Dead at 54, the daughter of Elvis Presley and ex-wife of Michael Jackson was alternately candid and guarded in our interviews, 9 years apart, about her first and third solo albums
Those are surely not the words Lisa Marie Presley will be most remembered for uttering. But they were the most disarming ones she said to me during our in-depth 2012 interview. She was more guarded during our first interview in 2003, which coincided with the release of her debut album.
“The other day there was a review of one of my concerts, and the headline read: ‘Not bad, not her dad’,” said Presley, who was only 9 when her father — the man known worldwide as Elvis — died in 1977. And never mind that, apart from a periodic shared husky quality, Presley’s muted, no-frills vocals sound almost nothing like that of her late father, whose powerful singing always had a visceral, bigger-than-life quality.
But being a keeper of the flame for her father is different than basing her musical career on emulating him, something Presley knows would never work and that has resolutely resisted. On “Sticks and Stones,” a bonus track from her new album, she sings with a combination of defiance and frustration:“I’m not an operatic singer like him, and I haven’t seen anyone who is,” she said of her late father.
“Constantly, from the get-go,” she said. “Record company executives would say to me: ‘Oh, yeah, we get you; you’re an artist. But the first songs on your record should be off of “From Elvis in Memphis”.’ That is never not there. It’s not a bad thing, because I’m very proud of my father, my legacy and where I’m from, without question.
“That’s true,” she said. “It’s like everything now is about being in this genre of Attention Deficit Disorder music, and everyone wants instant gratification, and bigger and louder . What I’m so proud of with this new album is that it has nothing to do with that. It’s very straightforward and authentic.
“I’ve realized now what 35 years of not ever saying anything has done,” she said. “I was always skeptical , and there’s all this stuff now I have to walk through first — this fog — of, like, clearing the air. And I realize how out of control got.” “I don’t want to in any way disrespect where I come from; I’m very happy and honored about that,” Presley said of her famous lineage. “However, it does have its drawbacks. I don’t want to complain, but it’s a task right now.
Someone turned out the lights out there in Memphis / That’s where my family’s buried and gone / Last time I was there I noticed a space left / Next to them there in Memphis / In the damn back lawn. Presley also looks to her dad as an example of the rewards and pitfalls of fame, and as a teacher of what to strive for — and avoid — in music and in life:
What she found to keep herself grounded was motherhood. Her daughter Danielle was born in 1989, and Presley documented the experience by writing her first song, “Give Me Strength.” She was 22 at the time. “It was my first song. It was not bad, but it was my first song,” she recalled. “I’m my own worst critic. It’s not that horrible, but I don’t want anyone to hear it. I have so many . I’ve been writing for 15 years; I have boxes of them.”Fans of her father might logically assume he is her biggest musical influence. Guess again, said Presley, who cites ex-husband Keough as the major musical force in her life and her best friend.
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