If Elvis had lived
Chances are, anyone over the age of 55 well remembers where they were on Tuesday, Aug. 16, 1977 when news came on the radio that Elvis Presley had died.
The man who defined rock-and-roll, made several movies a year, and had one of the greatest comebacks in the history of the entertainment industry will remain forever young in the eyes of his fans. Gone forever at the age of 42. Presley was the best singer of all-time (top three at least) succeeding in genres including rock, gospel and country. Elvis, as a musician, doesn’t belong in the same category as Paul McCartney or Elton John, who wrote their own material and excelled as instrumentalists, but Elvis, the entertainer, is in a class of his own.
As John Lennon famously said, “Without Elvis, there would be no Beatles.”
As conspiracies of Presley’s death began shortly after his funeral — and remain to this day — a more interesting question is what would have happened if Elvis had lived. Would he still be relevant? If he was alive today, Elvis would be 82. Many rock historians incorrectly state that Elvis was in a lull at the time of his death — “the Vegas years.” Yet in fact, in the last five years of his life, Elvis cracked the Billboard top 40 singles charts 11 times including “Burning Love” which peaked at No. 2. (How many musicians would love to have just one top 40 hit in a lifetime?)
It had been eight years since his last chart-topper “Suspicious Minds,” which in those days seemed like an eternity to go that long on commercial radio without a smash single.
Manager Col. Tom Parker famously turned down both “True Grit” and Barbra Streisand’s remake of “A Star Is Born” for Elvis and there was interest for him to cameo as Teen Angel in “Grease.” But there is evidence, based on the special guests who attend the Penticton Elvis Festival every year, that his days with the Colonel were soon coming to an end.
How great Elvis would have been if he had management like Allen Klein or Brian Epstein could be a topic for a separate editorial.
Sadly, Elvis never lived to enjoy a trend called “nostalgia” which would become a major phenomenon in the mid-1980s. The old acts became cool once again and remain so to this day.
Lennon, who was gone three years later, had a major career comeback at the age of 40 with “Double Fantasy,” an album that was cemented in the charts at the time of his death. His bandmate George Harrison would reach No. 1 at the age of 44 in 1987 with a remake of the obscure single “(I) Got My Mind Set on You.”
Roy Orbison, only a year younger than Elvis, enjoyed a great comeback in the 1980s with the Traveling Wilburys (Harrison again) — an all-star team of middle-aged rockers.
Most of the top-grossing tours of the past 20 years have been classic rock artists. Neil Diamond, for example, can still sell out a stadium in his late 70s and he hasn’t had a top 10 hit since 1981 (“Heartlight”).
Tony Bennett is as cool now as an octogenarian than any other time in his career.
If Elvis remained healthy and was up to it, chances are he’d be still touring and selling out today. He would have become an elder statesman for rock-and-roll.
Chances are, the King still had a few hit records left in him — most likely all-star duets with younger artists.
But that’s all speculation and the world will never know.
Elvis Tribute Artists draw mixed reactions, many purists consider them a parody.
That’s too bad. Elvis is obviously no longer around and for many people, an ETA is the closest thing they’ll ever come to seeing the real thing.
Events such as the Penticton Elvis Festival, which draw hundreds of visitors to our area each year, deserve praise for keeping a part of music history alive.