MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Elvis Presley fans love an anniversary.
Every year, thousands of Elvis devotees flock to Memphis to remember the singer’s death on Aug. 16, 1977. The main event of “Elvis Week” is the solemn candlelight vigil at Graceland, his longtime home, on Tuesday.
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This year, fans have something else to commemorate. It was 55 years ago — 1956 — when the first two Elvis albums — “Elvis Presley” and the follow-up “Elvis” — were released, launching an international music career that brought Elvis’ mix of country, rhythm and blues, and gospel to millions of fans around the world.
“It’s a documentation of what I think is rock music’s most incredible year,” said Ernst Jorgensen, a music producer and Elvis catalog expert. “Nobody was prepared for Elvis.”
To mark Elvis’ breakout year, Jorgensen and his team have assembled a five-CD box set called “Young Man with the Big Beat.” Jorgensen will be unveiling the RCA/Legacy box set today at Graceland. The collection goes on sale Sept. 27.
The set includes not only the five CDs, but also an 80-page book that provides a daily chronology of Elvis’ year through photos, postcards, fan letters, magazine covers and other memorabilia. The set also includes rare photos, posters and a replica concert ticket stub.
Fans can pre-order “Young Man with the Big Beat” for $109.99 at Elvis1956.com, or wait until Sept. 27 and pay a suggested retail price of $139.98.
Prosecutors could charge rapper this week
LOS ANGELES – Los Angeles County prosecutors will decide this week whether to press charges against The Game, after a tweet from the rapper’s account incited a telephone flash mob that overwhelmed the emergency phone system at a sheriff’s station.
Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said Sunday that agency officials will send the results of their criminal investigation to the district attorney’s office in the next few days.
Whitmore said that The Game, whose real name is Jayceon Terrell Taylor, could face a number of misdemeanor counts.
The Game later tweeted that his account had been hacked.
U2’s Edge, others suing state
LOS ANGELES – The guitarist for U2 and several other property owners whose proposal to build a cluster of mansions overlooking Malibu failed to get past state regulators have filed lawsuits against the California Coastal Commission.
The lawsuits filed Friday argue that the basis for the commission’s decision to deny their permits in June was not legal.
The property owners say they are five separate owners, each building a single home on separate lots, an argument that would have made it more difficult for the panel to reject their proposal.
The commission, however, determined there was enough evidence to show the project was under common ownership, coordinated and led by U2 guitarist The Edge, whose real name is David Evans.
The proposal called for five multilevel homes of up to 12,785 square feet to be built on 156 acres in the Santa Monica Mountains. The guitarist said the mansions would be some of the most environmentally sensitive in the world.
Opponents, including the National Park Service said the development would scar the ridgeline.
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