POP MUSIC REVIEW : New Location but Business as Usual at Elvis Bash

The Elvis Presley Benefit Birthday Bash on Sunday had mostly the same people who play it every year, as well as the same format and the same organizers. But the ninth edition of the annual event had an entirely new atmosphere.

By leaving its longtime home, the intimate, funky Club Lingerie, and setting up in the big, faux-funky House of Blues, organizers Ronnie Mack and Art Fein traded a loose, down-home environment for pro sound, slick lighting and a crowd three times the usual size. In an early Elvis movie, it would be the scene where the rising star moves from the roadhouse to the grand concert hall.

The feel might have been a little less casual, but the Bash survived the transition without compromising its notable spirit of musical community. The capacity crowd of 1,000 generated energy and excitement, and contributed substantial revenue to the evening’s beneficiaries--the Children of the Shepherd homeless organization in Hollywood and some members of the local music scene.

Otherwise it was business as usual as L.A.’s pompadour set marked Elvis’ big 6-0. Bands with names like the Rockin’ Rebels and the Roadhouse Rockers and big guns like Dwight Yoakam, Dave Edmunds and Los Lobos’ Cesar Rosas all explored the canon of the King, mainly with a straightforward approach.

There were things like a Tex-Mex flourish in the Forbidden Pigs’ “Goin’ Home,” a New Orleans beat in the Lonesome Strangers’ “Such a Night” and Pete Anderson’s guitar outbursts on Yoakam’s “Mystery Train,” but this event isn’t really into revisionism, warpage or camping it up.

Unfortunately, this year it wasn’t much into letting the girls play either. Rosie Flores’ “Love Me Tender” and especially Candye Kane’s “Anyplace Is Paradise” were stirring proof that gender is no obstacle when it comes to interpreting Elvis. Let’s hear a few more hardheaded women at Presley’s 61st.