Southern Windows, 650 words

Downtown Watering Trough: Sam Phillips of Sun Records didn’t discover Elvis Presley. It was his secretary, Marion Keisker.

  When Elvis came by to audition for Phillips, she noticed he was straining to sound like his idol, Dean Martin. She reminded him that he could have his own style. She talked about his pleasant and different voice. It tweaked something inside Elvis and sent him in search of himself.

  Deano had a relaxed style of singing. Put on a Dean Martin CD and he’ll ease you right down like a fall leaf. A pleasant smile will creep across your face in spite of any care-crows flying around.

  Imagine that style on "All Shook Up" or "You Ain’t Nothing But A Hound Dog." It’s laughable--melodic oxymoron. Elvis could have never become the "King of Rock and Roll" with a Dean Martin style.

  This man who almost lost his shot at being who he was is now the most imitated entertainer in the history of American music. While that is understandable, it still drips with sadness. If any singer had asked Elvis for his most important piece of advice, he would have said, "Be who you are. Sing your song so that anyone hearing you for the second time will know it is you."

  Recently I saw a VCR tape of an Elvis imitator. He has the clothes, the moves and gyrations, the voice, vocal style and the hair. He has had plastic surgery to look like Elvis. He even has the screamers and squealers to whom he throws the sweaty kerchiefs. Yet, when he walks off-stage, he realizes they were all screaming for Elvis, not him.

  Imitating another person is an extreme form of self-rejection. It might make you a living but it will take away your life. The life we are here to live is the life sprouting and flowering from the essence of who we are. The more it roots down into that core of our own pure uniqueness, the more it becomes "our" life.

  I would never say anything to detract from Elvis’s accomplishments. No one can pull down his star from the sky. He was the dominant musical icon of the 20^th century. But anyone who tries to be like him and entertain like him is selling their creative soul for a mess of public image pottage.

  Somehow Elvis managed to retain simplicity and humility despite the adulation. Once in Memphis he pulled up on a motorcycle alongside my passenger side. I was all atwitter but the Memphian with whom I was riding smiled and yawned. He said, "We all love Elvis but we see him all the time. He’s just one of us." He certainly knew he was rich and famous but he had his heroes, too. He loved to slide into a Memphis piano bar to listen to Charlie Rich sing, "Don’t put no tombstone on my grave." It was that Charlie Rich authenticity he hungered for, not some carbon copy of himself.

  I once stopped on the street to hear a talented old blues performer named Boots Roots. Just him and a guitar and a cup for contributions. Originality dripped from every word of every line of every song and there was a Boots Roots DNA print on every lick he choked out of that old beat-up guitar. At no time have I ever listened to Elvis or any other performer with more absorption.

  In my mind, I can picture Elvis standing there beside me soaking up the sounds of Boots Roots. I have no doubt that his silence would have approached reverence.

  Both Elvis and Boots did what they were here to do. They found who they were and lived it. Elvis made more money but Boots Roots was every whit as successful at the main game of self-actualization. I have unanimously voted both into my personal Hall of Fame.

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