If you go Graceland More on the South More Getaways
Elvis will be everywhere at 25th anniversary bash
By Sean Price and Debra Muller Price, Globe Correspondents, 7/7/2002
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If you go Graceland More on the South More Getaways
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Thousands of fans descend on Memphis every year for Elvis Week. This time, though, don't expect the ordinary clambake. It's the 25th anniversary of the King's passing, and nearly 70,000 enthusiasts from around the world are expected to show up to pay their respects. The usual assortment of impersonators will be on parade: '50s Elvis, '70s Elvis, Black Elvis, Japanese Elvis, Child Elvis, Teen Elvis, and so on. (Save yourself an awkward moment - they like to be called "tribute artists" or "Elvis stylists" instead of impersonators.) But most of the celebrants are ordinary fans who come to enjoy good music, one heck of a party, and the saucy slow-cooked barbecue that has made Memphis famous.
Elvis's career began in Memphis, a city with a run-down charm not unlike that of New Orleans, that other great music town farther down the river. He spent part of his childhood here, soaking up the gospel, blues, and other musical styles that would shape his own. In 1954, Elvis cut his first hit, "That's All Right," at Memphis's Sun Records. He bought Graceland in 1957 and made it his home until Aug. 16, 1977, when he died at age 42.
Elvis Week kicks off Saturday, Aug. 10, with an Elvis-themed parade down Beale Street, the bar-lined heart of Memphis's downtown music scene. The days to follow are packed with hip-swinging concerts, gospel brunches, and tours of Elvis landmarks. Fans can swim in Elvis's first pool, hear old friends reminisce about the King, and watch movie clips on a huge outdoor screen. There is an Elvis Fan Appreciation Night at the local Triple-A baseball stadium, and this year the 10th Annual Elvis Presley Memorial Karate Tournament. For more cerebral types, the University of Memphis will hold a daylong seminar titled "Is Elvis History?: 2002 and Beyond."
The emotional climax of the week comes on Thursday with a candlelight vigil at Graceland. Some 25,000 to 30,000 people are expected to line up to visit Elvis's gravesite. The most ardent fans camp out for a day, even two, in advance, and the procession usually lasts until the early hours of Aug. 16, the anniversary of his death. Those wishing to avoid the crowds can view a webcast of the event at www.elvis.com.
The hottest tickets in town, though, are concerts featuring Elvis's old band buddies like James Burton and Glen D. Hardin. Many of the ones at more intimate venues on and around Beale Street are already sold out. Elvis will strut his stuff via a video-projected image at "Elvis: The 25th Anniversary Concert," an event that promises to reunite a long roster of singers and musicians who worked with him through the years. As with everything connected to Elvis Week, it's best to reserve in advance.
Visiting Graceland is obligatory, of course, and you'll need to reserve your tickets for it as well. You can take a $16 tour of the mansion and its meditation garden or a $25 "platinum" tour that also includes a memorabilia museum, Elvis's favorite cars, and two of his private planes.
If you've never been to Graceland, imagine the White House taken over by Disney World. You start off across the street from the house at a converted shopping mall called Graceland Plaza. After sweltering for a half-hour or so in the Memphis heat, a shuttle bus whisks you across the street to Graceland. The house is most famous for its gaudy interiors, and they are proudly on display. One of the most arresting pieces is a round bed covered in white faux fur that once dominated Elvis's dressing room. And you just don't see many rooms with shag carpeting on the ceilings these days.
Yet the most surprising thing about Graceland is its middle-classness. If you made a few cosmetic changes (OK, a lot of cosmetic changes), it could easily belong to a lawyer or an accountant. At many spots inside the house, visitors squeeze past one another through narrow halls.
Once you visit Elvis's grave in the meditation garden, another shuttle bus whisks you back to Graceland Plaza. The car and plane exhibits there are interesting, but the "Sincerely Elvis" memorabilia display seems redundant after seeing Graceland itself. Great care has been taken to coax money out of visitors at every turn. Each big display ends with its own gift shop, and you'll also find music and clothing stores, restaurants, and even a post office.
Given all this glitz, it's hard to remember that Elvis started off a poor boy from Tupelo, Miss. The two-room house he was born into - all 450 square feet of it - is a two-hour drive and a million miles from Graceland. You can take advantage of guided tours of Tupelo during Elvis Week or hit the road on your own to visit the town. His boyhood home anchors a 15-acre complex that includes a museum of Elvis memorabilia, a chapel, and a statue of Elvis when he was 13. Also on the grounds are a small playground, a baseball field, a public swimming pool, and a small, shady park on a hill overlooking the town.
Tupelo recently created a five-stop driving tour of Elvis-related locales. It includes the hardware store where he bought his first guitar, and Johnnies Drive In, where Elvis liked to buy a cheeseburger and an RC Cola. You can still get cheeseburgers at Johnnies (and a souvenir T-shirt, of course); the sign outside says "Closed Sunday - Gone To Church." That is fair warning. Many restaurants in the South, including Memphis, are closed on Sunday.
For a nice Sunday drive - and a complete break from Elvis Week - head for the Natchez Trace Parkway, which has its National Park Service headquarters in Tupelo. The 443-mile scenic drive was originally a foot highway in the 1700s before steamboats made it obsolete. Today, it winds through beautiful countryside from just south of Nashville down to Natchez, Miss. Along the way, you'll find hiking trails, picnic areas, Civil War battlefields, Native American sites, and remnants of the old Natchez Trace.
Back in Memphis, one of your first stops should be the Smithsonian's Memphis Rock N' Soul Museum. There's no better place to find out how blues, gospel, jazz, soul, and country music bubbled up from Mississippi sharecroppers' shacks and into 1950s Memphis. Mixed together and shaken by changing racial attitudes, they exploded in the form of Elvis and rock 'n' roll. Jukeboxes scattered through the museum will leave you reaching for your air guitar. That's appropriate, since Rock N' Soul is housed in a Gibson electric guitar factory, where there are daily tours and guitars for sale.
In 1949, record producer Sam Phillips opened a storefront recording studio on Union Avenue called Sun Records. In the next few years, talented boys like Elvis Presley, B. B. King, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis walked into Sun as nobodies and walked out as superstars. The studio still looks much as it did in its glory days. For $8.50 you can take a 30-minute tour, but for $75 an hour you can bring in your own band and record all night. "As long as we're out of here by 10 o'clock in the morning," says recording engineer James Lott. "That's when the tours start again."
Aside from its amazing music, Memphis is also known as the place where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in 1968. A silver wreath with red roses marks the spot on the Lorraine Motel balcony where King was shot.
Today the motel serves as the National Civil Rights Museum, which chronicles 400 years of black history in America. The timeline ends at the room in which King was staying, and it is a moving experience to view the balcony where a bullet struck him down.
You may already have experienced the hype leading up to the anniversary of Elvis's death. Cher recently took to the stage in Elvis garb, and the Disney movie "Lilo & Stitch," with several Elvis tunes, could create a new generation of fans.
In Britain, a remixed version of "A Little Less Conversation" just topped the charts. Even Elvis specialists like Darwin Lamm, editor and publisher of "Elvis International ... The Magazine," are amazed by the staying power of the King. "If you look at him now, Elvis is an American icon," Lamm says. "Can you believe he's still selling millions of records every year, 25 years after his death?"
S ean Price and Debra Muller Price are freelance writers who live in Chattanooga, Tenn.