i hope he made some green on that 3 Stooges flick

Mo Collins was golden, and hot, as was Debra Wilson. Aries Speers was pretty great too. SNL has still yet to match the final two for black cast talent (or relevance to black culture; seriously where the hell was an R Kelley sketch after all his crazy shit) in the years during or since. But maybe Keenan Thompson will…

This remake is even more unnecessary than most. The original production values are great, and this kind of movie doesnt need big stars, they werent big stars then and neither are these. And now you could tell the kids "The dad is Mr. Incredible!" the Spielberg style ( i dont care who officially directed) is still…

From what I've read they were clearly obsessed with Elvis from the start. Lennon talked about wanting to be like Elvis all the time. His most famous quote was "Before Elvis, there's was nothing." (This is sometimes misconstrued as bad music history. But he meant it personally, exposure to Elvis transformed his…

He also had three TV's installed into a wall to see all 3 networks simultaneously. He got the idea from learning LBJ had done it. That's living like a boss.

The cheaper 2-Disc mainstream release Suspicious Minds: The Memphis Sessions also contains a nice sampling of alternate takes plus the missing essential masters.

For many fans including the fairly casual, they can enjoy certain movie tunes simply for his performance, songs that would be inconceivable to listen to sung by any other artist. It's like a great actor making a badly scripted movie watchable.

One last Elvis defense and then I'm done. On tour in the 70's Elvis insisted deep south hotels allow his black girl vocal group The Sweet Inspirations to stay there if the management balked and asked them to go elsewhere. Seems like the only decent choice, but during exhausting show and travel schedules, when…

Of course they wouldn't, but false race baiting just continues the hypey irrational side of the racial culture war shouting match. I'm less concerned with promoting Elvis fanship than I am a disengenous media exploiting a constant cultural victim mindset. And I'm very liberal on race / minority issues, over which…

Edge of Reality is essential Elvis if you're into him on kitsch levels, which I of course am. That druggy dream sequence (in psychadelic pajamas) is easily the most bizarre scene in any Elvis movie. I also like it for its inclusion in one of the better 70's "budget" Lp's called Almost In Love which includes the…

I used to wince at that, until his entourage buddies all went on record as saying Elvis never believed the Beatles were a bad influence, he was jerking Nixons chain to get into the White House and secure an honorary DEA badge. It's confirmed that those portions of Elvis' letter to Nixon are almost direct quotes from a…

It's such a damaging false accusation though, it tainted his image with the hip hop community, ironic for an artist who was all about creative democracy and the melting pot ideal of integration, where the best of everything rises to the top. I don't hate Chuck D (or Spike Lee) but it was an ignorant asshol-ish thing…

Elvis owned LP's of MLK speeches, and committed several to memory. If he was a racist he was really terrible at it.

I first heard If I Can Dream the day after Elvis died, during a radio tribute marathon. I was frozen in time. I swear to God, it sounded EXACTLY like Elvis was singing down from heaven.

Any Day Now is an under heard masterpiece, the definitive version of a standard covered by many others, and one of Chips Momans best recorded arrangements. I made it track one on a mix tape to get a casual Elvis admiring friend into deeper cuts that would surprise him, he was blown away.

Some may laugh but you can also hear that American Studio signature sound in Neil Diamond hits such as Brother Loves Traveling Salvation Show and Holly Holy.

The 60's and 70's boxes work best for newbies perhaps if viewed as country pop rock rather than much of Elvis at his fiercest Of course the 60's ends with these Memphis Sessions so it ends on an unbelievable high. There are also some great bluesy tracks leading up to these such as Big Boss Man, High Heeled Sneakers,…

Add Gold Records 2 to that IMO. Big Hunk O' Love is the late 50's culmination of everything he's learned to do for kicking the shit out of a song - for my money it's the hardest rocking studio track he ever did, guitar and piano solos included. One Night is Elvis' greatest dirty blues number (especially if you…

Any Lame Crap'll Do, Internet!

Talk about having an off day. "Mistakes were made…"