I interpreted that sentence as two separate clauses:
The previously-mentioned repertoire of “Elvisness” that his fans still loved was starting to get old as far as general popular culture was concerned.
Consequently, younger listeners thought of him as a has-been.
This independent interpretive post has not been fact-checked or approved for content by RealityChuck.
I was 23 when Elvis died. To most people of my age, when he died he was 50’s Americana kitch. He long ran out of any current relevance during those post-army movies he made and except for his many loyal fans from the 50’s, he was just a nostalgia act.
Elvis was always a tacky joke. Look at ANY of his movies.
In fairness, he was a good looking young man, sang very well, could actually play guiter, and introduced southern black music to a lot of people at the right time.
But most adults always thought his stage performance was a tacky joke, and Elvis knew that too – even though he didn’t agree. He made the point early that he though his stage performance was less tacky than Billy Sunday (the evangelist, not the athlete), and I never read anybody disagreeing with that.
So I put it as just not to my taste, and honestly, I think the people who liked his style of performance continued to like it as he got older.
In his time at Sun, before he made any movies, he was not tacky or a joke at all. He was the real thing: original, fresh, and dangerous. He did, however, go downhill quite quickly, as showbiz people who did not understand what was so special about his original work exploited him, and got him to do things (bad movies and schlocky songs) that had little or nothing to do with his roots or his real talents, just his good looks and his rich vocal tone. Through the '60s he remained a decent pop singer, although not one with anything fresh or original to contribute, but by the later '70s (though his voice was still there) he was much less than that.
In my opinion, Elvis peaked with his first recording of “That’s Alright Mamma” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky”, and began to go downhill, slowly at first, but with increasing speed, pretty soon after. Stuff like “Hound Dog”, “Heartbreak Hotel”, “Blue Suede Shoes”, and “Jailhouse Rock”, made after he signed to a major label and started to absorbed by the showbiz machine and ‘Colonel’ Tom, are still pretty good, but not as good. And it would soon get much worse. But if Elvis had never made another record after “That’s Alright Mamma” he would still be massively important (and nobody would ever dream of thinking of him as tacky).
That’s it. I should have put a comma after “and”: It was aging, and younger fans …
Elvis was basically irrelevant to most music fans in the 70s. He may have had hits, but they were anachronisms, sort of like Dean Martin having a hit with “Everybody Loves Somebody” in the 60s. Elvis had enough die-hard fans to put him on the charts, but those into music in the 70s thought him washed up.
They showed one of his concerts on TV, recorded shortly before he died (Elvis enters about eight minutes in), and he really looked terrible and was going through the motions. He spent most of the show handing out scarves to the women (and most of his fans at that time were female) in the front row (see about 17 minutes it). He still had the voice, but his guitar was only a prop and he seemed to be going through the motions.
I was 15 when Elvis died. At that time, did my friends and I regard Elvis as a fat joke? No- worse than that, we didn’t think about him at all.
At that age, most of us were sort of transitioning from pop/Top 40 radio to rock radio. Elvis’ songs NEVER got played on rock radio, and “Burning Love” was the only Top Ten single he’d had in ages. So, we rarely heard him or saw him. Most of could only have named a handful of Elvis songs. Sure, we knew he’d once been the biggest star in music, but in 1977, we regarded him as someone our moms and Grandmothers liked.
Did we know he was a fat druggie? Not until AFTER he died. The last time I’d seen him perform was on the famed 1973*** Aloha From Hawaii*** show, which I watched on TV with (yes) my grandmother. Yes, Elvis was wearing a jumpsuit, but he still looked good, still sounded pretty good, and was still an energetic showman. THAT’S what I imagined Elvis still was at the time of his death.
A few weeks after Elvis’ death, NBC televised one of his last concerts. For MANY of us, that was the first sign that anything was wrong with Elvis. That was the first time we’d seen an old, fat, sweaty guy who slurred his words and read lyrics off index cards.
So, when Albert Goldman’s notorious book came out, many of us said, “Ohhhh… that explains it.”
Elvis liked all kinds of greasy food-his favorite was banana, peanutbutter, and bacon sandwiches-deep fried. I suspect that is what did him in.
Jumpsuits were popular for men, too, in the 70’s. He wasn’t the only one who put rhinestones on them.
Here’s some great photos of other non-bedazzled jumpsuits from ads and seweing patterns of the time. These are non-bedazzled and suitable for everyday wear - because one is enough when it’s you.
http://www.retronaut.co/2012/02/mens-jump-suits-1970s/
Show where you’re headed in the ultimate fashion climax.
Yeah. Ain’t nobody from the 70’s got room to throw stones at Elvis, imo.
Or maybe it was the “fourteen drugs in Elvis’ system, ten in significant quantity.”
Uppers, downers, and narcotics, including codeine which he was allergic to.
I think a good comparison would be Michael Jackson in the latter part of his career. That is to say, not dismissed as a musician and performer by everyone in the world, but at the same time, yeah, an object of ridicule to quite a few people.
Wrong thread.
I was 22 when he died. He’d been a joke for years.
I think I fall in the latter category.
So, is that why my wife will allow me to wear overalls, but jumpsuits are right out?
I’m 46 so I remember when he died. I had kind of put Elvis in the same category as Liberace, when I thought about him at all, just another cheezy square from an earlier age. When he died, my reaction was “oh yeah, that guy.”
This thread reminds me of a conversation I had once.
It was 1997, I was in grad school, and one of my jobs (besides my library internship) was at a Hallmark store. The anniversary of Elvis’ death was in the news, so I was telling one of my co-workers at the counter about this routine Denis Leary had once done about how Elvis should have been shot in 1957 so people would remember him as young, handsome, and talented, not the bloated joke he became.
A few minutes later a customer came to be rung up. She told me, “I couldn’t help but overhear you talking about Elvis just now. One of my best friends was a rabid Elvis fan. I went with her to see one of his last concerts at the Meadowlands. She was going absolutely crazy and all I could see was this fat blob in a spangled jumpsuit!”
A small tangent: I’m seeing some very poor pluralization in this thread. The plural of Lady Gaga is Ladies Gaga. Miley Cyruses is acceptable, but the preferred form is Miley Cyri.
Jim’s Son:
Wasn’t “My Ding-A-Ling” a # 1 hit for Chuck Berry in the era we’re describing?
Are you suggesting that made him vital and fresh? It was popular because it was a novelty song.
I was kidding around. I should have included a tongue-smiley. Obviously, that song is neither representative of Chuck Berry’s musical output nor thought of as a rock and roll.
