number if Wikipedia.com needs a reliable reference regarding this. So if you want his phone number, just ask. Runt (talk) 11:30, 16 January 2010 (UTC)Runt (talk) 11:44, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, but the field is not for nicknames (see {{Infobox_musical_artist}}). Regarding those very early names, "Hillbilly Cat" and so forth, the infobox should summarize main aspects about the artist, and Presley isn't "also known as" those things any more. IMO "Elvis" is self-evident so not worth listing. I've taken them all out. PL290 (talk) 11:41, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, he IS "also known as" those things any more. He IS. I hear lots of my friends and some people down my block and also this guy who owns an ice cream stand in our town. They refer to Elvis Presley as these things. Just ask ANYBODY. Runt (talk) 11:49, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Hey Runt, I appreciate your information; I still don't think those things belong in the infobx (did you look at the guideline?), but that's just me; let's see what other editors who regularly work on the article say. About your father's phone number, by the way, you should not give that out on a talk page, and in fact it would not help in the way you hoped because it would not count as a reliable source. PL290 (talk) 12:14, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Do you know it's funny,when reading your comments Runt,I recall the "Memphis Mafia" his closest circle of friends stating that Presley would allow them to call him and only them by they way,nick names like "E" and ah "El" but never "Ellie" and the "The Prez",that's a newy. I'm afraid if a relative I've mine told me that little story,I'd tell to cut back on the "Rough Red" a little bit,if you know what I mean. Here's one for you "Welvis Himselvis", do you like that one,as amusing as it all maybe,get real,were trying our hardest to do a serous article here,okay.--Jaye9 (talk) 13:37, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

I went down to the ice cream stand to double-check with that guy. Turns out he was talking about Elvis Costello. And those people down the block loving on "Ellie"? De Generes. Yep. Trust me. I asked them. DocKino (talk) 13:57, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Do we really need this information?

The section entitled “Back on tour and meeting Nixon” states,

The U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce named Presley "One of the Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Nation for 1970" on January 16, 1971.

Query: do we need this detail, especially in view of the fact that there are so many other superlatives mentioned in the article and several more critical voices omitted? Here is the "List of the Ten Outstanding Young Americans" for 1970:

• Atkins, Thomas I., 31 - Municipal Affairs
• Bucha, Paul W., 27 - Military Service
• Capecchi, Mario R., 32 - Biological Research
• Cherry, Harry W., 35 – Business
• Coll, Edward T., 30 - Voluntary Service
• Goetz, James B., 34 - State Affairs
• Humann, Walter J., 33 – Business
• Presley, Elvis, 35 – Entertainment
• Todaro, Dr. George, 33 – Medicine
• Ziegler, Ronald L., 31 - National Affairs

What is so important about this list that it is mentioned in the said section? Onefortyone (talk) 13:59, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

I provided a citation, so you can read up about it, friend.

As for balance, I know. All the hard-earned superlatives about Presley's amazing number of multiplatinum albums and Top 40 hits, nowhere to be found. All the countless accolades describing him as the greatest rock 'n' roll star ever, gone. How did we ever let the nattering nabobs of negativism take over this article?! Oh, woe... DocKino (talk) 14:13, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Our source for the Jaycee award does not indicate that "of 1970" was part of the title. The issue of Presley's historical disreputability in mainstream culture is already very well covered at the appropriate point in the article. Our closing quotes in the "Legacy" section more than sufficiently indicate some of the negative views that might still be held by some. It looks like it's time for someone to get to work on Slammin' the King. DocKino (talk) 15:52, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Even fan books such as Denard McClairne, Tupac and Elvis: Inevitably Restless (2006), p.46, mention that the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce named Presley one of the Ten Most Outstanding Young Men of the Nation for 1970. It's a historical fact your version suppresses. In 1969 and 1971 other names appeared on the list of the Most Outstanding Young Men of the Nation. And it is also very interesting that you more than once have removed a well-sourced critical remark which says that Elvis "remained fundamentally disreputable in the minds of many Americans." Onefortyone (talk) 17:12, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

I suppose the point is not so much the list per se as its part in the picture. Up to this point in the story we've heard plenty about Elvis the bad guy, the threat to the nation's security, his brutal, vicious influence evoking almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people; the one who incited riots during which people destroyed the stage; the one unfit for family viewing, burned in effigy, performing in a manner suggestive and vulgar, tinged with the kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos--to pick out but a few examples from a quick glance at the article. But at this point in the story the picture changes: he approaches the President, tells him "I'm on your side" and asks for a badge to signify official sanction of his patriotic efforts. However bizarre this was, and however complicated and compromised, it signifies a change in Presley at that time, alongside which the national recognition he received during that same period belongs. PL290 (talk) 17:16, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Elvis " remained fundamentally disreputable in the minds of many Americans." This is a clear statement that should be included in the Legacy section. Otherwise you may get the impression that Elvis is now seen by most people as the nice guy. Onefortyone (talk) 17:44, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Hate to break it to you, 141, but you have zero credibility as a researcher. Pratt's article was published in 1979 and its perspective was primarily historical. Your track record of misrepresenting sources grows longer and more dismal by the day. DocKino (talk) 17:54, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Did you realize that later authors such as Rodman (Elvis after Elvis, 1996, p.78) and Janet Podell (Rock Music in America, 1987, p.26) have used the same quote for their argument? Onefortyone (talk) 18:41, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

AH! You want to use it on behalf of an argument you wish to make. Got it. We're all looking forward to reading that in Slammin' the King. DocKino (talk) 19:44, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

No, on behalf of an argument some reputable authors made, just in line with Wikipedia policies, for reasons of balance in the Legacy section. But I see, you don't like this well-sourced, critical remark. Onefortyone (talk) 20:21, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

I happen to love the comment. If only you knew how to read it, you'd know it doesn't belong in the "Legacy" section. If it had a place anywhere, it would be the "History" section, but it would be very much redundant there. This has been explained clearly to you. And you haven't convinced a single soul that this quote should go in. Guess how this ends up, buddy. DocKino (talk) 20:29, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

It certainly belongs in the Legacy section, as it says that Elvis remained fundamentally disreputable in the minds of many Americans. This means, not only during the sixties and early seventies, but also after his death. Onefortyone (talk) 20:33, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Comment already rebutted--see above. Unless someone else weighs in in support of your argument, I'll consider this matter closed. Further redundant comments of yours will be ignored and further attempts to insert the quote in the article in the absence of supporting consensus will be summarily reverted and referenced to this thread. DocKino (talk) 20:41, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Elvis apotheosized

I know we're all concerned about how overcritical this article has become. In order to restore much needed balance, here are some quotes we should consider adding:

"Americans do indeed have great respect for wealth, but Elvis is revered not just because he had it, but because he was so lavishly generous with it." (John Srausbaugh, E: Reflections on the Birth of the Elvis Faith, p. 71)

"Across middle America, Elvis is worshipped with a fervor akin to fundamentalist fanaticism. Overseas, in Europe, the Far East, Australia, his popularity is at times even greater." (Steve Zmijewsky and Boris Zmijewsky, Elvis: The Films and Career of Elvis Presley, p. 98)

"Elvis is God!" (quoted in George Plasketes, Images of Elvis Presley in American Culture, 1977–1997: The Mystery Terrain, p. 227) DocKino (talk) 16:08, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

If somebody is interested in including these quotes, I have no problem with this. However, such quotes must be counterbalanced by others:

John Lennon: "Elvis died when he went into the army. That's when they killed him, that's when they castrated him." (Lennon, Ono, and Peebles 1981, p. 74.)

David Bowie: "There was so little of it that was actually good." "Those first two or three years, and then he lost me completely." ("How Big Was The King? Elvis Presley's Legacy, 25 Years After His Death." CBS News, August 7, 2002.)

In a poll conducted by VH1 on the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock’n’Roll, David Bowie is ranked higher than Presley. (Billboard 110, March 21, 1998, p.10ff.)

Acknowledgment of Elvis’s vocal style had been reduced to mocking the hiccuping, vocalese tricks that he had used on some early recordings—and to the way he said "Thankyouverymuch" after songs during live shows. (Associated Press (2002-08-07). How big was the king? CBS News).

On June 11, 1956, Time magazine ironically referred to the singer as "dreamboat Groaner Elvis ("Hi luh-huh-huh-huv-huv yew-hew") Presley".

Natalie Wood: "God it was awful." ... "He can sing but he can’t do much else." (Brown and Broeske 1997, p. 111.)

His latter-day song choices had been seen as poor; many who disliked Presley had long been dismissive because he did not write his own songs. Such criticism of Presley continues. (Cook, p. 20; Sinclair, Tom (August 9, 2002), "Elvis Presley is overrated". CNN.com)

"Perhaps it is an error of enthusiasm to freight Elvis Presley with too heavy a historical load" because, according to an opinion poll of high school students in 1957, Pat Boone was nearly the "two-to-one favorite over Elvis Presley among boys and preferred almost three-to-one by girls..." (Ennis, Philip H., The Seventh Stream: The Emergence of Rocknroll in American Popular Music, Wesleyan University Press, 1992, pp. 251-252.)

When Presley died, "it was as if all perspective on his musical career was somehow lost." (Jorgensen, p. 4.)

"Elvis' death did occur at a time when it could only help his reputation. Just before his death, Elvis had been forgotten by society." (Roy, p. 173.)

"Teenagers in the 1950s and '60s went wild over Elvis Presley, much to the consternation of their parents, but kids in the new millennium aren't so stirred by rock 'n' roll's original rebel. 'I can't try to sell somebody Elvis who doesn't know who he is . . . that he's not just some guy who's been gone for 30 years' “ (Woody Baird, “Getting todays teens all shook up over Elvis”, The Plain Dealer, Saturday, December 30, 2006.)

Interestingly, many of these more critical quotes that were part of previous versions of the article have recently been deleted. So much for the tendency of the current version. Onefortyone (talk) 16:59, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

141, no one takes your or your complaints seriously for a very good reason. There is no article on any other figure of popular culture that includes a comparable density of critical voices and unpleasant facts. Here's a sampling from the current version:

• "trashy"
• received a C in music in eighth grade.
• his music teacher told him he had no aptitude for singing
• "she didn't appreciate his kind of singing."
• "mama's boy".
• he failed an audition for a local vocal quartet, the Songfellows.
• "They told me I couldn't sing."
• Bond rejected him after a tryout, advising Presley to stick to truck driving "because you're never going to make it as a singer."
• Presley came by the studio, but was unable to do justice to it.
• nervousness at playing before a large crowd led Presley to shake his legs as he performed
• Presley made his lone appearance on Nashville's Grand Ole Opry on October 2, eliciting only a mild response.
• Presley had another attack of nerves during the first set, which drew a muted reaction.
• "It was almost frightening, the reaction that came to Elvis from the teenaged boys. So many of them, through some sort of jealousy, would practically hate him. There were occasions in some towns in Texas when we'd have to be sure to have a police guard because somebody'd always try to take a crack at him. They'd get a gang and try to waylay him or something."
• the shows were badly received by critics and the conservative, middle-aged hotel guests
• "Presley is a definite danger to the security of the United States. ... [His] actions and motions were such as to rouse the sexual passions of teenaged youth. ... After the show, more than 1,000 teenagers tried to gang into Presley's room at the auditorium. ... Indications of the harm Presley did just in La Crosse were the two high school girls ... whose abdomen and thigh had Presley's autograph."
• Presley's gyrations created a storm of controversy. Television critics were outraged
• "Mr. Presley has no discernible singing ability. ... His phrasing, if it can be called that, consists of the stereotyped variations that go with a beginner's aria in a bathtub. ... His one specialty is an accented movement of the body ... primarily identified with the repertoire of the blond bombshells of the burlesque runway."
• popular music "has reached its lowest depths in the 'grunt and groin' antics of one Elvis Presley. ... Elvis, who rotates his pelvis ... gave an exhibition that was suggestive and vulgar, tinged with the kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos".
• "unfit for family viewing"
• To Presley's displeasure, he soon found himself being referred to as "Elvis the Pelvis"
• "Allen thought Presley was talentless and absurd... [he] set things up so that Presley would show his contrition"
• the criticism to which he was being subjected
• a judge in Jacksonville, Florida, ordered Presley to tame his act
• "We just can't have this on a Sunday night. This is a family show!"
• Crowds in Nashville and St. Louis burned Presley in effigy.
• The movie was panned by the critics
• "the trouble with going to see Elvis Presley is that you're liable to get killed."
• Villanova students pelted him with eggs.
• Frank Sinatra [...] condemned the new musical phenomenon. In a magazine article, he decried rock and roll as "brutal, ugly, degenerate, vicious. ... It fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people. It smells phoney and false. It is sung, played and written, for the most part, by cretinous goons. ... This rancid-smelling aphrodisiac I deplore."
• Moore and Black—drawing only modest weekly salaries, sharing in none of Presley's massive financial success—resigned.
• His films were almost universally panned; one critic dismissed them as a "pantheon of bad taste."
• the quality of the soundtrack songs grew "progressively worse".
• "The material was so bad that he felt like he couldn't sing it."
• the numbers seemed to be "written on order by men who never really understood Elvis or rock and roll."
• "Presley isn't trying"
• as with artistic merit, the commercial returns steadily diminished.
• The flow of formulaic movies and assembly-line soundtracks rolled on.
• the Clambake soundtrack LP registered record low sales for a new Presley album
• "Elvis was viewed as a joke by serious music lovers and a has-been to all but his most loyal fans."
• Of the eight Presley singles released between January 1967 and May 1968, only two charted in the top 40, and none higher than number 28. His forthcoming soundtrack album, Speedway, would die at number 82 on the Billboard chart.
• he was nervous: his only previous Las Vegas engagement, in 1956, had been a disaster.
• Paul McCartney later said that he "felt a bit betrayed. ... The great joke was that we were taking [illegal] drugs, and look what happened to him", a reference to Presley's death, hastened by prescription drug abuse.
• "ten painfully genteel Christmas songs, every one sung with appalling sincerity and humility"
• "[Presley's] sin was his lifelessness"
• Presley and his wife, meanwhile, had become increasingly distant, barely cohabiting.
• an affair he had with Joyce Bova resulted—unbeknownst to him—in her pregnancy and an abortion.
• Priscilla relates that when she told him, Presley "grabbed ... and forcefully made love to" her, declaring, "This is how a real man makes love to his woman."
• he became obsessed with the idea that the men had been sent by Stone to kill him. Though they were shown to have been only overexuberant fans, he raged, "There's too much pain in me ... Stone [must] die." His outbursts continued with such intensity that a physician was unable to calm him, despite administering large doses of medication. After another two full days of raging, Red West, his friend and bodyguard, felt compelled to get a price for a contract killing
• Presley was becoming increasingly unwell. Twice during the year he overdosed on barbiturates, spending three days in a coma in his hotel suite after the first incident. Toward the end of 1973, he was hospitalized, semicomatose from the side effects of Demerol addiction. According to his main physician, Dr. George C. Nichopoulos, Presley "felt that by getting [pills] from a doctor, he wasn't the common everyday junkie getting something off the street. He ... thought that as far as medications and drugs went, there was something for everything."
• his failing health
• Presley's condition seems to have declined precipitously.
• "He fell out of the limousine, to his knees. People jumped to help, and he pushed them away like, 'Don't help me.' He walked on stage and held onto the mike for the first thirty minutes like it was a post. Everybody's looking at each other like, Is the tour gonna happen?"
• "He was all gut. He was slurring. He was so fucked up. ... It was obvious he was drugged. It was obvious there was something terribly wrong with his body. It was so bad the words to the songs were barely intelligible. ... I remember crying. He could barely get through the introductions"
• "I watched him in his dressing room, just draped over a chair, unable to move. So often I thought, 'Boss, why don't you just cancel this tour and take a year off...?' I mentioned something once in a guarded moment. He patted me on the back and said, 'It'll be all right. Don't you worry about it.'"
• he was now widely seen as a garish pop crooner: "in effect he had become Liberace. Even his fans were now middle-aged matrons and blue-haired grandmothers."
• some suggest the singer was too cowardly to face the three himself.
• Presley's drug dependency
• his interest in spending time in the studio waned
• the recording process was now a struggle for him
• "If he felt the way he sounded", Dave Marsh wrote of Presley's performance, "the wonder isn't that he had only a year left to live but that he managed to survive that long."
• "Elvis Presley had become a grotesque caricature of his sleek, energetic former self. Hugely overweight, his mind dulled by the pharmacopoeia he daily ingested, he was barely able to pull himself through his abbreviated concerts."
• In Alexandria, Louisiana, the singer was on stage for less than an hour and "was impossible to understand".
• In Baton Rouge, Presley failed to appear: he was unable to get out of his hotel bed, and the rest of the tour was cancelled.
• accelerating deterioration of his health
• In Rapid City, South Dakota, "he was so nervous on stage that he could hardly talk", according to Presley historian Samuel Roy. "He was undoubtedly painfully aware of how he looked, and [that he] could not perform any significant movement."
• fans "were becoming increasingly voluble about their disappointment, but it all seemed to go right past Elvis, whose world was now confined almost entirely to his room and his spiritualism books."
• gripped by paranoid obsessions that reminded Smith of Howard Hughes
• the first exposé to detail Presley's years of drug misuse
• he "was devastated by the book. Here were his close friends who had written serious stuff that would affect his life. He felt betrayed. [But] what they wrote was true."
• he suffered from multiple ailments—glaucoma, high blood pressure, liver damage, and an enlarged colon, each aggravated, and possibly caused, by drug abuse
• addiction to painkillers
• his voice was "variable and unpredictable" at the bottom
• "Drug use was heavily implicated" in Presley's death
• A pair of lab reports filed two months later each strongly suggested that polypharmacy was the primary cause of death; one reported "fourteen drugs in Elvis' system, ten in significant quantity."
• "In the first eight months of 1977 alone, he had [prescribed] more than 10,000 doses of sedatives, amphetamines and narcotics: all in Elvis's name."
• there is little doubt that polypharmacy contributed significantly to Presley's premature death.
• many white adults, according to Billboard's Arnold Shaw, "did not like him, and condemned him as depraved. Anti-negro prejudice doubtless figured in adult antagonism. Regardless of whether parents were aware of the Negro sexual origins of the phrase 'rock 'n' roll', Presley impressed them as the visual and aural embodiment of sex."
• a rumor spread in mid-1957 that he had at some point announced, "The only thing Negroes can do for me is buy my records and shine my shoes."
• Though the rumored remark was wholly discredited at the time, it was still being used against Presley decades later.
• The identification of Presley with racism—either personally or symbolically—was expressed most famously in the lyrics of the 1989 rap hit "Fight the Power", by Public Enemy: "Elvis was a hero to most / But he never meant shit to me / Straight-up racist that sucker was / Simple and plain."
• resentment over the fact that Presley, whose musical and visual performance idiom owed much to African American sources, achieved the cultural acknowledgment and commercial success largely denied his black peers.
• Respected songwriters lost interest in or simply avoided writing for Presley because of the requirement that they surrender a third of their usual royalties.
• "Elvis detested the business side of his career. He would sign a contract without even reading it."
• Presley had no feel for business
• any ambitions the singer may have had to play such parts were thwarted by his manager's negotiating demands or flat refusals
• "the process known as Elvis Presley"
• "Surrounded by the[ir] parasitic presence", as journalist John Harris puts it, "it was no wonder that as he slid into addiction and torpor, no-one raised the alarm: to them, Elvis was the bank, and it had to remain open."
• "But we all knew it was hopeless because Elvis was surrounded by that little circle of people ... all those so-called friends".
• "If we hadn't been around, he would have been dead a lot earlier."
• "no one knows how lonely I get. And how empty I really feel."
• "rumor had it that into his skin-tight jeans was sewn a lead bar to suggest a weapon of heroic proportions.'"
• a boyhood friend of Presley's who claims the singer used a cardboard toilet roll tube to make it "look to the girls up front like he had one helluva thing there inside his pants."
• Ed Sullivan's declaration that he perceived a soda bottle in Presley's trousers during his earlier television appearances
• "a peculiar feminised, objectifying version of white working-class masculinity as aggressive sexual display.”
• choose his dating partners with publicity in mind
• most of these relationships were insubstantial
• "All the talentless impersonators and appalling black velvet paintings on display can make him seem little more than a perverse and distant memory."
• "Elvis was camp"
• "how banal or predictable"
• "a great purveyor of schlock"
• "a great bore"
• "a great ham"

Your attempts to add to this litany? Ain't happening, my friend. DocKino (talk) 17:22, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

As Elvis was such a controversial figure in popular music history during his lifetime and after his death, his biography must emphasize this fact. Furthermore, you have claimed, "There is no article on any other figure of popular culture that includes a comparable density of critical voices and unpleasant facts." What about Michael Jackson, John Lennon, Marlon Brando and others? Onefortyone (talk) 17:39, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

I have just demonstrated that the article provides exactly the emphasis you demand. Readers interested in examining the most significant of this material in context are directed to the sections "1956–58: Commercial breakout and controversy" and "Racial issues". DocKino (talk) 18:02, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

However, the historical fact is still not mentioned in the Legacy section that Elvis "remained fundamentally disreputable in the minds of many Americans." On the other hand, the following, questionable claim is cited:

"Presley also heralded the vastly expanded reach of celebrity in the era of mass communication: at the age of 21, within a year of his first appearance on American network television, he was arguably the most famous person in the world."

And you said that this is relevant to the question of legacy. “...the most famous person in the world?” That's just fans' wishful thinking. Sorry, in 1956, Elvis was much loved and hated in several parts of the USA, that’s true, but Charles Laughton didn’t even know the correct name of Elvis when he introduced him in the Sullivan Show. The most famous person in the world at that time may have been Mao Zedong, if you count all the Chinese people whose hero Mao was and who had never heard of Elvis. And you can be sure that many Americans hated him at that time. As a celebrity, Marilyn Monroe was surely more famous for marrying Arthur Miller than Elvis for his gyrations. More famous than Elvis in the minds of many American adults were also Dwight D. Eisenhower and Nikita Khrushchev (the latter for his de-Stalinization policy). So much for the claim that Elvis, at the age of 21, was “the most famous person in the world” and for DocKino’s opinion that this “fact” is relevant to the question of Elvis’s legacy. Onefortyone (talk) 19:45, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Your misrepresentation of the Pratt quotation has been addressed above. It can no longer be assumed that you are raising this in good faith.

And your sourcing for these new claims...? DocKino (talk) 19:59, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

So you are still of the opinion that the questionable quote is relevant? It's incredible. We are here talking of the most famous person in the world. Onefortyone (talk) 20:06, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

<<Cough!>> And your sourcing for your counterargument...? DocKino (talk) 20:08, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Are you really asking me for a source that says that Elvis was not the most famous person in the world in 1956. You must be joking. Onefortyone (talk) 20:11, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Are you saying the article asserts that he was the famous person in the world in 1956? You must be a joke. DocKino (talk) 20:20, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

The source claims, "at the age of 21", i.e. in 1956, "he was arguably the most famous person in the world." Onefortyone (talk) 20:26, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Nick nack paddywack, give a dog a bone... 141 it's time to drop it. Your persistence is doing you no favors. YET AGAIN, I note you seem not to be working with others to achieve Featured Article status, Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 04:44, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Mental case alert

Something awful has happened. A deeply mentally disturbed person has usurped our friend 141's account and made this mad, pathetic edit to the article: [6]. I believe I know who this sorry individual is, but without definite proof, I won't share my suspicions. At any rate, let us hope that 141 regains control of his account. If he is unable to do so, and there are more such crazed assaults on the article, they should, of course, be reverted without comment. We want our trolls to receive the psychiatric help they so desperately need, but it's not necessary to feed them. DocKino (talk) 07:33, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Your commentary clearly shows your biased attitude towards other users who would like to add some more details concerning Elvis's death. Did you realize that this "mad, pathetic edit to the article" (your words) was a direct quote from Peter Guralnick's well-researched book on Elvis? So you think that a Wikipedian who has cited Guralnick is a "deeply mentally disturbed person" and a "sorry individual?" Just for the record, according to this well known Presley biographer, Elvis Presley "had thrown up after being stricken, apparently while seated on the toilet. It looked to the medical investigator as if he had 'suffered constipation before he died.' " The author adds that "drug use was heavily implicated in this unanticipated death of a middle-aged man with no known history of heart disease...no one ruled out the possibility of anaphylactic shock brought on by the codeine pills he had gotten from his dentist." See Peter Guralnick, Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley (1999), p.651-652. Onefortyone (talk) 11:41, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Peter Guralnick wrote a biography 141,that information you wish to include,as we all know is from his book "Careless Love",it has 661 pages. Giving a detailed account is necessary for a book of that type,this article is not a biography. Guralnick writes these accounts with respect and much more detail. My question is,are your reasons for wanting to include this information into this article quite as amicable?--Jaye9 (talk) 12:45, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

My addition more precisely describes the exact cause of Elvis's death. What should be wrong with this? More significant, however, are DocKino's gross insults against me and my well-sourced contribution. Onefortyone (talk) 13:05, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Basically, outrageous personal attacks, based on nothing that I'm seeing offhand. Maybe he's unaware of the "folk wisdom" expressed below. The point being, you're not making this stuff up. The question is whether this much detail belongs in the article. That question doesn't justify the OP's comments, unless he's a mental health professional and can cite some evidence. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:11, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

141, constipation is a common condition. That part of the quote does not mean constipation was "the exact cause of Elvis's death", as you put it. It's an incidental detail that's not at all appropriate in a summary article of this kind. And if DocKino has resorted to a facetious remark, in his latest attempt to drive home a point which editors have tried many times to make concerning your persistently disruptive behaviour, I think that is entirely understandable. PL290 (talk) 14:41, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Constipation was certainly part of the cause of Elvis's death. However, the paragraph concerning Elvis's death may be extended. Here is what Guralnick says about Elvis Presley's death:

The only thing that appeared to have been missed, aside from the empty syringes, was the book that Elvis had in the bathroom with him when he died, a study of sex and psychic energy that correlated sexual positions with astrological signs. Warlick found a stain on the bathroom carpeting, too, that seemed to indicate where Elvis had thrown up after being stricken, apparently while seated on the toilet. It looked to the medical investigator as if he had "stumbled or crawled several feet before he died." ... nine pathologists from Baptist cond acted the examination in full knowledge that the world was watching but that the results would be released to Elvis' father alone. ... Francisco announced the results of the autopsy, even as the autopsy was still going on. Death, he said, was "due to cardiac arrhythmia due to undetermined heartbeat." ... But there were in fact at that time no results to report. The autopsy proper went on for another couple of hours. Specimens were collected and carefully preserved, the internal organs were examined and the heart found to be enlarged, a significant amount of coronary atherosclerosis was observed, the liver showed considerable damage, and the large intestine was clogged with fecal matter, indicating a painful and longstanding bowel condition. The bowel condition alone would have strongly suggested to the doctors what by now they had every reason to suspect from Elvis' hospital history, the observed liver damage, and abundant anecdotal evidence: that drug use was heavily implicated in this unanticipated death of a middle-aged man with no known history of heart disease who had been "mobile and functional within eight hours of his death." It was certainly possible that he had been taken while "straining at stool," and no one ruled out the possibility of anaphylactic shock brought on by the codeine pills he had gotten from his dentist, to which he was known to have had a mild allergy of long standing. The pathologists, however, were satisfied to wait for the lab results, which they were confident would overrule Dr. Francisco's precipitate, and somewhat meaningless, announcement, as indeed they eventually did. There was little disagreement in fact between the two principal laboratory reports and analyses filed two months later, with each stating a strong belief that the primary cause of death was polypharmacy, and the BioScience Laboratories report, initially filed under the patient name of "Ethel Moore," indicating the detection of fourteen drugs in Elvis' system, ten in significant quantity. Codeine appeared at ten times the therapeutic level, methaqualone (Quaalude) in an arguably toxic amount, three other drugs appeared to be on the borderline of toxicity taken in and of themselves, and "the combined effect of the central nervous system depressants and the codeine" had to be given heavy consideration. See Careless Love:The Unmaking of Elvis Presley (1999), pp. 651-652. Onefortyone (talk) 15:31, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Regardless of someone's point of view, calling them mentally ill is not appropriate, and if not retracted, could result in a block. I was once blocked for 5 days for calling some editors idiots. That didn't necessarily change my opinion of those editors, but it did convince me not to call editors idiots anymore unless I could prove it. That guy should argue the merits of the information and stay away from personal attacks. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:10, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Here is a commentary by another user not previously involved in the current content dispute:

If it doesn't already, maybe the Elvis article should come out and say what I've often heard: "The King died on the throne!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:43, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh dear, here's another fine mess we've gotten into - again. As I see things, based on a long memory of 141, he lost a round with DocKino and those of us who agreed with Doc, so 141 then switched to another weapon in his arsenal, and made the completely unrelated 'toilet' edit, in a move deliberately calculated to piss off everyone who is trying to edit down this article's size and get it up to FA status (He'll deny that of course).

A completely unrelated 'toilet' edit? Sorry, Rikstar, in previous versions of the article, you accepted more detailed information about Elvis’s death in the said section. You even corrected the Guralnick quote. See [7]. This version was part of the article for one or two years, including the well-sourced information that Elvis died on the toilet. Onefortyone (talk) 22:20, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Errr... completely unrelated to your earlier discussion in 'Do we really need this information?' actually. Toilets, puke or constipation not mentioned there. It can't be that difficult can it? And I really like the way you think editors can't change their minds about what is or is not included. I guess some editors have such a pathological agenda that they just can't understand that. Also, I stated, "Whether we have any reference to the john or not", which means I don't give two hoots whether the toilet gets mentioned, regardless of whether it has been before - aside from article length, which happens to be an issue right now. But I do note your response side steps the main point I was making, pretty much as I predicted. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 00:53, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Whether we have any reference to the john or not, HELLOOO!... there's a not-so-hidden agenda being pursued here, and, as is patently obvious, it is a serious hinderance and riling decent, hard-working editors to their limits (I'm OK, I've had my shots). And now 141 can play the 'poor me, I'm a victim' card now to unsuspecting new editors or admins on their talk pages. Can we give 141 a ginormous barnstar for creating so much disruption? And here's that link again to persistently disruptive behaviour. By the way, I have at least 12 years experience working in adult mental health. I certainly have my own opinions regarding the motivations of some editors, but I will not be sharing them on these pages, much as I might want to. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 17:35, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Creating this new section and writing that "I believe I know who this sorry individual is, but without definite proof, I won't share my suspicions." after mentioning 141 is, as far as I can tell, a personal attack. I don't know how anyone could come to a different conclusion. I have been becoming increasingly concerned with the increasingly strident edits, lack of true discussion, and dismisals of other viewpoints. Let me make it clear that I have probably never agreed with 141s edits or arguments. Still, that editor should be treated with at least modicum of civility, as should all editors. Steve Pastor (talk) 20:26, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, everyone should be treated with a modicum of civility. But I'd like to know how occasions of incivility, prompted, it seems, by sheer frustration with 141, weigh against 141's apparent total lack of respect for the collaborative process and the disruption associated with him. His tireless tactics are something I feel personally insulted by, but who cares about that? So we all soldier on, grinding our way through problems, most of them associated with one editor. But it's other poor saps who get caught in the searchlights.Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 01:43, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Did you realize that I am of the opinion that many of the recent edits are indeed improvements to the article? Notwithstanding, some nice quotes and critical remarks have been removed. You and some other users (chiefly Elvis fans) feel personally insulted by my edits simply because I have a more critical view of the singer. That's the only problem. However, there are users such as Baseball Bugs who think that perhaps the Elvis article should come out and say what is often to be heard: "The King died on the throne!" (see above) See also this opinion. Onefortyone (talk) 02:38, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but you collaborate with others only when it suits you. Yes, to improve the article. No I don't - why am I and all those 'Elvis fans' not then clamoring to have more critical remarks removed? Oh, no it isn't!. Once more: don't care either way - but article length? I like the single user link - weighty ammunition for you there. There; direct answers to issues raised. No side-stepping. Thoroughly recommended - you should try it some time. :) Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 09:44, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Ed Sullivan and those pesky pants

Back in 2008, I summarized a comment by Marlo Lewis (Sullivan show director) and it was included thus:

Ed Sullivan had apparently heard similar rumors and instructed his director Marlo Lewis to film only Presley's chest and head for his final Sullivan appearance. However, Lewis was skeptical about Presley wearing such a device and says simply: "It wasn't there".

The Marlo Lewis quotation, in full, is on pages 117 and 118 of Clayton & Heard's book: It partly reads:

So when we shot the show, I took camera two and I said, 'Dolly into a chest shot and stay there.' And for that entire six minutes we only saw Elvis from his chest to his head. We never revealed the rest of him, nor did anyone ever see this 'implement' between his legs. And I'll tell you a secret: it wasn't there.

We currently have claims - in two separate sections - that there was, or must have been, some kind of 'device' in his pants. But Marlo Lewis is the only person I know who was told about it, was watching, and was then able to declare that he saw no evidence of it. I wonder if this should be included, or whether Lewis's comment simply indicates there's undue emphasis on this topic in the article. Any thoughts? Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 12:13, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

According to Ed Sullivan’s co-producer Marlo Lewis, the rumor had it that "Elvis has been hanging a small soft-drink bottle from his groin underneath his pants, and when he wiggles his leg it looks as though his pecker reaches down to his knee!" See Marlo Lewis and Mina Bess Lewis, Prime Time (1979), p.146. This is what Lewis himself says in his own book.

More precisely, Peter H. Brown and Pat H. Broeske relate that

Ed, always suspicious and temperamental, had received a confidential call from an RCA publicist: "I shouldn't be saying this, but you had better watch Elvis closely." "What does he do," said Sullivan, "unzip his pants during the show?" "Everything but," the tipster warned. The television impresario immediately watched clips of the Steve Allen and Milton Berle shows. After viewing the segments twice he pointed to Presley's crotch. "Look at that," he told producer Marlo Lewis. "He's got some kind of device hanging down below the crotch of his pants — so when he moves his legs back and forth you can see the outline of his cock." He shook his head, then added, "I think it's a Coke bottle." He was troubled. "We just can't have this on a Sunday night. This is a family show!" He turned to Lewis and ordered, "Do what you have to do in order to fix this." See Peter H. Brown and Pat H. Broeske, Down at the End of Lonely Street: The Life and Death of Elvis Presley (1997), p.93.

In Clayton & Heard's book, Lewis is only cited saying that they didn’t see this "implement" between Elvis’s legs when they shot the Sullivan Show. But the other source says it was clearly visible on the Steve Allen and Milton Berle shows. Therefore, it was decided to shoot the singer primarily from the waist up during his performance in the Sullivan Show. This is of much interest, as it demonstrates that the star was indeed censored by the media.

By the way, a source Jaye9 cited some time ago, has Elvis himself say,

So they arranged to put me on television. At that particular time there was a lot of controversy - you didn't see people moving out in public. They were gettin it on in the back rooms, but you didn't see it out in public too much. So there was a lot of controversy - and I went on the Ed Sullivan Show. They photographed me from the waist up. And Sullivan standing over there saying "Sumbitch". I said, "Thank you, Ed, thank you." I didn't know what he was calling me, at the time.

This also supports the view that Elvis was censored because of the said problems. Onefortyone (talk) 12:40, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I've seen a clip (maybe from the same show, maybe a different show) where Sullivan told the audience afterward, "This is a decent young man." Kind of like apologizing for mistrusting him. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:46, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Sullivan's words are to be found in the Wikipedia article. However, the following additional note has been removed by DocKino: “Elvis’s discomfort at the compliment is evident; he looked as though he’d just received a Judas kiss before being publicly neutered and declared to be safe as milk.” (Rodriguez, p.84.). See [8]. Onefortyone (talk) 14:38, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Maybe the problem is that it's one guy's interpretation of what he saw on Elvis' face. Maybe Elvis was just tired. Sullivan's words are verifiable. Elvis' true feelings on the subject are not, unless he commented on it later. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:07, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Sullivan's words are indeed verifiable, but the correctness of his belief about the contents of Presley's pants is not. I think Rikstar's right: Lewis's comment indicates there's undue emphasis--or in fact, undue weight. Currently we present the impression that there was indeed such a device. In the grand scheme of things, Sullivan's observation adds to the engaging read but is not, I would think, an essential part of the article. I would have no strong feelings about removing it. If we do keep it, I think it does indeed need balancing with the doubting view. That in turn might bloat the passage disproportionately, which should be borne in mind when considering whether to keep it. PL290 (talk) 15:15, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

The sources say that they saw such a device on the Steve Allen and Milton Berle shows and that therefore Elvis was censored on the Sullivan show. As Sullivan says, "We just can't have this on a Sunday night. This is a family show!" Onefortyone (talk) 15:42, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Does anybody really take Sullivan's observation as plausibly accurate? Surely not. Its importance lies in its demonstration that such wild and erotically focused ideas about Presley were in circulation. It hardly requires "balance" (i.e., bloat) from Lewis or anyone else--I should think its ridiculousness is fairly self-evident from our historical remove. That is, I don't believe it actually leaves our present-day readers with the impression that there really was such a fantastical device. But it is important and fairly well-known evidence of the social reaction to Presley's emergence on the scene. I think it serves its informative purpose most effectively as is. DocKino (talk) 17:52, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I still feel it was unbalanced. I had a go at involving Lewis's utterance as discreetly as possible, but hadn't noticed at first that that was on a later date. I concluded that making the facts clear would indeed bloat the passage disproportionately, so I now don't propose we try and do that. But I think the small change I made in the process has made the difference: Sullivan and Lewis were watching the clips together, during which Sullivan opined thus to Lewis. Nuff said, IMO. PL290 (talk) 09:19, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

No Use Nor Ornament

"rumor had it that into his skin-tight jeans was sewn a lead bar to suggest a weapon of heroic proportions"

Do we really have to include these pointless silly rumors into the article? It is a well known fact that Presley did not wear jeans of any kind after he became famous,because it reminded him of when he was poor. There you go,rumor squashed.--Jaye9 (talk) 07:48, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

As above, there's no attempt to lend credence to such fantastical rumors, but their existence, in multiple forms, is historically significant. That said, they were overemphasized, via quotations that added little value. I've reworked the relevant paragraph (in "Sex symbol") to provide more appropriate focus and balance. DocKino (talk) 19:05, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Just had a look at the "Sex Symbol" section after reading your reply. Point taken,appreciate what you've done with it,and yes much more appropriate,thank you.--Jaye9 (talk) 21:02, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Needs more audio samples

This article does not have enough audio samples via the concurrent artist Elvis Presley. It needs more. Jack Quinn UK (talk) 16:47, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Bearing in mind WP:NFCC, this may be difficult. Perhaps you could indicate which further samples you would suggest, and what justification for each you would give. PL290 (talk) 16:58, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Suspicious Minds, Burning Love, Way Down? Jack Quinn UK (talk) 16:43, 21

January 2010 (UTC)

Aloha From Hawaii NOT seen by a billion

1 billion people had acces to the show, that's something else than "1 billion people are watching." I think the show is seen by 10 or 20 million people. IGG8998 (talk) 16:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

The statement is cited to a reliable source, and I see that another one, Guralnick (1999), agrees on page 475 that the satellite transmission reached an estimated 1.5 billion viewers worldwide. What's your source? PL290 (talk) 18:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Elvis does not have 1 billion fans, so an Elvis tv-special reaching one billion people is impossible. None of Elvis' albums or singles (except It's Now Or Never) sold more than 10 million copies, that's why I think Elvis has not more than 10 million fans, and that's why I think that Aloha From Hawaii is seen by 10 million people. The only reason why people think it's seen by a billion is because 1 billion people HAD ACCES to the show, but no one was watching. Most people in Asia don't know who Elvis is so they don't go watching an Elvis-show. Don't get me wrong: I'm a big Elvis-fan, I just know that it's not seen by a billion. IGG8998 (talk) 18:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

No one was watching! ;( If only he'd known that... Please see Wikipedia:Verifiability. PL290 (talk) 19:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

The one billion-claim really need to be removed from Wikipedia. A lot of people are thinking Elvis is something famous because they think he reached one billion people. The are overrating Elvis' fame. FACT is that no one in Asia, Africa or India knows who Elvis is (he only had hits in USA, Canada, Europe, Australia and Japan). IGG8998 (talk) 19:27, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Japan is not in Asia? That's a revelation! How about the Philippines? Is that in Asia? The Manila broadcast of Aloha in Hawaii attracted 91.8% of the viewing audience (Billboard front page, January 27, 1973). But you're right. Nobody in Asia knows who Elvis is--they just forgot to turn off their TV sets. DocKino (talk) 20:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Where is your proof that the Manila broadcast of Aloha in Hawaii attracted 91.8% of the viewing audience? Of course Colonel Parker claimed it, but he is not a credible source. People need to know the truth about Elvis. They are thinking he is the most famous thing that happened in the world and that his fame reached a billion people, but in fact he is not even the most famous thing that happened in the USA and his "fame" did not even reach 10 million people. Most people in Asia would say: "Elvis who?" I think you can compare Elvis with people like Trini Lopez and Billy Joel. They had a bit succes, but never became a big superstar. IGG8998 (talk) 20:13, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

You're absolutely right about everything. Thanks for schooling us. Buh-bye now. DocKino (talk) 21:20, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for agreeing with me, but why is no one listening to me? Why is the one billion-claim still not removed? I don't want people to overrate Elvis. IGG8998 (talk) 17:11, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

You see, the fact is, as you've so ably pointed out, no one really cares about Elvis. No one really reads this article or notices that little factoid. But if we suddenly REMOVE IT after this conversation, that will attract attention. We'll have all sorts of people who think Elvis is significant going, "Hey! But this high-quality source says 1.5 billion watched it!" "And wait!! This other high-quality source says exactly the same thing!!" "OMG!!! So does this other one!!!" Not good, right? We do not want people quoting sources at us. So, here's the plan: I'll eliminate this ridiculous detail, which no one cares about anyway, when no one's looking or thinking about it. So you just keep an eye on things quietly, and when you least expect it--poof!--there will be nothing left to worry about. DocKino (talk) 18:32, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, but as an Elvis-fan, I kinda felt angry about it all. You know, I used to believe Elvis was something big until I found out some facts. IGG8998 (talk) 18:45, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Not going to be removed. You cannot cite your personal opinion or your original research for any of your claims. The fact of the matter is that you will have to find a reliable source supporting your opinion, or nothing is going to happen.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 19:54, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I have a source: The Dutch Wikipedia. But I don't want to translate it all. IGG8998 (talk) 19:01, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

The dutch wikipedia is a tertiary source and thus cannot be used. List a secondary source, please, and be sure to read WP:SYN before providing it. You cannot reach your own conclusions regarding material from several different sources.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 23:45, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Irrelevant Speculation

There is so much irrelevant speculation and opinion in this article that there's not much room left for credibility. Elvis didn't perform with a crow-bar in his trousers, or spend all his time being a pervert in a hotel room. He wasn't stealing "black peoples' music." He was a an army veteran and a shy gospel singer. To everyone he worked with, that was #1. The rest of his 'bad boy rockabilly' image was created by his handlers for marketing. This is apparent when hearing the stories of those who worked with Elvis and sang with him. They loved Elvis as a hard-working composer, arranger, and gospel singer. Elvis clearly didn't like the image forced upon him by management. He didn't even like being called "The King". According the Joe Moscheo, who sang, jammed, and performed with Elvis, Elvis would always reject being introduced as "The King", saying "Jesus is the only King around here." Yet this article keeps referring to Elvis as "The King". What's with that? Elvis really ran into trouble when Priscilla left him, but the result wasn't a nasty-minded, strutting pervert with a pipe in his pants. The result was a broken-hearted gospel singer, not a depraved pervert. This article really suffers when it wanders around looking for a focus, grasping at irrelevant gossip, bogus stats, and idle speculation. Santamoly (talk) 21:21, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

What? Exactly who claims that Presley "spent all his time being a pervert in a hotel room"? What are you talking about?

Some "article keeps referring to Elvis as "The King""? Maybe, but this article certainly doesn't. If you disagree, please cite us every single instance in which the article "refers to" Presley as the King.

"Bogus stats"? Really? It looks to me like every single statistic in the article is very strongly sourced. If you disagree, please specify the stat and explain exactly why the source is "bogus".

In the end, I guess your big point is that he was nothing more than a "'shy' gospel singer". I feel sorry for you. Because you could believe it was that simple to explain him only if you'd never listened to and appreciated "Tryin' To Get To You" and "Hound Dog" and "Santa Claus Is Back in Town" and "One Night" and "Power of My Love" and "Burning Love". I feel sorry for you, because you really don't know or appreciate Elvis at all. But guess what, there's hope for you yet. There's this great website called Wikipedia that has a superb article on him. Read it, while you listen to the songs I mentioned above. There's a revelation awaiting you. DocKino (talk) 06:17, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Elvis may not have liked being called "The King", but that's what the media grew to call him. And with good reason. Not just because he was such a huge hit with a wide audience, but also because he could and did sing gospel, blues, rockabilly, rock and roll, country, ballads, most anything in pop culture. One of the greatest entertainers we've ever had. And certainly a flawed individual, but you have to take the bad with the good where humans are concerned. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:24, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Elvis is on record as continually denying that he was "The King". So why does it appear on the second line of the article? This article is about the man, not what people wanted him to be. Only about 3 feet up above this section, an editor says "the rumor had it that "Elvis has been hanging a small soft-drink bottle from his groin underneath his pants, and when he wiggles his leg it looks as though his pecker reaches down to his knee!" It's a rumor, so why is someone pushing a rumor? A little further up he says,"When Nick took Elvis to a hotel in Malibu . . . Nick, who was also rumored to be bisexual, Natalie and Elvis became a hot threesome, having a lot of fun together." Hotel room rumors. The article has such wild stats as "1.5 billion viewers . . ." This stat includes reruns! Elvis hated the hillbilly music, yet some editors think it's reason enough to call him King. The King of what? Hillbilly music? Elvis hated being called "The King". Isn't it truly disrespectful to keep bringing it back up? The article states,"a rumor spread in mid-1957 that he had at some point announced, 'The only thing Negroes can do for me is buy my records and shine my shoes.'" More rumors. This entire article, and the discussion, appears to be the result of editors with a bucket of rumors and an agenda, creating constant pressure to recast Elvis as something that he wasn't. Where is the mention that Elvis was primarily a gospel singer who sang rock-n-roll as his day job? Who recorded over 70 gospel singles. Whose only Grammys were for gospel music? Who prayed on his knees before every concert, and sang hymns afterward? It appears that some of the editors pushing this false image of Elvis are perversely obsessive about the man, and have likely never met Elvis in real life, making wild guesses on the basis of rumors. The result is a deceitful and manipulative article. Don't shoot me, though. I'm just suggesting that the result is this article suffers - deeply. And I'd love to see the article improved. Nothing more. Santamoly (talk) 07:22, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

If his supposed dislike of being called "The King" can be sourced, it could be noted. But he was still widely known in the media as "The King". The pop bottle stuff seems absurd, though. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:28, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Santamoly, do you hear that broken record? It's on your turntable. We've already been around and around on this.

Rumors: Certain rumors are historically significant as rumors. Do you understand that? The existence of famous, widespread rumors constitute important historical facts. Is that clear to you? The ugly rumor that Presley said, "The only thing Negroes can do for me is buy my records and shine my shoes", was considered important enough that a national magazine investigated it; important enough that Presley himself addressed it. Do you understand that? Though the rumor was manifestly false--as the article makes very clear--it is still used against Presley despite its falsehood, which is a significant fact. Is that clear to you? Of course no one now believes that Presley performed with devices in his pants. But it was widely rumored in the 1950s that he did. That constitutes an important fact about how Presley was perceived and judged by the society of his time. Do you understand that? The sort of high-quality sources we rely on discuss these rumors because they do much to inform us about the impact Presley had on popular culture and the reactions he provoked among those confused, made uncomfortable, or distressed by that impact. Is that clear to you?

Aloha: We cite three high-quality sources--one in the lead, two in the primary text--asserting that the program was seen by 1.5 billion viewers. You have yet to adduce a contradictory source.

Gospel: The fact is--as I have made clear before--we already give considerably more weight to the gospel side of Elvis than does any other general interest survey of his career. Just compare the Rolling Stone bio. See how many times the words "gospel" and "spiritual" turn up there. Let me tell you: 3 times. Our article's a bit over three times as long, so we might expect "gospel" and "spiritual" to turn up 10 times. In, fact, they turn up 36 times. In addition, we make sure to name (and link) not only all three of his gospel albums, but his gospel EP, as well. You have already made the ridiculous claim, in a previous thread, that Presley's gospel connections have been "glossed over". Your claims are simply false, as I have demonstrated. Once again, for the benefit of our other readers and editors, here's what the article actually says on this topic:

• The family attended an Assembly of God church where he found his initial musical inspiration.
• The Southern Gospel singer Jake Hess, one of his favorite performers, was a significant influence on his ballad-singing style. He was a regular audience member at the monthly All-Night Singings downtown, where many of the white gospel groups that performed reflected the influence of African American spiritual music. He adored the music of black gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
• To close, displaying his range and defying Sullivan's wishes, Presley sang a gentle black spiritual, "Peace in the Valley".
• His first LP of sacred material, His Hand in Mine, followed two months later. It reached number 13 on the U.S. pop chart and number 3 in Great Britain, remarkable figures for a gospel album.
• During a five-year span—1964 through 1968—Presley had only one top ten hit: "Crying in the Chapel" (1965), a gospel number recorded back in 1960.
• Only one LP of new material by Presley was issued: the gospel album How Great Thou Art (1967). It won him his first Grammy Award, for Best Sacred Performance. As described in The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, Presley was "arguably the greatest white gospel singer of his time [and] really the last rock & roll artist to make gospel as vital a component of his musical personality as his secular songs."
• His gospel album He Touched Me, released that month, would earn him his second Grammy Award, for Best Inspirational Performance.
• Recorded on March 20, it included a version of "How Great Thou Art" that would win Presley his third and final competitive Grammy Award. (All three of his competitive Grammy wins—out of 14 total nominations—were for gospel recordings.)
• Presley's earliest musical influence came from gospel. His mother recalled that from the age of two, at the Assembly of God church in Tupelo attended by the family, "he would slide down off my lap, run into the aisle and scramble up to the platform. There he would stand looking at the choir and trying to sing with them." Later, the family sang together as a gospel trio. In Memphis, Presley frequently attended all-night gospel singings at the Ellis Auditorium, where groups such as the Statesmen Quartet led the music in a style that, Guralnick suggests, sowed the seeds of Presley's future stage act:

The Statesmen were an electric combination ... featuring some of the most thrillingly emotive singing and daringly unconventional showmanship in the entertainment world ... dressed in suits that might have come out of the window of Lansky's. ... Bass singer Jim Wetherington, known universally as the Big Chief, maintained a steady bottom, ceaselessly jiggling first his left leg, then his right, with the material of the pants leg ballooning out and shimmering. "He went about as far as you could go in gospel music," said Jake Hess. "The women would jump up, just like they do for the pop shows." Preachers frequently objected to the lewd movements ... but audiences reacted with screams and swoons

• In 1957, his first gospel record was released, the four-song EP Peace in the Valley. Certified as a million seller, it became the top-selling gospel EP in recording history. Presley would record gospel periodically for the rest of his life.
• [Caption to audio sample of "Run On":] From How Great Thou Art (1967), a traditional song popular in the black gospel tradition. The arrangement evokes "the percussive style of the 1930's Golden Gate Quartet."
• Presley was always "able to duplicate the open, hoarse, ecstatic, screaming, shouting, wailing, reckless sound of the black rhythm-and-blues and gospel singers".
• Addressing his '68 Comeback Special audience, he said, "Rock 'n' roll music is basically gospel or rhythm and blues, or it sprang from that."

Now, is there is a specific, verifiable fact--and when I say "verifiable", I mean from a high-quality source, with full bibliographic information, including page number--that you believe needs to be added to all that? DocKino (talk) 08:05, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Gosh, Doc, that's a lot of work to reply to my simple query. I wasn't disputing any of this, just observing that the entire article is mean-spirited and nasty, and could use serious pruning in some areas to restore some balance. I guess the observation that the term "gospel" turns up 36 times expresses the mean-ness of the article more than any other observation. It says right there in the middle of the article that The New Rolling Stone Album Guide said that Elvis was the last rock & roll artist to make gospel as vital a component of his musical personality as his secular songs. So the article should reasonably be as much about his gospel music as his secular music. Don't you think? Yet there isn't even a gospel discography in the article. Is that mean-spirited, or what?

Doc, I'm not blaming you for the poor quality of this article, and I appreciate what you're saying. Regardless, this article is dominated by some churlish, obsessive, rumor-mongers. And it shows. You've pointed out some of the positive elements, but the article still needs a good haircut to bring it up to the level of a reasonably good article. My first vote would be to get rid of the stupid rumors (true or not) and to add a gospel discography, but I'm sure not going to try it on my own. Who knows, maybe nobody's interested and the article is doomed to stay stuck in the rancid swamp of rumors and gossip forever. Regardless, discussion's about ideas for improving the article, so what do you say? Santamoly (talk) 08:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

If others had their way, this article would include a helluva lot more 'stupid, churlish, rancid, obsessive rumors and irrelevant speculation'. Some editors have had a very hard time trying to keep these from being endlessly put forward for discussion, or actually included. At the other end of the spectrum are views like your own. What to do? How about striking a compromise? And may I volunteer a worthy candidate - the Presley article we currently have? It's easy for anyone to say they'd like it this way or that, but given the torrid history of this article, I think the current result is acceptable, and worthy of a FA nomination. Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 18:25, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Elvis Important? Don't Think So...

This page says: "Presley is regarded as one of the most important figures of 20th-century popular culture." This need to be removed, because it's not true. Elvis did not invent Rock And Roll. Also a title like "the guy who made Rock And Roll being famous" is not true, that title goes to Bill Haley. Haley is much more famous than Elvis and made a much bigger impact. So why are they calling Elvis important? He was not more than just a singer and a actor... IGG8998 (talk) 16:11, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Please create the article Haley is much more famous than Elvis, fill it with high-quality sources supporting your unique view, and we'll merge it with this one. Thanks so much for sharing. DocKino (talk) 17:18, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Do you think we need a source to see that Elvis did not have influence on music? Rock And Roll WOULD have excisted without Elvis. I'm a big Elvis-fan, I just know some shocking facts about him. IGG8998 (talk) 18:07, 29 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.84.19.109 (talk)

"Facts"? Fantastic! Of course, I'm sure you know that Wikipedia can't include facts that aren't well sourced. So, p-l-e-a-s-e, start the article IGG's Shocking Facts About Elvis so we can learn from you. DocKino (talk) 18:15, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Where are your sources? Do you have proof that Elvis was famous and important? IGG8998 (talk) 18:19, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Try reading the article. It's a good start. Rodhullandemu 18:24, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I have proof Bill Haley is more famous than Elvis. Rock Around The Clock sold 25 million copies and Hound Dog/Don't Be Cruel sold 9 million copies. Bill Haley has 25 million fans and Elvis has 9 million fans.IGG8998 (talk) 18:30, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Selective use of statistics is not proof. It's what we call "misleading". Rodhullandemu 18:35, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I've asked IGG8998 to disengage, and I humbly offer a suggestion that others follow suit. If he doesn't have an audience for this type of discourse, he'll be motivated to bring his comments in line with core policies and guidelines. --Andy Walsh (talk) 19:41, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

May I remind the other editors of the fact that there are indeed some sources suggesting that it may be "an error of enthusiasm to freight Elvis Presley with too heavy a historical load" because, according to an opinion poll of high school students in 1957, Pat Boone was nearly the "two-to-one favorite over Elvis Presley among boys and preferred almost three-to-one by girls..." See Ennis, Philip H., The Seventh Stream: The Emergence of Rocknroll in American Popular Music (Wesleyan University Press, 1992), pp. 251-252. Onefortyone (talk) 18:39, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

and nothing else in the intervening 52 years? Rodhullandemu 18:44, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

For a brief account of the fame of other rock’n’roll musicians besides Presley, including Bill Haley, see Piero Scaruffi’s History of Rock Music: 1951-2000 (2003), p.9-14. Later rock musicians are also discussed in this book. “In general, the press has been critical, clueless, or contemptuous when writing about Elvis Presley.” See Doll, Susan, Elvis for Dummies, p.260. In an article entitled "Getting today's teens all shook up over Elvis", Woody Baird says, "Teenagers in the 1950s and '60s went wild over Elvis Presley, much to the consternation of their parents, but kids in the new millennium aren't so stirred by rock 'n' roll's original rebel. 'I can't try to sell somebody Elvis who doesn't know who he is . . . that he's not just some guy who's been gone for 30 years,' said Paul Jankowski, chief of marketing for Elvis Presley Enterprises Inc." Therefore, Baird concludes, "making Elvis cool again will be ... difficult. After all, for most kids, Elvis is the music of their parents' - or grandparents' - generation." See Woody Baird, “Getting todays teens all shook up over Elvis”, The Plain Dealer, Saturday, December 30, 2006. Onefortyone (talk) 19:03, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Scaruffi is a self-published source and is not necessarily regarded as reliable; there have been numerous previous discussions on Wikipedia about this. Rodhullandemu 19:13, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure how reliable Scaruffi's account is (he is a lecturer at the California Institute of Technology), but there are other sources written by academics. For instance, in his study on the analogy of trash and rock 'n' roll, professor of English and drummer Steven Hamelman demonstrates that rock 'n' roll productions are often trash, that critics often trash rock 'n' roll productions, and that rock 'n' roll musicians often trash their lives. The author uses the tortured lives and premature deaths of Presley, John Lennon and Kurt Cobain in his section on "waste" in order to underscore the literal and figurative "waste" that, in his opinion, is part of rock 'n' roll. See Steven Hamelman, But is it Garbage? (paper): On Rock and Trash (University of Georgia Press, 2004). The problem is that most publications on Elvis are controlled by the world-wide Elvis industry, as Professor Wall has shown. Therefore, it is not easy to publish more critical material on the singer. Onefortyone (talk) 19:19, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Infobox photo

It's awful. It's a publicity photo, but not even a up-close digital photo --thinking of a 2-D image of Elvis, or less...! Please don't trash his article with such an introduction. Surely the last photo was much better. If that isn't an option, there have GOT to be some free use photos out there, but this is really terrible. I've been under the impression that the most recent photo of any artist on a biography page is the one we use unless it's too blurry, a copyright violation or some other negative problem. Imagine a photo of The Rolling Stones performing in 1963 as the opening photograph. Please! --Leahtwosaints (talk) 23:49, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Awful? A good, clear publicity photo from possibly the peak of his career, that doesn't violate copyright? Rikstar⁴⁰⁹ 11:58, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Elvis Australia site "officially sanctioned"?

I've replaced a number of the Elvis Australia cites with book sources. There are still some remaining. I notice External links contains the following entry:

• Elvis Presley Interviews on officially sanctioned Elvis Australia site

Does anyone have any information about this being "officially sanctioned"? PL290 (talk) 20:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

If you mean "officially sanctioned" by Elvis Presley Enterprises,yes they are,as is Elvis Information Network,of which a form is sent by Elvis Presley Enterprises each year for them to fill out and sign and return. Which then allows them to use the registered trademark of EPE. Hope this information is what you required. I'll also quickly point out,that those interviews they conduct with various Authors etc, are infact genuine.--Jaye9 (talk) 22:35, 31 January 2010 (UTC)