This article was published in the 'Sunday Independent'  on Sunday 20th. August 2000, and was written by Barry Egan one of Irelands leading journalists. The photograph was taken in Jury's Hotel, Dublin, where  Barry was attending one of our charity functions.


Barry Egan

Bill Haley might have got there before him ( he had his first hit with Rock This Joint in 1951 ), but Haley was chubby, Married-and above all corny. But Presley was snake hipped, macho - and above all, carnal.
When he exploded onto 1954 with That's All Right, Elvis triggered a cultural revolution. Hollering out something pitched between black rhythm 'n' blues and white gospel quartet crooning, with as much off - kilter sexuality as you could take, Elvis Presley was like nothing on earth.

Baptist ministers across America called him "morally insane". The young truck driver with a toothpaste grin from Memphis who loved his mother and mashed banana sandwiches was suddenly an antichrist whose diabolical image could only be shown on T.V. from the waist up.

By the end of the sixties, Presley's promise was largely unfulfilled. Manager Colonel Parker's "business decision" that his client concentrate on recording soundtracks to accompany his movies-was the biggest mistake of the century. It speeded Elvis's degeneration from The King to Burger King.

Like Marilyn Monroe before him, the question of Elvis Aaron Presley - who he was, what he represented, and what he did to our culture - is as alive today as the man is dead.
On August 16th. 1977, at age 42, he died in his bathroom at Graceland - a victim of his own phenomenal success. Beyond the various attempts at character assassination, however, there is one very magical thing about Presley that they can never take away: his music. With it, he mapped out the blueprint for the pop music that spills out of your MTV today.

Who could forget the biting carnality of Hound Dog  - a women's dig at her no-good man?  Or the edgy kick of Jailhouse Rock - with drummer D.J. Fontana imagining he was on "a chain-gang smashing rocks" for the recording?  Or the haunting spookiness of Heartbreak Hotel - inspired by a newspaper story of a man who committed suicide, leaving a note which read:  "I walk a lonely street..."? Or the bawling R 'n' B bluster of I Got A Women  - which inspired guitarist Chet Atkins, who played on the sessions, to call his wife to tell her to come on down to the studio because "she'd never see anything like this again"?  Not me anyway.

The last time I cried was when Elvis died. It was a terrible night. I took down the Elvis mirror that hung on the wall in my bedroom. It didn't seem right to keep him up there, now that he was Up There. The Elvis bedspread had to go in the hot press too.

The most embarrassing moment of my life?  My sister Karen walking in on me when I was a six- year- old, dancing and singing along with a broom in my hand to Elvis's woe-is-me classic This Time Lord You Gave Me A Mountain.

Karen still ribs me about it to this day.
            

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