Access the full text.
Sign up today, get DeepDyve free for 14 days.
References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.
essay ...................... by Michael T. Bertrand Elvis Presley, backstage at the WDIA Goodwill Revue, December 1956. Photograph © Ernest C. Withers, courtesy of Panopticon Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts. Lonely Life Ends on Elvis Presley Boulevard," blared the headline of a late-summer special edition of the Memphis PressScimitar. "The King is Dead." Much like his explosive ascent nearly a generation earlier, Elvis Presley's untimely demise on August 16, 1977, left many "all shook up." Grieving fans by the thousands trekked to Memphis for the wake and funeral; millions more paid their respects by besieging radio stations and record stores, listening to songs and looking for Presley products. Commenting on the mass anguish, one veteran columnist recalled that he had witnessed many instances of public mourning since the assassination of President John Kennedy, "but nothing has equaled the present national grief." The mainstream media, unprepared for the passionate and ubiquitous response that Presley's passing engendered, resorted to repeating by rote the distinctive American tale of an anonymous truck driver whose unrestrained performance style and meteoric rise to fame flustered the less than frenzied fifties. A stock script asserted that Presley symbolized the twentieth-century version of the heroic pioneer blazing trails into
Southern Cultures – University of North Carolina Press
Published: Sep 17, 2007
Read and print from thousands of top scholarly journals.
Already have an account? Log in
Bookmark this article. You can see your Bookmarks on your DeepDyve Library.
To save an article, log in first, or sign up for a DeepDyve account if you don’t already have one.
Copy and paste the desired citation format or use the link below to download a file formatted for EndNote
Access the full text.
Sign up today, get DeepDyve free for 14 days.
All DeepDyve websites use cookies to improve your online experience. They were placed on your computer when you launched this website. You can change your cookie settings through your browser.