(Aug.20-31,2001) (On Pink BG Color) Written in Japanese http://www.biwa.ne.jp/~presley/imode/ (Compiled by Haruo Hirose)

Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman lands in Memphis for a week-long blues odyssey I just got bored with doing the same things over and over again," Bill Wyman says, explaining why he left the "World's Greatest Rock-and-Roll Band" a decade ago. "There was nothing more to achieve with the Stones, really." Wyman took a couple of years off after leaving the Stones before returning to active work with music and photography. Now Wyman is back in the States for the first time since the Stones' U.S. tour in 1989 and will spend a week in Memphis in what will amount to a total immersion in blues culture. Wyman's post-Stones roots band, the Rhythm Kings, will headline opening night of the Great Southern Beer Festival on Friday, August 24th. Wyman will then make three area appearances to promote his new book on blues history, Bill Wyman's Blues Odyssey: A Journey To Music's Heart & Soul (DK Publishing): at Davis-Kidd Booksellers on Tuesday, August 28th; at Tower Records on Thursday, August 30th; and at Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi, on Friday, August 31st. This week-long Memphis stay will afford Wyman a bit of rest after a solid month of touring the Northeast and Canada with the Rhythm Kings (the Memphis appearance marks the beginning of Wyman's book tour). According to Wyman, his wife and three children (all girls, ages 6, 5, and 3) will be flying out for the Memphis stay, which will lead to the rock-and-roll legend's first-ever visit to Graceland. "I [had offers] to go whenever we came through on Stones tours," Wyman says, "but I never really had any desire -- but I think my children will like it. They know all about Elvis. Whenever they see him on TV, they say, 'Elvis!'" (Full Story) ( Bill Wyman visited Graceland on Aug.27, 2001.)

"Woody Woodpecker" Denim Jacket from Universal Studios Japan. ユニバーサル・スタジオ・ジャパンで 売られている ウッドペッカーの ジャケット

Ann-Margret: Call Her Madam Now (excerpts) In 1962, when she was 21, director George Sidney signed her to play Kim McAfee in "Bye Bye Birdie," the teenager from Sweet Apple, Ohio, who'll be kissed by the Elvislike Conrad Birdie on national TV. Ann-Margret had already performed with Burns and had been in a couple of middling pictures (a remade "State Fair" with Pat Boone and Frank Capra's "Pocketful of Miracles"), but she hadn't advanced past the "promising newcomer" stage. "Birdie" had been completed for six months and was awaiting release when Sidney had a brainstorm. He wanted to shoot a new start and finish to the movie, bookending it with Ann-Margret performing the theme song. He took the idea to the studio, Columbia, whose executives declined. So Sidney used his own money, $60,000, called back the crew and shot Ann-Margret against a blue background. He brought in a wind machine to blow her hair around and a treadmill to move her back and forth in front of the camera. The effect -- a double shot of come-hither sexuality and apple-cheeked innocence -- was electrifying. "I think that definitely was the springboard," she says today, after some prodding. "Birdie" made Ann-Margret a star, and Sidney's next movie, the high-kitsch "Viva Las Vegas," confirmed her status as one. In it, she was paired with Elvis (the movie billed them as "that Go-Go guy and that Bye-Bye gal") as aspiring entertainer and race-car driver, respectively. The filming was marked by some controversy. Elvis's inner circle thought Sidney was in love with Ann-Margret and protested that he was giving her too many scenes, at Elvis's expense. (Sidney, who is 87 and lives in Las Vegas, won't talk about it today; "Write me a letter," he says during a brief but friendly phone conversation.) Meanwhile, on the set and off, Elvis and Ann-Margret began to hit it off. "Little did we know we shared a devil within," she wrote in her 1994 autobiography, "My Story." "We were quiet, polite, careful. But I knew what was going to happen once we got to know each other. Elvis did, too. We both felt a current, an electricity that went through us. It would become a force we couldn't control. . . . "Music ignited a fiery pent-up passion inside Elvis and inside me. It was an odd, embarrassing, funny, inspiring, and wonderful sensation. We looked at each other move and saw virtual mirror images. When Elvis thrust his pelvis, mine slammed forward, too. When his shoulder dropped, I was down there with him. When he whirled, I was already on my heel." Sometimes, she writes, they talked about getting married, but she recognized that Presley had "commitments, promises to keep" that would complicate the relationship. What she doesn't say is that when Elvis began seeing her, he was simultaneously dating Priscilla Beaulieu, his future wife. In any event, Elvis seems to have been more devoted to Elvis than to Ann-Margret. One day he asked his legendary manager, "Colonel" Tom Parker, to take over Ann-Margret's career. When Parker replied that doing so would mean less time managing Elvis, he quickly dropped the request, according to "Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley," the second installment of Peter Guralnick's two-volume biography. They drifted apart, but in 1967, after she'd married Smith, Elvis dropped by before one of her shows. He came to "the innermost room of the backstage chamber," closed the door, dropped down on one knee and took her hands in his. "I felt the heat in our bodies," she writes. "In a soft, gentle voice weighted by seriousness, he told me exactly how he still felt about me, which I intuitively knew, but was very touched to hear." And that, apparently, was that, although until his death in 1977, Elvis would send flowers each time she opened a show. (Full story)

"KOIZUMI" CD enter the album charts at #8 and sold over 100,000 copies in a week. 小泉ＣＤ オリコン初登場８位 １週間で１０万枚

小泉純一郎首相 （５９）が選曲し、 今月２２日に 発売された ＣＤ 「私の好きな エルヴィス 〜小泉純一郎選曲 　エルヴィス・ チャリティ・ アルバム」が、 発売１週間で １０万枚を 突破したことが ２８日、 分かった。 ９月３日付 オリコン・ アルバム・ チャートでも 初登場８位と ベスト１０入りを 果たし、 発売元の ＢＭＧ ファンハウスも 「エルビスの ＣＤとしては 異例の 売れ行き」と 衰えを知らない “小泉人気”に 驚いていた。 　「私の好きな エルヴィス」 海外でも 注目の的 　今月１７日からの 箱根での夏休み。 小泉首相の手には 発売前の 「私の好きな―」のほか、 数枚のＣＤが 握られていた。 その姿が テレビなどで 報道された 効果もあってか、 首相 お気に入りの 曲を集めた 「小泉流ベスト」 ＣＤが、 異例の 売り上げを 記録。 一段落した 感のあった “小泉フィーバー” だが、 まだまだ その神通力が 健在であることを 示した格好だ。 　ＢＭＧファンハウスによると、 エルビスが １９７７年に 亡くなってから、 年に 数枚の ペースで ベスト盤や バラード集などが 発売され、 その数は １００枚を 超える。 それらの 売り上げは 平均３万枚で、 今回のように １週間で １０万枚を 超えるのは 「過去には なかったこと。 初めてのことで 驚いています」 （同社広報） という。 　「高校生の時からの大ファン」 という 首相は エルビスの ７歳年下だが、 １月８日の 誕生日が 同じという縁がある。 今回のＣＤは 「若い人たちにも 聴いてほしい」と 選曲したもので、 ふだんから 愛聴している 「好きにならずに いられない」や 「ワンダー・ オブ・ユー」など 全２５曲が 収録され、 解説書には １曲ごとに コメントを 記している。 　発売後は 国内だけでなく、 海外でも 注目の的。 ＢＭＧファンハウスには 英国のＢＢＣ、 米国のＡＢＣ、 ＣＢＳ、 ＣＮＮ、 ドイツ国営放送、 オーストラリア 国営放送、 ＡＰ、 ロイターといった 各国メディアからの 問い合わせが 殺到。 現役首相が 選曲した ＣＤ発売という 他に 類を見ない試みと、 その売れ行きに 注目しているという。 　現在、 ＪＲ渋谷駅、 原宿駅など 山手線 主要駅に、 合成で エルビスと 首相が ツーショットになっている 大型ポスターも 張り出されており、 さらに 話題を 呼びそうだ。 ◆客は４０代以上の女性 　○…初登場第３位を 記録した 都内の ＣＤショップでは、 購入する客の ほとんどが ４０代以上の 女性だという。 発売前から テレビや 新聞に 登場したため、 小泉ファンが 殺到したようだ。 ２０代の女性店員は 「ふだんは あまりＣＤを 買わない方も たくさんいらっしゃいます。 プレゼント用にと、 １人で 何枚も買う方が 多いですよ」と 話した。 別の店員からも 「小泉効果そのもの。 総理大臣が こういう形で かかわること自体、 珍しいですしね」と 驚きの声が 上がっていた。 （スポーツ報知） (オリコンによる 推定売上枚数は 30,730枚です。)

Monday August 27 10:44 PM ET LAS VEGAS (AP) - Elias F. Ghanem, a doctor to patients including Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson who became the chairman of Nevada's State Athletic Commission, died Monday at 62. Ghanem had been diagnosed with kidney cancer in 1998. A Lebanese immigrant, he rose from emergency room doctor to a ``physician to the stars,'' whose patient list also included Bill Cosby, Ann-Margaret and gaming giant Barron Hilton. Ghanem was appointed to the boxing commission in July 1987 and served as chairman for the past four years. He was credited with instituting health and safety measures that have been adopted worldwide, including mandatory testing for HIV (news - web sites), hepatitis B and hepatitis C. Ghanem presided over a hearing that drew worldwide attention after former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson bit the ear of ex-champ Evander Holyfield in 1997. Tyson's boxing license was revoked and he was fined a record $3 million.

Excerpts from 'CULT VEGAS' book THE COMEBACK KID Opening night at The International on July 31, 1969, was a private show attended by celebrities, casino high rollers, and the press. The room still had its sound bugs, as Sammy Shore realized when he walked onstage after a few songs from the Sweet Inspirations and discovered his microphone was dead. When they handed him a second one, "I pretended that one was off too." The gag won the crowd over for his 25-minute set. "It was so easy to bomb in that room," he says. "I was so happy to get off but thrilled to have done as well as I did." As Shore walked off, Presley was standing in the wings waiting to go on, He extended a hand. "His hand was clammy. He was as nervous as I was. "A drum roll called Elvis onstage. Clad in black with an acoustic guitar slung around his neck, he struck a familiar pose: "Well it's one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and go cat go!" The Elvis the audience saw that night -- and for many nights to come -- was not the hip-swiveling youngster of the '50s, but not entirely a rip-off of a '60s-groovy, pelvic-thrusting Tom Jones either. "Jones was among the horniest men I ever knew," [former International publicist] Nick Naff says. "Elvis couldn't project that sex image. But he could say to females, 'Love me, I'm the nicest guy in the world.' That's the very reason they love him today. He played on his own projected qualities. The nice guy, the shy guy." "It's the first time I've worked in front of people for nine years, and it may be the last. I don't know," Elvis told the preview-night audience. The singer churned and burned his way through a medley of his old rockabilly hits, but closed the 15-song show with a six-minute version of his most recent single, the brass-powered "Suspicious Minds." Afterward he appeared at a news conference -- the only one he would ever give in Las Vegas for the rest of his life. He told the reporters, "It was getting harder and harder to perform to a movie camera. The inspiration wasn't there." He seemed relaxed and cracked a few jokes, including the fact that he was "tired of playing a guy singing to the guy he's beating up" in the movies. The Colonel had at least been right on one count when he told Naff, 'You just wait till Elvis gets in. You don't know what's going to happen to your hotel." Legend has it that the very next day, hotel president Alex Shoofey and the Colonel struck a five-year deal, offering Elvis twice-annual engagements at $125,000 per week (former publicist Bruce Banke says there was never a signed contract, only a handshake deal). The annual four-week "Summer Festivals" of performances in August and return engagements in February soon became a bonanza neither side would want to spoil.
	In the days after his engagement ended, but before he left town, Elvis and the guys would check out other acts on the Strip. Sonny West remembers one memorable trip to see Bobby Darin, whom Elvis recognized as the "showman" he was aspiring to be. "(Darin) knows we're out there. So he comes to a part of his show where he was getting ready to do a medley of his old hits. And he says, `I feel like I've grown past this.' " "All of a sudden, this voice booms out, `Don't knock what made ya, Bobby!' "Upon hearing the voice of the King, "Bobby crunched his shoulders up and says, `Man you know something? He's right!' Boom! `Splish splash I was takin' a bath ... ' "

Saturday, August 25, 2001 POP BEAT A Touching 'Dance' From Pop's Past By ROBERT HILBURN, Times Pop Music Critic "Save the Last Dance for Me" is one of the most endearing romantic hits of the modern pop era, but the story behind the Doc Pomus-Mort Shuman ballad is even more touching than the song. Once you hear that story during a coming two-hour documentary on the A&E channel, you'll never again be able to listen to Pomus' lyrics without thinking of the poignant footage. What few pop fans have known since the Drifters' hit version of the song in 1960 is that Pomus couldn't dance. After contracting polio as a youngster, the Brooklyn native had to rely on wheelchairs and crutches until his death at age 65 in 1991. Even if you know Pomus' history, however, you'll be touched by the documentary's brief home movie scenes of the songwriter watching from the sidelines as his wife dances with guests at their wedding. He may even have begun writing the song that night; his daughter later found lyrics scribbled on a wedding invitation. In the hundreds of hours I've spent watching rock documentaries, this is the first time I've come across this remarkable footage. One likely reason the scene has remained obscure is that there has been so little media attention paid to what is widely considered the "dark age" of the rock era. Prevailing wisdom among pop fans and critics is that nothing of importance happened between the taming of Elvis Presley in 1958, when he headed into the Army and then on to Hollywood for those dopey movies, and the arrival in 1964 of the Beatles. Though there was a shortage of new, inspiring stars during that period, there were some fabulous records made, and the writers of many of those songs are saluted in "Hitmakers: The Teens Who Stole Pop Music," the two-hour special airing Monday at 8 p.m. This core of young writers, who worked side by side in cubicles in and around Manhattan's Brill Building, were inspired by the energy and youthful focus of '50s R&B and rock, and they brought those elements to their work. This gave them a huge advantage over the veteran Tin Pan Alley writers who didn't have a feel for the new music and came up with unconvincing imitations. "Older people had stopped buying records," Pomus says in an interview clip in the documentary. "That's how the rock 'n' roll era started. It wasn't any more complicated than that .... Some shrewd record impresarios said, 'Hey, if we can get kids to come into the store with some spending money, we're going to have a hell of a business.'" Among the hit songwriting teams profiled and/or interviewed in the A&E special: Carole King and Gerry Goffin. Long before King reached stardom in a solo role with "Tapestry" in 1971, she and Goffin, her husband, wrote such hits as the Shirelles' "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?," one of the most captivating tales of teen doubt ever, and (with Jerry Wexler) Aretha Franklin's "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," a more adult expression of romantic rejoicing. Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. Though their other hits included "Uptown" for the Crystals and "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" for the Animals, their finest moment was the epic sweep of the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'," which they wrote with producer Phil Spector. Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich. Among a string of hits including "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" and (with Spector) "Be My Baby," their high point (again with Spector) was "River Deep Mountain High." Featuring Tina Turner's vocal and Spector's overpowering wall of sound production style, the recording is one of pop's true sonic masterpieces. Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. The prolific, blues-inspired pair dazzled the industry as writers and producers. Their compositions included "Poison Ivy" (the Drifters), "Yakety Yak" (the Coasters) and "Jailhouse Rock" (Elvis Presley). They were the envy of the young Brill Building contingent. Pomus and Shuman. The team's other hits ranged from "Viva Las Vegas" for Presley to "A Teenager in Love" for Dion & the Belmonts. Pomus, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, was born Jerome Felder and worked as a blues singer in New York clubs before attracting attention as a writer. His brother is noted New York divorce attorney Raoul Felder, and it is apparently he who is dancing with Pomus' wife in the home movie. Others who play prominent parts in the documentary are music publisher Don Kirshner and singer-songwriter Bobby Darin, plus the songwriting teams of Burt Bacharach and Hal David and Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield. A&E will follow Monday's special with one-hour documentaries on several of the artists: Dionne Warwick, who recorded many of the Bacharach-David hits (Tuesday), Darin (Wednesday), Leiber & Stoller (Thursday) and Bacharach (Friday). Besides documenting the early-'60s rise of these writers, Monday's show also touches on the eventual changing of the guard that occurred when a new generation of writers - led by Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Paul McCartney - not only revolutionized rock songwriting but also inspired artists to write their own tunes, eliminating much of the need for the "hitmakers." "Dylan managed to do something that not one of us was able to do, which was put poetry into rock 'n' roll ... and then stand up there and sing it," Goffin says in the documentary. "Carole felt the same way, so we had to do something dramatic. We took all the [demos] of songs that hadn't been recorded, and we smashed them in half. We said we gotta grow up now and start writing better songs now." Even if this early period in rock is often underrepresented in historical overviews, its legacy is a proud one - and "Hitmakers" tells it with both passion and affection. "Hitmakers: The Teens Who Stole Pop Music" will be broadcast at 8 p.m. Monday on the A&E cable channel. The Michael Ochs Archives (Over 500 Photos of Elvis) Interview: Leiber and Stoller Ask Ernst Jorgensen Interview with Roy C. Bennett See Beale Street in Memphis, TN

It's Elvis Week and the King's stepbrother is in North Port Linda Fudala (Sarasota Herald-Tribune) Aug.17,2001 Elvis fans from around the world are gathering at Graceland this week, dubbed Elvis Week there, to memorialize the King. Elvis Presley died Aug. 16, 1977 at the age of 42. His memory is kept alive by millions of fans through his records and movies and in the performances of some 85,000 impersonators around the world, according to the official Elvis Web site. One of the last people to see the King of Rock 'n Roll alive was his stepbrother, Rick Stanley. He will be speaking Sunday in North Port about some of his experiences with Elvis, when as a young man he became part of his entourage. All day Sunday, Biscayne Baptist Church, 13000 Tamiami Trail, North Port, will have a parking lot full of hot rods, and activities geared around a theme from that early rock 'n' roll era including contests and free food. Then, at 5:45 p.m. Stanley will speak in the sanctuary. Call 426-3817 for more information. Stanley may reveal some little-known facts about the King, such as he did in a 1989 "People" magazine article. It was a trick to get an overweight Elvis into his jumpsuits, said Stanley in the article: "He got to be about 250 lbs. It had gotten to where we would have to take giant spools of Saran Wrap, giant ones, and wrap him to hold his stomach in, which made it almost impossible for him to breathe. In the latter part of his life, he was not really hitting many notes." But don't expect Stanley to dwell on a lot of sordid details about Elvis, because Stanley will be talking about the "King of Kings" who became the center of his life not long after Elvis died. As a member of the entourage, Stanley saw the dark side of the lights. He lived through the trauma of a broken home, and addiction to alcohol and drugs. When Elvis died, says his bio, Stanley thought his world, ended. Shortly thereafter, a high school friend invited him to church and not long after his spiritual catharsis began to study for the ministry. He married the friend, Robyn, and went to Criswell Bible College on a scholarship. He went on to graduate from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has made appearances on "Good Morning America," "Regis & Kathie Lee," "Joan Rivers," "20/20," "Larry King Live" and many other TV shows. And he spoke at a Billy Graham Crusade in 1989.

RCA releases new Elvis material (excerpt) That's a huge part of RCA's job; Presley recorded unbelievable amounts of songs, live shows and studio sessions on the best equipment available at the time, but many were pilfered. "The guy is in and out of studios, recording a lot of stuff that didn't go out commercially, and tapes wandered away," Omansky says. "The security wasn't like it was today. We had a list of 40 tapes we know are out there." "People find an Elvis tape and think 'Oh my God, it's worth millions of dollars.' It's not," Omansky says. "It takes a while to bring them to reality." Some of those 40 tapes will be on a major box set of unreleased Elvis material due next year -- "some excellent studio performances from all eras. It's really good stuff, no compromise." The vault seems endless. "I think there's another five years of good stuff to come, i.e. unreleased material," Omansky says. A Beatles-style "hits" package is due next year as well. (Full story)

'Live': Elvis any way you want him (excerpt) As for the previously unreleased performances, Omansky says, ''We actually reacquired some tapes that had wandered away from RCA in the last couple of years, from the Las Vegas sessions. Tapes had wandered everywhere.'' Part of this was because RCA moved and lost tapes in the transition, but also, as in the case of some Elvis studio efforts, tapes fell into outside hands. ''Even though we have the rights to put the product out, somebody else might have physical possession of the master [tape]. So we're perpetually searching to get back masters,'' says Omansky, who even has a team of ''authenticators'' who weed out bogus tapes. ''They're often somebody else singing on a tape, trying to sound like Elvis, but we can sniff out very quickly if it's real.'' For security reasons, he won't explain how the team does this, but hints that it's a combination of scientific analysis and human legwork. As for the recent surge in Elvis sales, the boost came in part from a Time-Life series sold by direct mail, as well as from offerings on QVC and in Christian bookstores, where compilations of Elvis's gospel songs have sold well. And look out next year for the 25th anniversary of his death. There will be a single album of Elvis hits (much like the ''Beatles 1'' that sold so well), a four-CD box set of all previously unreleased performances, and commercial tie-ins with a Disney animated movie, ''Lilo and Stitch,'' about a 4-year-old who loves Elvis music. (Full story)

Had a very nice conversation with Ernst Jorgensen today, and obviously I asked him about this week's story that Mike Omansky had said that "they have located at least 16 lost tapes from the 50's and possibly more from other era's". Ernst says that Omanski was misquoted: they have not 'located' these tapes, they are in the process of buying them. He adds that there are 16 tapes in all, and only four from the '50s. Most of these tapes are the original masters of various 50s and 60s Elvis songs, which BMG does not have in their archives, and not necessarily outtakes. This includes the first RCA sessions from 1956 (a.o. 'Heartbreak Hotel'), and Ernst is particularly interested in the 'I Want You, I Need You, I Love You' tape, because he has never really been satisfied with the quality of the tape that BMG has. Some of the other master tapes include 'Down In The Alley' and 'Memories' (stereo). It seems that there's nothing from the 70's. Right now Jorgensen is working on the FTD-release SILVER SCREEN STEREO (November 1st, 2001), and he's quite excited about this release, although nothing is definite yet. I asked him whether there would be any stereo material from the 50's, and he anwered: "yes!". He added that "everybody is focusing on the stereo-version of 'Jailhouse Rock', but it might just as well be stereo material from 'King Creole'!". He did however not want to confirm whether there would actually be any material from that movie on this release, but he did add that there would probably also be 'new' outtakes from movies like 'The Trouble With Girls' and 'Double Trouble', none of which have been released in any form. As you know, the next FTD release (October 1st, 2001) contains outtakes from the Memphis '69 sessions. I asked Ernst whether this release would also be interesting for those that have collected all the Memphis '69 bootlegs, and he answered that all outtakes would be in stereo, and added that there would also be outtakes of songs that have never been bootlegged before, like for instance 'A Little Bit Of Green'. Arjan Deelen

TRAVEL The King and I By Michael Gray (Sunday Telegraph, UK, Date: 15/08/2001) Elvis Presley died 24 years ago this week, but is his memory kept alive in a tacky or tasteful way? Michael Gray visits Graceland to find out KREATURE Comforts, the Lowlife Guide to Memphis claims that Memphis can offer visitors "the best or worst of vacations: you could hit a jamming Keith Richards show on Beale Street or end up in line with 8,000 Elvis Zombies waiting to smell Elvis's bicycle seat at Graceland. The choice is yours." I'll take Graceland, thanks. Only inverted snobs contest the notion that the biggest musical phenomenon in Memphis - "Home of the Blues, Birthplace of Rock 'n' Roll" - was Elvis Presley. For the last 20 years of his life, he lived at Graceland. When he died, in 1977, its gates, with their wrought-iron musical notes, were the focus for mass weeping such as the world has seen only twice since: for Ayatollah Khomeini and Diana, Princess of Wales (neither of whom made any decent records). Presley's death transformed the scale of Memphis tourism. A hundred new hotels have opened since. Graceland, the goal of this swollen pilgrimage, is almost as famous as he is. Everyone thinks they know about Graceland. How tacky it is, how redneck vulgar and gross. As a true Elvis fan - one who therefore finds it hard to recommend anything he recorded after 1961 - I, too, came to scoff. I expected it to emanate a lethal mix of Colonel Parker's Las Vegas Elvis and the stultifying buddy-buddyism of his "Memphis Mafia", and that my fellow visitors would be obese women in Babar-sized trousers tottering on white high heels under nose cones of sticky hair. Driving out from downtown along bleak Elvis Presley Boulevard, the first thing you see is Heartbreak Hotel: "A new place to dwell. Heart-shaped swimming-pool. Affordable rates". Then the car parks and an airport terminal's worth of "facilities": a vast reception area with Elvis soundtrack, Elvis video screens and long queues for tickets. The $25 Platinum Tour includes the Mansion, car museum, Sincerely Elvis Museum and the aeroplanes. You file past the Post Office (closed) and Burger & Soda Bar (open) to the shuttle buses. Many of the punters are well dressed and articulate; all races and ages are there. The 42-seater buses arrive incessantly. Headsets guide you on your journey. You can repeat bits and pause at will (though few senior pilgrims manage more than clamping them to their ears). Snippets of hits chime in resourcefully as a voice intones: "Just across the street, beyond the stone wall" - it's brick - "is Graceland Mansion. The shuttle will take you through the famous gates and up to the house." Here Elvis breaks into "Welcome to my world - won't you come on in?", retreating before the narrator's "You're about to hear the story of Elvis's life and phenomenal career. He'll tell you some of the story himself." As comically ghoulish as you could wish. Through the gates and up the hill, you "de-bus", thrilled to stare up at those antebellum pillars. The house is so small! It's a delight. Far from being enormous, enormously vulgar, and 1970s, it proves modest and demure - and so strongly redolent of the 1950s that the Elvis whose presence you feel inside is not the bloated figure in the rhinestone jumpsuit but the lithe 22-year-old who first moved in. The house was built by a doctor in 1939 and, except for those pillars, is perfectly restrained. The entrance hall is 10ft across and a few steps in is the 5ft-wide plain staircase. You are not allowed upstairs, "because Elvis never invited visitors up there himself". It's a sensible rule - best not to think how people might behave in that death-scene bathroom. Turn right and you stand in the roped-off entrance to the sitting room: a modest room with a pale cream carpet. There's a 15ft-long sofa, but it's neither florid nor overstuffed. Closed blue curtains guard the windows. Cream armchairs flank a large fireplace with mirrored panels above. The middle of the room is uncluttered space. There's a long coffee-table, a table lamp, a tall glass-fronted cabinet. Okay, the open double-doorway through to the music room is framed by lurid stained-glass panels depicting peacocks, but the music room itself is small, almost diffident, accommodating an elderly TV set, small sofa, side table and a Story & Clark baby grand. Off the hall in the other direction is the dining room, 22ft by 16ft. "Around this table," proclaims the headset, "Elvis shared many evenings of warmth, laughter and storytelling. Everyone at Graceland liked the same downhome Southern cooking they grew up with." Impossible not to contemplate Elvis's notorious obesity - and that of so many Americans. Yet the room holds no frisson of underclass gross-out. We are at the humble end of Dynasty culture here: gold and purple chairs - but only eight - around an oval metal-edged table sitting on streaked black marble, the mirrored table-top matching the walls. A chandelier holds 18 electric candles. Down the hall is the bedroom of Elvis's parents, Vernon and Grace: purple upholstered headboard and coverlet, bad landscape paintings, old chests of drawers, pink-and-mauve-tiled bathroom, small, sad stains on the pale carpet. How little time most visitors spend peering into each room. "Beautiful bedroom!" "Beautiful chandeliers!". "Beautiful!" It's not, but it isn't as bad as millions of American interiors. Unpleasantness from the 1970s hovers, of course: it was the last decade available to him. But the recurrent surprise is how much the Presleys kept faith with 1950s suburbia: their aspiration when Elvis first made it and could rescue them all from their public-housing tenement downtown (itself a climb up from the shotgun shack in Tupelo, Mississippi where Elvis was born in 1935). It's an unassuming dream and I'm moved by his lifetime loyalty to it. The kitchen (cue Elvis singing "Get into that kitchen make some noise with the pots 'n' pans") is a long, slender room with wood cabinets and undesigner toaster, coffeepot and egg timer. It has 1950s simple solidity, and little touches such as a small, cheery wall clock, its green face showing limes and lemons. Down a narrow staircase with mirrored walls and ceiling, we reach the basement TV room, "professionally decorated in 1974 in bright yellow and navy blue". Again, 1970s ghastliness is undercut by 1950s naivety. The huge, white porcelain monkey with black toenails squatting on the coffee table barely registers as one's eye falls on Elvis's inexpensive record player on a shelf alongside about 30 LPs (the front one by the gospel group The Stamps) and lovely old racks of singles not in their sleeves. Three television screens sit side by side, apparently because Elvis read that President Johnson watched all three network news programmes at once. The basement also holds the den, where 350 yards of multicoloured fabric cover the walls and ceiling, reminding me of a vastly extravagant and sumptuous hippie tent. Dark blue carpet, red leather chairs, smoky blue snooker table, ostrich feathers, a Toulouse-Lautrec poster, Tiffany lighting - all combine to suggest that Elvis was touched by the 1960s, too. "Wow!", people exclaim here, "This is wild!" and "Boy, this is a cosy place!" There's a bad patch after this: back to ground level via green shagpile-covered stairs with shagpile walls and ceiling. These were once the back steps to the yard; but Presley added a family room. In 1974, it got the Indonesian jungle treatment. That monkey belongs here. Dark fur-covered Far Eastern sofas. An ugly teddy on an enormous round chair. Floor and ceiling in, er, green shagpile. Exaggeratedly high-backed chairs are carved to make it seem as if you're on drugs when you see them. Ruched curtains. A bare brick wall with dribbling waterfall under red spotlights. This room holds all the later Elvis's dark, paranoid misery. This is what he sank to, fat and isolated in a vortex of self-loathing boredom. Unable to face the world but obliged to record, this room became a makeshift studio. Here in this hell-hole in 1976, he made his last LP. It's a relief to get outside, via an annexe converted from the four-car garage for a special display: a 1960 stereo console; a gold sofa once in the music room; the slightly famous, round, white, fake-fur bed; a model of the Tupelo shack (in the headset, too briefly, Vernon sings "Jimmie Rodgers was born in Dixie" - an eerily authentic hillbilly prefiguring of very early Elvis). Here, too, is the 1950s desk and furniture from Elvis's office, touching as well as risible, with its bible, Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet and a consoling Roosevelt quotation about how "it is not the critic that counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled". The TV shows home-movie footage of Elvis diving incompetently into the pool, and Priscilla doing it perfectly. Across the homely little yard, past Lisa Marie's swings, the garden-shed office where Vernon dealt with fan mail is another time warp, with ancient filing-cabinets, a small fridge covered in brown leather-like the sofa, and the oldest photocopier I've ever seen. This room should be in a proper museum. Another TV runs Elvis's post-army press conference. He says proudly: "No, sir, I have no plans for leaving Memphis." The back of the house is white and well proportioned, standing peaceably in its several acres of pasture with well-judged trees and horses. The swimming pool is small and pretty; it isn't shaped like a guitar or a heart and doesn't shout money or ego. You move on to the chic Italianate Meditation Garden with its circle of graves where the family now lies oblivious to the constant earthly turmoil. A shuttle bus returns you to where you began. You head into the black hangar of the car museum. A screen plays the car bits from all his worst films. The cars are excellent, and so is the detailed printed information. Here is his 1962 Lincoln Continental with gold alligator-hide roof; a black 1975 Dino Ferrari he bought secondhand; the red 1960 MG 1600 used in Blue Hawaii; the batmobile that was his 1971 black Stutz Blackhawk. How nice, if true, that Sinatra had ordered it and Elvis charmed them into reassigning it. Then also a 1973 model, for which he paid $20,000 up front, leaving, bizarrely, $10,000 owing in instalments. Best of all is the legendary 1955 pink Cadillac Fleetwood, a wondrous colour and a gigantic motorcar. You leave through one of the giftshops. Get your Elvis lunch box here. Don't forget your boarding pass for the Lisa Marie, Elvis's aeroplane. It was being readied for another concert-date on August 16, 1977, when he died. What sort of plane is it? Not an executive Lear Jet, nothing state-of-the-art: rather an ex-Delta Airlines Convair 880 passenger plane. It won't surprise you that it was manufactured in 1958. One for the money All shook up

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