NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) — Although she was called a “rock princess,” Lisa Marie Presley has maintained her musical claim as a singer-songwriter, and has made her own career apart from, and sometimes with, her megastar father. allowed me to express myself.
Presley, who died Thursday at the age of 54, was the daughter of musical royalty, the face of Elvis’ mansion, and the prey to tabloid gossip about her marriage.
There was no doubt that music would be central to her life. From her childhood she sang for her father, the King, with an unmistakable voice.
“He’s always been a big influence my whole life. It’s the first time I’ve heard of him,” she told the Associated Press in 2012.
As sole heir to Elvis’ fortune, her early life was defined by the Elvis brand and her role in building that legacy alongside her mother, Priscilla. That often meant that Elvis fans would put their own feelings about her father and his music on her and Priscilla.
Charles Hughes, writer and director of the Lynne & Henry Turley Memphis Center at Rose College in Memphis, said Presley had been the subject of sexism and discrimination among tabloids and some Elvis fans throughout his life, especially over his relationship with another icon. I pointed out that I was facing racism. Michael jackson.
“I think there are very few people who have had to do what she did…a daughter of the Presley family, the ex-wife and mother of Michael Jackson, who has been as long and complicated as her.” It was in the public eye,” Hughes said.
She was 35 and a mother when her debut album, To Whom It May Concern, was released in 2003. Her music was in the vein of Sheryl Crow-influenced rock and her pop sound. She hinted at her past relationships.
“The audacity of her music, the audacity of her recording career, her audacity was her willingness to tell the truth,” said Joe Levy, Billboard’s general editor. “The songs on her first two records are more challenging, bold, and evocative in lyrics than in music.”
Despite not performing much in public, the album was well received and certified gold, reaching number five on the Billboard 200 chart. Her first single, “Lights Out,” peaked at number 18 on Billboard’s Adult Her Pop Her Airplay. According to Luminate, throughout her career she has sold 836,000 of her albums and her songs have scored her 9.5 million official streams in the US.
Hughes said he still regularly plays the “Lights Out” music video to his students when he teaches them about Elvis.
“It’s a very compelling and mixed look at the legacy and her role in it. It’s not about him. I mean, yes, it’s really about her,” Hughes said.
But the fact that she gave a press conference in 2005 to promote her second album, Now What, exposed her to an endless barrage not of music, but of Jackson and her third husband, Nicolas Cage. was meant to be
Writer Steve Baltin, who interviewed her several times during her career, said Presley was herself within musical circles and was able to be recognized for her own talents. In , she worked with Pink, T-Bone Burnett, Linda Perry, Richard Hawley, Ed Harcourt, and others.
“She was very well respected as a musician. We appreciated the fact that she really supports the music,” said Baltin.
Her third album ‘Storm & Grace’ was released in 2012. Presley then moved to England, where she worked with her writer on British songs, which turned out to be a very American record for her. Bluesy and more acoustic than her previous records, the songs are full of melancholy and heartache.
On the song “Sticks and Stones,” she addressed her critics with fervent mimicry, saying, “She’s not like daddy/Oh, what a shame/She ain’t got no talent of her own/Just her name.” singing.
Baltin said Presley stopped trying to avoid comparisons at that point in her career.
“That record in particular was the first time she really started embracing who she was, embracing her roots and how it affected her,” Baltin said. . “So she wasn’t trying to deny her own past, so I think it was the record that most fully represented her.”
Songwriter and musician Cliff Magness said he worked with Presley for about two years on their first record and was good at writing “dark and quirky” lyrics. He rarely said who influenced which song, but recalled that she wrote a song about her father called “Nobody Noticed It.”
“It took about six months for her to be honest with herself, to be creative on her own terms, and to be able to talk about her father. So it was really special.
According to Magness, Presley’s lyrics to “Lights Out” were written after Presley returned from a visit to Graceland, where her father and grandparents were buried on the backyard lawn, according to Magness. It also has extra space for other members of the Presley family. A few years later, in 2020, her 27-year-old son Benjamin Keough was also buried there.
“I just realized there’s space left/Memphis next to them/In the damn backyard,” she sings.
All roads go back to Memphis for the Presley family and Lisa Marie is also buried there.
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