Well, kinda-sorta, anyway. NOTE: Check out the Greatest Hits page for the first three “Power of Elvis…” installments, to which this post isn’t exactly related other than that they all share a common topic. Or it wasn’t my intention when I was writing it for this piece to be related, nor to amount to a sequel to the others, at any rate. What the hey, it’s all about Elvis in the end, so why belabor such a trivial point?

Today being August 16th, and August 16th, 1977 being the death-i-versary of the once, future, and forever King of Rock and Roll, let’s get to commemoratin’, shall we?

First off, we gots a YewToob of what I consider one of Elvis’s most appealing signature songs, a catchy R&B confection originally penned by Lloyd Price*, which would soon after be immortalized on 2-inch Ampex Grand Master R2R tape (amazing price at the link: 35 dollars? Back in my day we had to fork over slightly more than a hunnerd smackeroos for it) by Price in a NOLA studio session run by the great Dave Bartholomew, writer and producer of many if not most of Antoine “Fats” Domino’s early chartbusters.

Lots of wonderful archival pix in that one of Elvis, Gladys, and the iconic Jordanaires quartet in younger, happier days.

In his latter-day backing band Elvis had a genuine virtuoso on lead guitar, the savant James Burton (“…one of the best guitar players to ever touch a fretboard”), who back in the late ‘60s began working for E first as a player in the touring band, later a recording-studio session man**. Burton stayed on with Presley in both positions until Elvis’s death.

Here’s a fat-Elvis vid of Burton strutting his stuff in Omaha, Nebraska taken in June of ’77, a mere couple of months before Elvis departed this vale of tears. In this short clip, Burton whips his trademark ugly-ass pink paisley Telecaster like a rented mule.

Even a partial listing of musicians Burton worked with either onstage or in the studio is nothing short of jawdropping: Bob Luman; Dale Hawkins; Ricky Nelson; Elvis Presley (he was also leader of Presley’s TCB Band, the same slot as the similarly awe-inspiring Travis Wammack filled for/with Little Richard Penniman at Tramps when the BPs played a 2-shows-per-night, three-night stand opening for the self-styled Architect of Rock & Roll); The Everly Brothers; Johnny Cash; Merle Haggard; Glen Campbell; John Denver; Gram Parsons; Emmylou Harris; Judy Collins; Jerry Lee Lewis; Claude King; Elvis Costello; Joe Osborn; Roy Orbison; Joni Mitchell; Hoyt Axton; Townes Van Zandt; Steve Young; Vince Gill; and Suzi Quatro.

Pretty impressive rundown of name artists, no? All the more impressive because it IS only partial. Others omitted include: Albert Lee, Rodney Crowell, Steve Wariner, Brian May, and Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, to name but a noteworthy few. Even this incomplete list is in fact a veritable Who’s Who of rock & roll, country, rockabilly, and pop artists, that’s what.

Next up: in the aftermath of The King’s bruising humiliation on The Steve Allen Show (after which disastrous outing Elvis could only describe himself as “distraught,” finding himself practically incapable of coherent speech due to the miserable asshat Allen’s openly-flaunted dislike of and contempt for Presley not just as a performer but personally) a visibly-exhausted Elvis had a long, cordial conversation with columnist/reporter/interviewer Hy Gardner for his popular “Hy Gardner Calling” phone-in show.

What a nice departure the warm, friendly, gregarious way Gardner treated the young phenom is from the egomaniac Steve Allen’s supercilious, sneering approach.

Last but by no means least, we come to the well-known story of a show-stopping (literally!) Vegas altercation betwixt Elvis Presley and a belligerent, sloppy-drunk oaf heckler, Big (Boob) Mike Henderson. Clocking in at just under 16 minutes it’s a long ‘un, I freely admit. But stick with it, definitely; the payoff is well worth the wait.

Awright, awright, a WAY better payoff woulda been seeing Elvis slam a hard, fast knuckle samwidge into this punk-ass bitch’s snot locker, knocking Sir Punch-A-Lot flat on his stupid ass onto the casino stage.

As is noted in the vid, Elvis’s deft defusing of a volatile, rapidly-escalating confrontation which could just as easily have taken a different, much darker turn was so smoothly managed that his handling of the situation is still studied today in conflict-management and -resolution training courses as the pluperfect example of how it’s done. Soft-spoken, surehanded, patient, preternaturally calm, humane—against all odds, Elvis forged peace from what appeared to be inevitable, unavoidable violence; soothed and gently reassured 1) a twitchy, unhinged antagonist; 2) an audience made anxious by the increasingly irrational bluster and brigandry of the inebriated, obnoxious lowlife; 3) every musician, crewman, custodian, sound/lighting technician, and venue staffer onstage with the prospective combatants; turned an enemy into a friend by merely speaking frankly and honestly to and demonstrating an unfeigned interest in him—all these nigh-impossibilities pulled off singlehandedly before a capacity crowd of 20,000 screaming cash customers, no less!

Too, it tells us everything we’ll ever need to know about what kind of man Elvis Presley really, truly was way down deep inside.

The narrator of the above vidya dryly informs us that, as the artist the Colonel liked to call “My Boy” strode placidly out to front-center-stage to address his rage-incapacitated interlocutor, Tom Parker was standing in the wings at Stage Right “having a heart attack,” and I expect he was at that. Elvis’s bandmates and backing vocalists (the Sweet Inspirations, Millie Kirkham, and Kathy Westmoreland), the audience, the stagehands, go-fers, and production crew—they must surely ALL have been clutching their chests in prodigious agonies of consternation at the sight of the show’s Starring Attraction putting himself in harm’s way so nonchalantly.

Moving on from speculation, hypothesizing, and out-and-out fantasizing, to this day Elvis Presley still outsells pretty much everybody else, and not by a small margin, either. Despite the figures that show the product fairly flying off the shelves, Elvis Presley records, tapes, and CDs don’t turn up in the Hot 100 nowadays because, according to Billboard, the fact that they aren’t new releases disqualifies them. No matter; we already know well enough who the King really is, thankee. It is assuredly NOT pathetic national joke Howard Stern, however girlishly and vehemently he may whinge otherwise.

In sum, even 48 years after his tragic demise*** the Big E’s spectral presence still looms large over the music biz, an incorporeal inspiration and influence that doesn’t look like going away anytime soon.

Elvis, you may be gone but you will NEVER be forgotten, bless your beautiful soul. We love you, and will always miss you.

* Amusingly enough, I remember meeting Price after one of those aforementioned Tramps shows supporting Little Richard

** A hateful, thankless job if ever there was one; go ahead, ask me how I know, I DARES ya!

*** No, Elvis did NOT “die on the toilet,” as has been gleefully and erroneously claimed for decades by his detractors. Elvis’s master bedroom and en suite bathroom had a modest-sized but plush lounge area separating them, just spacious enough to accommodate a chaise longue and a comfy, well-cushioned La-Z-Boy recliner/rocker. Elvis thought of his lounge as a place of refuge, his own private hideaway in which he could shuck his ELVIS PRESLEY, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! persona and go back to being Gladys and Vernon Presley’s only kid—just 19 years of age, a part-time delivery man for Crown Electric Company of Memphis, paid a whopping one (1) dollar per hour—for a spell.

In his lounge, things were quite different: Elvis could laze about in his PJs, his tall, thick, heavily-pomaded, spectacular pompadour disheveled, a-tangle, and uncombed. Unlike World Famous Elvis, Private Lounge Elvis didn’t need to impress anybody; in that place late in the night, he didn’t owe a single soul a single goddamned thing. There was no fear of failure; no grinding pressure to capture and hold an audience; no nervousness, no jittery, unsettled stomach, no stage fright; no expectations whatsoever for him to live up to. In his lounge, Elvis could simply relax, read, and enjoy a refreshing interlude of uninterrupted peace, quiet, and solitude which would belong to him and him alone.

Until that fateful night when his young girlfriend Ginger Alden discovered him crumpled unconscious and non-responsive on the carpeted floor of the lounge—NOT on, in front of, or next to the toilet. Elvis actually passed away in the ambulance on the way to Memphis General Hospital

Update! My mention of Dave Bartholomew way up yonder brought to mind another NOLA R&B icon: Smiley Lewis, who will always be twinned with Bartholomew in my addled, befogged brain for some unknown reason. Between them, those two cats wrote more unforgettable music than you can shake a stick at—music which constitutes the bedrock, the very foundation-stones, of rock & roll both back in Lewis’ and Bartholomew’s day and as we in the modern era know it as well. Like yet another bona-fide legend from a previous musical era, Willie Dixon, Bartholomew and Lewis are simply all over classic R&B/RaB/rock & roll; everyplace you look you’re gonna see those rascals peeping back atcha.

I dunno, maybe I can hardly think of one without thinking immediately of the other because I spent so dang many years playing so dang many of their songs with the BPs. And HEY PRESTO! Just like that, I’m reminded of another legend: Big Al Downing, who we’ve discussed before in these h’yar parts.

Now THAT’S the stuff! Had to’ve played that song about a blue million times with the Playboys, and it was a stone gas each and every time we did. It never yet got old, and it ain’t ever gonna.

Updated update! Every picture tells a story, don’t it?

From August 1977: Thousands of grief-stricken Elvis fans outside Graceland right before the gates were opened to admit them, allowing them to mourn their lost idol in the grounds of his longtime home. From what I’ve read, the feeling of the Presley family was that if the fans were comforted by being invited inside the gates of Graceland and off the streets and sidewalks, then it was worth whatever damage to the carefully-manicured lawn the teeming throng might do along the way.

After all, trampled, torn-up grass, disfigured shrubbery, and mauled flower beds can always be made whole again with some hard work. But a heart shattered by sudden, unexpected bereavement? Ehhh, not so much.

Update to the updated update! Been idly mulling over this self-generated Bartholomew/Lewis mental pairing of mine, when something struck me as kinda weird about it. I mean, it’s mainly just the BarthoLew entity, even though there are a shitload of other two-man combinations which could, perhaps even should, have the same affect on me, but don’t. For example, whenever somebody mention Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe doesn’t necessarily come waltzing along into my head close behind. Same-same for, oh, say, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons; David Bowie and Iggy Pop; Pete Townsend and Roger Daltrey; Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell.

On the flipside, though: Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs? Homer and Jethro? Jan and Dean? Crosby and Hope? Sam and Dave?

Begging your pardon, kind sirs, but don’t you even think of throwing Simon and Garfunkle at me at this juncture. I’ve spent a considerable chunk of my life trying my level best NOT to think of Art Shinola and his boozum chum Paul Gobblefuckndinkle, and after lo, these many years I’ve become quite good at it, believe you me. You chuck those two shit-slurping doofii at my head, thereby distracting me from the task at hand, disrupting my concentration, and upending my groove so ruinously I can’t get my head back on straight, my heart back in the game, my attention refocused and re-aimed correctly, my thoughts realigned and retuned so that they’ll flow freely, unhindered and unobstructed in the way a mighty river does.

I tremble and quake with fear at the painfully slow dawning of a dreadful realization: I may not ever be able to do these most needful of things again. In which event I hereby solemnly swear that I will neither rest nor remit nor recede nor relent until the blaggard who forcibly reacquainted me with those two dickless purveyors of emasculated, stupefyingly flavorless Wimp Rock gruel have been dealt with to my own satisfaction: ie cruelly, harshly, and above all fully.

Lastly but not leastly, what price Loretta and Doolittle Lynn (to purloin a typically-exquisite Wodehouse phrase)? Where do THEY fit into this gi-normous 50,000-piece jigsaw puzzle? DO they fit into it, even…?

Okay, okay, let’s forget I brought the whole thing up. From now on, we’ll just pretend it never happened.