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

Sunday, January 18, 2015

THANK YOU Google (by Jeff Schrembs 2015 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED)

I just wanted to say THANK YOU to the employees, and owners, of Google for allowing my blogs and websites to be available to people around the world.

Please keep up the good work.

Jeff Schrembs
www.ElvisCollector.info

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

www.ElvisCollectorWorldwide.freeforums.org update October 2014



To find a place, free of ads/pop-ups/annoying sounds/etc., on the internet to (truly) be able to share your passion - knowledge - experience - etc. about Elvis Presley is almost impossible.

However, at www.ElvisCollectorWorldwide.freeforums.org (please bookmark it to avoid nerve damage) we believe we have built a forum (about Elvis Presley) to be proud of.

By the way it is 100% free. 

Monday, December 30, 2013

The lineage of Elvis Presley

Elvis's great-great-great-grandmother, Morning White Dove (1800-1835), was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian. She married William Mansell, a settler in western Tennessee, in 1818. William's father, Richard Mansell, had been a soldier in the Revolutionary War. Mansell is a French name--its literal translation is the man from Le Mans.

The Mansell's migrated from Norman France to Scotland, and then later to Ireland. In the 18th century the family came to the American Colonies. The appellation "white" in Morning Dove's name refers to her status as a friendly Indian. Early American settlers called peaceable Indians "white," while "red" was the designation for warring Indians or those who sided with the British in the Revolutionary War. It was common for male settlers in the West to marry "white" Indians as there was a scarcity of females on the American frontier.

Like many young men in the American Southwest, William Mansell fought with Andrew Jackson in the Indian Wars of the early nineteenth century. He fought with Old Hickory in Alabama, at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, and later in Florida too. Returning to Tennessee from the Indian Wars, William Mansell married Morning White Dove. Elaine Dundy says of the marriage, he (William Mansell) gained "age-old Indian knowledge of the American terrain; of forests and parries; of crops and game; of protection against the climate; of medicine lore, healing plants as well as something in which the Indians were expert--the setting of broken bones." Moreover, added to Elvis's lineage were Morning White Dove's ruddy Indian complexion and fine line of cheek.

Like many other settlers, the newlyweds migrated to Alabama from Tennessee to claim lands garnered in the Indian Wars. The Mansell's settled in Marion County in northeast Alabama near the Mississippi border. The Scots-Irish, like William Mansell, were the predominant settlers of Alabama. One-tenth of the population in colonial America was Scots-Irish at the time of the American Revolution.

And a very interesting group they were. The Anglican Reverend Woodmason had this to say about the Scots-Irish women of William Mansell's day. "They wore nothing but thin shifts and a thin petticoat underneath. They are sensual and promiscuous. They draw their shift as tight as possible to the body, and pin it close, to show the roundness of their breasts, and slender waists (for they are generally fined shaped) and draw their petticoat close to their hips to show the fineness of their limbs--so that they might as well be in puri naturalibus."

The Scots-Irish in America were a passionate community living close to the earth. They disdained the niceties of their British neighbors. Of this Reverend Woodmason had to say," they delight in their present low, lazy, sluttish, heathenish, hellish life, and seem not desirous of changing it. These people despise knowledge, and instead of honoring a learned person...they despise and ill-treat them..."

There were other views on the passionate lifestyle of the Scots-Irish, however. James Hall of Philadelphia described a young, Scots-Irish frontiersman in this way. "He strode among us with the step of Achilles...I thought I could see in that man, one of the progenitors of an unconquerable race; his face presented the traces of a spirit quick to resent--he had the will to dare, and the power to execute, there was something in his look which bespoke a disdain of control, and an absence of constraint in all his movements indicating an habitual independence of thought and action."

Think of Elvis in these words: the will to dare and the power to execute, a disdain of control in all his movements indicating a habitual independence of thought and action. This is the Scots-Irish heritage from which Elvis Presley issued. In his genes he carried an independence of blood, the will to dare and the power to execute. Many influences formed Elvis Presley besides the genealogical, yet this description has a haunting accuracy. Morning White Dove and William Mansell prospered in Alabama.

Their land was fertile and they built a substantial house near the town of Hamilton. They had three offspring, the eldest of who was John Mansell, born in 1828, and Elvis's great-great grandfather. Elaine Dundy has this to say of John Mansell. He was "half Scots-Irish, half Indian, (but) seems to have grown up wholly "wild Injun." Although by the time he was twenty-two he had married Elizabeth "Betsy" Gilmore and they would have some nine or ten children together, "settling down" can hardly be the phrase for what he was devoting his life to. John was one of those sexually overactive men who seem intent on populating the universe with children. Both his legitimate and illegitimate descendants still abound in northwest Alabama and in
northeast Mississippi."

John Mansell squandered the legacy of the family farm. In 1880 he abdicated to Oxford, Mississippi, changing his name to Colonel Lee Mansell. His sons left Hamilton to seek their fortunes in the town of Saltillo, Mississippi, near Tupelo, the birth place of Elvis Presley. The third of John Mansell's sons, White Mansell, became the patriarch of the family with John Mansell's removal to Oxford. White Mansell was Elvis's great-grandfather. White Mansell married Martha Tackett, a neighbor in Saltillo.

Of note is the religion, Jewish, of Martha's mother, Nancy Tackett. It was unusual to find a Jewish settler in Mississippi during this time. All accounts point to White Mansell as a hard-working, upright, provider for a clan increasingly besieged by economic factors beyond their control. The Civil War fractured the Southern economy and soul. Cotton, the backbone of the South, was subject to financial depressions such as the Panic of 1890. Additionally, the deep South suffered numerous outbreaks of yellow fever during the mid-nineteenth century. Add to this the extraordinary number of fatalities suffered in not only the Civil War but also the Mexican War, and the devastation of Southern culture in the nineteenth century was complete. Like many other Southern families, the Mansells were stretched to the breaking point. They sold their lands and became sharecroppers. The prosperity of the South, along with the fortunes of the family, had plummet.

However the life of a sharecropper was not unremittingly grim. They had music and dancing and the comfort of religion. Tenant farmers, sharecroppers, were often invited to the owner's house on Saturday nights for square dancing and parties. Sundays there were picnics on the ground after church. Although there was little hope of escaping poverty, it was a life of community with some gayety. Enter now Doll Mansell, Gladys Presley's mother and Elvis's grandmother, of whom Elaine Dundy had this to say. "And the gayest of all the girls at these gatherings, the acknowledged beauty, was the slim, exquisite, tubercular, porcelainfeatured, spoiled third daughter of White Mansell...Doll." She was a delicate beauty and the apple of her father's eye. She did not marry until twenty-seven, and then to her first cousin, Robert Smith.

Bob Smith was the son of White Mansell's sister, Ann. Ann Mansell was a striking woman of dignity and stature, a commanding presence until her death at eighty-six. Bob Smith and Doll Mansell, Elvis Presley's maternal grandparents, were first cousins. This was a genetic intensification, a doubling, of the family lineage. The marrying of first cousins, with its intensities and possibility for dysfunction, was common in insulated communities of the agrarian South. Like Doll, Bob Smith was very handsome, his Indian blood evidenced in a noble brow, good bone structure, even features and dark, deep-set eyes. His black hair was dark as coal.

Doll would be bedridden from tuberculosis throughout the marriage. Like his uncle and father-in-law, White Mansell, Bob Smith labored long and hard as a sharecropper, and occasional moonshiner, to support his invalid wife and eight children. The noose of poverty tightened on the family, and on Elvis's mother, Gladys.

Elaine Dundy: "Genetically speaking, what produced Elvis is quite a mixture. At the beginning, to French Norman blood was added Scots-Irish blood. And when you then add to these the Indian strain supplying the mystery and the Jewish strain supplying spectacular showmanship, and you overlay all this with his circumstances, social conditioning, and religious upbringing--specifically his Southern poor white, First Assembly of God upbringing--you have the enigma that was Elvis."

Less is known of Elvis's paternal heritage through his father, Vernon. The first Pressley in America was an Anglo-Irishman, David Pressley, who settled with his son, Andrew Pressley, Senior, at New Bern, North Carolina in 1740. Not until the third generation is there significant historical record of the Pressleys, beginning with Andrew Pressley, Junior.

Andrew fought in the last major battle of the Revolutionary War in the South, the Battle of Eutah Springs, South Carolina, 1781. The history of the Presleys picks up again with Dunnan Pressley, Junior, in the middle of the 19th century. Dunnan married Martha Jane Wesson at Fulton,
Mississippi, the seat of Itawamba County, in 1861. Like many others, Dunnan was probably drawn to the region by cheap land offered to veterans of the Mexican War. In those days richly timbered acreage went for twenty-five cents an acre. Dunnan and Jane had two daughters, Rosalinda and Rosella, Elvis's great-grandmother.

The Civil War broke out and Dunnan joined the Confederate Army--twice! On each enlistment he collected a three hundred dollar bounty for his horse, and each time he quickly deserted his regimen. Having twice deserted honor and duty with the Confederacy, Dunnan next abandoned his wife and two daughters. Mrs. Robie Stacy, his granddaughter, had this to about it. "My mother told me that when she and her sister were just little babies, their grandparents had taken them to church one Sunday and when they came back, their father, Dunnan, was gone. He went back to his other wife and child." Apparently bigamy can be added to Dunnan's character defects.

Dunnan Presley's daughter, Rosella, internalized the abandonment and re-enacted it throughout her life. Beginning at age nineteen and continuing over 28 years, Rosella bore nine illegitimate children, never once identifying her lovers or making any claim on them. The children never knew of their fathers as Rosella stubbornly, and resourcefully, supported them through sharecropping. Mrs. Doshia Steele, one of Rosella's daughters, said this of her plight. "I can't remember anyone ever talking about who our father was...It was a big mystery when we were children. My mother just didn't talk about it."

Elvis's paternal line continued through Rosella's son, Jessie Dee Presley (1896-1973), Elvis's grandfather. As would be expected, J.D. Presley re-enacted his father abandonment by making weak bonds with his own children. His brother, Calhoun Presley, had this to say about J.D. "For most of his life Jessie drifted from one job to another all over Mississippi, Kentucky, and Missouri. He was a sharecropper in the summer and a lumberjack in the winter.

Jessie worked hard and played hard. He was an honest man, but he enjoyed drinking whiskey and was often involved in drunken bar brawls. As a result, Jessie spent many a night sobering up in jail. He was a slim, handsome man about six feet tall with black hair. I reckon Elvis inherited his looks from Jessie. He was also a dapper dresser. Clothes were one the most important things in his life. We used to call him "the lawyer" because he dressed so smart. He loved fine clothes. His favorite suit was a tailor-made brown one with pearl buttons.

He saved up for months until he had enough money to buy it--twenty-four dollars. He paraded around town like a peacock, with his head in the air and a cane in his hand. Owning expensive clothes was his only ambition in life. He hated poverty and he didn't want people to know he was poor. He felt that if he wore a tailor-made suit, people would look up to him." In 1913 J.D. married Minnie Mae Hood, "Grandma Dodger," who was to live with Elvis throughout his adult life. In 1916 their first child was born, Vernon Presley, Elvis Presley's father.

It was toward Vernon that much of Jessie's abandoning was directed. Vernon was scared of J.D., any transgression of his father's rules could provoke a beating. This, combined with Jessie's drunken and philandering ways, caused permanent harm to their relationship. In many respects it was as if Vernon had no father as Jessie repeated his own father abandonment on his children. This theme of father abandonment reverberates throughout Elvis's paternal lineage. It is a strong clue to the abandonment that Elvis felt, and perpetrated, in his own life.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Interesting article about Colonel Parker


Elvis thought he owed it all to Colonel Tom Parker. Others aren't so sure.

Andreas 'Dries' Cornelis Van Kuijk was born on 26 June 1909 in Breda, Holland. He was the fifth of nine children. His father, Adam, was a liveryman who met his mother, Maria, while he was in the army. When Andreas was 16 years old, his father died, and he moved to Rotterdam. He worked as a bargeman but was entranced by the ocean-going ships in the port. It wasn't too long before he was on board a ship to New Jersey. It was thought he stowed himself away.

He was then enlisted with the US Army - they didn’t really care about papers back then - and was stationed in Hawaii. When he finally wrote home, it was in English and it was signed ' Thomas Parker'. The name was given to him by the Captain who interviewed him at the time of his enlistment.

Years later Elvis's friend Lamar Fike asked parker ' how come you never told us you were a Dutchman?' Parker looked at him and said ' Son, you never asked me'.

Parker spent several years with a touring carnival called The Johnny J. James Exposition. His special act was dancing chickens, which he achieved by hiding a hot plate under the straw of the cage! After marrying Marie Mott in 1935, Parker left the carnival to work for the Tampa Humane Society (I bet he never told them about the dancing chickens!) he then moved to Nashville and became the manager to country singer Eddie Arnold.

Parker was given an honorary commission, from an old friend called Jimmy Davis. He became Louisiana Governor and then Parker was known as the Colonel from that day onwards. Funnily enough, in March 1961, Governor Buford Ellington of Tennessee made Elvis an honorary Colonel. Elvis didn’t deem it necessary to use his title.

In 1953, Eddie Arnold fired Parker for unknown reasons. Parker then hooked up with Hank Snow and created Jamboree Attractions, which became the biggest booking agencies in the South. Yet that partnership broke up bitterly when Parker, without Snow, signed a new young talent. His name was Elvis Presley.

Parker first met Elvis in February 1955, in a Memphis Coffee Shop. Parker’s first words to Elvis were ' you got a manager, son?’ He signed Elvis onto the Jamboree Attractions and was ready to pounce on him. Elvis was still under-age in 1955, so Parker knew the contract had to be signed by his parents. Vernon was a push over but Gladys didn’t trust Parker. So to get her into his good books, backstage at one of her son's shows, she met a close friend of Parker's who told her ' Parker is a good Christian gentleman'.

Then Elvis's parents signed the contract on 15 August 1955.

Soon Parker set up a deal with RCA Records Company and Hill and Range, his own music publishers. Steve Scholes, RCA's Director of Country music, put his neck on the line by offering $23,000. Hill and Range offered a further $15,000. So with $40,000 offer in place, Parker paid Sam Phillips an agreed $35, 00 and give Elvis $5,000. Elvis signed with RCA on November 21 1955. The next day he sent a telegram to Parker in which he promised to stick with him through thick and thin, and he also loved him like a father.

On January 8, 1956, Elvis turned 21 years old and was given a new contract - To sign as an adult. It ratified all previous contracts and gave the Colonel 25% of all Elvis's earnings. Once Parker became his full time manager, he never wanted anyone else. He told the press ' I'll live and breathe Elvis 24 hours a day'.

Parker showed his nerve when he demanded $100,000 for Elvis to star in Love Me Tender. When the Producer said even Jack Lemmon didn't get that kind of money. Parker looked into his eyes and said ' Maybe Lemmon needs a new manager!’

Parker was also scared once Elvis hit Hollywood, he would see what Parker was really going. So Parker started to isolate Elvis from the outside world. That's how the Memphis Mafia started. One day songwriter Mike Stroller knocked on Elvis's hotel room door, Elvis greeted him nervously and said the Colonel wouldn’t like me doing one to one meetings.

When Elvis joined the Army, Parker told him ' Son, I consider it my patriotic duty to keep you in the 90% tax bracket'.

Parker's view was ' if you want to see Elvis Presley, you buy a ticket!’ Elvis was not allowed to give private shows, in the army or anywhere else. Also Elvis never did encores, he always left them begging for more.

During the filming of Blue Hawaii, Parker ran shouting and yelling into the middle of a scene, pointing at Elvis's watch and demanded ' if you want the watch in, you'll have to pay another 10 grand!’ No wonder Elvis began to hate making films. In public, Hal Wallis admired Parker, as a super salesman - Yet in private, he said ' I'd rather try and close a deal with the devil'. Parker really couldn’t care less about Presley's acting talent. He wanted a simple film, with cute girls and an album worth of songs. Also Parker wanted a lot of money for these films, after all he was making a fortune.

When a TV executive came to Parker offering $50,000 for a single prime time appearance by Elvis, Parker responded ' That'll be be just fine for me, but how much will you give Elvis?'

The extent of Parker's role in Elvis's wedding is disputed, some say he told Elvis to get married for publicity purposes, but it was a rushed affair with a brief guests list, which caused a huge ructions among Elvis's entourage. Parker also refused to let the happy couple have the honeymoon in Europe they wanted, he said it would upset the fans around the world. Why Elvis didn't insist on the wedding he and Priscilla really wanted is enduring mystery.

Parker was a competent hypnotist. He liked to get staff members to act like chickens and once had the Memphis Mafia barking like dogs. However, theories that Parker kept Elvis hypnotized for 20 years should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Elvis stood up to the Colonel on a handful of occasions. One was the 1968 TV Special, which Parker wanted a dull Christmassy show, thank god Elvis did it his way. It give him one of his finest, rawest performances. Then the second time happened when Parker didn’t want Elvis to record a particular song due to recording right. That song was ' Suspicious Minds'.

In 1969, Elvis went back on the road and played the International Hotel in Las Vegas. Alex Shoofy, the hotel's general manager, came to see Parker in the hotel dining room and offered a 5 year contract in which Elvis would play the hotel in February and August each year and earn $125,000 a week. Parker scribbled some terms on a red tablecloth, but he ignored inflation and tied Elvis long term. Alex Shoofy signed his agreement on the tablecloth and promptly told the press it ' was the best deal ever made in this town'. Not, perhaps, for Elvis.

Parker had a long term gambling habit and it got a lot worse in Vegas. He moved into the hotel in a fancy suite and lost million a year on the tables!

In the 70's, Elvis's income came from touring. In February 1972, he signed away one third of his tour profit to Parker.

In 1973, after a heated row, Elvis fired Parker, but he wouldn’t leave - without his million he was still waiting for. Elvis threw a fit and went on a huge drug fuelled week that culminated in a teenage girl almost overdose. Who does Elvis call to sort out the mess and keep the press away?? Parker.

Parker turned down endless offers for Elvis to tour the world. The reason was Parker was an illegal immigrant without a passport.

In 1973, RCA bought the masters - and royalty rights - of all Elvis's previous recordings for $5.4million. Jack Soden of EPE describes the deal as being right up there with the Indians selling Manhattan for 24 dollars. Seven years later, a lawyer for the Presley Estate Blacnchard Tual, concluded that Colonel Parker and RCA were probably guilty of collusion, conspiracy, fraud and misrepresentation.

In 1974, Parker set up Boxcar Enterprises to handle the merchandising business. Parker was on 40% on the income while Elvis only got 15%!

When Joe Esposito phoned Parker to tell him Elvis had died, Parkers first words were ' Oh dear god! Then after a long pause ' nothing has changed! This won’t change anything!' Within a day of Elvis's death, Parker got Vernon Presley (the executor to Elvis's will) to agree to keep al l the deals made with Elvis as they were. He also signed a deal with the merchandising company, Factors Inc. that meant Parker would take 78% of the proceeds of the forthcoming souvenir boom! At Elvis's funeral, Parker wore a Hawaiian shirt and a baseball cap. At the cemetery he wondered away from the graveside and say by himself on a police motorbike. After Vernon's death in 1979, the courts got involved and after a long battle, a deal was struck whereby Parker was cut from all connections with the Presley Estate for a hefty sum.

Colonel Tom Parker (aka Andreas 'Dries' Cornelis Van Kuijk) died in January 1997.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

Getting to, or do you already, know about Elvis Presley?


Elvis.


His name "triggers" a flood of emotions, memories, thoughts, that is...never-ending.
 

Elvis was the GREATEST Entertainer who ever lived...period. Elvis was the GREATEST Singer. Elvis was the most successful Hollywood Movie Star...ever (every one of Elvis' movies made money and no other "actor/actress" can make the same claim).
 

Elvis was the GREATEST Gospel Performer...ever. When Elvis was on TV (i.e. Milton Berle, Ed Sullivan, Comeback Special, Aloha from Hawaii, etc.) he was the RATINGS KING! Elvis was the CONCERT SELL OUT KING of all time from 1969 through 1977. NO ONE will ever touch Elvis' Concert attendance records...ever!


Elvis had style, swagger, desire to reach out of his "monetary challenged" existence and use the ONE "tool" that he could count on for success...himself. Elvis wanted to provide for his Mother and man he looked the part, acted the part, played the part, and just flat out BLEW everyone away onstage, and was just as "exciting" offstage.


Elvis was a loving son, husband, father, and a wonderful friend who gave of himself as he truly cared.


Elvis was gifted by God with a face, stance, physical presence, that was COMMANDING and there was NO ONE who looked like him before, then, after, now, as he was similar to a "Greek god statute" with the physical prowess of a Tiger.


If Elvis wanted it...he got it. He absorbed it. He turned it inside out and outside in. He read, he asked questions, he prayed, he kept a dialog with his Mother (after her passing) as well as to his twin brother (who died at birth) and he constantly questioned WHY did God allow him such success?

WOW not many people realize/know how HUMBLE a person Elvis was and it was NOT an act. Yeah, sure he could/would "yes mam" and be very respectful and some people (like you Geraldo Rivera give Elvis his PROPS!) thought it was an "act"...but it was as real as that perfectly defined nose and that jet black hair and those grey-blue-auburn colored eyes that Elvis had.

Elvis was the HIGHEST PAID ENTERTAINER for the majority of his life, excluding when he was mandated to complete the "movie contracts" that went from (approximately) 1961-1968, in a time when the HIGHEST income tax bracket was 90% (which is UNHEARD of today).

Elvis always took care, monetarily, of those within his "inner circle". Elvis would, and did, give away TENS OF THOUSANDS of dollars every year to Charities in Memphis. Elvis not only paid his "inner circle" but he took care of their expenses/food/etc. If you were "in" with Elvis...you were in.

Most of the Memphis Mafia, as Elvis' "inner circle" were called, were men. However, there was one SPECIAL lady named Patty Perry who was very much in Elvis' "inner circle".

 

There is no doubt that each of these individuals (truly) cared for Elvis. There is also no doubt that, beginning in late 1971, Elvis had some health issues that needed to be addressed.

 

Many of the "inner circle" tried to provide Elvis with "good advice/options", concerning his health issues, and sometimes the advice was given "face to face" and just before Elvis died it was released in a book entitled "Elvis what happened?”

 

There is NO DOUBT that Elvis' health declined, with a few good months here and there, beginning in late 1971 but really began to deteriorate in 1976 and went FULL FORCE deterioration in 1977. No one can put themselves in his "shoes" as that man (literally) felt like he had the World to carry. He had to make money so he had to perform. He could not eat right, sleep well, go to the bathroom well/often, he had stomach issues, reactions, digestive problems, and (among other things) an enlarged heart.

 

Elvis continued on performing NOT because he necessarily wanted to (note: in fairness Elvis loved to perform but we are talking about 200 shows a year for a man over the age of 40) but he HAD to

I am NOT a "doctor" but based up all of the "insiders" books, articles, interviews, products that I have read for OVER 40 years now (and continue to read vicariously daily) I believe that Elvis was predisposed for Depression and/or "great highs" and/or "great lows".

 

Elvis was allergic to Penicillin and on one occasion he was accidently given Penicillin and had a reaction and almost died. During his time Penicillin was the NUMBER 1 drug to fight infections for most of America...except Elvis and others who had the bad reactions. Elvis had a MAJOR sleeping disorder and had to take medication to even TRY to get some sleep. Elvis' natural body was ALWAYS moving and ready to go. Elvis stayed up until the sun came up and went to bed and slept until late afternoon - sometimes Elvis would sleep for days and stay in his bedroom.

 

 

One FACT stayed with Elvis ever since he was a little boy and that was that he would not outlive his Mother's age. Elvis often talked about that during his lifetime and several times PRIOR to his Mothers passing.

 

Elvis TRULY BELIEVED, in his heart and soul, that it was inevitable. When Elvis' Mother died Elvis believed that she was 42 years old. Factually she was 46 years old and she had kept her true age from Elvis all of his life. Therefore Elvis, going into 1977, knew that the first month of 1977 (January) he would in fact turn 42 (1/8/77). We can only imagine how that REALITY played in Elvis' head and in his attitude and in his decisions.

 

Elvis was a COLLECTOR of fine/unique items: clothes, cars, jewelry, shoes, horses, furniture, buses, motorcycles, 3wheelers, etc. Elvis also owned the FIRST "cell phone" (we have a photo of it and it is encased into a wooden box but it worked). Elvis also owned the FIRST VHS player (we have a photo of it as well that we took in 1977) here in the United States. If it was "cool", cutting edge, etc. then Elvis would get it.

 

Elvis had a PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY. Elvis also had a great ability to put his thoughts down on paper including designing things. Elvis was a "multi-faceted" man who was multi-talented and a giving caring human being.

 

Elvis was the MOST PHOTOGRAPHED person who ever lived. Elvis was also the MOST PRODUCT FRIENDLY Entertainer of his time meaning that you could get an Elvis doll, lunchbox, shirt, hat, coat, shoes, etc. Thus there are MANY MANY Elvis Collectibles (we define as Elvis items made AFTER his death of August 16, 1977) and Elvis Memorabilia (we define as Elvis items made during his lifetime of January 8, 1935 until August 16, 1977).
 
Well, that's the end of this article but, God willing, I will share some more stories/facts with you online and during the interim "take care and may God bless you".
 
Jeff Schrembs

 

Saturday, June 8, 2013

The basics of collecting Elvis Presley


Elvis Presley was the greatest entertainer who ever lived. Elvis’ music has been purchased by the millions since 1955 through 1977. Elvis appeared in 32 movies, all of which made money, and no other actor has achieved that (i.e. every movie they acted in made money as even good movies lose money).

 

Elvis’ TV appearances beginning in the 1950’s, two in the 1960’s (i.e. Elvis Welcome Back with Frank Sinatra) and the 1968 Comeback Special, and one in the 1970’s “Aloha From Hawaii” not only made history but a greater percentage of people watched the programs during the time that Elvis was on then had ever done so before.

 

Basically Elvis had “higher percentage, or higher share, of the viewing market than any other performer when Elvis appeared on TV. The 1973 “Aloha from Hawaii Special” was the first live concert to be seen AROUND THE WORLD via Satellite. That Concert alone was watched by OVER 1 Billion people. From 1969 through 1977 Elvis averaged 105 shows per year and never played to an “empty seat” as all of his concerts were SOLD OUT (another accomplishment that no other entertainer has come close to reaching).

 

Needless to say, there remains a demand for “anything/everything” related to Elvis Presley and in this segment we will talk about what to look for concerning Elvis Presley Autographs from the 1950’s through the 1970’s.

 

Here are some basic RULES TO GO BY:

There are countless Elvis Presley items available for anyone’s budget but many times a person makes a “knee jerk reaction”, and pays way too much for something they didn’t really want but because of circumstances got themselves into this situation. Using these “tried and true rules will save you a lot of time, a lot of “drama free enjoyment, and “a lot of fun”.

 

RULE # 1)     Establish your monetary budget and stick to it every time.

Whenever “thinking about buying an Elvis Presley autograph” please know what your monetary means are (i.e. $15.00, $ 5,000.00, etc.) and what your “priority list” is. An example would be:

 

My budget for any one item is not to exceed: $ 85.00

My total budget, for every item purchased, is not to exceed $ 215.00

 

RULE # 2)     Establish a “priority of items (i.e. dates, places, etc.)

 

My priority list is”

A concert signed program from the late 1960’s

Any Las Vegas memorabilia signed from 1969 through 1973

Elvis’ signature from the movie Love Me Tender

Photo still from Jailhouse Rock signed by Elvis

 

** Worth noting is WHAT ARE YOU going to do with the item? Because it your intent is to keep it in your wallet/purse it would be a shame to buy an 8x10 because it would be too big to keep there and folding it may damage the item itself.


RULE # 3)     Get the history on the autograph, including the complete background, and the owners name and how they got the autograph. No question, concerning an Elvis Presley autograph, is a “dumb question” because you are just gathering information (which you should) so that you feel comfortable with your purchase.

Examples of the questions asked above could be responded to like this: history – my mother went to see Elvis in Memphis in 1974 and we went up to the stage and asked him for a signature.

Worth noting is that sometimes there are SUPPORTING PHOTOGRAPHS that show the item

 

Always beware of autographs signed with gold or silver paint "felt" pens as these pens did not go on sale until after Elvis' death. Whenever considering buying an Elvis autograph, please insist on the history and background of how the owner came by the autograph. When - Where - How? Always ask if Elvis signed the item in person. It is a well-known fact that during the 1970's many fans gave the members of the Memphis Mafia items to be signed at Elvis concerts or at the Graceland Gates.  These minders have since admitted that they could fake Elvis signature and signed most of the items themselves. The history holds true for fans that sent requests for autographs by mail to Graceland. Elvis' secretaries admit openly that they could forge Elvis signature and did on many occasions.

By Jeff Schrembs 2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED