Template:The parable of the two Elvi: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 13:25, 10 May 2021

Elvis Presley’s career began and ended in Memphis Tennessee. Millions of tourists visit Graceland, 3734 Elvis Presley boulevard, where for $75 an adult can tour the king’s mansion: a bored school leaver from Bartlett hands you an iPad and headphones, ushers you into a cinema for a 15-minute film AND then into a minibus which ferries you across the Boulevard to the mansion where, following a bored lecture about touching nothing and taking no film, you follow a narrow barricaded path through Graceland’s ground floor and basement — you don’t get to see the King’s throne, alas — exiting through the Jungle Room and out to the Meditation Garden where you can stand reverentially over the Presley family graves and harmonise Heartbreak Hotel in raga. For extra you can go inside the Presley airplanes. It’s dull.

It is a experience which it is hard to recommend even to die-hard fans even though, once in your life, you have to make the pilgrimage.

Doubtless the worldwide fascination with Elvis ensures a good commercial return for Elvis Presley Enterprises — the pipeline of foreign rock ’n’ roll tragics, like the JC, doing their once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage guarantees that — but the “Gracelands experience” is a singularly uninvolving one: rather like being put on hold when you ring up the council.

A few miles up Elvis Presley Boulevard is 706 Union Avenue on the outskirts of the Memphis downtown area is a former a car-parts warehouse. It was called “The Magic Throttle Company” until Sam Phillips opened the Memphis Recording Service in 1950. By 1952 Phillips had started a record label, and in the summer of 1954 a 19-year old Elvis recorded his first single there.

You can visit Sun, which is a working studio to this day, today. The tours cost $15 a head, take about an hour, are led by knowledgeable, passionate volunteers and take in an ad hoc museum of the popularisation of “race music” from Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King and Little Richard. They saved Dewey Phillips’ radio studio from demolition and have recreated it in the museum. The studio proper is as it was in Elvis’s day, with some of the original microphones and instruments, and x marks on the floor indicating where are Elvis, Scotty and Bill stood.

Sun Studios is a lovingly curated, interactive, almost spiritual experience.

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-Elvis Presley's career began and ended in Memphis Tennessee. Millions of tourists visit Graceland comma on Elvis Presley boulevard, where for $250 a family of five can tour the king’s mansion. For this price a board school leaver hands you an iPad and headphones, ushers you into a cinema for a 15-minute film, then into a minibus which ferries you across the Boulevard to the mansion where, following a bored lecture not rich nothing and take no film, you follow a narrow barricaded path through the Graceland’s ground floor and basement — you don't get to see the throne, alas — exiting through the Jungle Room, where of course, Elvis recorded his last great album, and onto the famous Presley graves. For extra you can go inside the Presley airplanes. It's dull.
+Elvis Presley’s career began and ended in Memphis Tennessee. Millions of tourists visit Graceland, 3734 Elvis Presley boulevard, where for $75 an adult can tour the king’s mansion: a bored [[School-leaver from Bucharest|school leaver from Bartlett]] hands you an iPad and headphones, ushers you into a cinema for a 15-minute film AND then into a minibus which ferries you across the Boulevard to the mansion where, following a bored lecture about touching nothing and taking no film, you follow a narrow barricaded path through Graceland’s ground floor and basement — you don’t get to see the King’s throne, alas — exiting through the Jungle Room and out to the Meditation Garden where you can stand reverentially over the Presley family graves and harmonise ''Heartbreak Hotel'' in raga. For extra you can go inside the Presley airplanes. It’s dull.
-It is a singularly uninspiring, dreary, commoditised uninvolving experience which I would not recommend even to die-hard fans such as myself.
+It is a  experience which it is hard to recommend even to die-hard fans even though, once in your life, you have to make the pilgrimage.
-Doubtless the worldwide fascination with Elvis in Shaw's a good return as a commercial enterprise but it is a formal and not informal success.
+Doubtless the worldwide fascination with Elvis ensures a good commercial return for Elvis Presley Enterprises — the pipeline of foreign rock ’n’ roll tragics, like the [[JC]], doing their once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage guarantees that — but the “Gracelands experience” is a singularly uninvolving one: rather like being put on hold when you ring up the council.
-A few miles up Elvis Presley boulevard is 706 Union avenue, a small all commercial building next to a diner on the outskirts of the downtown area. This is the home of sun studios where a 19-year old Elvis recorded his first singles. You can visit this 2, and turn the studio which is a working studio to this day full stop the tour costs $15, takes about an hour and is led by a passionate and extremely knowledgeable volunteer there is a tour through a museum in which they have not only fabulous memorabilia from howling wolf, bbqing and a number of other legendary blues artists who recorded at sun, and have recreated Dewey Phillips recording desk at which Elvis's first single was played. The studio is more or less as it was in Elvis's day, still with marks on the floor indicating where are Elvis Scotty and Bill stood, and some of the original microphones and instruments from 1954. Sun Studios is a lovingly curated, interactive, almost spiritual experience,
+A few miles up Elvis Presley Boulevard is 706 Union Avenue on the outskirts of the Memphis downtown area is a former a car-parts warehouse.  It was called “The Magic Throttle Company” until Sam Phillips opened the Memphis Recording Service in 1950. By 1952 Phillips had started a record label, and in the summer of 1954 a 19-year old Elvis recorded his first single there.
+You can visit Sun, which is a working studio to this day, today. The tours cost $15 a head, take about an hour, are led by knowledgeable, passionate volunteers and take in an ad hoc museum of the popularisation of “race music” from Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King and Little Richard. They saved Dewey Phillips’ radio studio from demolition and have recreated it in the museum.  The studio proper is as it was in Elvis’s day, with some of the original microphones and instruments, and x marks on the floor indicating where are Elvis, Scotty and Bill stood.
+Sun Studios is a lovingly curated, interactive, almost spiritual experience.

Template:The parable of the two Elvi: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 13:25, 10 May 2021

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