John Lennon, Elvis, Princess Di: Celebrity Influence Lives On

This week, Rocktalk tackles the age-old question: Is there life after death?

The answer: Sure. Maybe.

The Imagine Center of Tarzana will host a birthday celebration for Beatle John Lennon tonight at the Onion in North Hills. Lennon was assassinated in 1980.

Besides honoring the Beatle’s memory on what would have been his 57th birthday, the event is the inaugural fund-raiser for the Imagine Foundation, a new nonprofit organization created to foster Lennon’s memory and legacy.

“I believe it’s imperative for this planet to keep his legacy alive--a vision of all the people sharing all the world,” said center owner Judy Levy. “It’s not really about the man” but his vision, she said.

Levy opened the Imagine Center in 1994. Named after the Lennon song, the store offers various New Age spiritual aids, crystals, books and calendars, in addition to classes and sessions with spiritual healers of various ilks.

Levy plans for the not-for-profit organization to offer mentors and scholarships to young artists for projects that promote Lennon’s vision of world peace as set forth in his song “Imagine.”

Tonight’s birthday celebration will feature some New Age music groups as well as artists performing Lennon’s music. Sacred dances and a candle-lighting ceremony will be followed by social dancing to a live band. Those attending will also be invited to share their own personal visions and tell how Lennon’s music affected their lives.

“It’s our goal to celebrate the highest in all of us,” Levy said. “His legacy is that each of us does make a difference.” And Levy said Lennon was a living example of this.

“One tormented soul, by sharing his poetry, did make a difference, “ she said. “We each have the power to help us all share the world.”

* “The Imagine Gathering” happens 7:30-11 tonight at the Onion, 9550 Haskell Ave., North Hills. (818) 345-1100. $20.

*

More Dead Celebrities: Not far from the Onion in North Hills sits Melodyland, a miniature version of Elvis Presley’s Memphis home Graceland, on the corner of Parthenia Street and Zelzah Avenue. The ersatz Graceland is the home of ersatz Elvis, Danny Uwnawich.

Danny U, as Uwnawich is known professionally, has been keeping the Elvis legacy alive since the early 1970s, impersonating the King in concerts and nightclubs all across the country. U built his $3-million Melodyland, his home and Elvis shrine, in 1991.

In August, U announced he was going to quit performing as The Big E, because he had turned 42, the age at which Presley died. From then on, U said, he would record his own music.

So Danny U has now written and recorded a song about Princess Diana.

“I feel so bad that this woman died, I couldn’t stop watching TV,” said U, who speaks in a halting baritone, not unlike the King himself. “I needed to do it and give the money to charity--her charity. It makes me feel good.”

U said he first felt a special bond with Diana a while back when both were featured in the same issue of the tabloid the Examiner.

“She was on the front page, I was on the back page. I couldn’t believe it,” U stammered, Elvis-like. “She was a special person, like Elvis.”

U will debut the song “Queen of Hearts” on Nov. 1 in a concert he’s giving at the Wadsworth Theater over the hill in Westwood.

“She was a kind person. She had a star quality,” U said. “She was very classy. She was the classiest person I’ve ever seen in my life.”

*

Live Music: Nat Schellin, lead singer of the alternative rock band Porcelain Mary, says all the members of his Burbank-based band have had formal musical training, but they’ve all spent years trying to break free of their educations.

“We’ve learned the most by trial and error and by hard work,” Schellin said. “We’re definitely writing from the soul.”

The band, playing Saturday night at Club 21 at the Riverbottom Cafe in Burbank, features bassist Chris Martin, guitarist Karl D’Amico and drummer Dan Roberts along with Schellin.

Florida native Schellin originally made his way to L.A. to study music at USC. But he grew frustrated with the program and decided it was time to make his own music.

Schellin says each Porcelain Mary song is a group effort: “Chris and I do the songwriting, then we give it to the band to put the color in. It’s really all one process and it works very well.”

The songs on Porcelain Mary’s demo are simple, yet well-crafted, with mantra-like hooks so pronounced that they border on the hypnotic. One song, “Better Not Call for Me,” has some interesting contrapuntal vocal lines. Some chord changes sound somewhat Beatlesque, but Schellin said the influence of the Fab Four was no greater than that of many other groups.

So what’s the significance of the band’s name, Porcelain Mary?

“It just sounds good, no real significance. We would buy into whatever anybody thought that it meant,” Schellin said.

* Porcelain Mary plays 11 p.m. Saturday at Club 21 at the Riverbottom Cafe, 4201 Olive Ave., Burbank, (818) 846-2342. $5 cover.