Hard to imagine, isn't it? It's been 25 years (as of Friday, Aug. 16) since we last saw The King strut the stage alive.
What have the intervening years revealed as the legacy of Elvis Presley? The University of Wisconsin-Madison offers a trio of cultural/musical experts to help us sort it out:
-- Craig Werner, professor of Afro-American studies, can discuss Presley's impact, still being felt today, on popular music, popular culture and the country's social climate (including race relations). Werner's own music credentials are well-established. He has been a member of the nominating committee for Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the author of an oral history of the group Creedence Clearwater Revival.
-- Ron Radano, professor of musicology and ethnomusicology, can talk about Elvis' place in the evolution of American popular music. Radano, an expert on jazz, also can provide insight into the way Elvis exemplified the intermingling of black and white musical traditions.
-- What exactly does it take to become a pop culture legend like Elvis? Susan Cook, UW-Madison professor of music and women's studies, believes it has to do with being in the right place at the right time. Cook has studied such immensely popular American icons as Vernon and Irene Castle, who were dance legends just before the first World War. The pair inaugurated dances still seen on floors across the country today, and Irene popularized bobbed hair and the flapper figure long before the 1920s. Cook says Presley was a similarly pivotal figure for America in the 1950s, '60s and '70s.
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