Showing posts with label Elvis Presley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elvis Presley. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 5, 2023

Grilled-hamburger 🍔 + fireworks-filled July 4th 🎆 greetings from me, visiting my Mom in Central Florida, with an iconic #Elvis performance of "An American Trilogy," that NEVER disappoints! 😉


Elvis Presley - An American Trilogy (Live Hawai)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Feyu3er5fRc

Sending you grilled-hamburger 🍔 + fireworks-filled July 4th 🇺🇸🎆 greetings from Central Florida w/an iconic #Elvis performance that NEVER disappoints! 😉


I lived in #Memphis for three years as a kid in the mid-1960's, and was driven past Graceland ad the crowds many dozens of times before my family and I moved to #Miami in summer of 1968, so I grew-up as a devout Elvis fan, knowing everything about him, good and bad, as well as millions of bits of trivia.

The day he died was one of the WORST days ever for me.

Whenever someone in the public eye reveals some unusual food combination fave/craving/fixation, even if just occasional, it's hard for me to forget Elvis really loving peanut butter, banana and bacon sandwiches. 
Perhaps not unlike you, I love all three. Just NOT together!


So, a bit of an overdue update for you regular readers of Hallandale Beach/Hollywood Blog: Yours truly is currently visiting his mother in largely rural, orange grove-centric Central Florida, where she lives on the east side of Crooked Lake in Babson Park, about 70 miles south of Orlando and 70 miles east of Tampa. 



As I've previously remarked here on the blog as well as on my Twitter and Instagram feeds, it's a place where, at night, absent all of the overpowering light pollution I am used to dealing with in Hollywood and Hallandale Beach, I can actually see -if not count- thousands and thousands of stars at night overhead if it's not overcast, or, there's not yet another end-of-the-world thunderstorm full of booming thunder and a zillion lightning strikes taking place, as there so often is in the summer here, where it can seem like the hurricane scene from the Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall classic, Key Largo, when Edward G. Robinson's tough, abrasive and domineering mobster character visiting Florida starts getting freaked out by the sound of the howling wind outside. It's like that here at times just with the thunderstorms, whether day or night.

Which is to say, they didn't name the NHL hockey team in Tampa Bay the Lightning for nothing. Central Florida is the most lightning-intensive area in all of North America for very good reasons, though when I was growing up in 1970's North Miami Beach, I don't recall anyone -friends, teachers, media- ever mentioning or commenting on that fact:

https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/weather/2023/01/04/four-corners-lightning-capital


So, this being the case, I was not able to do any of my usual Fourth of July routines that first started when I lived for 15 years in the Washington, D.C. area, where by the time I showed up around 7:30 p.m. or so on the west side steps of the U.S. Capitol for the annual Fourth of July fireworks and National Symphony Orchestra extravaganza that annually airs on PBS -one of the few things that PBS does not ruin or make ridiculous via its never ending quest to inject identity politics or political grievances into every subject- featuring an army of singers and performers of every musical niche, I have consumed quite a lot of hot dogs, hamburgers, ribs, crab cakes, potato salads of very types, barbecue beans and several helpings of Dr. Pepper, beer or wine to wet my whistle and clean my palate. But there was none of that this year.


Without any high-quality fireworks displays in this area that were worth driving to on a very hot and humid day where the feels like temps got up to about 105,, and with no friends in the area, per se, to bring some homemade food or goodies from Publix to, in order to partake in a Fourth of July all-afternoon buffet, I stayed home avec ma mere, talking and watching a lot of red, white and blue musical films, including Yankee Doodle Dandy and 1776.

Capped off the night with the original Top Gun. 


Mid-afternoon I was also reminded all over again that Major League Baseball (MLB) continues to be lapped by the NFL since they are STILL not smart enough to insist in their many TV deals that there is always at least one nationally-televised baseball game televised on network TV on the afternoon of July 4th, a day where there are, literally, tens of millions of Americans killing time, waiting for others to stop eating or maybe finish off an after buffet nap, before heading out somewhere nearby to seen some fireworks with hopes of not being caught in impossible traffic tie-ups, as so often happens.


Dave 

David B. Smith  


Hallandale Beach/Hollywood Bloghttp://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/ 




P.S. My current Twitter background photo is a scene of Elvis Presley and Joan Blackman from his 1961 film, Blue Hawaii, with her driving his 1960 MGB Roadster. Until the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack album came out in 1978, Blue Hawaii was the all-time largest-selling soundtrack album.

This iconic song is just one of the many reasons why that's so: 
Can't Help Falling in Love



Thursday, June 3, 2021

Just another reason why Americans hate/loathe the U.S. news media of 2021... sheer laziness and an unwillingness to admit that facts that challenge media narrative will NOT be included. Asking hard questions about the mistakes unacknowledged in Washington Post story re Memphis moving remains of Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest, who led the early KKK


Just another reason why Americans hate/loathe the U.S. news media of 2021... sheer laziness and an unwillingness to admit that facts that challenge media narrative will NOT be included.

Asking hard questions about the mistakes unacknowledged in Washington Post story re Memphis moving remains of Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest, who led the early KKK, and the remains of his his wife. 

Forrest being one of the streets here in Hollywood that were changed in 2017 by the Hollywood City Commission.

https://www.miaminewtimes.com/arts/controversial-forrest-street-in-hollywood-florida-to-be-changed-to-savannah-street-9449073

Here's the story as it exists this afternoon on the Washington Post homepage. My comments follow.


The Washington Post

Memphis is digging up the remains of a Confederate general who led the early KKK

June 2, 2021 at 9:26 p.m. EDT

The remains of early Ku Klux Klan leader and Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest were finally being exhumed from a Memphis park, and the Black woman who led a long battle for the change was there to mark the moment.

But as activist-turned-elected-official Tami Sawyer prepared to address reporters, a man waved a Confederate flag behind her. Pacing back and forth, he called the Memphis city council member a “communist.” Then he started singing “Dixie,” the anthem of the Old South.

Read the rest of the story at https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/06/02/memphis-exhumes-confederate-remains/

The author of the original tweet (of a thread) that appears in a featured Washington Post article by former South Florida reporter Brittany Shammas -Miami New Times and South Florida Sun-Sentinel- that was posted last night at 9:39 p.m. is a Memphis TV reporter named Chris Luther.

Luther added additional information in his tweet thread of Tuesday noting that there were several mistakes in what he'd originally tweeted, and he publicly noted what those corrections were on Tuesdayhttps://twitter.com/cluther_wmc5/status/1399858172244992004

As of 4:00 pm today, two days later, despite those corrections having been known for more than 24 hours BEFORE the WaPo story ever got posted publicly, Shammas and The Post posted something that they knew or should have known was factually incorrect, and yet they have still NOT made any mention of those corrections.

Corrections which completely change the dynamic of that Luther's tweet, which I think almost any objective person would conclude was included in the WaPo article by Shammas
expressly for the purpose of inflaming readers, not educating or informing them.

Which, to me, is not actually what journalism is supposed to do, as opposed to the purpose served in newspaper or magazine columns, or essays in The New Yorker.

That's a perfect example of why Americans increasingly not only dislike the media, but resent them or loathe them: An unwillingness to publicly admit when they're wrong or have misinformed the public, either intentionally or by accident, because acknowledging it would distract from the media's narrative.

This sort of unprofessional behavior is an epidemic among the South Florida news media, but that's a story for another day.

By the way, some of you newer readers of the blog may not know, despite some previous posts of mine, that I lived in Memphis during the mid-1960's as a young child, and it's where the youngest of my two younger sisters was born. 
We were still living in Memphis in April of 1968 when Dr. Martin Luther King was shot, as I've also written about in some detail here previously, as well on Instagram three years ago.

We moved to Miami less than four months later.


1993 ELVIS PRESLEY STAMP -WATERCOLOR OF ELVIS BY MARK STUTZMAMN


It was in 1960's Memphis specifically, and the Mid-South in general, on my family's weekend (often-interminable) drives all around Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi, where I first developed my deep and enduring love and preference for many things: the Mississippi River; rhythm 'n' blues; Al Green; The Andy Griffith Show; Dusty Springfield; Petula Clark; St. Louis Cardinals baseball in the summertime, knowing that their catcher Tim McCarver and his family lived in my apt. complex during the off-season; smoky sweet Memphis-style barbecue ribs; cornbread, and, of course, The King - Elvis

To a devout Elvis fan like me, who knows just about everything there is to know about him, the good and the bad, the best books ever written on Elvis -by far- are Peter Guralnick's masterful "Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley" and the follow-up, "Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley." 
Each is written with honesty and empathy, free of the judgmental cant and analysis that doomed other books that purport to tell the tale.

It was also while living in The Mid-South, that I first became greatly interested in the American Civil War, following a summer day-trip to Shiloh, the site of the bloody April 1862 battle. 
It was on that summer day trip when I was seven years old that I had a chance meeting with a VERY old man on the battlefield itself. 
A man whose said own father had actually fought in the battle. 
And lived to tell the tale! 

For more info on Shiloh, see https://www.nps.gov/shil/index.htm
Spending a day there is an awesome experience and really puts things into their proper perspective, just as my later trips to Gettysburg, Harper's Ferry, Winchester, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania did as well.


Monday, July 4, 2011

Liberty's Kids: A sub-tropical Fourth of July spent reminiscing on how our country came to be


Through My Own Eyes (Liberty's Kid's opening theme)




Aaron Carter & Kayla Hinkle - Through My Own Eyes (Liberty's Kid's opening theme)
Performed July 4th, 2002 on the West lawn of the U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C. for PBS-TV's
annual broadcast of "A Capitol Fourth" concert, featuring The National Symphony Orchestra. Introduced By Barry Bostwick

These concerts on The Mall are one of the things that I miss most about no longer living in the Washington area, besides my friends, of course, not to mention, riding the Metro, visiting the Smithsonian museums, the Orioles, riding my bike along the Potomac, the four seasons and the sense of being somewhere where things are always happening.
(Teaser Alert: things are NOT always happening in Hallandale Beach, Florida.)

Tonight's concert, hosted by actor Jimmy Smits, begins at 8 p.m. with a repeat on most PBS stations at 9:30
. http://www.pbs.org/capitolfourth/

In my blog post three months ago ago about the the rather lighthearted graphic novel comic book on Prince William and Kate Middleton that aimed to explain their back-story, the very first thing that hit me as I looked at the illustrations was how much they reminded me EXACTLY of the way the characters in Liberty's Kids were depicted, the children's TV series on Revolutionary America that ran on the PBS affiliate in Washington, D.C.


One of my neighbor's kids in Arlington County used to watch Liberty's Kids all the time when I was over at her house visiting her folks,
She was surprised to learn that her cool neighbor who had so many magazines delivered to his house and who was the resident Orioles expert on the block, ALSO knew a lot about about American history, and I lent her some copies of some good history books, including a comparison of the American, French and Russian revolutions.

Years later, she got into UVA, the University of Virgina, Mr. Jefferson's school, where the second-oldest of my three niece has just finished her freshman year.

Plus, up there, as opposed to South Florida, they used to run Liberty's Kids marathons from alpha-to-omega.
The best episode I saw was the one on Ceasar Rodney, someone I've mentioned here in the blog a time or two, since though he's almost completely forgotten today, even among otherwise intelligent people, the truth is, without Rodney, there's no American Constitution.
Period.


Above, Hallandale Beach, Florida, U.S.A. June 20, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

If you are going to be around the house or driving around this morning, might I suggest that you give a listen to someone whom I used to listen to every weekday for over 20 years?
This morning, from 10-Noon, NPR's Diane Rehm Show will be airing encrore performances of two of my favorite American historians, both Pulitzer Prize winners.

At 10:06 am. Gordon Wood will discuss his collected essays on the primacy of the American Revolution in American history, "The Idea of America."
I've read many of his books in the past and even given one as a gift to a friend while up in D.C.

At 11:06 a.m., David McCullough, whom I've discussed here before, speaks on his book about 19th Century Americans with a yen for travel in la France in "The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris."




United We Stand



1993 ELVIS PRESLEY STAMP -WATERCOLOR OF ELVIS BY MARK STUTZMAMN

Below, a wonderful song my great friend (and gifted singer) Shannon and I used to love to sing together in her apt. in D.C.
But, of course, nobody could sing it quite like Elvis...

Elvis Presley - An American Trilogy (from ELVIS Aloha from Hawaii, January,1973)


Monday, August 16, 2010

August 16th, 33 years later -The Day Elvis Died. Jon Pareles was right: "In death as in life, Elvis Presley has something for everybody."

1993 Elvis Presley postal stamp -Watercolor of Elvis by Mark Stutzmamn

This is the song and performance that my friend Shannon and I always loved best, and loved most to sing along to together when she lived in D.C., because, for me at least, it's the secular song of his that's closest to the power of his great gospel performances.

Elvis Presley - An American Trilogy, LIVE, 1973

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xcZCigY3gE



Another
fabulous story by author David Comfort, today, on the relationship between Elvis and his doting mother, Gladys.

TheWrap

Elvis, Gladys & Their Double Doomdate, Aug. 16

By David Comfort

Published: August 15, 2010


In 1934, Vernon Presley, age 18, recalled blacking out at the instant of his son’s conception; then, regaining consciousness, he had seen the night sky thronged with brilliant blue stars. Elvis Aron’s twin brother, Jesse Garon, was stillborn.


The future King’s God-fearing mother, Gladys -- who herself almost died in the delivery -- believed he had inherited Jesse’s soul, and was “the One.”


Years later, Gladys would suffer a miscarriage, making her all the more protective of her only surviving child.


Read the rest of the story at:

http://www.thewrap.com/movies/blog-post/there-goes-my-everything-elvis-gladys-rip-20137

See also:
http://rockandrollbookofthedead.com/
http://www.thewrap.com/


This article has some really great photos, some of which you may never have seen.

Memphis Commercial Appeal

Sweltering heat can't keep Elvis fans from annual vigil

By Christopher Blank
Posted August 16, 2010 at midnight

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/aug/16/always-faithful/


Elvis Presley: Ten of Our Favorite Performances
This Week Marks 33rd Anniversary of the King's Death
August 16, 2010
http://www.cmt.com/news/country-music/1645830/elvis-presley-ten-of-our-favorite-performances.jhtml


If you never saw my previous post mentioning singer
Calle Kristiansson, prepare to be amazed. This gets me every time I see it, because this guy, whom nobody had ever heard
of, just casually walks up to the microphone and belts a home run on the first pitch like it's nothing -perfect.


TV4.se
Calle Kristiansson - Walking in Memphis -
IDOL Sweden 2009, auditions in Malmö

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CESHAeCxV4





Calle Kristiansson Walking in Memphis - XL Live Expressen


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQtKe9qQYH8



See also: http://www.expressen.se/ and
http://www.youtube.com/ExpressenTV


Yohanna -Butterflies and Elvis from her Butterflies and Elvis CD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8XlKt0eSYc



See also: http://www.youtube.com/TEAMYOHANNA
and http://teamyohanna.blogspot.com/
The guys at TY have got some brand new photos of this super-talent up on their blog, so check 'em out!

My previous posts on
Elvis contain lots of helpful hints on discerning why I am the way that
I am, how my personal world-view was shaped and why I write about the topics I do here,
many of which I never see anywhere else, even though there are, as we're constantly being reminded, tens of millions of blogs and websites.


January 8, 2010:

Walking in Memphis on Elvis' 75th birthday: some Swedish and Icelandic treats
to celebrate with

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/walking-in-memphis-on-elvis-75th.html
and
August 15, 2009

Sunday morning at 2 a.m. - Elvis In Memphis on QVC

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/sunday-morning-at-2-am-elvis-in-memphis.html

TCB baby!

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Heavenly! Yohanna sings "Butterflies & Elvis" Live in Reykjavik (HD); "The Winner Takes It All" at 2010 Icelandic Eurovision Finals

Yohanna" Guðrún Jónsdóttirs Pictures, Images and Photos
Yohanna a.k.a. Jóhanna Guðrún Jónsdóttir

Just received this HD version of Yohanna
performing "Butterflies and Elvis" with the
Icelandic Symphony Orchestra in a sell-out
concert in Reykjavik in 2008.


I posted a regular version of this song she
co-wrote back in January on what would've
been
Elvis' 75th birthday, for obvious reasons.
TCB, baby!



And here with one of the most popular of all
the
ABBA songs, "The Winner Takes It All"
-a real vocal showpiece for
Agnetha Fältskog
back in the day- performing Feb, 6th at

Söngvakeppni Sjónvarpsins 2010
, where she
won last year with "Is It True,"
Jóhanna
Guðrún Jónsdóttir
is PERFECTION!





For more on Jóhanna Guðrún Jónsdóttir, see:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TEAMYOHANNA
http://www.youtube.com/yohannamusic

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=J%C3%B3hanna+Gu%C3%B0r%C3%BAn+J%C3%B3nsd%C3%B3ttir

If you haven't already heard the news,
Barry and Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees
will
induct ABBA at the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame's
25th annual induction ceremony
on Monday, March 15th,
at New York City's
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Walking in Memphis on Elvis' 75th birthday: some Swedish and Icelandic treats to celebrate with

1993 Elvis Presley Stamp -Watercolor of Elvis by Mark Stutzmamn

As some of you who've been coming to this blog
for awhile know by now, after my family moved
from San Antonio, where my sister and I were
born and my mother grew-up, my family moved
to Memphis in 1965, where we lived for three
years, and where my youngest sister was born.
We moved to South Florida in July of 1968
just a few weeks after Dr. King was assassinated,
following the horrific aftermath in the city.

It was in Memphis specifically, and the Mid-South
in general, on our weekend family drives around
Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi -not always
so great in an un-air conditioned car with two
younger sisters!- where I first
developed my
deep and enduring love and preference
for many
things that still remain with me to this day:

the Mississippi River; rhythm 'n' blues;
Al Green;
The Andy Griffith Show; Dusty Springfield;
Petula Clark; St. Louis Cardinals baseball on
the radio in the summertime during their mid-60's
glory era; smoky sweet Memphis-style barbecue ribs;
cornbread, and, of course, The King -
Elvis.

To a devout
Elvis fan like me, who knows just
about everything there is to know about him,
the good and the bad, the best books ever written
on Elvis -by far- are Peter Guralnick's masterful
"Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis
Presley"
and the great follow-up, "Careless
Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley."

Each is written with honesty and empathy,
free of the judgmental cant and analysis that

doomed other books that purport to tell the
tale.


It was also while living in
The Mid-South,
that I first became greatly interested in the

American Civil War, following a summer
day-trip to Shiloh, the site of the bloody
April 1862 battle.

It was on that summer day-trip that I had
a
chance encounter with a VERY old man
on the battlefield itself.
A man whose own father had actually
fought
in the battle -and lived to tell
the tale!


For more info on
Shiloh, see
http://www.nps.gov/shil/

Spending a day there is an awesome and
eye-opening experience and really puts
things into their proper perspective,
just as my later trips to Gettysburg,
Harper's Ferry, Winchester,
Fredericksburg
and Spotsylvania
did as well, after I moved to the
D.C. area.


You'll recall that a few days ago I shared
video with you of
Yohanna singing
Don't Save It All For Christmas Day
at
En Sång För Hemlösa 2009 in
Stockholm and encouraged you all
to watch the entire TV program if
you could, because it was so well done.

Well, on what would be
Elvis' 75th
birthday I return to our talented friend
from Iceland and share a song that she
recorded last year called
Butterflies
and Elvis.

I'm choosing today to also write for the first
time here -though some of you know from
emails- about another young singer whom
I know you all have never heard of before,
but whose talent is so obvious that...
well, the first time I heard him, let's just say
that I was just thunderstruck.

Just like I was the first time I heard
Molly Sandén or Yohanna.
Obvious transcendent talent!

A friend in Europe has seen him on the
Idol Sweden program and she sent me
a video
of his audition in
Malmö in an
email last year that had the simple words,
"Must see!!!"
in the subject header
.

Wow! Was she ever right!

I'm talking about Calle Kristiansson,
a name you will be hearing a lot more
of in the future, because seeing and hearing
IS certainly believing.

-----
First, the original version of Mark Cohn's song
that you probably first heard sung by
Cher.



When the song was incorporated into the
1997 X-Files episode called The Post-Modern
Prometheus
, it instantly became my favorite
episode.

See video of it at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CKs8NjusTQ


----

Prepare yourself to be wowed and remember
in the future who first told you about a Swedish
singer named
Calle Kristiansson.
Me!


TV4.se
Calle Kristiansson - Walking in Memphis -
IDOL Sweden 2009,
auditions in Malmö


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CESHAeCxV4



-----

Calle Kristiansson - Walking in Memphis -
XL Live Expressen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQtKe9qQYH8



See also:
http://www.expressen.se/
and
http://www.youtube.com/ExpressenTV

-----

Yohanna -Butterflies and Elvis
from her Butterflies and Elvis CD



See also: http://www.youtube.com/TEAMYOHANNA
and http://teamyohanna.blogspot.com/
plus http://www.myspace.com/yohannamusic


Memphis Commercial Appeal
Bitter cold can’t keep these Elvis fans from his birthday party
By Michael Lollar
January 8, 2010
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/jan/08/bitter-cold-cant-keep-these-elvis-fans-his-birthda/