‘King Cat’ Elvis Is Hottest Hound Dog in China : Music: First mass-produced Presley album in the country introduces the singer to a new audience of 1.1 billion.

Only four decades late, Elvis is alive and well and finally selling albums in China.

Young Chinese in Beijing and Shanghai are snapping up Elvis Presley cassettes. The legendary voice emanates from tape players in bars and shops. Elvis retrospectives have sprouted in entertainment journals.

The infatuation with Presley has accompanied the late January launch of the first Elvis album ever mass-produced and released in China--more than 13 years after his death.

The album, “Elvis’s Golden Records,” appeared in the United States in 1958. Its 14 tracks feature hits like “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Hound Dog” and “Jailhouse Rock,” and the new cassette tape comes with Chinese-language lyrics and an Elvis pocket calendar.

“This is the last and only place where Elvis has never been released,” said Anders Nelsson, the Hong Kong-based director of BMG Pacific Ltd., the music publishing house overseeing the project.

“This guy is more popular here than we ever imagined,” Nelsson said in an interview in Beijing.

Presley’s legend is known in China, and he is one of the few foreign stars to have a Chinese name: Mao Wang, or “King Cat.” But the vast cult that grew up around him after his August, 1977, death has managed to escape the 1.1 billion Chinese.

Elvis music has been limited to pirate recordings and infiltration from Hong Kong and Taiwan. Only one Elvis hit, “Love Me Tender,” is a standard in China--for reasons no one can explain.

As Presley peaked, China was in its first decade of communism and headed for the tumultuous 1966-76 Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, when foreign culture was banned. Only since the “open-door” policy of the late 1970s has its music spectrum broadened.

With Elvis sales only in Beijing and Shanghai, the country is not yet all shook up. Initial production runs totaled 50,000 cassettes, a fraction of the 200,000 to 300,000 tapes customarily produced for a new album in the Chinese market.

But the first run of 20,000 sold out the first week, and interest remains high for the second 30,000 run, according to Kenny Bloom, director of KB Communications, who is overseeing the licensing arrangement in Beijing.

The tape, selling for about $1.70, is already sold out on Beijing’s bustling Wangfujing Street, the Chinese capital’s shopping mecca.

“We had 200 copies, and they all sold out the first day,” said a clerk in one of the area’s leading record stores.

“I had heard of Mao Wang for a long time, but I have never really heard his music,” said a disappointed student who was turned away.

Although tapes of some foreign artists are sold on a limited basis in China--Neil Diamond and Richard Clayderman are popular--only half a dozen have been locally released, including Madonna, Michael Jackson and Crystal Gayle.

The Elvis project began in late 1989 amid fears China would again close its doors after the government’s June, 1989, crackdown on the pro-democracy movement, according to Nelsson, 44, a longtime Hong Kong resident.

“I’ve watched China a long time,” he recalled. “It’s gone way down and always managed to climb back out of the hole. I figured if China can live with Elvis, I can live with China.”

Despite the 1989 chill, rock music has spread steadily and a small but vibrant rock scene has arisen in Beijing.

BMG, a German entertainment conglomerate, owns RCA Records and controlled rights to the album. But Nelsson flew to Paris last April to seek the blessing of Presley’s widow, actress Priscilla Beaulieu Presley.

“She was very enthusiastic,” Nelsson said.

As for the foreign partners, Nelsson estimates they will begin to turn a small profit after the first 50,000 copies sell, but added, “You’re basically talking petty cash at the end of the day.”

He said they hope to reap commercial benefits in the future by further releases in China--a Lionel Richie album is planned next--and by representing Chinese pop stars abroad.

“Anyone who thinks they can come into China and make a quick buck is living in a fantasy world,” Bloom said. “We’re making history. The money will come later.”