Elvis Presley died 31 years ago today.
As has become tradition, fans have been gathering outside Graceland, his home in Memphis, to pay their respects to the man they called The King.Elvis died of a heart attack at the age of 42.
At the time of his death, his career was in a lull. After his divorce from Priscilla in 1973, Elvis became more and more addicted to prescription drugs. Ironically, just three years earlier, the singer had met with then President Nixon to offer his services as a special agent to help wipe out what he called “the hippie drug culture”.
In life, he was extremely right wing, reporting to the President that The Beatles were promoting anti-American feeling in the UK. It was as a result of these outrageous claims that the equally deluded Nixon had John Lennon tracked by the FBI and attempted to have him deported.
Elvis spent his latter years as Fat Elvis doing the Vegas circuit and at the time of his death had just scored his first hit in half a decade with `Moody Blue`.
Death has been a great career move for the one-time superstar who was all but washed up at the time of his death. He was elevated to a saint-like stature after he died and his become more of a legend in death became far bigger than the character in life.
Elvis` last performance was on June 26, 1977. His next scheduled show was to be on August 17, 1977, the day after his death.
Elvis now lives on in legend but the perception now far out-weighs the reality.
