ELVIS IS ALIVE!

Today is August 16th. This may seem quite a normal day for a lot of people, but it isn’t for a lot of us, rock and roll lovers. On this day back in 1977, newspapers all over the globe had the same message in the cover: “Elvis Presley has died”.  This news left in shock all his fans, who could not believe that the KING OF ROCK AND ROLL would never sing on stage again.

A lot of people usually ask me: “Why do you like Elvis that much?”  My answer is always short, simple and direct: “Because he IS the king”. Now I am going to give more little details about the reasons that lead me to say that.

Elvis was not only a singer, he was THE singer. He opened up a new way of creating, dancing and enjoying music. He told us to move our hips and enjoy the rhythm around. His moves were not well received for everybody and that’s why in most of the TV programs he went, his image appears cut by his hips so we cannot see his leg moves.

Apart of his moves, his voice was special. As most of critics and producers say, he was a white boy with a black voice. That deep voice helped him to move us in each and every song. During the 50’s, that young and sexy boy from Mississipi changed music in each and every single way. He broke the rules, put every person up and started stirring up the building.

The bad side of the story is that someone that creates something of that size in such short time and short age is likely to become a character instead of a person. I think that this is what happened to the world. Everybody forgot that Elvis Aaron Presley was a person with his own life and treated him like a character inside and outside stage or recording studios. He loved his job and the proof is that he did not quit the road life but I am sure that he would have appreciated a bit of air and space from the whole world, who only wanted him to act, sing or dance.

Coming back to my reasons of my love for him, another artist joins the scene: BRUUUUUUUUCE!!! I got into Elvis music thanks to Bruce. Bruce said that thanks to Elvis appearance in the Ed Sullivan Show, he decided that he wanted to be like him and move and play the guitar like him. A lot of times, Bruce has played Elvis songs live and he even wrote a song for him: FIRE! So for me being fan of Elvis is getting to know a little bit more about Bruce and his music influences.

But the main reason why I love Elvis is because I could not help falling in love with him. Every time I see videos of him, I love the way he steps the stage, that confidence but tenderness at the same time is what made him big. He lived his life in his own and unique way.

Do I have a favorite Elvis song? Kind of. Maybe “IF I CAN DREAM” can occupy that 1^st position because every time I see Elvis mentioned, I hum the same lyrics:

“We are lost in a cloud with too much rain; we’re trapped in a world that’s troubled with pain. But as long as a man has the strength to dream, he can redeem his soul and fly”

I don’t know if it is because of the music or because of the lyrics but one thing is for sure, it is because of the memories.

The world wasn’t ready to hear that Elvis had left the building the 16^th of August of 1977, and neither would be now. My opinion? With only 42 years, Elvis had done more than 30 films and recorded more than 711 songs and that is a lot. I think that all was getting him crazy so he just disappeared. I know that there is a lot of conspiracy around and this is what I think about it. Elvis left our world in 1977 but he did not left his aloha world then.

As I said in the last Blog post about Clarence, someone who has been that big in so many ways never die. People will always remember them and keep them alive.

So this is all for today, grab your ipod, turntable or CD’s collection and start listening to some rock and roll. Then, if you like it, start dancing and you’ll see that life is a little bit better with a cool soundtrack around.

Till we meet again take care of yourselves, 

and Elvis, if you are out there you must know that we are still looking for you! ;)