> I feel like in our lifetime, Elvis's status as a rock 'n'
>roll great has diminished significantly.

This is most likely parallel to interest in rock and roll (as opposed to rock) declining in general.

To use the example - when I was a kid, Elvis was everywhere; I had an LP of Elvis's gold records by the time I was 5 or 6; my folks weren't particularly big fans but listened to the then-nascent oldies radio format a lot. I remember being in my mom's red Pontiac wagon with vinyl seats that you stick to in summer - it was August when he died - when we heard that he died on the radio. The DJ was crying.

Throughout the 80s Elvis remained visible via tabloid fodder (the previously mentioned sightings, etc.) I went to college in a small town in Vermont that still somehow managed to have its own Elvis impersonator who dressed *every day* like '68 comeback special Elvis and drove a big black Cadillac with KING tags on it.

But the connection to Elvis became much less visceral in the 1990s as he was reduced to jumpsuited impersonators in parachutes, wedding chapels, leaving the building and thank-you-very-much. My kids know him, know he was called The King of Rock n Roll, know who he is, but what they know is the pompadour, the jump suit, the goofy glasses, not Sun Records or schlocky movies or any idea who Scotty Moore is or even Colonel Parker. Elvis's legacy became a victim of his own parodic potential.

Musically, he's a victim of a few things

-the fact that after the first few years he primarily recorded schlock, so outside of 'Suspicious Minds' and a few others you don't really hear his music that often, a fact that is not without reason. After '68, he was primarily kept in the musical spotlight by his live shows, which were much more revue rather than rock concert.

-More importantly, since his most visceral music was recorded between 54 and 57, is the fact that pre-Beatles rock and roll simply didn't matter to the majority of white kids who grew up after the Beatles. Classic rock - beginning with the Beatles - has managed to remain relevant to youth in successive generations in ways that rockabilly, RnB, jump blues, early soul and the other ingredients that coexisted under the Rock and Roll banner in the mid-50s have never been able to. We knew who Elvis was because he mattered so much to so many in our parents' generation, but ourselves? we never really gave a shit about him. Kids in my generation or even today found and find it worthwhile to parse the discographies of the rock pantheon, Motown, Stax, but no one is ticking off Elvis's discography - or combing the discographies of Sun or Chess or the many other labels that put out rock and roll records.

>I realize this when
>people talked about Michael Jackson owning the Beatles
>catalog, and white people being mad about it.

Weird, I don't remember anyone being mad about it (except maybe Paul), even though it was in the news. I dunno though.

>No one ever
>mentioned that he also on Elvis's catalog.

Didn't know that. Apparently he also owned Little Richard's.

*shrug*