22 May 29 , 2022

all took an Elvis knickknack from her home. I may not share her full

passion, but I’ve inherited a lifelong affection for the King.

Still, I can feel his relevancy fading. Back in 1987, when Mojo

Nixon and Skid Roper sang “Elvis is everywhere,” the line seemed

true. Elvis-is-alive stories were tabloid staples (in 1988, Memphis

magazine studied 53 examples from newspapers such as the

National Enquirer and the World Weekly News, dividing them

into categories such as “Elvis and the Aliens” and “Elvis’ Ghost”). In

1999, author Erika Doss, then a professor of fine arts at the

University of Colorado at Boulder, wrote her book “Elvis Culture”

about the almost religious-like adulation that continued after his

death. When I emailed her recently to see what’s changed over the

past 23 years, Doss, now a professor in the Department of

American Studies at the University of Notre Dame, replied that she

hasn’t followed the Elvis phenomenon in recent years. “The music

scene has changed a lot in the past few decades — and Elvis is not a

part of that at all,” she wrote.

At Graceland, I notice two things about the birthday crowd: We

are old — and we are White. It’s the same at the hotel, the gift shops,

the museums, the restaurants. I see no shortage of bald spots and

middle-aged bellies. The only people of color I see the entire

weekend are staff. And so I wonder: Can Elvis, who has sold over

1 billion records, remain relevant to millennials and Gen Z? Will

charges of cultural appropriation damage his legacy in an

increasingly diverse America?

To find out, I’m on an Elvis road trip, starting here in Memphis,

then on to his birthplace in Tupelo, Miss., and back north to

Nashville, to measure the state of the King’s long reign and what it

says about identity, youth, race and what endures musically and

culturally. Because even Elvis himself had doubts about his legacy.

“They’re not going to remember me,” he told backup singer Kathy

Westmoreland shortly before his death. “I’ve never done anything

lasting.”

W

hen I arrive at my sleek room at the Guest House at

Graceland resort on Elvis Presley Boulevard, a black-and-

white Elvis stares from the TV screen to the sound of “Jailhouse

Rock.” The screen, I discover, has a choose-your-own-Elvis feature,

and depending on my selection, I can be greeted by a ’50s, ’60s or

’70s Elvis image, along with tunes from that era. One TV channel

continuously shows Elvis’s Hawaii concert; another shows the ’68

“Comeback Special.” On a third channel I find a program about

Graceland at Christmas, where a gloved archivist displays daughter

Lisa Marie’s stocking with the care one might show the Shroud of

Turin.

The resort seems full, even though the coronavirus’s omicron

variant is at its peak, and it’s all a reminder: Predicting the end of

Elvis is a foolish enterprise. Soon after “Heartbreak Hotel” topped

the charts in 1956, critics deemed him a hip-swiveling flash in the

pan (“The only consolation,” a Sioux City Journal reporter wrote in

a concert review, was “that Elvis Presley’s sensational popularity

will be short lived”). When Elvis was drafted into the U.S. Army in

1958, his career seemed dead. But thanks to the plotting of his

manager, Parker, a less-threatening Elvis emerged as more

n a gray 30-degree morning at Graceland, Priscilla Presley speaks
on a black stage next to a four-foot-tall white cake emblazoned with
piano keys, paisley designs, blue-and-gold trim and a peacock. The
blue bird resembles stained glass found in the living room of her
former, iconic, white-columned home, which looms grandly over
her shoulder. Today, Jan. 8, 2022, is Elvis Presley’s 87th birthday,
and fans have congregated with her on the front lawn for an annual
ceremony.
“I am so surprised how many people are here,” the King of
Rock-and-Roll’s ex-wife tells the crowd. “On the plane I was
thinking, ‘What if nobody shows up?’ But I know Elvis fans will
always show up.”
By my rough estimates, at least 500 people are gathered around
the ceremony’s open white tent. Two older women stand before me
in matching black jackets, a pair of handsome Elvises gazing
seductively from their backs. A nearby couple speaks German; a
man with Elvis sideburns and a late-Elvis paunch speaks with a
thick Scottish brogue. After her speech, Presley slowly strolls along
the metal barrier that separates her from the crowd, talking with
fans, posing for photos and signing autographs, bringing an
approachable grace and warmth to the cold Memphis air.
“We’re all here to keep his legacy alive,” she had vowed in her
speech, and 2022 is a big year for meeting that commitment. A new
movie, “Elvis,” starring Austin Butler as Elvis and Tom Hanks as
his scheming manager, Col. Tom Parker, will premiere on June 24.
Aug. 16 will mark the 45th anniversary of Elvis’s death, and
Graceland will celebrate with exhibits, concerts, giveaways and
other events. Between the anniversary and pent-up pandemic
demand, Graceland’s management expects a big turnout for the
nine-day Elvis Week in August.
As with most people here, Elvis is part of my family’s DNA. As a
teenager in the ’50s, my mom pasted Elvis photos on the ceiling so
that he’d be her first dreamy sight each morning. In 1974, when I
was 8, she took our family on a sacred pilgrimage from Fairfax, Va.,
to Cole Field House in Maryland to see him in concert. I can still
hear “Also Sprach Zarathustra” (the theme from “2001: A Space
Odyssey”) before Elvis took the stage, then the sudden barreling
drums and gonging cymbals, the horn section blasting the riff to
“See See Rider” like the furious thump of a fighter’s jab. I can see
Elvis strut coolly onto the stage.
Throughout my childhood, Elvis was ever-present in our home,
like a good-looking, sequined uncle. “Blue Christmas” chimed
through the house each December; his 1973 Hawaii concert
boomed from the eight-track player in the car. On a basement
refrigerator, a poster of Elvis — playful grin, white jumpsuit, big
collar — greeted us every day until we moved. When Mom died, we

O

Original photo references for Illustration on previous pages:

Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images (legs); Per-Anders Pettersson/

Getty Images (sign); ROBERTO SCHMIDT/Agence France-Presse/Getty

Images (Graceland sign); Hulton Archive/Getty Images (crowd); RB/

Redferns (Portrait); Robert Alexander/Getty Images (graffiti); Blank

Archives/Getty Images (newspaper)