Greil Marcus --> Lies About Elvis, Lies About Us

[LesterB]

To me Albert Goldman seems quite clever. He took the stories of Lamar Fike - and those stories where not always nice - and made a "scandal" out of them. There are very few points where you can point your finger at Goldman and tell him that he was a liar.

I do not think you have to be clever to write a book like Goldmans on Elvis.

Consider this as an example: a school class of 10 year olds experiencing their first history lesson. The Lesson - ADOLF HITLER

Hitler fought for his country on the front line during the first world war and later became the leader of his country in 1934. He was democratically elected to power by the German people having the biggest single vote of any political party at the time. When Hitler came to power there was mass unemployment, famine, little or no education system in place and an economy that was bankrupt - people needed a suitcase full of cash to buy a cup of tea! In four years he was responsible for the complete turn around of his country - there was a highly efficient education system, people had the choice of at least two jobs, the economy had recovered to rival any economy in the world, he built a new infrastructure which was second to non in the world at that time, poverty was wiped out and famine disappeared. In the 1941 he attacked Russia because he thought it would make the world a better place - destroying at least 22 million communists. He would have succeeded in destroying Russia if it was not for incredible bad luck! The Russian winter - the worst in years and it gave the Russians time to rearm while the German soldiers died because they were not equiped to deal with the severe Russian winter. As the Russians approached Hitlers bunker rather than let them take him alive he commited suicide thus demonstrating that he was in control until the very end!

Now these are all TRUE facts. The lesson was a COMPLETE LIE

By the way I failed my College final History exam. So you don't have to be very clever to produce something like Goldmans book in my opinion. Clearly all the facts above could be elabourated with stories of how Hitler loved children and animals - which, is true again, and turned into a thick book of useless pages.

[Juan Luis]

You cannot blame anyone for being interviewed by that Goldman. He did not say upfront that he was going to go after Elvis the way that he did.

[Gregory Nolan Jr.]

Thanks for the original post, Doctor Carpenter. I had not read that piece by Greil Marcus since "Dead Elvis" came out in the early '90s. Marcus writes:

It is Goldman's purpose to entirely discredit Elvis Presley, the culture that produced him, and the culture he helped create--to altogether dismiss and condemn, in other words, not just Elvis Presley, but the white working-class South from which he came, and the pop world which emerged in his wake. For such a task, revelations about the moral weakness and ill-spent life of a single individual are useful, but no matter how numerous or squalid such revelations might be, they are not sufficient. It is necessary to utterly destroy the individual's claim on our attention by leading the reader to feel in every way superior to him; to sever the individual from the social context that might make sense of his work or allow the reader to feel kinship with him; to bury what might remain of that social context in bigotry and stereotyping; to selectively omit important parts of the story being told, and to falsify others; and to surround the enterprise as a whole with calumnies and lies.

I recall reading those Goldman excerpts in Rolling Stone and even Lady's Home Journal in '81 or '82, I was a bit younger of course, but wise enough to say: why do I get the feeling this author is trying to make me not like Elvis anymore? I was perceptive enough to recoil at the words and nasty vibe. Reading through parts of the book shortly thereafter just confirmed this for me. I had the feeling that the very joy I had experienced from Elvis' entertainment over the years was somehow under attack by Goldman's hatchet job. How does one enjoy "If I Can Dream" or "Tomorrow Is a Long Time" or "Tell Me Why" or "That's All Right" when, after all, it is sung by a degenerate moron? Goldman failed in his dark task with me, but for how many fence sitters did he succeed in his task in the '80s and even '90s? Many a dumb Elvis impersonation was rooted in Goldman's rancid soil that told the very Americans who bought Elvis records (or their parents did) that American pop culture was total crap. Talk about self-hatred...!

Marcus wrote also:

"What is at stake is this: any book that means to separate a people from the sources of its history and its identity, that means to make the past meaningless and the present incomprehensible, is destructive of that people's ability to know itself as a people, to determine the things it might do as a people, and to discover how and why those things might be done. This is precisely the weight of Goldman's book, and it is precisely the weight of the cultural genocide he wishes to enact."

As others have said on this thread, that really nails it.




"Cryogenic" wrote:

Goldman's book is not just hateful against one person, but culturally corrosive on a huge scale. Goldman isn't, or wasn't, just trashing the microscopic details of one life; he was trashing the macroscopic sweep and significance of an entire people and social phenomenom. ... Has there been a more incendiary book of a famous figure and popular culture -- ever?

Again, a great point...

Take this review of "Careless Love" that, according to my interpretation of the copyright at the bottom of the page, originally appeared in "The Washington Post": http://home.online.no/~ov-egela/careless.html

There is an air of condescension and dismissal that pervades the text

.


Funny you should mention that '99 piece... I had stumbled upon it last week and realized that the writer, one Jonathan Yardley, appears to be (to this day) the Washington Post Book Review's lead writer, if not editor. (I knew his name looks familiar). Being one of the top American book review sections in U.S. journalism, I was disappointed to see this review, as it was exhibit A of the type of elitism and ignorance shown to the work of Elvis Presley. I had even considered dropping him a line on e-mail as his article was so Goldman-like, albeit in disguise as being fair-minded. (He points out that he spent a week listening to all Elvis' work...)You have summed it up very well, Cryogenic.

Cryogenic wrote:

it's also an inherent consequence of having no roadmap, which in itself is an inherent consequence of just wanting to keep people happy, and therefore, everything that happened -- good and bad -- happened because of his vision, not because he "sold out" or "gave up" on it. Does that excuse every last thing? No, of course not. But it seems that, in retrospect, a lot of what did transpire was inevitable, relative to Elvis' simple yet vast desires. I know you argue this line of thought a lot, LTB, and I suppose I adopt it myself when someone else comes across as a major naysayer. This author might have allowed room for interpretation, but I think his language cloaks a nastier core. It seems to go on a lot. Perhaps this bit should have tipped me off:

And I've shared LTB's emphasis that Elvis' overall body of work (by decade) need not be apologized for, etc. But overall, I'm impressed how you all have seized on what is so unsettling about Goldman's vendetta.

That copies of "Elvis" by Albert Goldman were for years the lone "representative" biography on Elvis in small town libraries across the USA is just pitiful. It's all the more reason to cheer what Peter Guralnick did in his two volumes with such majesty, a true restoration. When you read Guralnick writing about often obscure blues, country, rockabilly and soul artists over the years, and presumably in his Sam Cooke biography, he, like Dave Marsh, conveys a sense of joy through the music they make, along with a true democratic respect and even love for his subjects, without being suffocating or condescending. To this day, he is an under-heralded American writer, probably because he so much champions those who are somehow suspect, middle-brow, or "low" culture.

I found myself watching nearly all of a 90-minute documentary on the life and times of the late American composer / conductor Leonard Bernstein on PBS last night. Aside from a passing narrator comment that he was the "greatest musical influence of the 20th century" ( I doubt the math behind that ), I was struck that he, too, took critical slings and arrows for his enthusiastic movements on stage, notably, until the end of his career, by the N.Y. Times. The cultural elite also did not appreciate his populist approach to classical music (his Broadway and film work alone), from an classical orchestra perspective, never mind his televised instruction / concerts for children. They also show numerous photos and footage of Bernstein traveling the world, enjoying ethnic music of all stripes, like a true omnivore. Sound familiar?

Elitism runs deep at all levels, I suppose, ironically in the class-unconscious USA. Neither a poor boy from Tupelo, nor a son of Russian Jewish immigrants, were easily accepted by the elites that attend Columbia University or write for the NY Times. But time will be kind to both of them.

[Cryogenic]

Some very good posts here -- especially by LTB, Lester and Greg.

Greg, I should have included you in my remark about being in agreement with LTB about the nature of Elvis' career. Where I disagree with the two of you, or where I recently disagreed, at the least, was in terms of how Elvis' films, as bodies of art, stack up against other films. I don't see any of them as classics; LTB seems to see at least "King Creole" as a classic. And I clashed with you because you seemed to be talking almost exclusively about Elvis' magnetism and the simple entertainment that film after film of his brought, rather than the artistry inherent (or not inherent) in each. But rest assured, when it comes to EP's legacy, I will take the same line that you and many others do: that he is looked down upon and not considered with the proper context and respect he deserves. So, while I would never tell my friends that "King Creole", for example, is equal to something like "Saturday Night Fever" in my eyes (as I attempted to expound upon in the relevant thread), I would certainly tell them that it skirts greatness, and as one of Elvis' early pictures where he was trying to prove himself, is quite remarkable. It is sad that the mainstream doesn't want to know. And a large part of that is down to twisted troubadours and perverted poets like Albert Goldman.

[likethebike]

To be fair I think that argument may also have been on a subterranean level about the merits of SNF. I don't think it's as good for me as it is for you. My argument about KC was that it was a very good to excellent movie. Where it stacks up to other movies depends in large part how you rate those other movies. If someone thinks "The Sound of Music" is a bad movie and there are many people who do, it elevates the competition in comparison.

That difference in taste and aesthetic is a part of the reason that Elvis has trouble getting his due. I don't think it's a great leap to say that Elvis' biggest defenders like Marcus, Marsh etc. are people who are moved by his music. When a writer is steeped in a certain aesthetic like the psychedelic and progressive rock of the late 1960s and early 1970s, it's just that much harder to extend a hand to music steeped in a different tradition whether that's rap or blues and country. I'm not saying you can't do it but some people struggle with it and only build up a limited taste. For these people no matter how brilliantly Elvis sings something "There's Always Me" or "Can't Help Falling in Love" it's not good enough simply because they don't particularly care for that type of music. Again I know there are fans out there who can appreciate everything but not everyone can. The thing is that most critics and writers do not limit themselves to the fields they most enjoy. (I'm not saying they should but sometimes you have to take a grain of salt.)

I think this is why so much praise is heaped on artists like the Beatles for their artistic growth and Elvis' isn't even recognized. It's not that Elvis' growth into a classic ballad singer did not represent legitimate movement on his part. It's just that his particular growth was into a field not much appreciated by the majority of rock writers. The aspirations to a semi-classical sophistication in stuff like "Abbey Road" was more up their alley.

Also, I mean this less as a defense of Goldman than of people like Yardley and the Rolling Stone gang- people take their music very seriously. If they don't get an artist like Elvis and that artist receives far greater attention than one of their favorites you take it personally.

[drjohncarpenter]

I think this is why so much praise is heaped on artists like the Beatles for their artistic growth and Elvis' isn't even recognized.

Although true in years past, the tide seems to have turned since Ernst and Roger took over the BMG and FTD releases, and the celebration of Guralnick's two-volume biography.

It's not that Elvis' growth into a classic ballad singer did not represent legitimate movement on his part. It's just that his particular growth was into a field not much appreciated by the majority of rock writers. The aspirations to a semi-classical sophistication in stuff like "Abbey Road" was more up their alley.

No! The primary reason Elvis lost recognition is his complete fall-off as a valid artist in the mid-1960s. If Elvis had righted his ship after the "British Invasion" in 1964, his work would've received more credible feedback. It's almost as if when Elvis seemed to tell his fans "I don't give a sh*t" with his crap films and soundtracks -- and no tours or interviews -- the critics decided to treat his work with the same indifference.

Look at the 1969 "Rolling Stone" review of From Elvis In Memphis" or "Eye" Magazine's look at the 1968 TV Special -- after the shock of experiencing an Elvis Presley who cared about his art, the reviews became passionate and heartfelt. Elvis cared again and now, so did the reviewers.

[likethebike]

I disagree on this point. I remember reading an interview with Lennon where the writer and Lennon shifted out the good Elvis singles like "Hound Dog" from the dreck like "Are You Lonesome To-Night?". Those were the author's words. You can see it in the stuff written by Carr and Farren which basically dismisses nearly all of Elvis' truly great early '60s singles. Look at Hopkins' book and the way the early '60s singles are shrugged off. It's in a lot of the Elvis scholarship. Look at Christgau's dismissal of "Separate Ways" as a "gruesome" follow up to "Burning Love" this about one of the most tasetful, moving and perceptive ballads to ever hit Top 40. There's not a false note. Christgau would later reverse course and praise Elvis' skill as a balladeer but many writers still adhere to that pov. Even today the 20-30 minutes of good music argument pops up way too often.

I do agree that Elvis' mid-60s doldrums and his late '70s depression ridden sloppines did his image reputation no favors. It made people have to dig to find the stuff but even when people do the digging the achievement is not always recognized. Elvis' role in mid-wifing a form of country rock in 1967 and 1968 is almost never written about nor is Elvis' status as one of the premier blue eyed soul singers in the wake of "It Hurts Me", "Suspicious Minds" and "From Elvis in Memphis" acknowledged. All those dismissals of Elvis as a singles' artist (not that that should be a dismissal) never mention that he did work within the full album framework on not only his gospel albums but also "Elvis Country". I argue that that this is because neither gospel or country have ever been counted as hip tastes.

It is not uncommon for the writer to express an idea that he never grew. The writer here pushes the idea that he had no artistic identity which boggles my mind.

I feel this point very much. I think in general the early '50s rockers do not get their due precisely because they don't fit in with the misguided perception of musical founded in the late 1960s which places a premium on lyrics and sophisticated musical structure to the exclusion of almost anything else.

[Gregory Nolan Jr.]

Well said, LTB. In short, I agree completely.

There's an interesting new book about the post-war, non-rock pop music era called "Great Pretenders: My Strange Love Affair with '50s Pop Music" by Karen Schoemer.

t's basically a nostalgic look back from Ms. Schoemer, a woman born in '66 who had what she calls an "Elvis mom" who was among those screaming for the young King in '56, but who also soaked up the likes of Dean Martin, Frankie Laine, etc.

If I follow her, her gentle theme is that the Rolling Stone school of how to remember pop music since the '50s exaggerates the decline of non-rock pop music and over-invests rock with a catalyclismic reputation. Thumbing through the index, she points out Elvis' own affinity for the light pop as early as his "raw" Sun sides and criticizes Robert Palmer's '90s book/video on the history of rock and roll for dismissing the non-rock pop music world's impact....

Interesting article, Cryo. I'd not seen that before.

http://www.ulmus.net/ace/aceworks/presley.cfm

As Mr. Elms writes:

After I chaired a symposium on Elvis Presley at the 1981 convention of the American Psychological Association, a distinguished personality psychologist collared me in the hotel lobby to indulge in some friendly jeering. "So now you've decided that instead of studying the psychology of great men," he said, "you're going to study the psychology of common men!" Well, sure, Elvis was common. But when common men or women raise themselves to the level of genius, they are surely worth study, whether they become geniuses of mass culture or of high refinement. In looking at Elvis, we need to consider not only his obvious commonness, but the mystery of his genius. Albert Goldman has strained mightily to show just how common Elvis really was. The origins and functions of Elvis's genius have escaped him.

It's refreshing to hear Elvis' "genius" being mentioned. It needs to be said more often.

[likethebike]

Greg- If you really want to see the point proven look at the career assessments of Bobby Darin. For years and years, Darin was regarded as a lightweight, a sell out, poseur, etc. primarily because Darin, who had a talent for rock and roll, preferred pop music. It wasn't until the past decade or so when the media's view of the pop music spectrum has been more balanced has Darin taken his place as the last great male jazz influenced pop singer of the 20th century.

[Gregory Nolan Jr.]

Good point about Darin. Likewise, I thought I noticed more respect finaly given to Sinatra in last years as well as Tony Bennett presently. The day may come when Elvis' non-rock work, be it pop ballads or gospel or country excursions will be seen not as "betrayals" but part of his wide-ranging talent...

The baby boomer world that has so elevated rock can be found in the book I mentioned above, which I've found the title for and edited into the post. Here's more on it:

Great Pretenders: My Strange Love Affair with '50s Pop Music
by Karen Schoemer

Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments
************************
"February 1964: The Beatles step onto the tarmac at JFK International Airport and turn the country on its head. It's the advent of rock and roll's uninterrupted reign, youthful rebellion, and overt teenage sex.

It's also the deathblow for the pop music of another generation — the songs of Pat Boone and Georgia Gibbs — and all its perky, white-bread conformity.

Not two years later, Karen Schoemer is born, and comes of age with rock and roll. While her parents might enjoy the new music, the cultural upheaval passes them by, and they cling to the promises made by the music they loved as teenagers, the sweet, innocent 1950s pop of Patti Page, Frankie Laine, and the like. But having courted and wed against a backdrop of ideals peddled by this music — finding true love, living happily ever after — Schoemer's parents, like so many people, are crushed by disappointment when love doesn't deliver what the songs promised.

Fifties pop falls quickly off the charts; their marriage eventually falls apart. In Great Pretenders, a lively, provocative blend of memoir and music criticism, former Newsweek pop music critic Karen Schoemer tries to figure out what went so wrong, way back in the hazy past, for her parents' marriage and for the music of their youth. To find the answers, she embarks on a strange, lonely journey in search of some of the brightest stars of the 1950s.

Schoemer's search started when, twenty years after her parents' divorce, the new Connie Francis box set appeared on her desk at Newsweek. Now a successful rock critic dispensing post-punk opinions to the hipoisie, she was about to toss aside this relic when she was struck by the cover image of Francis, whichbore an uncanny resemblance to her own mother; on a whim, she played one of the CDs.

For all their cloying, simplistic sentimentality, songs like Where the Boys Are had an undeniable power — the sound of every teenage girl in every bedroom on every lonely Saturday going back a thousand years. It was the music of her parents' long-lost adolescence, and much to her surprise, it moved her.

Thus Schoemer, arbiter of Gen X cool, found herself falling into the saccharine thrall of 1950s pop music, that pariah of the rock establishment. Even as her colleagues tried to steer her away from the terminally uncool genre, she tracked down seven former pop idols of the late 1950s and early 1960s: Connie Francis, Fabian, Pat Boone, Patti Page, Tommy Sands, Georgia Gibbs, and Frankie Laine.

As she became privy to their inner lives and immersed herself in their music, Schoemer revised her own notions about the fifties at the same time that she explored her family's vexed dynamic. The result is a wonderful romp through an unappreciated chapter in music history and, more important, through her own past.

Full of humor, insight, and unflinching honesty, Great Pretenders bucks the received wisdom, explores the intersections of our private lives and pop culture, and broadens our understanding of a crucial moment in our history.... "
******************************

As I mentioned, Elvis figures into at least some parts of the book.

On a related note, today's Washington Post has this piece on the legality of defaming the dead in Goldman-eque fashion. It's a pity the author the article opens with that line below, as well as having an Aloha shot of Elvis in the print edition, but hopefully people will read on:

Give the Dead Their Due

By Jonathan Turley
Sunday, September 17, 2006; Page B01

Elvis Presley was a pedophile. Queen Victoria, a lesbian. Abraham Lincoln, a gay adulterer. Winston Churchill, a murderous conspirator.

These are all "facts" published in recent years about famous people, and in each case such claims would normally bring charges of libel per se -- a legal term signifying defamation so serious that damages are presumed. However, these statements also share one other important element: They were all published after the subjects had died. As a result, the publishers are protected by the longstanding rule that you cannot defame the dead (which, in practical terms, means you can). Once Elvis has left the living, you can say anything you want about him. No matter how malicious, untrue or vile.

Indeed, while most people are raised not to speak ill of the dead, the law fully supports those who do. Under the common-law rules governing defamation, a reputation is as perishable as the person who earned it. It is a rule first expressed in the Latin doctrine actio personalis moritur cum persona ("a personal right of action dies with the person"). . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/15/AR2006091500999.html