A little bit of Elvis aura to celebrate what would have been his 80th birthday

/ January 21, 2015
The Lustre Kings of Albany, N.Y., play on their Elvis Presley 80th Birthday Bash tour at the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in Syracuse.

The Lustre Kings of Albany, N.Y., play on their
Elvis Presley 80th Birthday Bash tour at the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in Syracuse.

I saw a band from Albany play the songs of Elvis Presley at a bar in Syracuse last week.

The Lustre Kings were on tour to celebrate what would have been the King’s 80th birthday.

The rockabilly band led by guitarist and singer Mark Gamsjager had a fun time entertaining the fans at the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in a city that has a little bit of history with Presley.

I wrote about the experience for my community blog this week on Syracuse public media site waer.org. You can read my column by clicking the link below.

http://waer.org/post/elvis-presleys-80-rocks-naturally-dinosaur-bar-b-que

The Lustre Kings were OK in my book to tour with a night of Elvis music because they know how to have fun on stage. Young Elvis had that twinkle in his eye and bounce in his leg, of course. As the years march past since his passing in August 1977, the notion that he also had periods of depression and was flagged by critics as too heavy and his music was called out of touch fades away, too. He had fought back. America loves its heroes.

Here’s a snippet of the Lustre Kings performing the song “Don’t Let Go” I shot with my iPhone 6 that night of Thursday, Jan. 15.

Do you think bands today should still be playing the songs of Elvis Presley? Do you more appreciate blues Elvis, gospel Elvis, soul Elvis or rock Elvis? What’s your favorite Elvis song and movie?

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80 thoughts on “A little bit of Elvis aura to celebrate what would have been his 80th birthday”

  2. Hmm… I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never seen an Elvis movie. I’m not a big fan of his music, though I don’t dislike it. I shot a wedding in Canada where the officiant was an Elvis impersonator and he sang at the reception. That was fun. And I’ve also seen an Elvis impersonator (or maybe he was REALLY The King) driving around my town before. And though you didn’t ask, I’m all for that theory where he didn’t really die but he worked for the government and his death was faked. 😉

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  4. Never was an Elvis fan but on my trip to Nashville last year we visited RCA Studio B where they still have his original piano. At one point the tour guide turned out the lights and played a recording of Elvis singing a gospel song (could have been How Great Thou Art). Well, it wasn’t a recording…. Elvis WAS in the studio, I could feel his presence at the piano… goose bumps time. I realized then what a magnificent voice he had.

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  6. i didn’t know there was a syracuse/elvis history – yeh, i enjoy the tribute bands of all kinds and my fav is -‘can’t help falling in love with you.’ always makes me swoon.

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    • It’s quite likely that lot of cities can come up with a history with Elvis of somebody digs a bit into the archives, Beth. 🙂 It was something about the bad review/good review the first time he played here two nights apart and then the fact that the next time he was supposed to come back, he died two days before the show, though. That gave me something to write about at the big daily come Jan. 8 on round number Elvis years.

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  9. The King. I enjoy Elvis’s music. My favorite of his movies is “It Happened at the World Fair”. Favorite song, “My Wish Came True”. Last time I was in Tennessee I could not convince my family to visit Graceland, but there is still hope. 🙂

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  10. I like elvis…like another postee said he had respect for his mom, humility & really was not that ostentatious w his wealth unlike ‘todays’ stars, . I wonder what he would have to say about all these 5 min.wonders? God now i am humming ‘i can’t help falling in love w u” thanks mark.

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  12. He started singing in the ’50’s, when I was a teenager. We sang his songs at school, got mad when he was only filmed from the waist up on Ed Sullivan because our parents objected, saw him at the small venues he played while building his career and cheered him on. You children don’t know that he was not an overnight success because by the time you were old enough to appreciate him he was already KING. I started loving him and his music when he first came out of that little cabin, paying tribute to his mother, dying his hair black in her honor, speaking tearfully about his twin brother, Aaron. Yeah, it ended badly, but oh, what a beginning. He dedicated it all to his mom when he started. It was all to buy her a real house, the best car, maids to make her life easy. He did that, but she didn’t live very long after his success. But she died in her mansion, because Elvis was a man who honored his mother. I wish more young men had been brought up like that today. Just to treat women, especially older women, with respect due them for all they have done just to bring the brats into the world and try to raise them.
    Getting off my soapbox now.

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  13. Hard to believe he’d be 80 … and I seem to recall that the day after his death, one of the big dailies ran a photo of the marquee promoting his show.

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  14. Honestly, he was before my time and I found him cheesy and outdated for this aging flower child. Until I watched a two-hour PBS documentary years ago which really delved into Elvis and his roots and who he was before the black pompadour and the sequined jumpsuit. That Elvis, I totally can dig. A lot.

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  16. One post with Elvis in the mix and people get all talkative. I remember Elvis as a little kid. As a teenager. As a young adult and as a young father. Maybe that is what an Icon is. Someone you remember and think of throughout your life. He did make some great music.

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  17. Fun! Love this group–personality and then some. Cool name, too. Have gone on record as not being an Elvis fan, though I do like his music. Blues especially. Tragic, really, but how amazing that the King lives on in this group and so many more.

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  20. I’m an Elvis fan, always have been since I heard Love Me Tender and I still love listening to his music. It’s hard to believe he would be 80. My favourite period was ’68-’74 but any Elvis is good 🙂 I feel sad when I see the last couple of years of his life though.

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  23. I don’t know what’s wrong with your readers. Elvis is a legend. The King. I don’t have memorabilia or an Elvis swivel hip clock (like someone I know), but Elvis changed the face of music. The young, self-effacing Elvis was full of wit and charm, then being a good sport on Ed Sullivan with the hound dog, then his mother passing and he still so young, then off to war, then the Colonel and Ann Margaret and Priscilla. It is no wonder there are still impersonators. He was an original. And I like black leather music-in-the-round 60s Elvis, making his comeback. PS, Gamsjager’s hair is pretty dope. Gamsjager should do a shot of Goldschlager.

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    • I dig your Elvis ardor, Kerbey. Good for you. We need that kind of passion for icons. Also we need people who diss icons. That’s what’s American as apple pie, split decisions and how-could you?! I come down as pro-Elvis on this one, obviously.

      FYI over at waer.org, I definitely mention Gamsjager’s pomp. It is a pillar of confidence.

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    • Um, Kerbey, he actually didn’t go to war. He stayed safely in Germany, far away from the fighting, but I have to admit my heart was in my throat the entire time. If anything had happened to him the War Dept. would have been mobbed.

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      • Oh yes, he was definitely an asset as far as service promos went. They always had film clips on the news every day, training videos, interviews, news stories about him visiting the wounded. He did a great job for morale for the troops, did concerts for the guys on R & R, was an Ambassador of Peace, a little bit of everything. And of course, there was a movie later about him as an American GI. He couldn’t act his way out of a closet, but I still went to all of his movies.

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  25. I sort of have a reputation for loving Elvis even though I’m not sure I totally deserve it – but he did make an appearance at two of my weddings, so I guess that’s not nothing.

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  26. I’m probably completely unAmerican in saying I never really liked Elvis Presley, but I am always surprised at the number of bands that are influenced by him, especially when you consider that these bands range in genre and also, that it is so many years since his death and the height of his musical career.

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  27. I was never a fan of Elvis. I was jealous because I was unable to make teenage girls scream and swoon. And I had two older sisters who couldn’t get enough of him. So there was that, too.

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