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'Remembering Elvis Presley:
The King At 90'
LIFE Magazine Review by Piers Beagley
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LIFE magazine - 'Remembering Elvis Presley.....The King at 90'
“Celebrate the King of Rock 'n' Roll with this keepsake biography of Elvis Presley, lavishly illustrated with dozens of historic photos, including many from the archives of LIFE magazine.
A detailed timeline traces Elvis's life from when he received his first guitar to his glory days filled with recording, acting, and gyrating for shrieking fans, to his great '68 comeback, and right up to his untimely death in 1977.
“Intimate photojournalism combines with insightful text to reveal Elvis behind the scenes: at Graceland and on the road, with Priscilla and Lisa Marie, in front of the cameras, and on the stage.
Explore the days of "Heartbreak Hotel," "Don't Be Cruel," "Blue Suede Shoes," "Jailhouse Rock," "Love Me Tender," "Blue Christmas" and so many other unforgettable hits.
Priced around $25
Magazine review by Piers Beagley - January 2025 |
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The new LIFE magazine 2024/2025 ’Remembering Elvis: The King at 90’ - Plus The Story of Graceland’ kicks off with the stunning front cover image and inside with a great photograph of Elvis at Russwood Park, Memphis, July 1956. (below)
Unfortunately, from then on this new slightly updated reprint for Elvis' 90th birthday sadly goes downhill.
Since the mid-90s LIFE magazine has been regularly publishing the neat concept of “Remembering Elvis Presley” through a collection of quality photographs. There have been regular reprints on the key anniversary celebrations of either Elvis’ birth or his death.
Some major LIFE publications were for instance ‘Elvis Remembered: 25 Years Later’ in 2002, ‘Remembering Elvis: 30 years later’ in 2007 or 2010’s ‘Remembering Elvis: The King at 75’.
They have all featured basically the same front cover, overall design, content, articles and photos but with some slight differences. For instance the 2002 ‘Elvis Remembered: 25 Years Later’ was only 130 pages but was printed on thicker, better quality paper.
Both the 2007 and 2010 versions were longer at 148 pages (printed on thinner paper) but with an extra section featuring some interesting rare or newly found photos of Elvis.
Unfortunately the new ELVIS: ‘The King At 90’ 2024/2025 version is not only ½ an inch smaller in width but only features 100 pages.
And the biggest disappointment is the quality of the print where previous identical photographs that have been used in 2024 are now all printed way too dark which means they have lost a lot of their detail. They are far worse than the same pictures printed 20 years ago whereas sadly I was hoping for some improvement!
Elvis with Hoyt Hawkins 2024 image left, - the same photo in LIFE Elvis magazine 2010 right
This year the design has been slightly updated with a new font and a more modern layout - as shown below - but the text however remains the same.
There is a new introduction, by American journalist Kostya Kennedy, ‘He’ll Always Be Elvis’ which sadly misses out on explaining the key moments of Elvis’ magnificent legacy instead discussing things like deep fried peanut butter sandwiches and Elvis’ garish design of Graceland. The article also states that fans can see the “bloated version” of Elvis playing on TV sets at Graceland which is complete fallacy.
As an introduction to “Remembering Elvis” it is a real failure.
The magazine includes 67 pages about Elvis in the 1950s - with some stuning if familiar images, 14 pages on the 1960s and only 8 pages on Elvis in the 1970s.
The section on the 1970s has no mention of Elvis filming ‘That’s The Way It Is’, no mention of ‘Elvis On Tour’ (the years 1971 and 1972 are not even featured) no discussion about Elvis’ Las Vegas contracts, yet Jerry Lee Lewis’ 1976 arrest outside the Graceland wall is included!
It all makes rather strange reading and sadly misses out on so many key Elvis achievements later in his life.
Four pages about Elvis' album releases and their amazing success, that all helped to explain Elvis' creative story and were in previous LIFE magazines (as above), have been edited out of this new magazine.
With the magazine trimmed down to only 100 pages some of the great photographs from their previous issues have also been left out, so some of the "timeline" is now rather compressed. For instance a previous article on how Elvis personally wanted more dramatic acting from his 1960s movies has been left out so the new magazine timeline
jumps from 'Elvis in the army' to 'July 1963'.
There is no mention about Elvis' glorious 60s stunning comeback, the massive success of 'Blue Hawaii' or his classic return to number one in the worldwide charts! The years 1960, 1961 and 1962 are not mentioned, it is all very bizarre.
While the 1968 ‘Comeback Special’ features on one page, again there’s no mention of Elvis’ creative Memphis recordings of 1969, nothing about ‘Suspicious Minds’ - nor any of his chart successes in the 1970s. There are notably only four photographs of Elvis on stage in the 1970s, and two of them are used to demonstrate Elvis’ “ugly decline”.
I guess the only reason I bought this new ‘Remembering Elvis: The King At 90’ was to see what they would say about Elvis in the new millennium (basically nothing) and also what the magazine decided to include about the front-cover-advertised “The Story of Graceland”.
But incredibly there is no chapter about “The Story of Graceland” - and nothing about it is even mentioned in the contents page!
The only reference to Graceland is the inclusion of three 1965 photos (shown above) of Elvis at home, plus the previously mentioned introduction that discusses peanut-butter sandwiches and Elvis’ taste being “garish and heavy-handed”.
There is nothing about Elvis designing the Meditation Garden, nothing about the music room, the trophy room, the stables and his love of horses, the sanctity Elvis found upstairs, nor Elvis playing and recording music at home. Basically there is no “story of Graceland” whatsoever.
The final two pages have been updated for 2024, noting the fact that Elvis is "still everywhere", the success of the two films that were recently released - 'ELVIS', as well as the Coppola ‘Priscilla’ movie - and that Elvis’ music is now broadcast 24/7 via Elvis "satellite radio".
Near the end there are old photos of the Meditation Garden and the magazine mentions that there is a marker for Elvis’ still-born twin Jesse. But sadly this has not been updated since the last edition as there is no mention of the tragedy of Lisa Marie's death and the fact that she is now also buried in the Meditation Garden along with her son Benjamin Keough.
Another two photos comparing the quality of new 2024 LIFE magazine (left) and the 2010 version (right) I do acknowledge that it is great that Elvis magazines still get printed, appear in newsagents and are available online to be bought through Amazon but it is rather sad when you observe the quality diminishing and such poor editorial decisions.
It is possibly worth noting that 'Dotdash Meredith' acquired Time Inc and Life Magazine in 2021.
Dotdash Meredith is US's largest digital and print publisher.
Could this be the reason for the drop in print quality or was it just poor production checks?
Any real fan of Elvis Presley could have easily assembled a far more enjoyable and satisfying magazine with all the photographs that were obviously available to the editors.
At least I enjoyed the very final page featuring a lovely quote from Jailhouse Rock - see below- which is new to this re-print.
However, apart from the handful of new photos, this time LIFE magazine has made me feel truly ripped off.
ELVIS deserves better, as do his faithful fans.
Comment on this review
Magazine Review by Piers Beagley.
-Copyright EIN January 2025
EIN Website content © Copyright the Elvis Information Network.
(Mag Review) 'Vintage Rock Presents - Elvis: The Ultimate Album Guide': The 2024 “Vintage Rock Presents Elvis” is 130 pages examining his album catalogue – from studio, soundtracks and live concerts to compilations, 7” EPs and remixes.
Each album is introduced by a generously sized image of its cover followed by thoughtful analysis of the record's content, and its context in the Elvis Presley story. There is also a coloured rectangular box neatly detailing key release information and track listing.
Fans will no doubt be impressed with the breadth of the thoughtful views expressed by each contributor and there is plenty in the magazine to stimulate debate.
It is unfortunate that well-written periodicals aren't afforded the same level of attention to detail as some other Elvis publications.
EIN’s Nigel Patterson spent a rainy afternoon reliving what Elvis’ eclectic album catalogue offered, the good, the bad, and the mediocre.
Read Nigel’s review
(Review, Source:ElvisInformationNetwork) |
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(Book Review) Elvis - The King of Fashion (Lorraine Gibson): This recent book release by award-winning journalist, Lorraine Gibson, is a biography infused with Elvis’ iconic fashion sense.
The book's description includes.. Elvis' extraordinary story, told through a fashion lens, celebrates the shy, lonely boy who awakened an entire generation to forbidden fruits.
The defiant hair, the sultry good looks, the gender-ambivalent outfits - even the famous sideburns of the man who would be King - are all considered in loving detail.
From impoverished scamp and teenage anti-heroin pink, through Hollywood heartthrob and sensual leather-clad rock star, to caped superhero in Vegas jumpsuits, the author describes his clothes with as much joy as she does his journey through the decades.
EIN’s Nigel Patterson, replete with blue suede shoes, paisley shirt and polarised sunglasses, took time out to read Ms Gibson’s entertaining release.
Read Nigel’s full review
(Book Review, Source:ElvisInformationNetwork) |
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Spotlight on the new 'Vintage Rock' Magazine: The very first issue of the UK 'Vintage Rock' magazine - published in 2011 - features Elvis on the cover. Inside the magazine fans can read a great feature article that details Elvis' early years (up to 1955) and also check out some rare childhood photos. The first two lines of the Elvis feature article read, "Elvis Presley was more than a singer. He was - and still is - an icon of pop culture, the first larger than life superstar, a folk hero and legend, yet also something of a myth."
In addition to this another article ‘The Roots Of Rock‘n’Roll’ also features a close-up on Scotty Moore and Elvis.
(Spotlight, Source;ElvisInformationNetwork) |
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(Book Review) Elvis, Hero of the Comic Books (Nigel Patterson): Respected Elvis author and reviewer, Gordon Minto, recently put on his reviewer’s cap to take on what he rightly describes as “a strange landscape” of how Elvis is portrayed in comic books (aka sequential art), a subject, which until now, has not been well covered or understood.
The book in question, Elvis, Hero of the Comic Books, was written by EIN’s Nigel Patterson and sublimely designed by Elvis Day By Day’s, Kees Mouwen.
The book includes stunning artwork from a number of releases and an eclectic variety of Elvis related comic book ephemera. Elvis, Hero of the Comic Books features more than 600 images!
Read Gordon’s detailed review to discover why he found the book to be “refreshingly different, extremely eye-catching, well-researched and well-written, while offering a new slant on things”.
(Book Review, Source: Gordon Minto;ElvisInfoNet) |
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(Book Review) Shake, Rattle and Blue Moon – The Formative Recordings of Elvis Presley 1953-1960 (Alan Tranter): This new book by Alan Tranter is not a biography, it is more accurately a chronicle of Elvis' growth; his visits to the recording studio, his first movies, his record releases, his influences, his live performances, his TV appearances, all of which paint a picture of the artist who became, and remained, King.
Need to brush up on your knowledge of Elvis’ earliest recordings or are a new fan wanting a solid account of Elvis in the studio circa 1950s?
If so, Alan Tranter’s new book is a fresh and satisfying release, chock full of background on individual songs, recording information and neat analysis of Elvis in the studio.
Read Nigel Patterson’s full review
(Book Review, Source:ElvisInformationNetwork) |
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Elvis in Literature #4 - 'Elvis, Barbra, A Star Is Born, and a girl circling overhead': That Elvis was considered for the co-lead role in A Star Is Born, starring Barbra Streisand, has long been a discussion point among fans. Why didn't Elvis take up the offer? Could he have carried it off?
Ms Streisand recently released her autobiography, My Name is Barbra (Century Books), a mammoth book of nearly 1,000 pages (but unfortunately no index)!!
Streisand's account of discussions with Elvis and Colonel Tom Parker about the role of John Norman Howard is interesting - and her description of meeting Elvis also includes a fascinating and somewhat bizarre account of why Elvis was late in meeting up with her.
Go to 'Elvis in Literature #4' on Barbra Streisand and Elvis for the whole story, photos and excerpts..
(Spotlight, Source;Nigel Patterson/ElvisInfoNet) |
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(Book Review) 'Fact vs. Fiction in the 2022 ELVIS Movie' (Trina Young): EIN’s Nigel Patterson recently sat down to read Trina Young’s fourth book about Elvis. Given its core intent, Fact vs. Fiction in the 2022 ELVIS Movie is not a standard narrative, but rather, an illuminating treatise assessing degrees of fact and fiction in what was the most successful non-franchise movie of 2022, Baz Luhrmann’s spectacular assault on your visual and auditory senses, ELVIS.
For the core section of the book, Ms Young rates each scene based on four different criteria (note that for each scene it's time in the film is included). The author then provides narrative details for each of the last three criteria, the Storyline information often running to several pages. Her ratings for historical accuracy (truth) can be truly enthralling.
Read Nigel’s 1,750-word review
(Book Review, Source: ElvisInformationNetwork) |
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'The Airplanes & The King' In-depth review: The original spanish book 'Los Aviones Y El Rey' by Carlos Varrenti was republished as an expanded English version 'The Airplanes & The King' towards the end of 2022.
Not only that but it was expanded from its original 197 pages to an amazing 400 pages with a lot of unreleased material and stunning photos from the 'Elvis Files' vaults!
The English version was unfortunately delayed by supply issues due to the worldwide Covid pandemic - but has now been published as a High quality Hardback book.
As an Aeronautical engineer and Elvis fan, Varrenti is well qualified to write a book which details Elvis’ history with his aircraft and his link to aeronautics in general. With photos and stories from 1955 through to 1977 - and beyond - the book is also an interesting historical look at Elvis’ life "on tour" but this time with an delightfully original theme.
EIN's Nigel Patterson takes a very detailed look at this impressive publication and discovers a trove of delights...
(Book Reviews, Source:ElvisInformationNetwork) |
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EIN Website content © Copyright the Elvis Information Network.
Elvis Presley, Elvis and Graceland are trademarks of Elvis Presley Enterprises.
The Elvis Information Network has been running since 1986 and is an EPE officially recognised Elvis fan club.
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