okay, here we go again. another deal on elvis for the 16th million time. round and round we go and where we stop everyone knows is graceland. let’s try and make a comparison from 1977 to the present time 2002. let’s begin by asking the question, would elvis still be wearing the jump suits, which by the way i never liked. i always thought when he came out on stage wearing this attire he looked like he had just left the set of a cecil b. demille movie about the roman empire or he had borrowed some stuff off of that weird convertible of webb pierce’s, you know the flashy deal with the saddle and horns by the driver’s seat and a colt revolver for a gear shift and all the money embedded in it. the stage outfits seem to be somewhat outrageous, no matter which position you viewed them from. i always thought his early dress was more fitting to the rock-a-billy cat he started out to be. i can’t see him in that stuff today, surely someone would have taken him to the fashion police. the black hair would need some grey in it, surely he would not have kept it jet black in 2002. i would hope that he would be singing his rock-a-billy songs, which always had a lot of meaning, flavor, and fun to them, not to mention the good guitar playing and bass work of scotty moore, bill black and d.j. fontana. those long drawn out orchestrated songs done in the style of las vegas really got boring as they slowly drummed on from show to show. even when he did his early songs the large orchestra seemed to play them with no feeling and how can you do “that’s alright mama” with a 25 piece orchestra. bo-ring to be sure because it only took a 3 piece band in the first place. i know the four engine convair 880 jet liner would be gone a more conservative beech craft king air would be the air travel of choice in this day of high expenses. no one in elvis’ age group (67 and up) tours the way he did in 1977 i don’t believe he could do it either. two thousand and two is a much different world economically and musically from the one he left in 1977. would people want to see him? probably many would. would he still be in big demand in the usa? probably not. i imagine his biggest audience would be in europe, australia, and japan. would he still have hit records in the charts? probably not. good songs are few and far between. elvis would probably have become bored at the material that was offered to him. elvis would have been in the musical business over 48 years, that’s along time to stay excited about anything. could he still fill a one hundred sixty thousand seat arena? it possible, but not likely. whether he could still fill large arena’s would depend on his personnel life and if he had continued to make personnel appearances and if those personnel appearances were good performances. he didn’t get much bad publicity when he was alive, because he was shielded from the press. whether that would be so today would remain to be seen, because people want to know all about you in our present time. his personnel life in 1977 could have ruined things for him for the future. red and sonny west had just published a book “elvis what happened?” shortly before his death. the public sympathy ran in his favor after he died. his fans always seem to come to his rescue how that would have played out had he lived we will never know. he is a national hero and an american icon. i would not be surprised to wake up one day and be told that he has been added to mount rushmore along with george washington, thomas jefferson, abraham lincoln, and teddy roosevelt. neither would it surprise me that he had replaced george washington on the dollar bill. he could probably run in the next governor of tennessee election and win it, but would all these things be possible if he were alive today? i think it would be doubtful. would he join forces and support the rock-a-billy hall of fame or the rock-n-roll hall of fame? he has been inducted in both. i would hope common sense would prevail and he would choose the rock-a-billy hall of fame. would he come back to the roots of rock-a-billy music or would he look the other way? i think he would do both. would he have made up the financial obligations he owed to scotty moore and bill black for helping make him famous? he would have if he really was the elvis we have read and heard about. however, he never did so when he was alive. scotty had to make a living the best way he could and is still doing so today. the late bill black formed the bill black combo and toured with his band to make ends meet. should elvis have shared his wealth with scotty, bill and d.j. fontana? that is a question that requires a lot of moral and legal answers, from a layman’s point of view, yes he should have, because they started off as a group. the same as the beetles or the beach boys or the coasters. they were a group!! when elvis died, it was reported that the estate was worth 10 million dollars. today it has been reported that the estate is worth upwards toward 2 to 3 hundred million. elvis presley enterprises is big business. i was there not long ago. take my word for it, i was not alone. how big elvis would be in 2002 had he lived? we will never know. as a guess probably not as big as he is today. what we do know is he made rock-a-billy music famous, thank you elvis. he made all of us southern folks proud to be southern, thank you elvis. twenty-five years later there are questions about elvis still unanswered, thank you elvis.in the fifties he made us proud to be teenagers. he was our hero. he made us laugh, he gave us hope, he was our friend through his music when we didn’t have one. not only did he give us his best as a person, he gave us the best music america has ever had. thank you elvis, scotty, bill, and d.j. god bless all of you without you we would still be listening to artie shaw, perry como, doris day and all the others that i personally didn’t care for. maybe it would have been better if elvis had stayed with sam phillips and sun records. after all has been said and done sun records is still in memphis tennessee at 706 union avenue. by the way, elvis could i get back my 25 cents that you borrowed from me in taylor’s restaurant in 1954?