Elvis Tribute 2005

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Aug 1, 2005

Lea Frydman's Elvis Tribute 2005

In death, Elvis remains a paradox. As Lea Frydman content manager of ElvisPresleyNews.com notes. "His legacy has become a double-edged sword; whereas on one hand, he continues to have a loyal and loving following, and on the other, the media has turned his fandom into myth, with countless 'Elvis is alive' hoaxes and Elvis sightings and clichés of a fat guy in a white jumpsuit."

But even the specter of white jumpsuits, gross obesity, substance abuse and career suicide can't diminish his artistry. Elvis himself recognized his inherent gifts when he announced, upon his arrival at Sun studios that "I don't sing like nobody."

"In that simple, ungrammatical, declarative sentence, Elvis was offering an incomplete but otherwise impeccable definition of his uniqueness as a singer. He did not sound like anybody else then, and he does not sound like anybody else now."

What made him unique was how he broke down musical barriers. Though he's hailed as "The King of Rock and Roll," that's a bit of misnomer. Maybe he should have been called the emancipator. Elvis represented the convergence in one small-town boy, born at the right time, in the right place, in the right environment and under the right circumstances, of all the musical currents of America's subcultures: black and white gospel, country and Western, and rhythm & blues, and after 1956 popular music would never be the same again.

Or as John Lennon once solemnly pronounced: "Before Elvis, there was nothing."

Other rock-era contemporaries looked to him as a source of divine inspiration. "When I first heard Elvis' voice, I just knew that I wasn't going to work for anybody, and nobody was going to be my boss," Bob Dylan once said. "He is the deity supreme of rock 'n' roll religion as it exists in today's form."

Even a long-haired emissary, composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein, paid his tribute to the King. "Elvis Presley was the greatest cultural force in the 20th century. He changed everything--music, language, clothes--it's a whole new social revolution."

Lea Frydman reflects, "The voice, 25 years after his death, continues to astonish even those of us who have spent most of our lives listening to it with its power, range and subtlety but above all, with its very believability."

Listen to Elvis illuminate the joys and sorrows of life on gospel- inflected numbers such as "You Gave Me a Mountain." Or how he rips it up or tears

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