Right?! The two music movies I’ve watched since have only underscored the racist foundations of the American music industry: a documentary on Tina Turner (whom Capital records called every racist and sexist name under the sun when she was trying to make a comeback), and a feature film about Billie Holliday, who was relentlessly harassed by the FBI for calling attention to lynching via “Strange Fruit.”
2 Likes
Meanwhile, Elvis is such an interesting variable in all this: raised poor/working class in the rural South, near & among Black folks and their music; playing and singing what he knew and loved (r&b, blues, gospel, country) and catapulted into the spotlight because of his acceptable skin and looks; but never quite the “right kind of white person” (honkey/hillbilly) because of his lower class origins and his genuine connections to Black folks.
Decades on, of course, there are the persistent criticisms of how Elvis stole or appropriated Black music - and fair enough; he was a young, handsome white man and could get away with things others couldn’t, regardless of his good intentions or sincerity. Privilege doesn’t just take a holiday because you mean well.
But at the same time, Elvis wasn’t exactly surrounded by or managed by people who cared about the best interests of his favourite Black artists. (And from what I’ve read, he was genuinely supportive and respectful of the Sweet Inspirations, B.B. King, Fats Domino, and others.) By minimizing those connections - by selling Elvis as a phenom who emerged fully formed rather than a poor white kid awestruck by Black artistry - record labels, media, and management could make him more palatable (and profitable) to white America.
Racism doesn’t just keep racialized people in line – it keeps white people in line, too, on threat of ostracism from whiteness and white privilege, since it includes an inner socioeconomic and cultural hierarchy, with privileges that can be granted or revoked arbitrarily – think working class, Irish, Italian… but also (perhaps most importantly) if you’re too critical of white institutions or too supportive of the people who are most gravely harmed by them.
2 Likes
That was really well put. Thanks for posting it.
1 Like
Oh, thank you! 
I owe more moments of enlightenment to music and the people who make it than probably anything else in the whole, wide world.
2 Likes
So did everyone other white act almost of them time. Most white jazz was stolen in the beginning. Zeppelin openly admits they took from the black artists. And on and on.
The real issue is no one cares to every compensate anyone or anything. Instead they now get “recognized”. Helpful when dead 
Yep! 
A nice little memorial plaque for an influential musician who struggled to put food on the table while alive.
Edit: To your point, the lack of real, tangible compensation is totally what makes it seem like theft/appropriation rather than tribute/influence. If more successful white artists wanted to take (or were allowed by their mgmt/labels to take) the Black musicians they idolized on the road, give them proper songwriting credits/royalties, and talk about them/feature them in other ways… the musical landscape would be very different. The Stones (for example) talked at length about their favourite blues and r&b acts, but that’s not generally what was quoted/soundbited in the media. They wanted to be seen as an r&b band, but that was still seen as “race” music, and they were white boys from England, so they were classified as rock and that’s that. (I’m paraphrasing liberally from things I read a very long time ago. But the point stands, I hope!)
1 Like
I was really hoping they’d use Kirsty MacColl for the closing credits but Hey that’s just me
2 Likes
This is the best thing I’ve ever heard!!! 
1 Like
She was awesome.
Have you heard her duet with Shane McGowan (from Pogues)? Fairytale of New York?
Probably the best Christmas song
1 Like
Nope, allllll new to me. Today is the day I met Kirsty. Bless. lol
1 Like
Just watched “The Searcher,” the Elvis documentary on HBO. It is an expansive and exhaustive review of his life. Very different than the film, and the differences are stark.
Baz Luhrmann is on record stating that he didn’t set out to produce an Elvis biopic; instead, he said he wanted to create a “superhero” movie. To that end, he took a lot of creative license with events, timelines, and historical facts. In other words, he created a fantasy, which is his wont.
This is nothing new for movie producers or directors to do. Dreams and fantasies are what Hollywood was built on, after all. And that’s OK. Entertainment for entertainment’s sake is fine.
That said, for anyone interested in how, why, and to what end Elvis actually affected the national culture and the world, the HBO doc is where to see it told like it was.
By the way, there is a ton of poignant voiceover commentary by Elvis’s bandmates, producers, friends, and even artists who were influenced by him, including Springsteen, Robbie Robertson and Tom Petty. It’s a two-part doc with lots of great interview, performance, and candid footage, so plan accordingly.
1 Like
Ack, I’m jelly! I can’t seem to find a [non-sketchy] way to stream The Searcher in Canada. I have a Crave subscription, which includes some HBO selections, but not that one. 
Oh well, I’m only #7 on the holds list @ my public library. Patience is a virtue, right?
I found a really lovely clip of Baz talking with one of Elvis’ childhood friends earlier today. Very sweet and empathetic, but also definitely tinder for the superhero / messianic myth-making (which I love; sometimes it’s such a pleasure to be seduced by a narrative):
1 Like
Hang in there. The documentary is very worth waiting for. There are so many details and nuances in this story of a truly iconic musical genius led astray.
1 Like
I watched the first part of “The Searcher” last night. It was done very well, has a lot of contemporary film footage used to good effect, plus many great narrators. Certainly if you’ve never read details about Elvis’s early years, so far the first part is very informative. Definitely more up my alley than Luhrmann’s superhero interpretation, although I enjoyed that for what it was. It was interesting to hear a clip or two of Col. Parker’s voice in the documentary, to compare the actual man’s apparently undetectable accent to Tom Hanks’ very exaggerated Dutch accent in the Luhrmann film.
It’s been some time since I read a biography of Elvis, but while watching “The Searcher” I thought I recalled a few things that weren’t covered. I know that these things can’t include every detail, and it did include some things I haven’t heard before. I still have an old paperback bio written by Jerry Hopkins in the early 1970s, Elvis: A Biography, which apparently has been critiqued as not being the greatest bio. Back then, Hopkins did interview many people close to Elvis, but not Elvis himself. That book may be a major source of what I recall about Elvis’s background, other than maybe some other long-ago televised shows about him. I’m not sure if the reissue of the book in 2007 was updated or not.
It looks like a two volume book series by Peter Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley, and Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley, are considered to be much better, if not the definitive bio about Elvis. I’ve put a hold on the first volume at my library, so eventually I will read it. I was not planning on going on an Elvis jag, but here we are!
3 Likes
So glad you dug the first installment of the HBO Elvis doc. It is really informative. As for what it includes/excludes, it’s safe to presume that the filmmaker has researched all previous Elvis biographies. It’s always a judgment call on how to approach a documentary, though, and his inclusion of contemporary heirs of Elvis’s musical legacy as part of the storytelling does add a unique and relevant lens with which to gauge his impact on music.
The second installment delves into Elvis’s denouement. The photos of him on movie sets graphically depict the toll it took on his soul and creativity. It’s so sad.
1 Like
Fair enough. Although it’s a really entertaining movie. It’s the same reason you shouldn’t watch Hogan’s Heroes to find out what the Nazis were really like in WWII.
1 Like
I am old enough that as a kid I remember reading a review in the TV section of the newspaper when Hogan’s Heros was first aired (we are talking 1965, so 20 years after WWII). The writer thought the premise of show was terrible, making fun of German prison camps.
As far as those being wowed by Luhrmann’s “Elvis”:
While not being a biography but for having a similar effect on me (suspend disbelief and just go with it) there was “Across the Universe,” the musical film using Beatles songs to tell a story. Another work which got mixed reviews, but for me was entertaining. While of course the latter film wasn’t in the same style as “Elvis,” it had enough colorful scenes, decent interpretations of the songs, and related to the history of the time the Beatles’ music was introduced.
It interested me since I am of an age that the Beatles were my equivalent to what Elvis was for his original fans. I’m one of those kids who had my little Japanese transistor radio under my pillow, and in late 1963 heard one of NYC’s WABC-AM DJs, Scott Muni make the startling announcement (joking) that the following time slot’s DJ, Bruce “Cousin Brucie” Morrow, had shown up sporting a Beatle haircut. I had no idea what that style could be, but soon found out!
2 Likes
The Queen movie was largely the same deal but still greatly entertaining.
1 Like
The “Elvis” movie is great. I enjoyed it completely. Beautiful cinematography, sound editing and production design. But the best part to me was Austin Butler’s amazing performance.
1 Like
Yeah, when I found out the Colonel didn’t have a Dutch accent irl, I had to wonder what Baz/Tom were thinking with that one. Another superhero trope – the bad guy “from away,” like Bond villain or Dracula? Artistic liberties, fine, whatever, but that’s kinda bugging me now. So many other flourishes and embellishments in the film have a very clear internal logic (dazzling the audience, accentuating an emotion, etc.), but that affectation seems… out of place.
1 Like