Baltimore’s event of afro american music and culture has been a regional custom for more than 30 years. This best destination for the July 4th weekend hosts as many as 500k guests enjoying world-class entertainment, celeb challenges, the Baltimore celebrity, the Afro American Film Festival and energetic exhibits of arts, education and heritage. The celebration is presented by Mayor Stephanie rawlings-blake and produced by greiBO Entertainment with the support of a local festival steering committee. And once again, the afro american Festival will element Radio One’s Stone Soul Picnic — making it the unique event for the summer. The 2012 afro american Celebration features an extensive choice of enjoyment, cultural shows, contests, health screenings, education and financial empowerment activities. This year’s festival provides something for everyone from shopping and food to amazing performances, health screenings many other items. With almost 500k visitors over the festival weekend, The afro american music festival is an amazing venue to buy and sell products. In addition to an extensive program of entertainment and activities, there will be a great selection of unique and interesting cultural foods, crafts and services presented all over the site.

Afro american music festival

With a modified site plan, the 2012 event influence is designed for maximum visitors at every location. The illegal sale or distribution of merchandise in the festival is not allowed. The 2012 afro american Festival offers are sometimes for everyone with an extensive choice of entertainment, cultural exhibits, contests, health screenings, education and financial empowerment actions. Visit more than 150 selling booths and attractions as well as enjoy 3 stages of entertainment during the 2-day celebration. There are several activities for children such as youth shows, arts & crafts, inflatable obstacle courses and a rock climbing wall. this year’s celebration will function the Stone Soul Picnic Main Stage, distributors and sponsors to create one unique event for the summer! Sponsors, vendor and visitors should expect and even better practical experience as an outcome of the combined initiatives of both event teams. The 2012 afro american music festival is searching for the Best Gospel Team in Baltimore. Get into your group of 25 members or less to get the opportunity to take your Gospel Music Community to a new level of motivational music and recognition with prizes, performances and awards. Groups will be judged on 10 minute limit, Blend and Musicality, Tone & Articulation, Overall Performance, and Crowd Reaction.

The Lakshminarayana Global Music Festival organized a unique workshop called World violins for musicians, retirees and students of music on Tuesday. The workshop was an approximation by violinists from various styles and forms. The event began with Dr L Subramaniam explains the idea behind the workshop.

“We have put in legendary violinists around the world and we want people who are interested in the violin, to be able to interact with them,” he said. It was followed by Ms Lalitha, who went on to describe the history and techniques of Carnatic music and South Indian version of the violin.

While she warmed up the audience with the details of the Indian version of the violin, Mark O’ Connor, an American violinist took everyone to the other end of the world. Mark started his presentation with the Blues style of music which he explained as the foundation of the American music.

He also spoke about the importance of acquiring the language of music in the early years if one aspires to be a musician. The presentation was interesting as he demonstrated every technique and style on the violin.

He played a few tunes of Blues music after which he spoke about Reggae – which was based on sync tunes – and Hoedown, which is a cross pollination of European and Afro-American tunes. His presentation ended with Jazz, which involves a lot of improvisation.

There were quite a few questions from the audience, one of which involved the levels of violin playing and kind of curriculum which one could follow. Mark answered the question in an interesting manner, asking students to mix influences and create their own music.

“Improvisation is a wonderful vehicle,” he said before playing a single tune on the violin and then using different notes to represent different emotions and creating a new tune.  The final artiste for the evening was Catherina Chen, a Western classical violinist from Norway. She spoke about the various eras of music and the artistes in those eras. She started out with the Baroque era and went on to Classical and Romantic eras, all of which had their own peculiarities.

“I am pleased that the romantic era, because the artists started playing their own music, instead of playing for others,” she said. She also played a couple of legendary musician and Bach also showed different techniques that can be used while playing the violin.

Hoppe Cats, the new documentary film shot and directed by Nabil Elderkin, tells the moving story of Abramz Teki, the association he founded, and hip-hop pioneer Richard “Crazy Legs” Colon travel the famous Rock Steady Crew to Uganda. Elderkin follows the famous B-Boy and more than a few members of his crew as they travel to Uganda to teach breakdancing to urban youth in Kampala (Uganda’s capital) and in the war-torn region of northern Iraq.

Although the B-boys in Uganda are Crazy Legs euphoric after his place of birth, the trip is as Crazy Legs and galvanizing effect on his life. Abramz Teky Break Dance Project Uganda started in 2006 as a means to improve themselves and those around him to initiate social change. offers free dance lessons twice a week, hip-hop is a tool used to bring people Abramz organization, but he tries to do much more than teaching people how to dance “We are a hip-hop, but We are not only promote hip-hop culture.

We use hip-hop to authorize people to help people. That is why when people come to our program, we usually try to help them determine, learn more about them instead of just b-boys and b-girls. We understand that we want to be in IT. People want to be writers, photographers, videographers, but they have no opportunity, so when they come to us as an organization, we try to see how we can use our influence and connections to help them their dreams. Thus, some people have computer skills, or get the charges back to school, there are so many things.”

Nabil Elderkin was first introduced to Abramz and BPU through a mutual friend working for OXFAM in Northern Uganda. He was traveling through the region documenting the conflict areas with his camera. Having shot and directed music videos for hip-hop artists such as The Black Eyed Peas, Kanye West, and K’Naan, he was pointed in the direction of BPU in Kampala where he met Abramz. He was amazed by what he saw and committed to come back to document the amazing work Abramz was doing. He pitched the idea to Red Bull who eventually produced the film and connected Crazy Legs with the project.

“I’ve been signed to Red Bull as an athlete for 7-8 years. They presented it to me, it’s a trip to Uganda, Africa, there’s no money involved and I was like hell yea, I’m down, let’s do this. But for me I was into it more for selfish reasons. I’m going to go to the home of the beat, because for me that’s where breakbeats started,” Crazy Legs described what attracted him to the project originally. “I didn’t really understand the full scope of what I was about to be involved with, and the depth of the situation over there. It became more of a mission after I came back.”

Some of the film’s most compelling footage is seeing Crazy Legs and the other members of his crew interact with the members of BPU and discover how much they share. When the founding members of BPU and Rock Steady first meet, Crazy Legs stresses what they have in common, “It’s important for you to know, this isn’t something that came out of America, this came out of the South Bronx. The South Bronx at that time could have been any third world country, and that’s what we have in common, the fact that we all come from shitty conditions, we’re born poor. This didn’t cost me anything as a child, anything I wanted to do cost money, whether it be boxing, baseball. Any sport we wanted to do cost money, but this…(he starts tapping a beat on a table and bopping his head), and you start doing your thing.”

Crazy Legs and his crew then continue on their journey, teaching workshops organized by BPU in Kampala both in a community center auditorium as well as in the middle of Kissini, a slum community of over 30,000 people living without running water or adequate sanitation. The experience visibly affects Crazy Legs as he walks through the streets and sees children walking through mud with bare feet, playing with machetes and sniffing glue to ease their hunger pains. He comments in the film, “I felt like I was in hell for a second, and it has nothing to do with the people, but the conditions.”

While the experience of seeing the most poverty-stricken area in urban Kampala is a powerful experience, traveling to the village of Gulu, in Northern Uganda is even more dramatic. Much of Northern Uganda remains devastated by a civil war where children were abducted and forced to become child soldiers, innocent by-standers had their limbs and/or facial features amputated, and girls as young as 12 or 13 were raped. Abramz Tekya bravely travelled to Northern Uganda at a time when no one dared in order to bring BPU to the people of the region as a means of recovery and recuperation for their spirit and to provide a sense of hope.

Director Nabil Elderkin displayed a delicate balance in his selection of graphic images from the Northern conflict area. While he didn’t want to alienate any members of his audience, he wanted to show the gravity and reality of the situation, “It’s a fine balance with any graphic imagery. I just wanted to show conflict, I wanted to show them this is the reality; this is the situation they’ve been put through. Without adding extra layers that don’t need to be there, it’s all about putting it into context, and not exploiting.”

It’s in Northern Uganda, during a workshop led by Crazy Legs and his crew that Rocksteady is on the receiving end of a dance lesson. Abramz explains in the film that when he first ventured to Gulu, he would only teach the local kids b-boy moves after they taught him one of their tribal dances, and committed to teach each other. In that tradition, the kids in Crazy Legs’ workshop perform their tribal dances for him, and he and his crew become the students.

One of the major themes of the film is seeing the artform of hip-hop and breakdance come full circle and return to the ancestral source of their creation. While hip-hop culture evolved out of the cultural and socio-economic milieux of mid-1970’s South Bronx, the cultural practices ingrained in the Afro-Caribbean and Afro-American values that spawned urban hip-hop culture all trace their lineage back to Africa. Abramz is acutely aware of that lineage and encourages those he teaches to incorporate their traditional African dances into their b-boy moves.

Hip-hop artists such as Mos Def, will.i.am, and K’Naan all comment on the relationship hip-hop has to African culture. Born and raised in Somalia, K’Naan has the most personal insight on the subject matter. He comments in the film, “The songs have a universal feeling of struggle, and hope and overcoming the odds. These are the stories that humanity is made of and for that reason it connects wherever the music is heard.”

Nabil Elderkin commented on hip-hop coming full-circle, returning to the source, “I thought it was really beautiful, that’s one of the things that inspired me the most about this project, it was seeing something I’m involved with my work in photography and music videos, seeing this music and artform come full circle seeing the place where the beat originated. As K’Naan said in the film, there are poets who have been using drum beats and speaking poetry for thousands of years. I’m sure it was all over Africa, I’m sure the beat has been going on for thousands and thousands of years and somebody was saying something to that beat.”

Ambramz confirmed the hypothesis of Nabil, “Before I even listen the word rap, the thing is, people in Uganda have been rapping before we even knew it was the word rap. It was quite traditional; it was not even in the cities, the traditional culture. There was a rhyme that people people used to recite the King, and also in the community, but more often in major ceremonies. They called it ebieontonte. Even the grandparents of our grandparents do. So, rap has been around for generations. This is not something that is really new.”

Breakdance Project Uganda is presently conducting a fundraising campaign to build their own community center in Kampala. Crazy Legs and Red Bull are committed to helping BPU raise funds to build a community center where they can not only learn to breakdance more children, but also teach children to use computers, art seminars, and conducting various other community building activities. Crazy Legs has commented on the process, Red Bull is a great thing. At the end of the day we got involved in something that we saw was much larger than expected. And when you realize there are shares.

There are many people who are aware, but knowledge without action is useless. Red Bull has made sure that even if it was another type of project, they decided to get involved in helping to create a website, create a means of obtaining donations, helping to get the NGO status and other things. We do not go there and leave the paper and say hey we have made great movies. We documented, we left and we stayed in because I think the relationship will still be there at least on my part.

Prince of gospel appear in Wayne. The Wayne traditional people attending worship, Temple Beth Tikvah, and the coordinator-YWHA of Northern New Jersey are combined to achieve a vibrant community celebration at the pre-Chanukah with Joshua Nelson and his Kosher Gospel Singers and the band on Sunday 21 November at 15:00 at the Y is on a tour of Pike Wayne.

For Nelson Kosher Gospel is a way to recover their identity as African-American Jew. For your age, whatever their faith or heritage, kosher gospel was a revelation. Nelsons appearance on the Oprah Winfrey helped catapult his career when he named The Next Big Thing in music.

He and his Kosher Gospel Singers and the band played with such notables as Aretha Franklin, Jamie Fox, Maya Angelou, Ashford and Simpson, Cicely Tyson, Harry Belafonte, Stephanie Mills, Dionne Warwick, Melba Moore, and the Klezmatics the Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and even European royalty. These visits following dates and in Sweden and Spain. Beware! His energy and charisma are infectious with the audience can’t sit!

Tickets are reserved seats $ 36 for adults and $ 18 for students and children under 18 Premium seating is available for $ 54. Sponsorships range from $ 540 and $ 3,600 is also available at a very special event. Call 973-595-0100, ext. 237 tickets or EXT. 228 sponsorship information.

It is Wednesday night and the city has an appointment with Greg Howe. Given his powers, at least half of the city should have paid the Theatre Museum. But there is hardly a village. Franks has served Halos mood and open to Greg Howe, competing for the last meter of the chase band. Maybe people will start arriving soon. Rows of empty chairs and a bunch of old boring the show are agonizing.

Franks has served Halos mood and do everything possible to rock the place, but nobody moves. There are a couple of teenagers and a group of strangers. The same expression is tired of all the faces. The place is dead. One of the biggest destroyers of the planet, Howe played with NSYNC, Justin Timberlake and Michael Jackson. But it is played with rock bands. All I could be all this hype about?

Most people seem to have bothered with a concert in the middle of the week seems they are there only because I had nothing else to do and I wanted to experience the experimental jazz fusion. Jazz-fusion shredder really interesting … However, the night seemed endless. The weather had suddenly decided to stop. Sound adjustment took hours. The theater seems to have been gassed with a strange mixture of boredom poison and darkness. The only place where there was a bit of light was a pale yellow spot on stage. We saw only shadows moved. Sound setting.

Finally Saroop Oommen of Unwind Center decided to go on stage. After a long discourse on the guitars HMI, one of the sponsors Saroop finally blessed the audience with Greg. On the stage is a tall, thin African-American with two skin-heads and Italian drummer. Neither Greg nor his band mates look like they can do a lot. Saroop Oommen of Unwind Center introduces the band. There is a small groan was someone to encourage and Greg reached the notes. All hit inadvertently. One minute was dead faces replaced the eyes and mouth wide open gasping for air.

There are others that musicians take the stage. Everyone is agape that nobody seems to notice. The guitar sound is deafening. One million tickets flight guitar Greg at the speed of light tear Theatre Museum together. Greg stage for the first time in India, and saw its reputation as one of the most destructive in the world. His self-titled album on 10 ranked albums biggest flap of all time by Guitar World magazine. Greg is Trey Anastasio, guitarist, and McLaughin Malamsteen rolled into one.

Rocking: Anyway, most people in the grip of a crowd had no idea what had happened to them. A look around and wonder of the world, what is happening on stage? The few whites in the capture of people, pointing to India surprised and laughing. The first song is done. The public has survived the first of many brutal attacks jazz fusion that has been torn to follow.

The second song begins with Jude Gold, guitarist accompanying wah-wahing followed in his guitar solo up Greg. Crusher played blues style. The song has a great blues tune heavy. Greg biceps are bulging, his veins to explode with the energy of the song. Kevin Vecchione, the bassist, who nearly broke his hip grooving. It was one of those rare occasions where more than admire the elegance of the Theatre Museum and the music you are more afraid of life, you start to wonder if age structure is strong enough to resist bestial terror front metal shredder you. Greg humbly accepts the applause he receives little. He has won some fans in India.

The next is a tribute to Stevie Wonder. There is still hope he will get the respect it deserves, but Greg is fast fingering techniques and obscene are Greek to most people. By now most of the oldies, most in the crowd lost interest. Although lasers smoke machines and loud moody can’t capture the public interest. All Greg could do with his Stevie Wonder tribute was created a couple more blank looks. People seem more interested in music, most are busy chatting or messaging. Once when you get a solo soaring something close to a melody that people can identify all of a sudden all the attention turns to the stage, then roll again.

Vocal surprise: Lacked the place was not good music, was the lack of advertising. Relax amid the excitement surrounding Greg Howe first visit to the Indians forgot the importance of organizing a concert, a good publicity and good games sound technicians have been everywhere in the control of the stadium lease their equipment and things in order. . One to wonder what part of one of the greatest shredders Relax do not get to the next song, another tribute to Stevie Wonder, Greg and his band are joined by Benny Dayal songs for a change. Superstitious by Stevie covered by Benny and Greg. It was brilliant. For once, the crowd could relate, and then came the solo. For once, people were listening to Greg, to admire the genius of the greatest virtuosos of the guitar ever.

Greg quickly realized the error in his first Indian concert. Anyone can churn countless notes and play riffs with heavy metal music, so it takes a genius to create soulful melodies. People on this side of the planet are not accustomed to grinding and a million notes a second flight from a single guitar. Give them up and they will love you. Greg announced today that the next piece will be a slow process. What you are witnessing a melodic nuance. People actually appreciate the talent of Greg. But soon, things are back to square one: shredding beast. Jude attempt to communicate with the crowd with a smile is met with a look of disdain.

Greg finally gives up in Chennai and announced that the next piece will be his last with an additional sentence; I am so disappointed you are. He plays his last song shooting hundreds and thousands of notes on the crowd. No one bothered. The entire world, including Greg, wanted to leave room for good. The concert ended without much joy or rocking.

Michael Jackson, also known as the “King of Pop”, died at the age of 50 years, after suffering a heart failurie, leaving behind a fabulous career which was also full of scandals.

Being one of the few artists that was introduced twice in Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Michael Jackson also entered Guiness Book as the most successful showman of all times, won 13 Grammy prizes, had 13 singles at the top of all charts and sales of more than 750 million albums in the whole world.

Michael Jackson’s life was intensely covered by the media, dubled by a successful career, representing a significant part of the pop culture for almost four decades.

Michael Joseph Jackson was born on 29th August 19158 in Gary, Indiana, being the 7th out of 9 children. The five Jackson boys – Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael sustained their first concert as The jackson Five, when Michael had only 11 years.

The band was promoted by the popular Motown disc records and acknowledged world-wide success. After this moment, Michael launched his solo career.

He made his debut in 1972, and 10 years later he launched the album “Thriller”, which became a super hit. The album sold in 21 million copies just in US and 27 million copies worldwide.

At the beginning of the 80s, Jackson became a dominant figure for pop music, being the first afro-american showman intensely promoted by MTV.

On the stage and on his videoclips, Jackson made some inovations with his dance moves, such as the famous “moonwalk”.

The album “Bad” launched in 1987 sold almost as good the previous. Every new album signed by Michael, every appearance was a major event. People were copying his haircut, as well as his extravagant outfits.

Showbiz veterans such as Fred Astaire were praising him while Michael was making pictures with Ronald and Nancy Reagan at the White House.

Paul McCartney made duets with him, such as “The Girl Is Mine” and “Say Say Say”.

Next launch from Michael, “Dangerous” (1991), entered first place in all the charts.

After this album, the artist’s private life put his career in the shadow. A double “greatest hits” album launched in 1995, “History”, had weak sales in comparison with his last performances – only 7 million copies.

A new album launched in 2001, “Invincible”, got even more disappointing sales.

Other aspects of his private life, such as his face in a permanent change, his excentric appearances and his weird behaviour, started to make the public sick. Also, numerous controverses affected his image in the last two decades.

In 1993 he was acused of molesting a kid, but police investigation were closed because of lack of evidence. Also, in 2005, Michael was again investigated for pedophilia, but was eventually cleared of all charges.

The artist had also a series of financial problems, even being on the point of selling his famous farm Neverland, in May 2008. Few months later, in november, he gave the property title of Neverland to a company started by himself and the company that owned a mortgage of 24 million dollars over the residence.

Michael Jackson was wedded twice, first with Elvis’ daughter, Lisa Marie Prestley.

Even if public interest decreased over the years, Michael never lost his fans.

Proof is in the 50 good-bye concerts he had scheduled at O2 Arena from London, starting with 13th July. 75 thousand tickets were sold in just a few hours.

He died less than a month before making his comeback on the stage, leaving behind three children: Michael Joseph Jackson Jr., Paris Michael Katherine Jackson and Prince Michael Jackson II.

The family band has been a cornerstone of the American entertainment industry since the 19th Century, when singing families became the first domestic music stars. There’s something magic about the way blood relatives interact with each other spiritually and instinctively rather than technically. This is even more important in the African-American music tradition, in which musicians have learned from their relatives for generations. That special relationship is much in evidence onMusic Redeems. Liberated from the critical necessity to make a Big Statement or define some new trend, the Marsalis family’s only agenda here is to enjoy playing together.

The occasion is a live concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., honoring family patriarch Ellis Marsalis for receiving the Lifetime Achievement award from the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival. The family made a similar album in 2003, also a live concert recording honoring Ellis, but this one is better.

The surprise star of the record is Jason Marsalis, who demonstrates how much his total concept has matured with an outstanding performance on vibraphones, drums and, of all things, whistling. His breathtaking doubling with Wynton’s trumpet on Charlie Parker’s delightfully tricky “Donna Lee” is so well articulated that I thought I was hearing a flute on first listen. The band plays together beautifully on a familiar tune, James Black’s lilting “Monkey Puzzle,” which is illuminated by Jason’s vibe solo. Ellis follows with a thoughtful solo piano construction, “After,” then another of his compositions, “Syndrome,” built around a stately theme. Wynton’s trumpet solo opens the song’s exposition with a   jaunty fair as the rhythm section goads him, and Ellis dances across the keyboard in response.

Harry Connick, Jr. joins in for a broad, two-piano reading of “Sweet Georgia Brown,” then offers a lengthy spoken tribute to Ellis which is the album’s only blemish. On an otherwise flawless technical recording, Connick’s speech is recorded at an appreciably lower level than the rest of the record, making it an irritating distraction in the flow of the program.

The band proceeds with a perfectly crafted interpretation of Thelonious Monk’s difficult piece “Teo,” featuring excellent solos from Branford, Delfeayo and Wynton, who rallies through an extra chorus, playing off his own lines. Ellis Marsalis III’s spoken word tribute to Ellis follows much more successfully than Harry’s as he ruminates on aspects of his dad’s personality from “ass whipping” to “beacon.”

Jason’s expansive “At the House, In Da Pocket” pulls the performance to a climax as the individual band members trade fours in an entertaining exchange that builds to single note exhortations and then breaks into exciting collective improvisation and riffing, a glorious interlace of ideas that reach back to the earliest traditions of jazz while sounding wholly contemporary. The encore is pure party time. Wynton’s trumpet provides the piercing clarion call for “The 2nd Line,” and the palpable crowd noise suggests that an audience that may well be dancing in the aisles. Definitely worth the price of admission, especially because all proceeds go to funding community programming at the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music, soon to open at the Musicians’ Village.

The Washington, D.C. rumor mill is running wild with reports that Lady Gaga will back Eman for his 3-song set at a gig after her Monster Ball Tour concert and fundraiser for Senator Frank R. Laut

The rumored gig with Eman and Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (Lady Gaga) would feature Eman’s repetoire of “Susie Sensitive,” “You Were Always On My Mind (Mother Nature),” and “Global Warming/Climate Change.” Will the venue be in a private suite, or will it be at an as yet undisclosed location? Only the rumor mill knows for sure. But the rumor mill speculates that it could be announced at the Lautenberg fundraiser.enberg (D-NJ) on Tuesday, Sept. 7, at 8 p.m. at Verizon Center. Lautenberg has a private suite with patrons contributing $2,500 a person for PACs and $2,400 for individuals.

Generally, if a luxury suite is available, it can be rented for somewhere between $4,000 and $8,000. There are a range of seats available in each suite, but if the suite has 20 seats, plus two for the candidate and spouse. The suite lessor pays for the food and booze. So figure $100 per for that. Brings you to around $10,000 or so. You charge $2,500 a head for a high rollers. So that’s $50,000. The suite lessor nets $40,000, minus some expenses. Hmmmm. And deduct $5,000 more for Eman’s fee. (Wash Post, 8/13/2010)

Monday 16 August 2010 marks the 33rd anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley – the King of Rock ’n’ Roll, and the greatest male singer in the 55-year history of rock music. He was found dead in his mansion at Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee at about 2.30pm local time (9.30pm South African time) on Tuesday 16 August 1977, after having suffered a massive heart attack. His body was rushed to the Baptist Hospital where frantic efforts to revive him were discontinued approximately an hour later. South African fans awoke the next morning to the news, which induced at first a most profound sense of shock and disbelief, and once news of Elvis’s death had finally been digested, an equally deep sense of irremediable loss. I can still remember vividly walking from my home in Yeoville, Johannesburg to the local shops on 17 August 1977 to buy copies of all the South African newspapers of that day, seeing the banner “Elvis Presley dies” on a lamppost, and thinking that this had all to be a horrible dream from which I wanted to wake up as soon as possible. After all, Elvis was immortal. How could Elvis Presley be dead? Such a thing was inconceivable – it was, in fact, physically impossible. And yet it was true. “Elvis dies”, proclaimed one headline. “The King of Rock will sing no more”, declared another. “Fans mass to mourn Elvis”, said a third. “Remember him this way”, read the front-page headline in the next edition of New Musical Express, accompanied by a picture of a gyrating Elvis taken in 1956, shortly after he burst upon the American music scene so sensationally with “Heartbreak Hotel”, the first of many Number One singles.

Important figures in rock music had died before 1977: Buddy Holly, Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison. But none of them enjoyed the iconic status of Elvis, and none of their deaths provoked the widespread outpouring of grief and adulation that followed Elvis’s demise. It had not, at the time, become customary for artistes to record songs commemorating the deaths of fellow rock musicians (Don McLean’s “American Pie” (1972) was the earliest of the musical eulogies to a fallen hero that I can recollect, and it was an aberration), but a number of lyrics written and sung by other leading figures in the world of rock mentioned Elvis’s death in the years that followed. What is remarkable is that some of them were penned long after we lost Elvis, demonstrating that those honouring him were still unable to come to terms with his death despite the passage of many years. The most memorable are Neil Young’s “My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)” and its companion piece “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)” from the Rust Never Sleeps album (1979), Bruce Springsteen’s 1983 rewrite of the Chuck Berry classic “Bye Bye Johnny”, and Dire Straits’ “Calling Elvis”, the opening track of the massively successful album On Every Street (1991).

“Hey Hey, My My” is one of rock’s most important anthems, containing within its lyric the assertions that rock music is eternal and that (as another commentator eloquently put it) the artiste’s reach must always exceed his grasp. How fitting that in that context, and in the aftermath of the dissolution of the short-lived Sex Pistols, Neil Young paid homage in the following words: “The king is gone but he’s not forgotten/ Is this the story of Johnny Rotten?/It’s better to burn out ’cause rust never sleeps/The king is gone but he’s not forgotten”. More evocative still was Springsteen’s “Johnny Bye-Bye”, in which Chuck Berry’s joy at the ascent to rock stardom of the country boy who could play turns to mournful despair as the lure of drugs takes his life. The rewrite yields one of the most moving songs in all of rock, as Springsteen sings: “I’ll be going down there [Memphis] if you need a ride/A man on the radio says Elvis Presley’s died/. . . Bye-bye Johnny/Johnny bye-bye/You didn’t have to die/You didn’t have to die”. Mark Knopfler’s tribute was a playful stitching together of Elvis song titles and phrases associated with the King (“let me leave my number – Heartbreak Hotel/oh love me tender – baby don’t be cruel/return to sender – treat me like a fool”), but it has nevertheless has an affecting moment when Knopfler sings (a full 14 years after Elvis died): “you gotta tell him – he’s still the man”.

Elvis’s death had the predictable effect of sending his then-recent studio album Moody Blue shooting up the charts (the album and its hit single “Way Down” both reached the top spot in Britain in the week ending 3 September 1977), and sparking an insatiable demand for copies of his recordings that, within a short time, resulted in his posthumous record sales exceeding those achieved in his lifetime. Several poorly packaged compilation and live albums were released by his record company, RCA, before it had the grace, many years hence, to anthologize Elvis properly – in three definitive 5-CD box sets released between 1992 and 1995: The King of Rock ’n’ Roll: The Complete 50’s Masters, From Nashville to Memphis: The Essential 60’s Masters I and Walk a Mile in My Shoes: The Essential 70’s Masters. These compilations are where the serious Elvis fan should start, containing as they do 390 tracks between them, including all of the important material in Elvis’s catalogue, from the two songs he cut as an acetate recording in the summer of 1953 at the studio of the Memphis Recording Service to give to his mother Gladys, through his seminal Sun Records recordings, to highlights from Moody Blue, released in June 1977.

But there are scores of other compilations, and it is impossible to give a full account of them here. For the casual fan or the beginner, however, I would recommend the 1 and 2nd to None albums released in 2002 and 2003, which contain (respectively) the Number One hits and the second tier of really important material, such as “Blue Suede Shoes”, “Love Me” and “Little Sister”. Those who wish to delve a little deeper will get a good overview of the different facets of Elvis’s musical output from the six discount-price CDs released in 2006, Elvis Rock, Elvis Country, Elvis Inspirational, Elvis R & B, Elvis Live and Elvis Movies (although potential buyers should be warned that much of the songwriting on the Movies disc is of substandard quality).

For the aficionado, there are box sets galore (I own 14, and my collection is far from complete). Some are aimed at providing a bird’s eye view of Elvis’s career as a singer (such as the 3-CD Artist of the Century (1999)) or at commemorating milestone anniversaries (for example A Golden Celebration, originally released on vinyl in 1985, to mark what would have been Elvis’s 50th birthday). Others focus on particular phases of his career, for instance Live in Las Vegas (2001), or have been issued in order to make available previously unreleased outtakes or concert recordings (such as Today, Tomorrow & Forever (2002)). The ultimate set, though, is The Original Elvis Presley Collection, released in 1996 by BMG Nederland BV, which contains (apart from a catalogue documenting the collection and a certificate of authenticity) 50 CDs, incorporating every studio, live and compilation album released in Elvis’s lifetime, with reproductions of the original album packaging on each. (Copies of this magnificent set become available from time to time on Amazon.co.uk, normally second-hand, and generally for prices in the region of GBP400 to 450, excluding delivery charges. I was lucky enough to pick up a new set for only GBP200 earlier this year, so it is worth keeping one’s eyes peeled for a bargain on this item.)

As we approach the point at which Elvis will have been gone for a third of a century, I remember, with a mixture of delight and sorrow, some of the most incendiary moments of his incredible career: the seminal Sun recording of “Mystery Train”; the moment in his 1968 Comeback Special when, clad head to toe in black leather and looking as beautiful as any rock star has ever done, he tore first into “Lawdy Miss Clawdy”, then (standing alone on stage, red guitar slung over his shoulder) into “Heartbreak Hotel”; the moment at the end of the 1970 concert movie That’s the Way It Is when he brings his Las Vegas audience to its feet, screaming with applause, as the curtain begins to descend at the climax of “Can’t Help Falling in Love”; the show-stopping performances of “American Trilogy” on the As Recorded at Madison Square Garden and Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite albums. And in honour to his memory I can do no better than sing back to him these lines from “I Can’t Stop Loving You”, that he delivered so magnificently in his concerts of the 1970s: “I can’t stop wanting you/Well, it’s useless to say/So I’ll just live my life in dreams of yesterday”.

Legendary Jazz singer Al Jarreau is currently undergoing various tests at a cardiac center in Marseille, France after suffering breathing problems and becoming “weak from the altitude” while in the French Alps last week.

According to his publicist, the 70-year-old Grammy Award-winner became ill July 22 in the southern French Alps which forced the singer to cancel a string of shows in Germany, Azerbaijan and France.

“Mr. Jarreau hopes to resume his tour at the end of the coming week,” according to a statement posted on his website. “Meanwhile, he has been quietly serenading the hospital staff to stay on point.”

Jarreau’s cardiologist, Dr. Jean-Louis Bonnet stated today that the singer could possibly be discharged this weekend before continuing his scheduled European concert tour.

The doctor added that “everything’s going well” and that Jarreau’s “state of health is coming