Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 16, 1995 TAG: 9508160058
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LUCY LEE SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
When blues promoter Dick Waterman spoke to participants at the University of Mississippi's International Conference on Elvis Presley, he wanted to make sure he was addressing the right group. Referring to the previous week's 22-year-old annual Faulkner conference, he illustrated the difference between Faulkner and Elvis fans by displaying a book and a beer bottle:
"Faulkner fans," he side, "read `A Light in August,' and Elvis fans drink a 'Lite' in August."
The joke was a big hit, although it didn't apply to this particular audience.
The Elvis conference, held Aug. 6-11, included noted scholars, journalists, preachers and musicians. It also attracted veterans of Weep Week (the activities surrounding Elvis' Aug. 16, 1977 death) and those of us who simply grew up with the King's music and were nostalgic about those years.
It was a weird but congenial assemblage.
I found that out when I boarded the van at the Memphis airport for the hourlong trip to Oxford. I sat between a scholarly looking gentleman and a cigarette-smoking, chain-dangling guy dressed in combat boots and a black sleeveless overblouse and baggy pants ensemble. His wildly extravagant pompadour was excessive even by Elvis standards.
The first man was Bill Malone, professor of American history at Tulane University and a noted country music authority. The second was Ger Rijff, a Presley archivist, publisher and conference speaker from Amsterdam. He had brought along friends from Denmark whom he'd met at an Elvis concert in Las Vegas 20 years ago.
Ger and I formed an immediate bond as devotees of the Early Elvis. And I liked his explanation of why Elvis was the only one who could have possibly done "Hound Dog": "He was just SO Elvis!"
Neighbors on my hall on campus were Marilyn Maeda, a Japanese graduate student in American Studies, and her mother, Ayako, who teaches American literature at Ferris University in Yokohama. They are both longtime Elvis fans and Graceland visitors. When I heard that they spent $2,052 (each) just to get to Mississippi, I decided not to complain about the $350 conference fee plus room, board and transportation costs I had incurred.
My favorite co-attendee was Jack Estes, a popular-culture professor from Seattle. Dressed in shorts, an Elvis T-shirt and flip-flops, he sported an arm tattoo reading, "Uh-huh-huh." He got it, he explained, in honor of his sister's recent "Elvis wedding."
Instead of responding, "I do," the bride and groom answered each question with a resounding "Uh-huh-huh!"
But it was a serious gathering.
"Elvis is the single most important popular music figure of the 20th century,'' declared conference co-director Dr. William Ferris (also director of the Ole Miss Center for the Study of Southern Culture). ``Up to this point, there has been no concerted effort to take a scholarly look at the effect Elvis had on our culture."
Co-director Dr. Vernon Chadwick, assistant professor of English at Ole Miss and creator of the university's first college course on Elvis, holds degrees from Dartmouth College, Oxford University and Yale University.
"My serious academic interest in Elvis began when I returned to the South," he said. "It occurred to me that my study of the South could be furthered by looking creatively in my own cultural backward ... to adopt fresh perspectives on the country and region."
Chadwick believes Elvis' career is symbolic of ``the first 200 years of our country. He began in revolution and ended with uncertainty and drift, which in some way characterizes the late 20th century in America."
The conference focused on race, religion, art and performance, but race emerged as a dominant theme and the only one that generated controversy. A black panelist claimed many members of her race resent Elvis because they feel he "hung around Beale Street to learn what he could from black musicians, and then took it."
Others claimed he opened the door for black entertainers. Several conference speakers referred to Elvis' unique blend of country with rhythm and blues as "a bridge between the races."
Nathan Grant, who teaches African American Literature at the State University of New York in Buffalo, didn't buy the "bridge" analogy. He saw it as more of a ploy to make Elvis saleable to the academic community.
In speculating as to why he was one of only two blacks in the audience, Grant said, "There's some real antipathy between the races about what's going on here. I'm not sure blacks see Elvis as the king of rock 'n' roll."
John Shelton Reed, a widely recognized authority on Southern culture, and director of the Institute for Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, captured this tension with an Elvis quote: "The colored folk been singin' it and playin' it just the way I'm doing now, man, for more years than I know. Nobody paid it no mind 'til I goosed it up."
Reed explained, however, that Elvis came along at a time when things were getting ready to change in a big way. "He was in the right place at the right time for his talent to be recognized."
Bill Malone also sees Elvis as "an agent of change," but not just along racial lines: "Elvis and his music represented the emerging dominance of youth culture, the growing importance and sexual self-awareness of women, the attractiveness of black culture, the assertiveness of working class culture, and movement of the Southern version of that culture into the national mainstream."
Academics shared the podium with those who had never given a speech - disc jockeys and country singers from the '50s, to Elvis' first cousin, Gene Smith. The 82-year-old Rev. Gatemouth Moore, ``granddaddy of the blues,'' would easily walk off with first place at a storytelling contest. He identified himself, among other things, as "a sinner man that God have changed."
A highlight of the conference was a foot-stomping, hand-clapping, three-hour musical tribute to Elvis. Bill Ferris introduced the Earl White Gospel Revue by saying, "If you don't dig the gospel sound, you've got a hole in your soul."
A slew of sweaty Elvis impersonators followed. They included a junior political science major at Ole Miss, The Apprentice Elvis, Black Elvis, and El Vez, the Mexican Elvis.
Although the impersonators left most audience members "all shook up," Nozomu Yagyu, professor of American Studies in Tokyo, and his wife, Seiko, were not impressed. "Elvis had a spiritual power that draws people. He goes into their hearts," says Yagyu.
According to him, that's why many Japanese who don't know English well enough to understand the lyrics still love and are inspired by Elvis.
Conference attendees also received a major hunk of Southern hospitality. Co-director Chadwick's sister invited the whole group - about 100 registrants, dozens of press representatives and the numerous speakers - to her home for a "Blue Hawaii" party.
Gigantic, beflowered E-L-V-I-S letters floated in the pool, the band played Elvis tunes, and white linen-covered tables bore endless Southern dishes such as baked grits, fried chicken and pecan tarts.
The previous day's trip to Elvis' birthplace in Tupelo, Miss., also seemed like a trip back in time and place. The two busloads of visitors received a police escort into town. Ladies were offered several hands of assistance as they stepped off the bus. Each visitor was greeted by one of several city dignitaries and offered cold drinks.
The day included tours of the Elvis museum, the two-room house in which he was born, and various Elvis-associated sites. A downtown street had been roped off and tents erected for a barbecue dinner. A local DJ played Elvis tunes, dedicating "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You," to yours truly, who had requested her favorite.
Janelle McComb, chairperson of the Elvis Presley Memorial Foundation, brought new meaning to the word "sharing" with the show she coordinated that night at the Lyric Theater. Local residents told stories of their personal associations with the King.
Billy Booth sold Elvis his first guitar at the Tupelo hardware store. Corene Smith was a friend and neighbor. And Mary Jenkins Langston reminisced about her days as Elvis' cook. Although it took her five tries before he would eat the first fried peanut butter and banana sandwich she fixed, she swore, "You couldn't meet nobody no kinder, no sweeter, no nicer than Elvis."
Back in Oxford the next day, nationally known folk artist and minister Howard Finster delivered a "Sermon on Elvis." Finster identifies with Elvis (he pronounces the name ``Alvis'') because he, too, "was a man who does his own thing."
"God took a liking to Elvis," says Finster, "and had him marked out for something special."
That something special is why this year's conference was only a beginning. Future gatherings will explore the Elvis phenomenon by specific themes. The Second Annual International Conference on Elvis Presley, titled "Then Sings My Soul: Elvis and the Sacred South," will be Aug. 4-9, 1996. For information, call (601) 232-7282.
See you there!
by CNB