People have been dragging Elvis through the mud since before he died. It's old news that a poor kid from Tupelo adjusted badly to celebrity status. I prefer to remember his great music rather than dwell on the negatives.

I agree, Rusty. I was only making light of a bad deal. I can only imagine the stresses and pressures of all the poeple that "own" the performers.

I thought that what was sad about Elvis is that the Beatles idolized him and if I was his manager in the late 60's I would have told him to grow his hair long and put out and album with the Beatles. For some reason he didn't make the switch from the early 60's to the late 60's, ditto for the Beach Boys and their striped shirts.

I just saw my cousin the other day. In the early 60's she was about 10 and was in the Moana Hotel in Waikiki and Elvis was there. He walked up to her and put his hand on her head and smiled. Please hold your comments! ;) Since then we always kid her that she was blessed by Elvis. My cousin's Mother (my aunt) was an avid music lover and played gigs when she was young. When she was in her 70's she was still going to see bands like Aerosmith and Def Leppard. She told me that around 1955 there was a gig at an old stadium here in Hawaii and a funky old van pulled up and Elvis popped out in the now famous gold suit and played.

This society is just ignorant about drugs. If someone has a heart attack from eating junk food for decades everyone sympathizes and sends gifts; if the same person gets a drug problem they're worthless and weak and people mock them. It's just ignorance, that's all it is.

Why all the fasination with being a G-Man ?

One of Elvis's first girlfriends was Barbara Hearn, who latter married a Jim Smith, Smith was a law student who would become a CIA officer assigned to the Middle East, Far East and Europe.

Hearn and Elvis photo;

Around 1960, the media dubbed these people "The Memphis Mafia." This first referred to their image, as they usually cruised the city in black mohair suits and dark sunglasses. According to one account,[4] a crowd of people in front of the Riviera Hotel watched as two big black limousines arrived. Elvis and his friends got out of the two cars and someone in the crowd yelled, "Who are they, the Mafia?" and a newspaper reporter picked up the story. The Memphis Mafia members themselves say on their website that Elvis liked the name and it stuck. However, Presley's former wife Priscilla wrote that Presley didn't like the name because of a frightening Mafia connotation which the general public was then unaware of, and that members of organized crime had attempted to take over Presley's career, something reported as having happened earlier to Frank Sinatra.[5] It's important to note that Elvis might have chosen to surround himself with such friends because he knew that it might have been the only way out of poverty for all his childhood friends.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riviera_Hotel

More than three years before Elvis Presley collapsed and died next to the toilet at Graceland, the FBI knew the singer was addicted to cocaine, according to these two informant reports. But did the bureau try and intervene to save the life of an American hero? Sadly, the answer is no. They sat by and watched the music die.