The King Is Dead; Long Live the King

Back in 1960, RCA Records trumpeted Elvis Presley’s discharge from the U.S. Army with an album called “Elvis Is Back!”

Guess what?

With the 25th anniversary of his death approaching, Elvis is back again. In fact, the King will be visible on so many fronts in coming months that the title of a whimsical 1987 tribute to Presley’s cultural omnipresence could provide the slogan for the last half of this year: “Elvis Is Everywhere.”

RCA Records is readying two new Elvis compilations. “Elvis--Today, Tomorrow & Forever,” a four-CD set aimed at collectors, has 100 previously unreleased alternate takes, live performances and rarities and is due Tuesday. It will be followed in September by “Elv1s 30 #1 Hits,” RCA’s answer to the Beatles’ monstrously successful “1” hits collection, culling Presley singles that topped the charts in the U.S. or the U.K. on a single CD.

Presley also has, or soon will have, a presence in:

* movies (he figures prominently in the Disney animated hit “Lilo & Stitch”);

* TV (a special targeted for the holidays aims to be the “definitive” look at his life, although it doesn’t have an outlet yet);

* radio (a “new” Elvis single, “A Little Less Conversation,” has become a No. 1 hit in England and is starting to get airplay in the U.S.);

* home video (Elvis Presley Enterprises is preparing deluxe DVD releases of his “Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite” and 1968 comeback TV specials);

* publishing (Random House, for one, has three new Elvis-related books on tap);

* theater (Stages theater in Fullerton just opened the world premiere production of “The King,” a play by Brian Newell about what might happen if Elvis really did turn up alive today);

* the California Lottery (an Elvis Presley “scratcher” promotion just ended).

The Elvis blitz is partly the natural outgrowth of public interest because of the Aug. 16 anniversary of his death in 1977 at age 42 and partly a major marketing effort by anyone with something Elvis-related to sell.

That will translate into new Elvis merchandise and, presumably, a new round of Elvis jokes from Jay Leno and David Letterman and a new wave of imitators.

To balance decades of Elvis caricatures, officials at RCA Records and Elvis Presley Enterprises will be stressing how truly revolutionary a musical and cultural force Presley was.

They’ll be reminding older fans, and educating the millions born after his death, about a shy boy from Tupelo, Miss., who fused country, blues and gospel music to become the flashpoint in the birth of rock ‘n’ roll half a century ago, and about how he quickly evolved into a cultural force whose influence touched society at large in myriad ways.

“For a couple of generations, the image that has unfortunately stuck in most people’s minds is a caricature of the ‘70s--the bloated, sweaty Elvis,” says RCA General Manager Richard Sanders.

“But that’s not culturally what has changed the world. We’re working on this television special that’s going to highlight that. It’s sort of the six degrees of Elvis: how he affected everything from gospel and R&B; music to fashion and the sexual revolution.”

That rejuvenated respect for Presley has involved some soul-searching at a label that never met an Elvis compilation it didn’t release.

“The truth is,” Sanders says, “Elvis has been exploited [by the label] to such a large extent. The Beatles’ catalog was cherished and never thrown out haphazardly. Here, every year there’s been some new type of release....

“What we are trying to do now, since we have trimmed back our catalog [of Elvis product in print], is to create the definitive Elvis releases. With the ’30 #1 Hits’ album, we wanted to make the one CD to own if you want to know about Elvis.”

The Beatles “1” introduced the Fab Four’s music to a new generation, and officials at RCA and the Presley estate are hoping to do the same for Elvis, not only with the “30” compilation but also with the exposure his name and memory are getting in “Lilo & Stitch,” which revolves around a Hawaiian girl who is a huge Elvis fan, and the single “A Little Less Conversation,” a relatively obscure late-’60s number that was the centerpiece of Nike’s $100-million World Cup ad campaign.

RCA decided this week to add “A Little Less Conversation” to the “30 #1 Hits” CD as a bonus track; the album’s title will not be changed.

The record marks the first time officials at RCA and Elvis Presley Enterprises, the Memphis company that manages his estate on behalf of his daughter and heir, Lisa Marie, agreed to a remix of one of Presley’s recordings. Because of the massive exposure it got during the World Cup competition, the record has topped the charts in several European countries, an achievement RCA officials hope to duplicate stateside.

“Those two events, and the strategies behind them, are part of a very concerted effort that’s part of the setup for the ’30 #1 Hits’ collection,” says Joe DiMuro, senior vice president of strategic marketing and business development for BMG Music, RCA’s parent.

“When the Walt Disney Co. wanted to license six original Elvis master recordings” used in “Lilo & Stitch,” he says, “that was one instance of getting to a younger demographic--6- to 12-year-olds--who would be exposed to Elvis’ music with their moms and dads.”

DiMuro says everything grows out of BMG’s mission statement regarding Elvis: “to create awareness of why Elvis is relevant today, not just from a musical standpoint but as an icon.... What he meant to musicians, and artists outside the music industry.

“The Beatles would not have been the Beatles without Elvis,” DiMuro says. “He had a huge influence on gospel, country, rock ‘n’ roll. Sometimes today’s generation forgets that, or maybe they’ve never been introduced to it.”

Elvis historian and biographer Ernst Jorgensen, who has overseen Elvis reissues for BMG for a decade, sees something at work on an even deeper level than societal short-term memory.

“I think a lot of Americans still can’t forgive him for the way he died--or even that he did die,” Jorgensen says, alluding to the prescription drug abuse that contributed to his death from heart failure.

“So it is hard to get beyond the ridicule, beyond the stories in the National Enquirer, and get people’s attention back to the music again,” Jorgensen says. “That’s where boxed sets like these come in. Even the worst cuts--and not everything on ‘Today, Tomorrow & Forever’ is the most fabulous in music history--will make people who care enough look deeper into it.”