The KISS Letter: An Encounter with Elvis

The KISS Letter: An Encounter with Elvis
Author:
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 18
Release: 2011-12-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0807872571

The last time I kissed him he only had on half a shirt. He has a wonderful chest. I am really crazy about him now+have the funniest feeling in me, all over." After she saw the King in concert and met him backstage, she wrote this letter to her friends at camp. Here's the original spicy note from the teenage girl who kissed—and kissed—Elvis Presley. This article appears in the 2011 Music issue of Southern Cultures. Southern Cultures is published quarterly (spring, summer, fall, winter) by the University of North Carolina Press. The journal is sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Center for the Study of the American South.

Southern Religion, Southern Culture

Southern Religion, Southern Culture
Author: Darren E. Grem
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 163
Release: 2018-12-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 1496820509

Contributions by Ryan L. Fletcher, Darren E. Grem, Paul Harvey, Alicia Jackson, Ted Ownby, Otis W. Pickett, Arthur Remillard, Chad Seales, and Randall J. Stephens Over more than three decades of teaching at the University of Mississippi, Charles Reagan Wilson’s research and writing transformed southern studies in key ways. This volume pays tribute to and extends Wilson’s seminal work on southern religion and culture. Using certain episodes and moments in southern religious history, the essays examine the place and power of religion in southern communities and society. It emulates Wilson’s model, featuring both majority and minority voices from archives and applying a variety of methods to explain the South’s religious diversity and how religion mattered in many arenas of private and public life, often with life-or-death stakes. The volume first concentrates on churches and ministers, and then considers religious and cultural constructions outside formal religious bodies and institutions. It examines the faiths expressed via the region’s fields, streets, homes, public squares, recreational venues, roadsides, and stages. In doing so, this book shows that Wilson’s groundbreaking work on religion is an essential part of southern studies and crucial for fostering deeper understanding of the South’s complicated history and culture.

Southern Cultures: 2011 Music Issue

Southern Cultures: 2011 Music Issue
Author: Harry L. Watson
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2011-12-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0807868426

The Music Issue eBook includes a FREE CD and: The tell-all letter from a teenage girl who kissed—and kissed—Elvis Presley How corruption and greed made the Jacksonville music scene Gretchen Wilson, country music's "Redneck Woman" The invaluable social spaces of African American record stores Bobby Rush, "bluesman-plus" Where Opryland resides in hearts, minds, and souls Backstage with the Avett Brothers, Doc Watson, Tift Merritt, Southern Culture on the Skids, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Johnny Cash, and more great artists. We'll send you the Music Issue's special CD, at no extra cost. Loving, Leaving, Liquor, and the Lord is packed with tracks from the Avett Brothers, Doc and Merle Watson, Archers of Loaf, and many more amazing Southern musicians--old and new. Southern Cultures is published quarterly (spring, summer, fall, winter) by the University of North Carolina Press. The journal is sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Center for the Study of the American South.

Elvis and Me

Elvis and Me
Author: Priscilla Presley
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2023-08-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0593639561

The #1 New York Times bestselling memoir that reveals the intimate story of Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley, told by the woman who lived it. THE INSPIRATION FOR THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE PRISCILLA, DIRECTED BY SOFIA COPPOLA Decades after his death, millions of fans continue to worship Elvis the legend. But very few knew him as Elvis the man. Here in her own words, Priscilla Presley tells the story of their love, revealing the details of their first meeting, their marriage, their affairs, their divorce, and the unbreakable bond that has remained long after his tragic death. A tribute to both the man and the legend, Elvis and Me gives Elvis fans the world over an unprecedented look at the true life of the King of Rock 'N' Roll and the woman who loved him.

Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky

Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky
Author: Paolo Hewitt
Publisher: Quercus
Total Pages: 438
Release: 2013-10-01
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1623652235

From the moment that Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm conceived "Rocket 88" to the suicide of Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain and Lennon's Anniversary concert, â??Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky chronicles 50 moments in history that shaped the music industry as we know it. Paolo Hewitt's lively and readable text gives us a unique "insider's view" on each event explaining the background and immediate aftermath to the moment as well as its long term significance and legacy. Each story is accompanied by an "at a glance" box about each artist, their most significant achievements and contribution to rock history. Iconic moments include the day that Dylan went electric, the moment the Ramones launched punk rock, the Michael Jackson video that inspired an MTV generation, and the year that Oasis and Blur saw Brit Pop go global. The stories behind the iconic records and recordings, the untimely deaths, landmark live performances, on screen incidents and all of the most outrageous moments are recounted in this captivating, comprehensive overview of the greatest musical form of the twentieth century.

A Little Thing Called Life

A Little Thing Called Life
Author: Linda Thompson
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2016-08-23
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0062469762

Award-winning songwriter Linda Thompson breaks her silence, sharing the extraordinary story of her life, career, and epic romances with two of the most celebrated, yet enigmatic, modern American superstars—Elvis Presley and Bruce Jenner For the last forty years, award-winning songwriter Linda Thompson has quietly led one of the most remarkable lives in show business. The longtime live-in love of Elvis Presley, Linda first emerged into the limelight during the 1970s when the former beauty pageant queen caught the eye of the King. Their chance late-night encounter at a movie theater was the stuff of legend, and it marked the beginning of a whirlwind that would stretch across decades, leading to a marriage with Bruce Jenner, motherhood, and more drama than she ever could have imagined. Now, for the first time, Linda opens up about it all, telling the full story of her life, loves, and everything in between. From her humble beginnings in Memphis to her nearly five-year relationship with Elvis, she offers an intimate window into their life together, describing how their Southern roots fueled and sustained Graceland’s greatest romance. Going inside their wild stories and tender moments, she paints a portrait of life with the King, as raucous as it is refreshing. But despite the joy they shared, life with Elvis also had darkness, and her account also presents an unsparing look at Elvis’s twin demons—drug abuse and infidelity—forces he battled throughout their time together that would eventually end their relationship just eight months before his untimely death. It was in the difficult aftermath of Elvis’s death that Linda found what she believed was her true home: the arms of Olympic gold medal—winner Bruce Jenner. Detailing her marriage to Bruce, Linda reveals the seemingly perfect life that they built with their two young sons—Brandon and Brody—before Bruce changed everything with a secret he’d been carrying his entire life, a secret that Linda herself kept for nearly thirty years, a secret that Bruce’s transition to Caitlyn Jenner has finally laid bare for the world. Providing a candid look inside one of the most challenging moments of her life, Linda uncovers the struggles she went through as a woman and a mother, coming to terms with the reality of Bruce’s identity and resolving to embrace him completely no matter what, even as it meant they could no longer be together. And yet, despite her marriage unraveling, her search for love was not over, eventually leading her to the legendary music producer and musician David Foster—a relationship that lasted for nineteen tumultuous years, resulting in a bond that spurred her songwriting career to new heights but also tested her like never before. Filled with compelling and poignant stories and sixteen pages of photographs, A Little Thing Called Life lovingly recounts Linda’s incredible journey through the years, bringing unparalleled insight into three legendary figures.

Elvis in Vegas

Elvis in Vegas
Author: Richard Zoglin
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2020-11-10
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1501151207

“Outstanding pop-culture history.” —Newsday The “smart and zippy account” (The Wall Street Journal) of how Las Vegas saved Elvis and Elvis saved Las Vegas in the greatest musical comeback of all time. Elvis’s 1969 opening night in Vegas was his first time back on a live stage in more than eight years. His career had gone sour—bad movies, mediocre pop songs that no longer made the charts—and he’d been dismissed by most critics as over-the-hill. But in Vegas he played the biggest showroom in the biggest hotel in the city, drawing more people for his four-week engagement than any other show in Vegas history. His performance got rave reviews; “Suspicious Minds,” the song he introduced there, gave him his first number-one hit in seven years; and Elvis became Vegas’s biggest star. Over the next seven years, he performed more than 600 shows there, and sold out every one. Las Vegas was changed, too. By the end of the ‘60s, Vegas’ golden age—when the Rat Pack led a glittering array of stars who made it the nation’s premier live-entertainment center—was losing its luster. Elvis created a new kind of Vegas show: an over-the-top, rock-concert extravaganza. He set a new bar for Vegas performers, with the biggest salary, the biggest musical production, and the biggest promotion campaign the city had ever seen. He opened the door to a new generation of pop/rock artists and brought a new audience to Vegas—not the traditional well-heeled older gamblers, but a mass audience from Middle America that Vegas depends on for its success to this day. At once “a fascinating history of Vegas as gambling capital, celebrity playground, mob hangout, [and] entertainment Valhalla” (Rolling Stone) and the incredible “tale of how the King got his groove back” (Associated Press), Elvis in Vegas is a classic feel-good story for the ages.

Is Elvis Alive?

Is Elvis Alive?
Author: Gail Brewer-Giorgio
Publisher: Tudor Publishers
Total Pages: 226
Release: 1988
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780944276310

Elvis After Elvis

Elvis After Elvis
Author: Gilbert B. Rodman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2013-10-18
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1136155139

'For a dead man, Elvis Presley is awfully noisy. His body may have failed him in 1977, but today his spirit, his image, and his myths do more than live on: they flourish, they thrive, they multiply.' Why is Elvis Presley so ubiquitous a presence in US culture? Why does he continue to enjoy a cultural prominence that would be the envy of the most heavily publicized living celebrities? In Elvis after Elvis Gil Rodman traces the myriad manifestations of The King in popular and not-so-popular culture. He asks why Elvis continues to defy our expectations of how dead stars are supposed to behave: Elvis not only refuses to go away, he keeps showing up in places where he seemingly doesn't belong. Rodman draws upon an extensive and eclectic body of Elvis 'sightings', from Elvis's appearances at the heart of the 1992 Presidential campaign to the debate over his worthiness as a subject for a postage stamp, and from Elvis's central role in furious debates about racism and the appropriation of African-American music to the world of Elvis impersonators and the importance of Graceland as a place of pilgrimage for Elvis fans and followers. Rodman shows how Elvis has become inseparable from many of the defining myths of US culture, enmeshed with the American dream and the very idea of the 'United States', caught up in debates about race, gender and sexuality and in the wars over what constitutes a national culture.

Makeup to Breakup

Makeup to Breakup
Author: Peter Criss
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2012-10-23
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1451620845

LEGENDARY founding KISS drummer Peter “Catman” Criss has lived an incredible life in music, from the streets of Brooklyn to the social clubs of New York City to the ultimate heights of rock ’n’ roll success and excess. KISS formed in 1973 and broke new ground with their elaborate makeup, live theatrics, and powerful sound. The band emerged as one of the most iconic hard rock acts in music history. Peter Criss, the Catman, was the heartbeat of the group. From an elevated perch on his pyrotechnic drum riser, he had a unique vantage point on the greatest rock show of all time, with the KISS Army looking back at him night after night. Peter Criscuola had come a long way from the homemade drum set he pounded on nonstop as a kid growing up in Brooklyn in the fifties. He endured lean years, street violence, and the rollercoaster music scene of the sixties, but he always knew he’d make it. Makeup to Breakup is Peter Criss’s eye-opening journey from the pledge to his ma that he’d one day play Madison Square Garden to doing just that. He conquered the rock world—composing and singing his band’s all-time biggest hit, “Beth” (1976)—but he also faced the perils of stardom and his own mortality, including drug abuse, treatment in 1982, near-suicides, two broken marriages, and a hard-won battle with breast cancer. Criss opens up with a level of honesty and emotion previously unseen in any musician’s memoir. Makeup to Breakup is the definitive and heartfelt account of one of rock’s most iconic figures, and the importance of faith and family. Rock ’n’ roll has been chronicled many times, but never quite like this.