Elvis is Dead, but the King Lives

January 8, 2008. The King is 73 years old today. Elvis Presley, the man, may be dead and buried but The King of Rock 'n Roll still reigns supreme. The music rings from a million jukeboxes and the image shakes its hips on a million stages.

Today, fresher than ever, the black and white grain of a young Elvis breaking the hearts of every girl with the ruckus of ROCK and ROLL immortalizes the definitive image of rock and roll music. Elvis is the keystone. Elvis is the bedrock. There may be some that did it before, but nobody did it like that, and every body since then has done a poor imitation.

At the dawn of Elvis, Frank Sinatra said, "His kind of music is deplorable, a rancid smelling aphrodisiac...It fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people."

At the sundown of Elvis, Frank Sinatra said, "There have been many accolades uttered about Elvis' talent and performances through the years, all of which I agree with wholeheartedly. I shall miss him dearly as a friend. He was a warm, considerate and generous man."

Somewhere in the middle of that rancid aphrodisiac and the warm, considerate and generous man lies the revolution that launched countless rock and roll shouters. Elvis said you do not need to know anything about music to know rock and roll. You don't need to be rich. You don't need to be black or white. All you need to know was how to shake your butt and sing along - and you don't even need to do that right.

The enduring power of rock 'n roll is connected to the most important power source of human experience. The hope that there is something better out there, and in these three and a half minutes of guitars, drums and shouting, I just might be getting a piece of it.

In the 50 years since Elvis, many bands and artists have come and gone, but Roy Orbison might have nailed it best, "[Elvis] was the firstest with the mostest."

Get out your records, roll up the rug and feel the music again. On the King's orders.