Stone Cold Natural Freak: A Personal Look At Elvis Presley

To add to an ever growing list of impossible accomplishments, Elvis Presley, thirty years after his death, has returned to the top of the British Album charts with a double disc compilation called THE KING. This marks the eleventh time that an Elvis album has topped the British charts (it nudges him just past The Rolling Stones to put it into perspective). The album has become a first week smash also in Australia and France where it has crashed unexpectedly into the top ten.
I must say after an invigorating week in Memphis, seeing music as fine as this finding its way into a number of new homes worldwide is very satisfying. I find myself thinking about a room full of baffled modern music executives trying to figure out why their pre-packaged performers continually fail to artists like Elvis and The Beatles. I am also reminded by something Brian Eno once said about how Elvis was just too brilliant to ever truly explain.
On the United States charts, the download only single of IN THE GHETTO has topped the I-Tunes chart just a few days after appearing. All proceeds to this particular track go to Lisa Marie Presley’s newly established Presley Place in New Orleans, an organization that has been created to help Katrina victims and their families.