Ask Blackie

As I sat under the hair dryer this past week at my favorite salon perusing my regular supply of weekly entertainment glossies, I remarked out loud how breathtaking I thought singer Alicia Keys looked in her one-shoulder Vera Wang–designed wedding gown. On one particular tabloid cover, Keys seemed to glow as she kissed her new husband, Swizz Beatz, in front of a fabulous island. Now, usually a comment about a popular celebrity elicits an immediate response in my chatty salon. Not this day. My complimentary words about Keys were met with an odd silence that lasted five minutes or more. (For those who aren’t familiar with the African-American beauty-salon etiquette, that’s an eternity.)

Finally, the young lady under the dryer next to mine calmly turned to me and asked how I could admire a husband-stealing “floozy” like Keys. Before I could process that question, the woman on the other side chimed in by adding that Keys had one less fan now that she’d broken up someone else’s home.

To say I was floored by the callous reactions of these seemingly sensible women would be an understatement. Yes, I’d read all the blog accounts of how Keys allegedly began an affair with her then-married record producer, Beatz, while recording her most recent album. I’d even read interviews in which Beatz’s “jilted’’ wife claimed Keys became pregnant months before she and her husband had officially divorced. (Keys has not commented publicly on any of this.) I skimmed most of the stories about Keys but only partially retained the scandalous and racy tidbits because, frankly, I just don’t care much about the intimate details of Alicia Keys’s life. I just really love her music.

When I explained my point of view to the women around me, they were clearly appalled at my lack of outrage. They pointed out the contradiction of Keys’s private life and her pro-female lyrics and classy onstage persona. As they listed the many ways in which Keys had disappointed them, they spoke as if they personally knew her—as if she were a friend they had drinks with every Friday night after work.

And therein lies the looming problem we as fans now face. Because of the mass influx of social-media networks, celebrity blogs, and endless celebrity-based reality shows, Americans have been lulled into a dangerously false sense of intimacy with the people meant only to entertain us. It’s allowed us to have detailed opinions on the actions and lives of people who used to be just fleeting and mysterious images on a video or in a film. Having “inside” knowledge about stars, their comings and goings, dating habits, and even shopping choices has somehow made us feel we share similarities with the faces that flawlessly grace magazine covers, light up the big screen, and sell millions of albums.

Accordingly, that so-called knowledge also appears to have given us the right to judge celebs as harshly as we would our actual friends without ever considering the fact that blogs, magazines, and even the celebs themselves rarely tell anyone the full story. Just take the sad predicament of Fantasia Barrino, the former American Idol winner who recently attempted suicide after the details of her alleged relationship with a married man were revealed in a lawsuit. Barrino was reportedly so distraught by the news—and the vicious and mean comments posted by fans on celebrity blogs—that she took a mix of sleeping pills and aspirin to shut it all out. That’s an interesting and sad turn for a celebrity who was created by a television show that allowed viewers to call in and vote on her success—now they’re apparently voting on her morality as well.

But where does that leaves us as fans when we decide we won’t support the career of some imperfect person whose talent or intellect has profoundly affected us? Is anyone out there really able to live up to society’s standard of being a “good person” and the perfect role model? Is there even such a thing? Thinking about all this led me to reflect on the lives of my all-time favorite singers, Marvin Gaye and Sam Cooke—men whose music I simply couldn’t fathom being without. Both were involved in a number of scandalous affairs while still married, and both died violent deaths. Cooke was shot and killed by a hotel manager under mysterious circumstances, while Gaye was gunned down by his own father during an argument—not exactly the peaceful lives one would expect from men who wrote such iconic and thought-provoking songs as “A Change Is Gonna Come’’ and “What’s Going On.’’ During their lifetimes in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s, only bits and pieces of their personal stories surfaced for public consumption. While fans of that generation surely heard the rumors, they never seemed to allow them to affect their love for the true genius of the artist in question. They simply separated the man or woman from their music. Maybe it’s time we do the same.

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 on Music 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.

On the birth anniversary of the King of Pop today, Charudutta Nugegoda reflects on an icon who tried to beat the American system until it beat him

The other day I found myself watching Beat It, one of the many old Michael Jackson video clips we were treated to as the anniversary of the singer’s death rolled by. I recalled that Beat It was probably the first music video I’d ever seen. I’d have been about three years old and watched it in the flat in Noble Park where we were living after recently migrating from Sri Lanka.

I still remember being drawn to the video by the bright blue of Michael’s t-shirt and the bright red of his jacket. But there was more to it, something that I would become more conscious of only a few years later. Michael Jackson looked like someone we could know, he looked like one of us. Even as a child, I was very conscious that we were different from ‘suddho’, the Sinhala word for white people.

From ages 5 to 8, Michael Jackson would develop into my hero. After being a fan of He-man and Knightrider, MJ was my first real-life idol. He presented a different image of what to look up to, not like my other muscle bound hyper masculine heroes. Michael defined my earliest sense of ‘cool’. It was an alternate kind of hero, possessing both masculine and feminine traits, suave, sophisticated and glamorous, forceful yet sensitive. The epitome of style.

Michael Jackson was essentially a product of African American culture. As Jamie Foxx said when hosting the Black Entertainment Television (BET) awards after Michael’s death, “he belongs to us, and we shared him with everybody else”. Michael Jackson was a combination of various aspects of black America. Some had the indisputable black culture stamp, like his incredible sense of rhythm. Others were less well known, like the sensitivity to visual aesthetics. He presented something new to the white mainstream, quite different from what they had known, but still attractive.

It was this difference though, that led to both his rise and his downfall. Middle class America let him in because he was a palatable black man, soft and sweet, remembered for his days in the Jackson 5 -Far from the militant angry black man image of the 1970s and the New York mugger stereotype of the 1980s. Jackson was the first black artist to get air time on MTV. Once on the inside, it was his own creative genius that allowed him to reach heights unheard of by both black and white artists.

He took the soul and uber-creativity of the black ghetto, added his own flavour to it and presented it to white America. Creatively, and in terms of popularity, he reached the zenith of this career in the mid 1980s. It was soon after this that he began to mistakenly think that his popularity and wealth had allowed him to break free of the rules dictated by middle class America. He started to challenge the dominant dichotomies of American society – black and white, male and female, adult and child.

Jackson changed his skin tone. Why, we don’t know, possibly in response to his vitiligo. But whatever the reason, the effect was the same, he became whiter. Some African Americans saw this as a betrayal, while others maintained that he had had no choice due to his condition. He had plastic surgery on his face, perhaps due to the negative self image he had developed as a child.

Jackson’s transformation from black to something else struck at one of the deepest divisions in American society. He blurred the lines of race.

Jackson also challenged a division that would grow in prominence with the rise of the Religious Right in America in the late 80s and 90s – the division between man and woman. He defied American society’s rules of what it is to be male and female, what constitutes masculinity and femininity. It was a time when relatively new stereotypes were becoming imbibed with notions of timelessness and ‘god given-ness’. There was one way a man should be and this is the way it always was and always should be. Jackson smashed these stereotypes out of the ballpark. He embodied more flexible and nuanced notions of the masculine and the feminine, those that had been around in subtler forms in black American society for some time, but had not been exposed to the white mainstream in such a way.

His defiance of gender stereotypes touched a nerve as this was also a time when the Right was waging a culture-war over the issue of homosexuality. Now there are many celebrities who have identified themselves as gay without anyone deeming it newsworthy. But it was the very fact that Jackson’s sexuality was ambiguous that was especially enraging to the Right’s moral watchdogs. See, they couldn’t categorise him. They couldn’t slot him into their custom made pigeonholes of ‘normal straight man’ or ‘heathen bound-for-hell homosexual’. Jackson set an example that you did not have to be one way or another, you could just be. And be he did, with style.

The final boundary Jackson dared to cross was that of age. This was a boundary so entrenched that most people were barely conscious of it. Jackson wanted to be a child. He was into childlike things. He turned his ranch into an amusement park and had Peter Pan statues throughout his mansion. He hung out with a chimp. But of course it was his hanging out with children that concerned most people.

While we will never know whether the accusations of molestation against him were true, it is clear that there was an aspect of Jackson’s persona that resulted in him being judged guilty by Middle America before being proven innocent.

Child molestation was a charge so completely despicable that it could be used to taint all other unrelated aspects of his persona, particularly his ambiguous sexuality. Coverage of Jackson took on dark undertones. He was portrayed as a freak, a strange, warped man who used his wealth to prey on innocent children. When hard evidence of molestation was not forthcoming, Jackson’s antagonists would fall back to their standard line of reasoning ‘no normal adult would befriend children like this, so he must have had sinister intentions’.

It was outside people’s imaginations that Jackson could have actually liked hanging out with kids simply because he had innocent fun with them; that he was searching for the childhood he never had; or that he simply appreciated the joys of childhood. No, to assume this, you had to be off with the fairies. It was largely ignored that Jackson had consistently given to charities, those focused on children and other causes, and was ranked as one of the most generous celebrities.

And so over time, Jackson’s star was brought crashing down like so many black celebrities of the era. The masses were shown that you couldn’t get away with being beyond race, beyond gender and beyond age. You would be brought down. And of course you wouldn’t want to be like that anyway because those people were bad, morally bad, sinister even.

The tragedy of Michael Jackson’s tale is that it is not an uncommon one for African Americans. A childhood sacrificed for a family to escape poverty. He used entertainment, one of the few avenues available to his people at the time. He sang and danced himself to stardom, to incredible wealth. But he could not escape the reins of the dominant society in which he found himself. Towards the end of his life, we saw Jackson becoming close to some prominent black political figures. He was seeking comfort in his family and his community. His black American community, which had always maintained a soft spot him.

It was also striking how much love for him there was in Sri Lanka, and with the Sri Lankan community here. Michael Jackson was standard-issue for kids in Sri Lankan-Australian households. You had to have liked MJ as a kid, no matter whether you preferred Tupac or Nirvana as a teenager. Around the globe his fans stayed true, they stayed loyal. It was their immense love for him that allowed these alternative viewpoints to be told, if only after his death.

The African American community may rightly feel that it has been wronged. Its beloved son, whom it shared with the big, wide, white world, was one far too fragile. Like so many others before him, he was taken in by Middle America and celebrated for his uniqueness. But like so many more, it was only to be chewed up and spat out when his flavour soured. In his death, we could see not only black America’s warm embrace for a prodigal son returned, but perhaps tears of regret for sharing him with a world that did not understand.

As I sat under the hair dryer this past week at my favorite salon perusing my regular supply of weekly entertainment glossies, I remarked out loud how breathtaking I thought singer Alicia Keys looked in her one-shoulder Vera Wang–designed wedding gown. On one particular tabloid cover, Keys seemed to glow as she kissed her new husband, Swizz Beatz, in front of a fabulous island. Now, usually a comment about a popular celebrity elicits an immediate response in my chatty salon. Not this day. My complimentary words about Keys were met with an odd silence that lasted five minutes or more. (For those who aren’t familiar with the African-American beauty-salon etiquette, that’s an eternity.)

Finally, the young lady under the dryer next to mine calmly turned to me and asked how I could admire a husband-stealing “floozy” like Keys. Before I could process that question, the woman on the other side chimed in by adding that Keys had one less fan now that she’d broken up someone else’s home.

To say I was floored by the callous reactions of these seemingly sensible women would be an understatement. Yes, I’d read all the blog accounts of how Keys allegedly began an affair with her then-married record producer, Beatz, while recording her most recent album. I’d even read interviews in which Beatz’s “jilted’’ wife claimed Keys became pregnant months before she and her husband had officially divorced. (Keys has not commented publicly on any of this.) I skimmed most of the stories about Keys but only partially retained the scandalous and racy tidbits because, frankly, I just don’t care much about the intimate details of Alicia Keys’s life. I just really love her music.

When I explained my point of view to the women around me, they were clearly appalled at my lack of outrage. They pointed out the contradiction of Keys’s private life and her pro-female lyrics and classy onstage persona. As they listed the many ways in which Keys had disappointed them, they spoke as if they personally knew her—as if she were a friend they had drinks with every Friday night after work.

And therein lies the looming problem we as fans now face. Because of the mass influx of social-media networks, celebrity blogs, and endless celebrity-based reality shows, Americans have been lulled into a dangerously false sense of intimacy with the people meant only to entertain us. It’s allowed us to have detailed opinions on the actions and lives of people who used to be just fleeting and mysterious images on a video or in a film. Having “inside” knowledge about stars, their comings and goings, dating habits, and even shopping choices has somehow made us feel we share similarities with the faces that flawlessly grace magazine covers, light up the big screen, and sell millions of albums.

Accordingly, that so-called knowledge also appears to have given us the right to judge celebs as harshly as we would our actual friends without ever considering the fact that blogs, magazines, and even the celebs themselves rarely tell anyone the full story. Just take the sad predicament of Fantasia Barrino, the former American Idol winner who recently attempted suicide after the details of her alleged relationship with a married man were revealed in a lawsuit. Barrino was reportedly so distraught by the news—and the vicious and mean comments posted by fans on celebrity blogs—that she took a mix of sleeping pills and aspirin to shut it all out. That’s an interesting and sad turn for a celebrity who was created by a television show that allowed viewers to call in and vote on her success—now they’re apparently voting on her morality as well.

But where does that leaves us as fans when we decide we won’t support the career of some imperfect person whose talent or intellect has profoundly affected us? Is anyone out there really able to live up to society’s standard of being a “good person” and the perfect role model? Is there even such a thing? Thinking about all this led me to reflect on the lives of my all-time favorite singers, Marvin Gaye and Sam Cooke—men whose music I simply couldn’t fathom being without. Both were involved in a number of scandalous affairs while still married, and both died violent deaths. Cooke was shot and killed by a hotel manager under mysterious circumstances, while Gaye was gunned down by his own father during an argument—not exactly the peaceful lives one would expect from men who wrote such iconic and thought-provoking songs as “A Change Is Gonna Come’’ and “What’s Going On.’’ During their lifetimes in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s, only bits and pieces of their personal stories surfaced for public consumption. While fans of that generation surely heard the rumors, they never seemed to allow them to affect their love for the true genius of the artist in question. They simply separated the man or woman from their music. Maybe it’s time we do the same.

The Pittsburgh Pirates today announced they will host the annual African American Heritage Weekend with a variety of events on Friday, August 20 and Saturday, August 21 as the Pirates host the New York Mets at PNC Park.

Listed below are the events that will take place during the two-day celebration.

Friday, August 20:

Pirates Community Champion Awards Presentation – The Pirates will recognize six “Community Champions” during a special pregame ceremony. Jim Bendel from Adelphoi Village, Bridge N. Driver from FedEx Ground, Baron B.B. Flenory from Pressley Ridge, Tony Joseph from Pittsburgh International Children’s Theater, Joseph Lagana from Homeless Children’s Education Fund and Chuck Sanders from Urban Lending Solutions were all nominated by their fellow citizens for having positively contributed to the betterment of the diverse community in our region.

2010 Pirates Poster Giveaway – Every fan in attendance at the game on Friday will receive a 2010 Pirates Poster compliments of Knepper Press. The game begins at 7:05 p.m.

Saturday, August 21:

African American Heritage Festival – The annual festival will take place on Federal Street from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Twenty organizations will be on hand to provide information on different community initiatives and resources available throughout the Pittsburgh region. In addition, the Afro-American Music Institute will perform live on Federal Street, and carnival-style food will be available for purchase.

Larry Doby “Legacy” Rookie of the Year Award – Andrew McCutchen will be presented with the Larry Doby “Legacy” 2009 Rookie of the Year Award in a pregame ceremony. The Legacy Awards are presented by the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum annually to recognize the outstanding achievements of Major League Baseball players and officials with awards named for the great players of the Negro Leagues. Larry Doby helped to integrate Major League Baseball when he joined the Cleveland Indians in 1947.

Throwback Uniforms – The Pirates and Mets will honor the Negro Leagues by wearing Pittsburgh Crawfords and New York Cubans uniforms for the game on Saturday.

Pittsburgh Crawfords Cap Giveaway – All fans will receive a Pittsburgh Crawfords Cap courtesy of Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield. The game begins at 7:05 p.m.

Fans attending Heritage Weekend games are also encouraged to stop by Highmark Legacy Square, a permanent interactive exhibit to honor and preserve the history of the Negro Leagues and the great players from the Homestead Grays and Pittsburgh Crawfords. The interactive exhibit, located inside the Left Field Gate Entrance at PNC Park, shares the inspiring story of these remarkable athletes that helped revolutionize the sports and business world in their own way and is open throughout the entire baseball season.

In “The United States of Europe” the T.R. Reid writes about a television show that spoofs the stereotypical American. Americans are portrayed as overweight, loutish and stupid. It is my hope that this stereotype is incorrect but this upcoming election will show just how intelligent, or unintelligent, we are as a people.

If one votes for John McCain because one believes in his policies I can respect that. I disagree, but I still respect one’s freedom to choose one policy and politician over another. However, if one votes for McCain, and against Obama, because one believes that Obama is a secret Muslim who is also a radical Christian who plans to bring his relatives from Africa, where apparently he was born, then one is a fool. We get the leaders we deserve in our democracy. This election cycle will demonstrate the worth of Americans as a people.

We are a nation of people who are more concerned with gas prices and the mortgage crisis than our men and women who are dying and being injured in Iraq. We are a people who pretend our politicians are all evil despite the fact that we pull them from our own ranks. We are a people who have thus far let rumor mongering choose our president in the last two elections. It is my hope that we are also a people who can learn from our mistakes and choose with our heads as opposed with our xenophobic fears. How we choose our president this cycle is almost more important than whom we choose as our president. This is our test as a nation and a people. I hope we pass.

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. Lautenberg (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.

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.

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”.

Fonzworth Bentley had no shame putting a ring on it.

The MTV ‘From G’s to Gents’ reality star quietly got engaged to actress Faune Chambers at the top of the year and is finally sharing the good news with the world.

“I tricked her! She thought it would happen on Christmas, but I did it right before New Year’s,” Bentley, 36, told Us Magazine.

“She said yes, and I was so excited.”

The ‘Advance Your Swagger’ author, who is best known for being Diddy’s assistant and umbrella holder, proposed with a 3-carat asscher-cut diamond. Waiting to meet the newly engaged couple were their parents.

Bentley, whose real name is Derrick Watkins, proposed to his fiancé near their hometown of Atlanta.

Chambers, who co-starred in the Oscar-nominated film ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,’ has also made appearances on ‘The Game’ and ‘All of Us.’

Michael Jackson’s younger brother Randy Jackson was rushed to a Southern California hospital tonight after suffering from chest pains.

Randy Jackson, 48, was taken to Huntington Memorial Hospital and is believed to have suffered a mild heart attack.

A Jackson family insider told media outlets that he was not taken the hospital by ambulance, and that he is still at the hospital undergoing a battery of tests.

According to published reports, Jackson was working his late brother’s one-year anniversary memorial when the pains began.

“Randy is doing as well as can be expected,” the source said. “This is the first time he has ever felt pain like this.”

“He doesn’t want to take any chances. He wants to make sure that he’s well enough to make his brother’s anniversary a memorable day for his family and Michael’s fans.”

June 25 will be the one year anniversary of the death of the late King of Pop.