So I was in Hawaii two weeks ago, then Rochester, then Virginia, and I’m now heading West. So, I’ve been busy, to put it mildly. I’ve been reading the political news off and on, and all I can say to Democrats is there’s nothing less reliable than a poll in 2024.
That said, I visited Graceland this weekend, and what a strange trip that was. I’m by no means a Elvis superfan — like most people my age, I know some of his songs, and I know a bit of the lore. My wife and I decided that we’d go full tourist and just take in the place, and I have to say that it exceeded expectations. It’s pretty surprising that a guy who died in 1977 can still pack in the crowds. Every ticket to Graceland sold out last weekend, probably because Elvis’ granddaughter, Riley Keough, just put out a book about him and she had a book signing Saturday night. Her mother is Elvis’ only child, Lisa Marie, who died last year and apparently dictated some of her memories, which Riley edited and published. (I say “apparently” because I don’t know all the details and honestly don’t care to know them.)
We all know that Elvis died of a bunch of terrible things related to massive drug use. But, if you visited Graceland, you’d never know that. The history in that place ends roughly in 1972 with his last concert film, Elvis on Tour. The hotel at Graceland plays an Elvis movie every night, and we saw that film one night. It’s a damn good concert film — not quite Stop Making Sense, but honestly pretty close. Elvis looked a little bloated, but he wasn’t full-on fat Elvis.
The crowds at Graceland were very, very white, and mostly older, though there were a fair number of hipsters and tourists from Europe. Our group had some women from England, for example.
The sole nod to Elvis’ weirdness that I saw was the TV pictured above — Elvis shot it (famously) while watching Robert Goulet on the Mike Douglas show. Supposedly, he was friends with Goulet, but res ipsa loquitur.
Graceland is already registered as a National Historic Landmark, and my guess is that once his heirs have wrung every cent out of the place, it will become a National Monument, and deservedly so. The family has done a good job gathering up a serious amount of Elvis’ stuff, including Cadillacs, two jet aircraft, dozens of outfits, and his hundred plus gold records. Maybe when the National Park Service takes over, they’ll create a place that has a more honest take on Elvis. There’s definitely a whole constellation of Southern/White/Christian/Conservative attitudes that cause people to hide the reality of someone with a lot of issues in order to make a myth. Someone who knows more about this region of the country might write up how the Elvis myth and the current Trump myth might come from the same place. I don’t know enough about the South to write it, but there’s definitely something there that needs to be explored. I, frankly, hate the South too much to do it justice.
Of course, the real sight to see in Memphis is the Civil Rights Museum at the former Lorraine Motel, where MLK was assassinated. More on that another day, but if I only had time to visit one place in Memphis, it would be there, not Graceland.
Jerry
I visited Memphis just as the Civil Rights Museum opened. When we went there, there were some older Black folks handing out leaflets in support of a boycott of the museum. Intrigued, I asked one of the folks why the boycott and it turned out that all of them leading the effort were residents of the Lorraine but got evicted with no other place to go but the streets.
As for Graceland, yeah, it’s pretty dang cool. I enjoyed my time there.
zeecube
did you pick up any souvenirs, like a vial of Elvis’s sweat? swear I saw some for sale when I was in the vicinity back in the 80s.
Omnes Omnibus
The Stax museum is awesome.
MagdaInBlack
My husband was in Memphis (traveling for work) the day Elvis died. He said the whole town shut down.
Nix Besser
You damn right. We visited Memphis a couple of years ago. We didn’t give Graceland the time of day. The Civil Rights Museum was phenomenal. The museum tells the story from the original importation of slaves, through the Civil War period, through the Civil Rights struggle, all climbing up and up to the rooms where MLK stayed when he was murdered. It was a great telling of the story. Thank goodness that the Lorraine Motel site was as intact as it was when the idea of the museum was hatched.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Nix Besser: Yep, it was great. Apparently there’s another part in the rooming house where MLK’s assassin shot from, but it was closed for renovations when we visited.
ronno2018
great post! thanks! somehow made me think about reading flannery oconner stories in college.
dp
Stax Studio and Gibson Guitar factory are both also worthwhile.
evodevo
We toured it years ago, but one thing I noticed were stained glass windows with a Hindu or Arab theme – I always wondered if they were in place when he lived there, or were added later. Evidently he was a student of world religions ..who knew?
Old Dan and Little Ann
I drove by Graceland in the middle of the night in 1999. Just to say I was there once.
Baud
I think eclare lives in Memphis.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Old Dan and Little Ann: Bruce Springsteen tried to get in one night when he was playing Memphis, right after he had been on the cover of two national mags (probably TIme and Newsweek). No dice.
AnthroBabe
Rounding the corner to see the Lorraine and *that* balcony was quite the experience. Took my breath away.
I am disappointed to hear that no provisions were made for the people living at the Lorraine during the creation of the museum.
I get the Elvis lore, but have no “tengo ganas” to visit Graceland.
Question: are we doing an Arizona propositions post? Should us AZ peeps get off our asses to do so? We have a LOT of propositions, mostly coming from the Rethuglican controlled legislature (but also YAY Prop. 139 for abortion access!
and @mistermix – when I went to the museum, that portion was open and it was chilling to be in that room across from the balcony and see what the assassin saw.
Nix Besser
@@mistermix.bsky.social: We were able to see that too. There was a lot of questionable stuff about the FBI investigation into James Earl Ray. I’m pretty sure they got it right, so that’s good.
citizen dave
I used to have the Elvis XM station on my rotation. Don’t have XM in my car right now (just re-joined and in my wife’s car), but not likely to put it back. I was thinking the other day, while I like Elvis, he had a great singing voice, what exactly was his musical artistry? I guess because he didn’t write songs, he is just a good/great singer. And a weird dude and American legend. I grant you. We did the Graceland thing more than two decades ago. I loved the three side-by-side tvs and the shooting story (don’t think the bullet hole tv was on display then). And the TCB emblem. And of course the Jungle Room.
Found the legendary t-shirt Neil Young wore in the late 1970s, with Dr. Nick’s Elvis prescription, two days before death: https://x.com/AlexCortright/status/1162483810170281987 (sorry the only hit I found is on twitter); another view of the actual scrip: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/7bz4kl/elvis_presleys_drug_prescription/
The Stax documentary is awesome–would love to see the museum
Random: Jimmy Carter’s first Presidential vote was Truman, #33. Today, #47. That’s 32 % of the Presidents.
brendancalling
I’m a huge Elvis fan. The posthumous “Elvis at Stax” is freaking amazing.
I’ve never been to the Lorraine (or Graceland itself) but Memphis is a gem of a city. Did you get fried chicken at Gus’s? I hope so!
BellaPea
I was attending Memphis State (later the University of Memphis) and working part-time at an office across the street from Graceland the day Elvis died. The office closed down for four days. The outpouring of grief was unbelievable. I grew up in a small town about an hour northeast of Memphis, and grew up listening to WHBQ-AM. Memphis was a big part of our lives.
There are many, many things I dislike and condemn about the South, and my home state of Tennessee. However, I’m sorry to see Mistermix say that he “hates the South.” If you want to hate the region, I get that; there’s a lot of bad history, and a lot of MAGA idiots here. I’ve also found that there are many, many good, kind, and honest people here and they can become eclipsed by our bad Republican politicians and the loudmouths for Trump. I can only hope one day that the terrible racist, facist grip of those people will end one day. I will be proudly casting my vote for Kamala on Thursday, along with my former Republican, newly proclaimed Independent husband, who is also voting for Kamala and Governor Walz.
Old Dan and Little Ann
@@mistermix.bsky.social: Boss move.
Elvis is still alive was the MAGA calling card before the internet infected their brains.
rikyrah
The “I never thought the leopard would eat my face”
lady has created a Spanish remix to go along with the video of a Latino Trump supporter getting their “Wake-up call” 🤣🤣🤣🤣
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP88h7WV7/
Nix Besser
@BellaPea: Thank you for posting this. As a Pennsylvanian, I find Tennessee to be a fascinating state, with a number of very diverse regional cities (Nashville, Memphis, Chattanooga, etc.) In PA, we have (famously), Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the west, and Alabama in the middle. Politically, our two states are not so different, with blue cities and red rurals. Let’s get GOTV to get the job done!
Almost Retired
I love Memphis. A city of enormous personality. I care about Graceland about as much as I care about the Kardashians, and Beale Street is overrated. But I adore the somewhat stuck in time downtown (even the stupid duck parade at the Peabody), the music history and studios, the faded charm of Midtown, and the South Main neighborhood where we’ve stayed the last couple times we’ve been there (a block from the Civil Rights Museum). Also Blues and Barbecue. The river. The history. I am the weirdo who likes Memphis way better than Nashville.
brendancalling
@citizen dave: Neither George Jones nor Frank Sinatra were known for their songwriting. It was their interpretation that made them legends. Same with Elvis. If you listen closely, you can hear how much Elvis is influenced by opera—which would have been on the radio a lot when he was growing up. Mario Lanza, Enrique Caruso were huge pop stars then, and Elvis definitely heard them. You can hear it in his singing—“its now or never” is a great example, melody cribbed from “o sole mío.”
I guess what I’m getting at is a great singer isn’t “just” a singer because they don’t write their own songs—and I say this as a singer who writes songs. I’d do any number of unsavory things to sing like Elvis (or George or Frank or Waylon).
Almost Retired
I love Memphis. A city of enormous personality. I care about Graceland about as much as I care about the Kardashians, and Beale Street is overrated. But I adore the somewhat stuck in time downtown (even the stupid duck parade at the Peabody), the music history and studios, the faded charm of Midtown, and the South Main neighborhood where we’ve stayed the last couple times we’ve been there (a block from the Civil Rights Museum). Also Blues and Barbecue. The river. The history. I am the weirdo who likes Memphis way better than Nashville.
lowtechcyclist
And my traveling companions are ghosts and empty sockets
I’m looking at ghosts and empties
But I’ve reason to believe we all will be received in Graceland
raven
Mystery Train with Screamin Jay Hawkins
1989 comedy-drama anthology film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch and set in Memphis, Tennessee. The film is a triptych of stories involving foreign protagonists, unfolding over the course of the same night. “Far from Yokohama” features a Japanese couple (Youki Kudoh and Masatoshi Nagase) on a cultural pilgrimage, “A Ghost” focuses on an Italian widow (Nicoletta Braschi) stranded in the city overnight, and “Lost in Space” follows the misadventures of a newly single and unemployed Englishman (Joe Strummer) and his reluctant companions (Rick Aviles and Steve Buscemi). The narratives are linked by a run-down flophouse overseen by a night clerk (Screamin’ Jay Hawkins) and his disheveled bellboy (Cinqué Lee), the use of Elvis Presley’s song “Blue Moon”,[3]and a gunshot.
MagdaInBlack
“Walking In Memphis”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b2Y3tK6SA0
Central Planning
I remember visiting my grandparents as a kid. My grandmother had a 2’x3’ head shot of Elvis at the end of the hallway as you entered the house. Couldn’t miss it.
you would make a right turn to head to the dining room and a just next to him was the same size picture of Willie Nelson. She was a strange, hilarious woman.
TBone
@Central Planning: 💜
DougL
@Almost Retired: I went to school at Vanderbilt in Nashville way back when and have siblings in Memphis forever. Love Memphis. It’s down home and funky. Nashville is blow dried and striving. Couldn’t stand the city.
citizen dave
@raven: I guess it was 1989 when we did the Graceland tour. We were there the week the movie Mystery Train came out, and we saw it in a theater there. I was a pretty big Jim Jarmusch fan back then (and even bigger Joe Strummer fan). Great experience with the locals! ( I need to re-watch this one).
@brendancalling: Good post! I really appreciate Sinatra (like millions), and have upped my George Jones listens in recent years. Big plug for the George and Tammy tv series.
swiftfox
Born, but not raised there, it was a coincidence when I got my first professional job there from 1990-1993. Liked Beale Street and the barbecue. That was about it. Canoeing the Wolf River east of the city was a highlight. Never went to or cared about G-land. I liked his early music and his “comeback” hits from ’68 to ’72. Saw a double feature of “Kissing Cousins” (bad) and Viva Las Vegas (good) with a pair of sixth-grade girls who were acting as babysitters.
HeleninEire
@MagdaInBlack: Cher’s cover of that is remarkably good.
Ohio Mom
When I went to Graceland (I guess about 30 years ago), one of the things that struck me was how modest the house was by today’s standards.
I’m guessing it was big and fancy in its day but compared to a typical contemporary McMansion, it’s nothing. This observation has really nothing to do with Elvis, it has to do with our culture’s insanity about what constitutes acceptable average home.
MagdaInBlack
@HeleninEire: I was just watching that, and yes, it is. I got sucked down the youtube music rabbit hole.
MagdaInBlack
@Ohio Mom: I think that too, every time I see pictures of it.
HumboldtBlue
My favorite Graceland is the one Paul Simon produced. A stunning album.
dlwchico
I’m not a huge Elvis fan either but I do like some of his songs.
I suspect they were imprinted into my brain by the Aloha From Hawaii via Satellite special that aired in 73.
I would have been 7 and we were stationed in Germany. The satellite special was a huge deal at the time (at least in my memory it was) and we got to stay up way later than usual to watch it and it was awesome to 7 year old me.
RevRick
I visited Memphis about 30 years ago, but I was there as part of a church group helping to construct homes for Habitat for Humanity in Collierville. We camped out in a church in Germantown. Our visit to Memphis was mostly to sample the BBQ scene.
I find it interesting that Southern white Evangelicals initially vehemently denounced Elvis and Rock and Roll as the Devil’s music, but today the music in those churches, and especially the Mega churches, is indistinguishable from the secular world.
Harrison Wesley
@Nix Besser: I’m very partisan on this, but, y’know, Carlisle and Doylestown and Harrisburg and Lancaster and Pottsville aren’t exactly like Asswhup Creek.
hitchhiker
@HumboldtBlue: Came here to say exactly that. Paul Simon is really something.
lowtechcyclist
@HumboldtBlue:
Beat ya to it @24. :D
It’s an amazing album, certainly one of my ten favorite albums of all time.
brendancalling
@HumboldtBlue: I have nothing good to say about Paul Simon. And after reading this, you’ll be disgusted as well. Great album, bad person. He worked to keep Mandela in jail:
Not a fan.
Nix Besser
@Harrison Wesley: Are they? I live not far from Elverson. I hear you about the blue islands in the interior of the state, but I don’t think you can deny that there’s a lot of red out there. It just makes it more important to GOTV in the bluer parts and to trim the advantage in the redder parts.
Jager
When I was a kid I liked Elvis, after I met my first girlfriend in the 9th grade I was force fed Elvis everyday after school while Cathy Ann and I taught each other to kiss. Cathy Ann was the daughter of a Air Force Lt Colonel B52 pilot. She had one of those little stackable 45 rpm record players and the other than a few stray Everley Brothers tunes it was non-stop Evis “. Cathy Ann was from Crystal Springs, Mississippi, cute as a bugs ear, smart as a whip and she was ambidextrous. She’d start an algebra problem with her left hand and finish it with her left. She left when her Daddy was promoted and got his own B52 Squadron at Incirlik AFB in Turkey. She called me out of the blue in 1997, We had a great talk, she was a Physic professor at LSU, still liked Evis, but was very into Mettalica….
lowtechcyclist
Never been to Nashville or Memphis. Five years of Upper East Tennessee was enough time in the state for me, and there’s so many other places I want to go.
Anthony
I moved to Memphis a few years ago, most of the comments are right on, from Gus’s to Graceland, and the primacy of the Civil Right’s Museum. There’s no more Gibson factory, and there is still an evictee who protests the Museum to this day.
mrmoshpotato
@brendancalling:
Hey Paul. Say no more.
kbid
When I was 14 (15?) went to Vegas with my dad and we saw Elvis perform. I was of a teenage age back in 1975-ish that I thought Elvis was like Sinatra — just not cool. But I’ll tell ya he got on that stage and rocked the room. Had a completely different take in my teenage mind of the man as an entertainer and human being. This was shortly before he died and I consider myself lucky to have had that experience. And oh yeah the bras and panties were still being thrown on the stage:)
The Lodger
@DougL: About Nashville… the more they clean it up, the worse it gets. Compare Opryland to the Ryman Auditorium (where they filmed the cool parts of Coal Miner’s Daughter.)
Steve in the ATL
@raven: I was in Europe when that movie was filmed and was furious when I got home and saw the photos of Joe Strummer at my uncle’s house. I would have come back for that!
Steve in the ATL
@Ohio Mom:
That was my experience as well! Not that big by today’s standards, and not half as tacky as everything on MTV cribs.
Eunicecycle
@Ohio Mom: I thought the same, that the house was modest by today’s standards. I am an Elvis fan; I still cry whenever I hear “In the Ghetto.” I am not a critic and don’t know about music theory or performance or anything, I just know what I like to listen to.
Memphis is also home to St. Jude’s hospital. My husband and I toured there about 10 years ago. Danny Thomas located it in Memphis because he insisted it be integrated, and other cities refused to allow that. It’s an amazing place.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: please stop saying things I agree with. It’s unsettling.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Old Dan and Little Ann: I’ve stayed overnight in Memphis for two nights but didn’t see any of it, either. I flew in on a small airline from Raleigh NC where I had just finished a computer training and rented a car and drove to the Shiloh battlefield at Pittsburg Landing on a day trip, then flew back to Raleigh where my plane home took off the next day. Visiting Shiloh was way more emotional for me than I had expected (being from California, where the Civil War does not loom large in our history). All the state memorial monuments put up for the men who died there were extremely touching. This must have been the early 90s. I don’t know what the battlefield is like now, but back then it was still in the country and not encroached upon by modern development
ETA: I love Paul Simon’s Graceland album too.
Harrison Wesley
@Nix Besser: I’m only partialy disagreeing – very red parts indeed (had some spooky experiences), but even the smaller cities aren’t bad. At least as I remember, since I haven’t lived in PA in 8 years. IIRC, Adam Silverman was at the Army War College in Carlisle a while back and he had a pretty positive experience. Even York, which I’m told is way off the scale, wasn’t execessively goober the couple times I visited it. That may have changed.
JCNZ
@HeleninEire: Yes it is! Surprisingly good, sort of like Miley Cyrus’s cover of “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go.”
raven
Memphis Midnight/Memphis Morning
Jager
@Jager:
Start the problem with her left hand and finish with her right.
Peter Guralnick’s Last Train to Memphis is the best Elvis biography/
Tony G
Interesting. I was 21 years old when Elvis died, and although he was only 42 he seemed to me to be a relic from the distant past, and the butt of jokes. After he died I remember that the local (Philadelphia) rock radio station played some of his hits from the fifties and early sixties for a few weeks. I remember being surprised at how good he had been before he became a bloated Las Vegas act. I didn’t imagine that he’d still have legions of fans 47 years later, but here we are.
3Sice
Priscilla cleaned up the decor after it started spinning money. I guess some of the Linda Thompson changes were not to her taste.
The theater where the Stax acts recorded was demolished. Big Star was signed with end-of-days Stax. Alex Chilton was a Memphis native.
ColoradoGuy
I was expecting Graceland to be as tacky and gilt-plated as the Las Vegas of that era, but it’s not. There’s the Jungle Room, with its faux-fur wallpaper, but the rest of the 2-story home is simply early-Seventies middle class decor. Not huge, either. Pretty modest for one of the first superstars who could afford to buy his own jet plane (parked across the street).
Memphis is interesting. Parts are very poor and down-and-out, but other parts are on the rebound. The BBQ is pretty fabulous … ask around. It’s definitely a foodie town.
getsmartin
My standout memory of Memphis, twenty years ago, was checking out the Peabody Hotel for the evening duck march. Also got a charge out of the Sun Studios tour and yes, Graceland was worth our time. I liked seeing the Elvis memorabilia/paraphernalia on display in the racquetball court next to the house.
caphilldcne
@Ohio Mom: go to Elvis’s birthplace in Tupelo. 2 room shack and they got evicted Saw it on a trip with my Dad to his cousin’s funeral in Birmingham. Its rags to riches but it didn’t help him in the end.
eclare
@Baud:
I do!
Steve in the ATL
@eclare: condolences.
eclare
@Steve in the ATL:
Bless your heart…
Tehanu
Me too. It’s a nice house, but hardly palatial. What struck me was the shag carpeting on the walls and ceiling of the staircase going down to the “rec room” in the basement.
The other story I always tell about our visit to Graceland was that about a half-mile before we got there, we saw a sign: “This way to Graceland, home of Elvis A. Presley.” I always wonder if they needed to distinguish it from the homes of Elvis G. Presley and Elvis Z. Presley and…
Must add that I love his singing. “It’s Now or Never” is just, well, thrilling.
jonas
I used to think I had the tallest hair, but that trip to Graceland really opened my eyes!
opiejeanne
@brendancalling: Have you ever seen the 1970 documentary movie “That’s The Way It Is”? The only reason I’ve seen it is that it played in the theater before the feature film, which I think was a James Bond movie. It was a very odd movie to me, a non-fan, but you might find it interesting.
opiejeanne
@BellaPea: The day Elvis died my husband lost a beloved great uncle, and his family was more broken up about Elvis. It was stunning to me.
opiejeanne
@lowtechcyclist: Ha! Thank you!
sab
@Tehanu: I went to law school (graduated 1980) with a guy who grew up down the street from Graceland. He and his sister were allowed to use Elvis’s racketball court and the sister grew up to be a nationally ranked player.
Ruckus
Never a big fan of Elvis, but his music was big when I was a teen and a decade or so more. He did open a lot of doors for younger musicians and music fans, as he was very popular and to me he opened up a lot of the concept that music could be a lot different than what a lot of performers of the time strived to provide. He made a name for himself being different than a lot of what went before.
mvr
@brendancalling: Yes, great Rock’n’Roll singers have something that generally involves at least timing. Bob Dylan can write songs and probably invented a genre or two. But he also has timing, even when he’s not in good voice. And when he is in good voice he’s even better. Elvis had timing and an ability to make even a shitty song passable, if he made the effort. He didn’t always. But the early records, the ’68 comeback album and a few other things really showed off his chops as a singer. Just listen to some of especially the same songs done by others if you want to hear it. Hell, he even made a Mac Davis song sound good (not great, but hey, there are limits), and that is an accomplishment.
I went with a friend to Memphis last January, and hit Sun Studios, the Civil Rights Museum, the Rock & Soul Museum, a photography museum that was fabulous even though the photographer also worked for the FBI as a side gig to his business as the most prominent photographer of African Americans in the City during the Civil Rights Movement era. And we drove down to Clarksdale for the Blues Museum down there. The Civil Rights Museum was pretty interesting – you could look into the room MLK stayed in when he was shot, which, iirc was roughly as it was that day. What you don’t notice if you only saw a few photos is that it was an older hotel with a long history of hosting black dignitaries before it got a 1950s style remodel. So it was a real institution long before that particular day, and the surrounding neighborhood has century old buildings.
Definitely all worth a visit.
Mark von Wisco
I was a groomsman in my grad school roommate’s wedding in Memphis in 1993. I toured Graceland with one of the other groomsmen. The wedding was in early December, and even then, there were a good number of people there. The two of us were among the youngest people we saw.
Doug
@caphilldcne:
Sean I’d say the best one came
From Tupelo Mississippi
I tell you now that grown men cry
And Irish girls are pretty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtLeDGa64r0
Doug
One of my uncles claimed to have crashed parties at Graceland. Later on, he was a firefighter. Another uncle was a young Memphis policeman when King was assassinated. I never really asked him about that day.
Lapassionara
I grew up in Memphis and was living there when King was killed. I moved away for good shortly after that tragic event. I love so many things about Memphis, and I like it better than Nashville for sure.
JustRuss
If anyone has recorded a better version of White Christmas than Elvis, I haven’t heard it.