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As anniversary years go, the 31st doesn't have the cachet of a 30th, even at Graceland, where the crowd gathering to commemorate Elvis Presley's death was expected to be perhaps less than half of last year's record turnout. "But it's still an incredible event, having 30,000 people for a candlelight vigil," says Kevin Kern of Elvis Presley Enterprises. The candlelight vigil, long the emotional highlight of the Memphis, Tenn., tradition known as Elvis Week, was set for Friday night. This year's Elvis Week, which commenced last Saturday, has consisted of the usual: fan convention; meets-and-greets with former Elvis friends and...

Never-before-seen photos have surfaced of Elvis Presley rocking Madison Square Garden in all his jumpsuited glory. The images were taken in 1972 by George Kalinsky, the official photographer of the famed arena, the singer's estate said Wednesday. Kalinsky came across the photos while working on a campaign for a billboard company called "Great Moments in New York." Now one of them is on display as part of the campaign on a three-story billboard atop the Virgin Megastore in Times Square; it shows The King glancing up, his outstretched arms holding the cape of his glittering jumpsuit. Kalinsky needed to get...

We're suddenly seeing a lot of things about Fred Thompson in an entirely new light -- the basso growl, that wicked, heavy-lidded smile, the bombshell wife, the indefinable charisma. . . . Oh, and the bad movies. Because it turns out the GOP presidential contender is kin to Elvis Presley. Specifically, they are eighth cousins once removed, according to research by Washington genealogist William Addams Reitwiesner. The former Tennessee senator's late father, Fletcher Thompson, and The King shared a set of great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents, Jasper Hood and Tryntje Andries. What kind of impact this revelation could have on the Thompson campaign...

Elvis fans brave heat to mark his death By WOODY BAIRD Associated Press Writer Thousands of Elvis Presley fans braved 105-degree heat as they wound down Graceland's driveway in a graveside procession Wednesday in advance of the 30th anniversary of the singer's death. The heat led to the death of a fan from New Jersey, a 67-year-old woman. Despite the promise of another furnace-like day, some fans began lining up early in the morning for the candlelight vigil, setting up umbrellas and folding chairs on the sidewalk along four-lane Elvis Presley Boulevard. The memorial was expected to run through the...

We celebrate many birthdays. But to the best of my knowledge there are only two people that the western world takes time out to commemorate the deaths of: Jesus Christ, and Elvis Presley. Curious, that... So today is the 30th anniversary of the death of Elvis. Which a lot of folks no doubt are going to be remembering in various ways. Here's mine: the story of how Lisa and I wound up devoting a considerable chunk of our honeymoon five years ago to the King of Rock and Roll. I suppose all of this came about because of what you...

WASHINGTON - This year's Wonders of America set climbed to second place in the most popular stamps, but Elvis is still the King, the Postal Service said Tuesday. Some 124.1 million of the 1993 Elvis Presley stamps were saved by Americans, according to the post office, which does an annual survey of 10,000 households to determine which stamps are most popular.

President Bush and Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi held a press conference (text and video here) at the White House to discuss the war on terror, defending freedom and democracy, promoting regional security and prosperity in Asia (including North Korea), and enhancing closer cooperation on global economic issues (including Japan now agreeing to open its markets to US beef). This is Koizumi's farewell visit, as he steps down from his position as Prime Minister in September. President and Mrs. Bush will host an official dinner tonight for the Prime Minister. Secretary of State Rice continues her G8 Foreign Minister Summit...

The organisers of the Parkes Elvis Festival in the central west of NSW are seeking legal advice about changes to the rules surrounding Elvis Presley impersonators. An American billionaire who owns the rights to the Elvis name and likeness is working to stop "unauthorised" impersonators as part of a plan to open a show and exhibit in Las Vegas dedicated to 'the king'. More than 5,000 people travel to Parkes each year to see hundreds of Elvis look-a-likes and celebrate his music. The festival's Monique Kronk says very few details about the shake-up are known but organisers want to ensure...

Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of rock 'n' roll king Elvis Presley, has married guitarist and music producer Michael Lockwood in a ceremony in Kyoto, Japan, her publicist said Thursday. Presley, 38, and Lockwood exchanged vows in a traditional Japanese ceremony on Jan. 22, spokesman Paul Bloch said. It was Presley's fourth marriage. She was previously married to Nicolas Cage, Michael Jackson and Danny Keough, who is the father of her two children. The bride's mother, actress Priscilla Presley, walked her daughter down the aisle and gave her away, Bloch said. Daughter Riley Keough was maid of honor and son Benjamin...

US President George Bush intends to invite Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, a known Elvis Presley enthusiast, to the former estate of the rock legend in Tennessee, the US Ambassador to Japan said today. Thomas Schieffer told Koizumi today that Bush intends to invite the premier to the US this year, with a possible trip to Elvis’s home, the US embassy said. Koizumi was due to visit the United States last year, but cancelled the trip ahead of snap elections in September.

Hundreds of pieces of Elvis Presley memorabilia were auctioned off over the weekend by a longtime collector trying to win back his girlfriend after she warned: "You leave the Elvis clothes or I'll leave you."

Mariah Carey's "Don't Forget About Us" rose to the top of Billboard's Hot 100 chart, putting her in a tie with Elvis Presley for second place among artists with the most No. 1 singles in the rock era. Carey and Presley have 17 No. 1 hits, second only to the Beatles, who had 20.

Archivists are about to unseal a mother lode of military history along Page Avenue in Overland. A ceremony Saturday at the National Personnel Records Center will mark the opening of military files that until now have been off-limits to most Americans. Among the gems: * Gen. Dwight Eisenhower's rating in mid-1944 of Lt. Gen. George S. Patton Jr. The report closes with these words on Patton: "A brilliant fighter and leader. Impulsive and quick-tempered. Likely to speak in public in an ill-considered fashion." * Gen. Omar Bradley's radiogram in 1951 to Gen. Douglas MacArthur in Tokyo, in which Bradley quotes...

On this day in 1956, Elvis introduces his new single, "Hound Dog," on The Milton Berle Show. Elvis scandalized the audience with his suggestive hip gyrations. In the media frenzy that followed, other show hosts, including Ed Sullivan, denounced his performance. Sullivan swore he would never invite Presley on his own show, but that autumn he booked Elvis for three shows. Presley had been recording since 1954. While working at a Memphis electrical shop, the 18-year-old Presley dropped by a Memphis recording studio on a lunch break and paid $4 to record two songs for his mother's birthday. The office...

WHEN ELVIS PRESLEY STROLLED onto the stage for his last performance, there was something different about him. His face had swelled, and his gut was pregnant with obesity. His hair and signature sideburns overran his head and face, and his movements, karate kicks, and hip swivels, were no longer crisp or energetic. He could still sing--he never lost that--and he still had a charismatic stage presence, and he could still send fans into a frenzy. But for years leading up to his death, it seemed the brightness that once shone from this superstar came more from his sequin-adorned jumpsuits than...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) - Lisa Marie Presley is keeping Graceland but selling the bulk of the Elvis estate, including rights to her father's name and image, in a deal worth approximately $100 million. Elvis Presley Enterprises Inc. announced an agreement Thursday to sell 85 percent of its assets to businessman Robert F.X. Sillerman, founder of music and sports promoter SFX Entertainment. The Presley estate brought in almost $45 million last year. Sillerman said more aggressive marketing, supported by capital raised through a new publicly traded company, can make Elvis an even bigger earner. Presley occupies a unique place in American...

The night before, fireworks had lit up the Memphis sky. But they were nothing compared to the Big Bang that was about to explode in Sam Phillips’ tiny Sun Studio. The story of what took place that night is chronicled in Peter Guralnick’s 1994 master work, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley. Phillips had assembled some of his favorite musicians, including Scotty Moore and Bill Black, to see if the 18-year-old ballad singer could get anything down on record that would be worth their while. Scotty had already auditioned Elvis the day before at his house. Bill...

ROCK 'n' Roll turned 50 this morning when an Elvis Presley recording of That's All Right Mama played simultaneously on at least 1200 radio stations worldwide, organisers said. Stations from the UK to Ukraine and Canada to Mexico carried the song as it was fed from Sun Studios, in Memphis, Tennessee. That is where Presley, a 19-year-old truck driver and two other musicians, recorded what many historians call the first rock 'n' roll song. "It was clearly the Big Bang of Rock 'n' Roll," said Kevin Kane, of the Memphis Convention and Visitor's Bureau. Sun Studios is now a national...

NEWMARKET, ONT. - An Anglican priest who hopes to save souls with Elvis Presley's music celebrated the one-year anniversary of his breakaway church on the weekend. Rev. Dorian Baxter Rev. Dorian Baxter, known to followers as "Elvis Priestly," had a falling out with his Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., diocese for imitating his idol during services. When it demoted him to "priest-on-leave" and banned him from the pulpit, Baxter, 53, set up his own church in a legion hall in Newmarket, north of Toronto. Ever since, he's been sporting long sideburns and crooning Elvis-style hymns, often on bended knee, to about...

The three-day shoot for the video was about to wrap, and director Mark Romanek needed just one more shot from his singer star, Johnny Cash. As Romanek recalls, "I said to John, 'This is the last take. So if you want to get angry or smash something up, this is your last chance.'" Cash didn't get it. He thought Romanek meant this would be the final shot in the ailing star's life, so he had better make it good. Cash wouldn't, couldn't surrender to such defeatism. "I hope it's not the last take," he said in that baritone growl, which...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) Sam Phillips, who discovered Elvis Presley and helped usher in the rock 'n' roll revolution, died Wednesday. He was 80. Phillips died at St. Francis Hospital, spokeswoman Gwendolyn McClain said. No details were immediately available about the cause of death or how long he had been hospitalized. Phillips founded Sun Records in Memphis in 1952 and helped launch the career of Presley, then a young singer who had moved from Tupelo, Miss. He produced Presley's first record, the 1954 single that featured ``That's All Right, Mama'' and ``Blue Moon of Kentucky.'' ``God only knows that we didn't...

Elvis' Tooth For Sale On EBay FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- It's a lucky day for anyone who's ever wanted to own a piece of Elvis Presley. A tooth from the mouth of The King himself is being auctioned on eBay. The tooth was in the possession of Presley's former fiancee, Linda Thompson, until it went to the Elvis Presley Museum. The museum later sold the tooth. The auction also includes a lock of Presley's hair that was saved from his haircut upon joining the military and a gold record for "Love Me Tender." The collection's curator said he's been...

VICTORIA -- Horace Lee Logan, a radio personality who started the Louisiana Hayride and coined the phrase "Elvis has left the building," is dead at the age of 86. Logan, born Aug. 3, 1916, died early Sunday at Citizens Medical Center, in Victoria, Texas, said his wife, Linda Logan. She said he died of pancreatitis and acute respiratory distress syndrome. Logan began in radio when he was 16, after winning a contest to become an announcer on KWKH-AM, Logan said. He began producing the Hayride, a country music show performed before a live KWKH audience in Shreveport's Municipal Auditorium, in...

A priest who dons a velvet Elvis suit during wedding and funeral ceremonies is battling the Anglican Church to maintain his unorthodox ministry. Reverend Dorian Baxter, more often known as Elvis Priestley, was recently banned from the pulpit of a Scarborough church and has been stripped of his licence to perform marriages. Several high-ranking Canadian bishops have voiced their objection to Rev. Baxter's combining the Anglican gospel with the teachings of Elvis. The mix is in poor taste, said Ronald Ferris, the bishop of the Diocese of Algoma, where Rev. Baxter used to be a part-time minister. He now teaches...

Celebrating Elvis' life 25th anniversary of the King's death is mostly parties, parades 08/16/2002 By MICHAEL PRECKER / The Dallas Morning News MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Death anniversaries tend to be somber affairs, as we remember those we loved and admired. There's no parade in Dallas on Nov. 22. Ceremonies in New York on the day John Lennon was killed, or here in Memphis on the anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, are tearful and melancholy. In the land of Elvis, things are different. "Sure, it's sad that he's gone," says Fred Chamberlain, a 39-year-old fan. "But...

If new CNN CEO Walter Isaacson is still wondering why conservatives think CNN is biased to the left, he should cue up a tape of Thursday’s Inside Politics in which Bill Schneider fawned over Bill "Elvis" Clinton. With the anniversary of the death of Elvis and Bill Clinton’s birthday just three days apart, CNN’s John King offered a bit of a stretch as the network celebrated the "mid-August convergence" of the two dates.     "Elvis, the first rock star. Clinton, the first rock star President," Bill Schneider gushed as he began his piece. Schneider soon outlined other parallels: "Clinton had a...

<p>Let me explain. Sure, I understand Elvis' historical significance. He came along at a time when popular music meant Patti Page and Perry Como, and his (then) new-fangled fusion of country and R&B effectively introduced what would become known as rock & roll to mainstream America. A lot of his early records are still exciting (thanks largely to the great sidemen he had playing with him). Props are due.</p>

Posted on Mon, Apr. 22, 2002 It's now or never to sell Elvis By DAVID M. HALBFINGERThe New York Times MEMPHIS, Tenn. - The King may be immortal, but his fans are not. That is the essence of the problem facing the Elvis industry, which has hummed along quite nicely without him for 25 years, selling and reselling songs, movies, posters, books, clothing and every other imaginable form of merchandise, souvenir and retail experience related to or inspired by the King of Rock 'n' Roll. The cashing-in is about to crest this year, the 25th anniversary of Elvis Presley's...