Elvis and Me and Springsteen and Jackson Browne and Tony and Gold City

When I was little, I thought my Mother knew Elvis. My Mom told me that my brother was named after Elvis because she had an affair with Elvis, but she loved my Dad more. So, she broke Elvis' heart but told him she would name her first-born son after him.

As a four year old, this made complete sense to me. As a five year old, I told it to my kindergarten class during show-and-tell. As a grown up, well, let's just say that whatever Mom needs to tell herself is just fine with me.


I got an invitation to a house concert by Jackson Browne. Do you know what I would pay to go to something like that????? Apparently, not $750. But, goodness, how amazing would that be?!?!?! I'm salivating just thinking about it. I shall use the, "Oh, I'll be out of town," excuse for the official record. Since I will be.


Tony and I were talking about the house concert today. And, then we starting talking about Springsteen who Tony will be seeing in the near future. And then about the crazy things people do to meet celebrities (should we pretend to be caterer's at the Browne concert? Is it worth a night in jail? Maybe. Aren't I too old to worry about a record?) And then he told me about Springsteen jumping the wall at Graceland to meet Elvis. And, then I Googled that story and here it is:

[Perhaps] the most famous incident of wall jumping occurred one night in 1976. Bruce Springsteen, who was enjoying the first rush of great fame and had just played Memphis on his Born to Run tour, decided to catch a cab to Graceland. Noticing a light on up at the house, he climbed the wall and ran to the front door. As he was about to knock, Security interceded. He recalls asking, “Is Elvis home?.” Answer: “No, Elvis isn’t home, he’s in Lake Tahoe.” (It was true.) Springsteen attempted to impress the guards by telling all about his being a recording star and his having recently made the covers of Time and Newsweek, as he was politely escorted to the street. (Perhaps they didn’t believe him or hadn’t heard of him yet.) Years later in a concert, he told the story and commented:

"Later on, I used to wonder what I would have said if I had knocked on the door and if Elvis had come to the door. Because it really wasn’t Elvis I was goin’ to see, but it was like he came along and whispered some dream in everybody’s ear and somehow we all dreamed it. And maybe that’s why we’re here tonight, I don’t know. I remember later when a friend of mine called to tell me that he’d died. It was so hard to understand how somebody whose music came in and took away so many people’s loneliness and gave so many people a reason and a sense of all the possibilities of living could have in the end died so tragically. And I guess when you’re alone, you ain’t nothin’ but alone. So anyway, I’d like to do this song for yous [sic] tonight, wishing you all the longest life with best of absolutely everything."

I did something adventurous once, too. My first cut after I moved to Nashville was in the late 90's with a southern gospel group called Gold City. They were singing at a concert at the Municipal Auditorium in Nashville. My brother was visiting and we wanted to hear them do the song live (I'd not heard their version yet.) We were too poor to pay the concert ticket fee (what? $15?), so we went down, found the freight entrance to the Auditorium, and walked in with the stage deliveries. We were so rebellious.

Because I'm Just.That.Cool.
Sigh...

-b