All Hail "The King": a trip to Tupelo

Sorry . . . .I didn't take this photo! 

How could we possibly visit Mississippi without a stop at the Birthplace of Elvis Presley? Elvis is probably the most iconic figure in Rock History and yet sadly became a caricature of himself before dieing far to young at the age of 42 from a host of issues.  His early life story is actually quite compelling but the commodification of everything "Elvis" has turned him into a circus sideshow.

I love this photo of young Elvis that was in the so called "museum" (also no photos allowed. . . . whoops)

 His childhood home is clearly that of a poor, working class family and was in a corner of Tupelo that was really a ghetto but alas. . . . . The area around the house has been turned into a giant park, museum, and gift shop with more cool ELVIS stuff than you could ever imagine (no photos allowed in the gift shop, sorry !) He did in fact grow up very poor making his enormous success even more astonishing.
Elvis was indeed a huge influence on and influenced by a host of styles and receives tributes from both the Blues Trail and the Country Music Trail in Mississippi. My personal feelings about Elvis' music is that his early work with Sun Records and Sam Phillips was his best and that his move to RCA and then to film star was mostly a sad story but we are going to leave the details out of this Blog entry

There were some suprising things in the museum including this menorah and apparently his grandmother was Jewish ( sorry for the terrible photo but remember no photos allowed)

I have a foggy memory of this statue of young Elvis in one of the Star Wars movies where Darth Vador turned him into Bronze. . . .or was that Lando Calrissian?

 but perhaps the coolest thing of all is Elvis' outhouse. . . .well not exactly "The King's" outhouse but kind of like in the movie Spinal Tap this an outhouse much like the one Elvis probably had. If you don't get the Spinal Tap reference I apologize but in one of my favorite scenes the band is setting up to play at an Air Force Base and one of the military brass compliments the band by saying. "We are such fans of your music and all of your records. I'm not speaking of yours personally, but the whole genre of the rock and roll."

 sadly I just read a bizarre story on line that Elvis' personal physician said 5 years ago that Elvis actually died of chronic constipation. . . . I'm not kidding.

And finally, this is just about the most common microphone there is that's decent. I have one in my bag right now. But here it is on display as one of Elvis' microphones. . . . .isn't that amazing!!!

Sadly Elvis has "left the building" but his memory lives on!!