Lonely Rivers Flow To The Sea

In the early hours of August 16, 1977, after a midnight game of racquetball, Elvis Presley sat at his piano at the court behind his Graceland home and gave his final performance.

He played Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain and Unchained Melody before going back into the house, presumably to go to bed. He was found a couple of hours later, collapsed in his bathroom. The official coroner's report lists heart failure as the cause of death.

Elvis had been relaxing for a few weeks at Graceland after completing his latest tour. The last concert performance was given in Indianapolis' Market Square Arena on June 26. His next tour was scheduled to begin on August 17 in Portland, Maine.

Today Graceland is the second only to the White House as most-visited home in the U.S. Elvis could have lived anywhere, had multiple homes or could have died in a hotel room while on tour. Instead, Elvis chose to stay close to his southern roots and in his home, Graceland, and the affinity that fans now find there could have been lost.

This is the last officially published live recording of Unchained Melody during Elvis' lifetime, performed on April 24, 1977 at the Ann Arbor, Michigan Crisler Arena. Elvis wore the "King of Spades Suit" for the audience of 12,000. When the track was released in July, 1977, on his last album, "Moody Blue," RCA overdubbed the percussion, bass, and organ. Elvis had originally performed it solo, playing the piano as he sang.

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It's Cruel Somehow, It Just Don't Seem Right

Born February 1, 1968, to Elvis and Priscilla, Lisa Marie Presley is the sole heir to the King's estate.

Lisa performed a "duet" of Don't Cry Daddy with her father on August 16, 1997, at a tribute concert marking the 20th anniversary of Elvis' death.

"Elvis in Concert '97" broke an all-time box office gross records at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis.

How could there be Elvis concerts and duets with his daughter if Elvis died at his home in Memphis, August 16, 1977?

"Elvis-The Concert," which has followed the 1997 performance concept, features original members of Elvis' "Takin' Care of Business" band, The Sweet Inspirations, The Imperials, The Stamps and the Joe Guercio Orchestra playing live music to Elvis' vocals and video projections extracted from concert recordings.

The video footage is projected on giant video screens, much in the way that modern concerts use video screens to bring the star closer to the audience.

The effect is that you feel like you are actually in attendance at a live Elvis performance. (I went and it was pretty good. At modern-day colliseum concerts, you're lucky if you can see the stage, let alone the band members, so you have to rely on the screen anyways, so this isn't much different.)

"Elvis-The Concert" received an official Guinness World Record™ as "the first live tour starring a performer who is no longer living."

Lisa Marie has two children, Danielle and Benjamin, by her first husband of 6 years, Danny Keough. The couple divorced in 1994.

Later that year Lisa married the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. They divorced in 1996.

Nicolas Cage, who won an Academy Award for donning a jumpsuit with the Flying Elvises in "Leaving Las Vegas", is Lisa Marie's newest hubby. They were wed in Hawaii on August 12.

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We're Caught In A Trap

Released in 1969, Suspicious Minds was the last single to reach #1 during Elvis' lifetime.

The 1973 live concert album "Elvis - Aloha from Hawaii" was Elvis' last album to top the U.S. charts.

The "Aloha" concert made television and entertainment history as the first live satellite broadcast. It attracted 37.8% of the viewers in Japan, 91.8% in the Philippines, 70% in Hong Kong, 70-80% in Korea and upwards of 51% in America, which is more than viewed man’s first walk on the moon. In total, it is seen in about 40 countries by an estimated 1 to 1.5 billion people.

Elvis commissioned a special American Eagle jumpsuit for the performance to show his patriotism to the world. The sequined suit is probably his best known, and including cape, weighed over 50 pounds.

Throughout his life Elvis remembered his humble beginnings and donated greatly to charities and individuals. Performance and merchandise sales from the "Aloha" concert raised $75,000 for the Kui Lee Cancer Fund in Hawaii.

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Who Was That Masked Man?

Based on circumstances surrounding the death of Elvis Presley, Gail Brewer-Giorgio wrote a novel about a musical superstar, Orion, who faked his own death to find much-needed peace and privacy. Two years later she would receive a phone call from someone who sounded like the King and claimed to be Orion.

Elvis impersonators are anything but new and they take all forms. "El Vez," the Mexican Elvis, "Schmelvis," the Jewish Elvis, midget Elvises and "The Flying Elvises," who had a role in the Nicolas Cage film "Leaving Las Vegas." Interestingly, Cage and Lisa Marie Presley were recently married. However, I'm not sure if the ceremony was performed by Elvis.

Orion, aka Jimmy Ellis, however, was no ordinary impersonator. There is a much broader story surrounding "The Man Who Would Be King."

Ellis' first big break was when Sun Records, Elvis' original label and then owned by Shelby Singleton, released That's Alright Mama and Blue Moon of Kentucky with no name on it. The assumption was that it was Elvis singing and that Singleton had found some long lost recordings in the Sun vault.

A single with Ellis, listed only as "Friend," overdubbed with Jerry Lee Lewis on Save the Last Dance for Me made it into the Top 20. In trying to settle the controversy over the identity of "Friend", Good Morning America had the voice "scientifically scanned and analyzed." The returned verdict; Elvis Presley.

Wearing trademark latter-day Elvis sequined jumpsuits and sporting a pompadour and long sideburns, Orion also performed wearing a mask.

During some concerts it was reported that after a couple of songs, Orion would leave the stage and be replaced by a different Orion. Near the end of the show, Orion #2 would leave the stage and be replaced by the first one. The speculation was that the second Orion was actually Elvis, who, after lifetime of performing, couldn't give up entertaining cold turkey (of course, presuming that Elvis' death was faked).

Eventually, Ellis would take off the mask and swear to never wear it again. He never escaped the uncanny similarities and even released the single I'm Trying Not to Sound Like Elvis, which followed the claim that it was his natural singing and speaking voice.

Jimmy "Orion" Ellis, "The Man With The Voice Of The King," was killed in 1998 by an armed robber at his pawn shop. He was 53.

The story doesn't end there.

If Orion could release an album called "Some Say He Might Be King Elvis," then it was bound to be that "Some Say He Faked His Death Too" in an attempt to escape the suffocating connection to Elvis similarly to how Elvis is purported to have faked death to escape the imprisonment of stardom.

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You _Can_ Teach An Old Hounddog New Tricks

Almost 25 years after his death, Elvis Presley has once again topped the charts with a remix of A Little Less Conversation.

By topping the British charts, the King now has a total of 18 number one songs in the U.K. and breaks a long-standing tie with The Beatles for most number one songs.

The remix was also used in a Nike commercial for the 2002 Soccer World Cup and reached number one in the U.S. charts.

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