Tagged: elvis presley

We remember 1967 as a year which brought us “Lucy In The Sky (With Diamonds)” as well as “Judy In Disguise With Glasses.” But it was also the year Elvis Presley’s recording career began to wake from a deep slumber.

To get a perspective on Presley’s music in 1967, you have to go back to sessions in 1966 and 1961. His music career was still being driven by his movie commitments, and still being hamstrung by his management’s insistence on exclusively cutting songs owned by their publishing company.

Around our house, whenever an MGM movie starts, if my wife doesn’t say it first, I’ll chime in: “You know, that lion came from the Memphis Zoo.” The lion’s name was Volney, by the way, and the roar was in fact recorded in the old Carnivora building at the zoo. He died in 1944.

The title of the article, written by Maureen Cleave and published in the London Evening Standard in early 1966 was “How Does A Beatle Live?” Buried in the middle of quips and quotes were typical brash John Lennon throwaway lines. “Christianity will go,” he said, “it will vanish and shrink.” John added, “We’re more popular than Jesus now.” Virtually unnoticed at the time, the lines were quoted ala carte in an American teen magazine that summer, and the backlash they drew in the states hit its peak right around the time of the band’s appearance at the Mid-South Coliseum.