Howard Jackson

Something like five years ago I sat with my elder daughter in the Oxford Union Bar at Oxford University.  I drank decent beer and relaxed on comfortable and tasteful chairs.  The place was only half full and the atmosphere evoked purpose and calm curiosity.  I

The Oxford Skyline

was seduced.   I finished my pint and my daughter asked me if I would like another.   I looked around the comfortable elegant bar and remembered how I had wasted my own days at University.

‘No,’ I said.   ‘These places are lethal for me.’

If I ever met David Cameron I would probably find him just as seductive.   His charm, attention and easy confidence would tempt me in the same way that the bar did five years ago.   This is why it is difficult to compare Cameron to Thomas Parker.   We should never underestimate how an English public school education benefits the rich.  They may be callous and have offensive views but the seductive elegance has a winning appeal.

Stanley Baldwin

The more obvious comparison with Cameron is, of course, Stanley Baldwin.   Both advertised themselves as one nation Tories but both have led governments that inflicted huge damage on the British working class.  Now the reputation of Baldwin is low.  He is considered to have been too tolerant of high unemployment and is condemned for beginning the tradition of appeasing Hitler.   Baldwin was undone by economics and Europe and more than one political commentator has predicted a similar fate for Cameron.

Much has happened in British politics since Baldwin but a key development of the last twenty years has been the emphasis on youth.  The leaders of the political parties have become attractive actors who are obliged to convince the electorate that they are ordinary just like them, the kind of men and women you would like to meet in your favourite bar.  Inevitably, this has weakened representative democracy.  The actor soon becomes a puppet and the establishment obtains a firmer grip of the strings it always pulls.  Representative democracy is now in crisis as it was 80 years ago.  Stanley Baldwin was not its saviour and it is unlikely the charm of David Cameron will rescue us this time either although like Baldwin he may prevail for longer than we would wish.

Philip Roth in ‘American Pastoral’ wrote that only two qualities were needed for success in the American corporate world.  These were a perpetual smile and relentless energy.  He was half right and it also applies to bureaucracies but Roth should have added an ability to operate under pressure and to survive close scrutiny.   Cameron has these abilities but, like his New Labour predecessor, they do not make him a leader, merely a highly talented lackey.   Those who find it difficult to imagine a Prime Minister as such should picture him as he was the night before the wedding of Charles and Diana.  He spent it camped on the pavement outside Buckingham Palace, loyal and faithful.   Believers in parallel universes can console themselves with the thought that somewhere Cameron will be obliged to exist as a working class female.  I picture him in a Northern working man’s club, impersonating Tammy Wynette and singing ‘Stand By Your Man’.

My views regarding Thomas Parker are also uncomplicated.  He was incompetent, misguided and to quote Dr Beecher Smith, a Presley Estate Memphis attorney, ‘There were villainous elements.’   The evidence against Parker is contained in the books of Alanna Nash and there is no need to repeat it here.  There is, though, a possibility that Parker was more of a lackey than his bravado and bullying manner indicated.  I suspect Parker had the same relationship with Hollywood that Cameron has with the establishment whose bidding he served in Brussels.

Parker and Elvis in Hollywood

Hollywood had massive economic power and was the priority for Parker.  The absence of Elvis from the stage between 1961 and 1969 and the sweetening of his music both in the movies and the recording studio reflected the wishes of powerful film studios.   They had a celluloid product that needed selling and wanted no competition from an alternative Elvis.  Parker picked sides and he was in favour of those whose ambition was only to make money.

The culture of ordinary people and their worth as human beings was not important.   For Parker and Cameron, ordinary people exist to help the rich become richer.  This was why Parker promoted junk at the expense of quality and why the government of Cameron was so intent on destroying the BBC.  Fortunately, the phone hacking scandal messed up the plans of the puppet masters for a private sector monopoly of broadcasting.   Of course, what undid Parker was a lack of a plan.  He was a promoter and a deal maker and more suited to being the number two in a management team.  Indeed, this was the original contract with Elvis.   Like Stalin, he leapt above others and, once in charge, he did his damage, signing Elvis to contracts that ensured development was virtually impossible.  Cameron also lacks a plan.   He is the corporate bureaucrat who when asked for a strategy merely dashes to others and asks them to tick boxes.   The responsibility of navigating the economy through a difficult recession he gave to his friend, George Osborne, whose main skill is as a political strategist and whose knowledge of economics is limited.  When asked to come up with something visionary David Cameron invented ‘The Big Society’.  This concept is so vacuous one wonders about the possible influence of hallucinogenic drugs.   The descriptions by Cameron of his ‘Big Society’ resemble a Tim Burton film without the horror although if his plans came to fruition the horror would be real enough – no guaranteed health care, no welfare safety net and employers able to drive down wages to below subsistence level.

Few of us anticipate a glorious future for Britain and many think Cameron is qualified to represent a nation that will become increasingly mediocre.   His survival skills are impressive and Cameron has vanquished his British opponents.  Despite the money and the glory nobody ever appeared to challenge Parker for the job of managing Elvis. 

There is also a bully in Cameron which has been revealed on more than one occasion in Parliament.  This has done him no harm and neither did the same trait in Parker.  A bully is not the same as a warrior but the two are easily confused by the British Press.

I visited Oxford University nine times in all.  Once a term I would spend the weekend with my daughter.  The charm of the University wore thin remarkably quickly.   Long before my final visit I noticed not just the elegance of remote privilege but its small minded smugness, the bubbles that insulate our myopic elite.  I said nothing to my daughter during my visits.  I was keen that she stayed motivated and obtained the glittering prize.   I revealed my misgivings to her much later, long after the prize was safely stored in her CV.   Even then, I was wary that my thoughts would be interpreted as inadequate parental pride.

‘I’m really proud of what you did,’ I said.  ‘I just went right off the place.’

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she said.  ‘I really hated it in the end as well.’

I last saw The Fat Man at Preston Guild Hall in 1973.    Later, I purchased a Hi Fi and a double album collection of his hits and discovered that his appeal for me had waned more than I had realised.   By then, I was listening more to people like Amos Milburn and Willie Mabon whom I thought were grittier.   Perhaps I had become a snob.  His show in 1973 was not a success.  The mikes were wired up to loudspeakers that would have been fine with my new Hi Fi but as part of a PA system they were inadequate.  The audience soon became restless.

‘We can’t hear Fats,’ someone yelled.

‘I bet you get bloody better PA systems than this in New Orleans, Fats,’ shouted another.

One woman asserted herself forcefully.  She actually resembled Joanne Dru in the Western, ‘Red River’.  In one scene, Dru has to have an arrow removed from her shoulder.  Dru refused to cry and I doubt if she even gritted her teeth.   Those who watch the movie may find the scene fanciful but after witnessing the encounter with the woman who took on Fats and his band I am not so sure.  She walked up to Walter Lastie who was on drums and said, ‘You’re too damned loud.’

Walter looked at the lady and offered her the drumsticks.  I envied him his naivety, his belief that his sarcasm would have the last word with a woman from Lancashire.  The encounter did not last long.  The set continued and Walter played quietly as he was told.  After the show I had the opportunity to talk to Fats.  He was as benign and as likeable as his records.  We laughed about the irony, a man, who was famous for adding the back beat to rock and roll and the percussive impact of his piano, being obliged to play quietly and with drums you could hardly hear.

This particular evening is mentioned for two reasons.  What the experts think of as the technical breakthroughs often mean little to the people who are gripped by the music.  This half relates to Elvis hating stereo.  He did not want his audience sitting between speakers listening for instruments to appear out of a speaker.  He wanted it to land in one piece in the middle of the chest. Hemingway said of his short stories, ‘I want them to feel more than they understand’ and I believe Elvis felt the same.  The technical stuff was his responsibility.

But we cannot ignore the backbeat easily and this leads to the second reason the evening now dominates my memory.  The Rick Coleman biography of Fats Domino* claims that it was the introduction of the backbeat on his great single ‘The Fat Man’ that entitles Domino to be given the credit of creating rock and roll.   Coleman regards Fats Domino as the most important figure in rock and roll.   He was certainly successful and Elvis was a keen admirer.  In a gesture that never earned him any credit, and which I could have mentioned last week, Elvis appeared at his 1969 Vegas press conference with Domino at his side.  The Press were there to welcome Elvis back to the stage and to praise.  Elvis deflected some of that adoration and introduced Domino as the true King Of Rock And Roll.

I do not think Elvis is right but what do I know.  I lost Fats on the way as I did Little Richard, both of whom were childhood heroes of mine.  I found that their music became formulaic and what makes me an Elvis fan I suppose is my admiration of his diversity.  I will, though, concede that Fats was playing rock and roll before Elvis and if we are tempted to build a bridge between rockabilly and rhythm and blues then the bridge would have to begin in New Orleans.   I also found that if I listened to Domino while I read Coleman it was much easier to experience the pleasure that had once led me up the M6 motorway to listen to Fats struggle with an inadequate PA system.

My Spanish teacher was talking to me about England the other day.  ‘What is this desire to know the first of everything?  You see it everywhere, labels on buildings, everywhere.’

‘It must be in our culture,’ I said.

I did not mention Elvis to her and the obsession writers have with the beginning of rock and roll.  The CD collection ‘The First Rock And Roll Record’ on the Famous Flames label is a marvellous collection of music that goes as far back as 1916 but the determination to define the key moment of epiphany is misguided.   It is as if we believe that its location will give us the ultimate mythic clarity that we must possess.  I had the good fortune to listen to rock and roll when it arrived or when it arrived in the charts at least.  I do not remember thinking Elvis invented rock and roll but I did think he was different and that he had more appeal than the rest.  I was a child living in England and my ignorance meant that for a while I mistakenly believed Bill Haley was the creator of rock and roll.  Elvis, though, always had his own mythic clarity and it gripped me as it did so many.   But so did African American rock and roll and rhythm and blues.   The myths, though, were different.  Rhythm and blues reminded us of the talent of an oppressed race and it exposed the limitations of its oppressors.  Elvis was about the dreams of an individual although it was an individual who could connect to everything – class, race, gender, bohemia, hierarchy and all the rest.   Racial discrimination did hold back black talent and people like Fats Domino were not given credit for their innovations although in the case of Domino he sold a lot of records to white kids.  The tilted values of the time must have also affected me in how I assessed individuals.  There were so many talented African American talents I saw them as comparable.   But there was no white man who sang rock and roll like Elvis.  He was on his own amongst white people and he had crossed racial barriers.  He had the key ingredient of mythic clarity.  He appeared to be a hero.

So, he benefitted but the musical talent was considerable, as were his achievements.  Rockabilly was a distinct genre within rock and roll and he played a key part in its creation.  There were other examples, too.   He had his own epiphanies.   He was also a person who could sing it all well.   For some reason, this does not always impress others but I was easily convinced by Greil Marcus.   Only Elvis, he said, had a talent that could embrace the contradictions of American society.  That talent also meant he could express the complex yearnings within human nature.

Some years ago I climbed Baugh Fell in the Howgills, a range of uplands not that far north of where Fats struggled with an inadequate PA system.   The walk allows you to trace the River Rawthay to its source on top of the fells.  The first half of the walk accompanies the river. When it is in full flow, at the foot of the hills, the Rawthay dramatically forces a wide fast running sluice through a harsh landscape.  After a demanding climb I expected something unusual, a spout or a large pond.   Instead, the beginning was no more than damp grass and familiar English mud.  I stood on top of the fell and remembered the power of the river I had accompanied earlier.  I suspect that if we ever do find the first rock and roll record or the point where it actually began we may discover something a lot more modest and a lot further away than we imagine.

*Blue Monday Fats Domino And The Lost Dawn Of Rock and Roll, Rick Coleman Published by Da Capo Press.

Last week began with the murder of an Asian student by a white racist who preferred to be known as ‘Psycho’.  The only uplifting moment occurred on Tuesday with the conviction of two of the racist murderers of Stephen Lawrence.   The same day, Liverpool Football Club announced that they would not appeal the decision by the FA to suspend their footballer Luis Suarez for eight games.  Wednesday, the Daily Mail congratulated itself on its campaign to have the murderers of Stephen Lawrence convicted.  Twenty four hours later, the same Mail and other English papers were outraged because black politician, Dianne Abbott, had stated that white people had a history that implied poor behaviour.   Then came Friday, which was the first day Liverpool played at home after the decision not to contest the eight game ban, and a black player in the visiting team complained he was racially abused by a Liverpool fan.   Before the weekend was finished a white twenty year old man was charged with the offence.   This Monday the team manager atLiverpoolmade a long statement reiterating the commitment of Liverpool Football Club to fight racism.

The spat between Luis Suarez and Patrice Evra was not edifying.  Two overpaid and over-indulged young men swapping childish insults.   People outside Liverpool Football Club have asked how a club can stand opposed to racism, which I can verify it does, and support Luis Suarez.   There are three possible answers.  One, Liverpool Football Club believes Suarez is innocent and Evra did not tell the truth; this is what a lot of Liverpool fans think.  Two, the club simply fought to protect a valuable commodity; this is what other football fans think.  Three, the response was a combination of both; this is thought by those who usually wait until the end of the argument to say something.

I have been a Liverpool fan since – no I am not going to say, imagine me as youthful and ignore the photograph.  Like other Liverpool fans, I have no confidence in the decision making process of the FA.  But, whether Suarez used the word ‘negro’ once, as he claims, or seven times, as Evra claims, Suarez crossed a line.   The word ‘negro’ does mean ‘black’ in Spanish but the words ‘black’ and ‘white’ can be racially offensive if used in a certain context.  Suarez was not being complimentary.  He was, at the very least, being patronising.  Admittedly, in the context of the slayings of black youths, this is trivial but it will do no harm to build a Chinese wall where Suarez crossed the line.   Undoubtedly, Liverpool fans feel an eight game ban is harsh but it is not likely it will have a significant outcome on the fortunes of the team.   Suarez has already missed three games.   In one of those games, away to Manchester City, Liverpool would have probably been beaten with Suarez in the team and in the other two games Liverpool have managed their highest scores of this season.   If the ban costs Liverpool as many as three lost points I will be surprised.  This saga needs to be forgotten.

When I was in Brazil I sat at a bar and, shocked by what I had seen in certain parts of Brazil, tried to calculate how many black slaves had been created by white colonialism.   I knew from my knowledge of Brazil that four million had been imported into that country alone.   I remember staring at the bay in Salvadorand calculating crudely that the total figure across continents must

Slave trade routes

have reached ten millions or what could reasonably be described as a holocaust.   If this figure has been accurately determined it has never been shared with the British by their newspaper editors.  The figure is ignored as if it is history without relevance.  Nor have our Western societies been zealous in repairing the damage.   In Britain, black teenagers have appalling prospects – inferior education, shorter lives, more mental illness, higher unemployment and repeated harassment from the police.  Present day statistics do not compare to the previous holocaust but they damn us and I think they justify Dianne Abbott losing her cool on Twitter.  In view of what has happened to black people she should be given some slack.  I know.  I have double standards.  But this inconsistency does not make me a racist.   I am merely ashamed.

As always the rich and powerful dominate the argument.  Serious studies of the consequences on the dispossessed exist but they are not given serious attention by our media.  We would rather make ourselves indignant about what one overpaid footballer says to another or scream at Dianne Abbott for not being politically correct about white people.  My God, the woman spoke as if she had a racial grievance, screamed the Mail.  Hardly surprising, one is tempted to say.

In these circumstances it is predictable that Elvis and race have been debated in a less than thoughtful way.   People who have no real knowledge of Elvis will assert with real conviction that the man was a racist.  Elvis was born in a society that practised apartheid.   Inevitably, somebody started the rumour that Elvis said black people were only fit to shine his shoes.  This was denied by friends and relatives but the rumour has persisted.  Peter Guralnick and Alanna Nash have researched the life of Elvis more than anyone. Neither has found any evidence of racist attitudes.  Guralnick has asserted that the opposite applied, that Elvis had huge respect for black people and their culture and that he was a

Elvis with BB King, taken by Ernest C. Withers, photographer of civil rights movement

keen supporter of Civil Rights.   His heroes included Martin Luther King and Mohammed Ali.  This blog will in future weeks examine a biography of Fats Domino.  The author of the biography argues the importance of New Orleans to rock and roll and believes that Fats Domino recorded the first rock and roll record, The Fat Man in 1950.  The book is a polemic and partial but throughout the book the author uses the statements of Elvis to support his argument.  He does this because Elvis acknowledged the contribution of rhythm and blues musicians and the importance of black musicians as much as anyone.  In 1970, two Liverpool sisters attended several of Elvis’ Las Vegas concerts.  Afterwards, they produced a first hand account of their experience.  They remembered Diana Ross at one of the shows.  She went to the front of the stage and Elvis kissed her and hugged her enthusiastically.   ‘This girl is fabulous,’ he said as he kissed her.   ‘I love this girl.’   This was not the action of a racist.  It happened despite Elvis spending a large part of his life in a racist society. His behaviour to Diana Ross, his relations with the Sweet Inspirations and his visits to the WDIA concert in 1956 indicate that he rejected the racial values of his society.  I have said elsewhere that it can be easy to confuse the charisma of Elvis with heroism.  Elvis was not a hero.   But, how odd that he stands condemned in the one aspect of his life where he was prepared to demonstrate his principles.

When the BBC presented a programme on the Memphis Mafia it included an interview with Sonny West.   ‘Elvis loved black people,’ said Sonny.  He said this without prompting or without any need to defend Elvis.  It slipped out.  The statement by Sonny West could imply that Elvis perhaps had double standards.  Maybe he thought black people were ‘more cool’, they had superior musical talent (Albert Goldman quotes him as saying this) and that they had a likeable way.   Or maybe he felt like I have done for most of the last week, just a little ashamed, embarrassed by  our capacity to be self-righteous and simultaneously ignore the experience of the unfortunate and dispossessed.

These are some of the good things that were said about the first edition of Treat Me Nice.   The first edition is sold out but the second edition will be released very early in 2012.

The experts

‘Highly enjoyable and a stimulating read.’  Paul Simpson, author ‘The Rough Guide To Elvis’.

‘A formidable treatise.  This book deserves to be noticed.  Cogently written and totally absorbing and recommended reading.’  Nigel Patterson, Elvis Information Network.

‘Students should find room for Treat Me Nice. If only to understand what makes an academic study stand out from the crowd.’   Chris High. The Writers News.

‘Howard Jackson can write.  The reader is in safe hands.’  Clive Bradley, TV and film scriptwriter.

Amazon readers

‘If you read one Elvis book, make this the one.  An essential read for Elvis fans.’   Soul Sister 69

‘This is my Elvis bible, my ultimate reference book.  Howard Jackson gets inside Elvis’ head, explains why Elvis is so talented and important, but also why many people cannot see it.  Make sure you also visit the highly original and provocative blog.’   You’ll Never Walk Alone

‘If you’re serious about Elvis then this is a must read.’  Alfaman

‘Very well written and thoroughly researched.’   Mike F Belfast

‘A thoughtful dissection of the King.’  Queen Creole.

‘The Frankenstein metaphor works surprsingly well.’  4Harrisons.

‘Love the review of Long Black Limousine and how it is combined with It Hurts Me.’ Bob 78s.

‘A worthwhile book that is probably essential.’  How Great Thou Art.

‘A pleasure to read, lots of little gems of knowledge and very original.’   Bossa Nova

‘What I like about the book is that it is not just for Elvis fans.  The comparison between Elvis and the monster is a fascinating read.’  Even better than the real thing.

Other readers

 ‘Treat Me Nice is very, very clever.’  City Fan, Stockport.

‘Unputdownable.  Immediately after reading it I downloaded every Elvis gospel track I could find.’  Wirral baptist.

‘I have read the book twice and I am not even a big Elvis fan.   Second time is better again.’   Duggie Greenall.

‘I was awed by the information contained within the book.  Made me realise why Elvis is so important to his fans.’  Exiled inGreece.

‘I read a lot of this book aloud to my boyfriend and parts of it made us laugh out loud.  There is a lot of sly humour in the book which you wouldn’t necessarily expect from a book about music.’   Unity Banana.

[for those who have not seen Series 1 & 2 of The Killing, spoiler alert]

So far I have not met anyone who has watched all the episodes of the American version of ‘The Killing’.   Most people abandon it after the first episode.  The Danish actors underact brilliantly and the American actors altered their style to emulate the Danish performances but what had been a subtle approach in

Denmark became vacant in the American show.  Even more offensive was the actor who played the American alternative to the detective Meyer.    This character was pushy and unpleasant and, whilst alternative interpretations can be honourable, we are talking about Meyer who was shot just after we began to like him.  Most of us are still in grief.

The BBC has had hard times lately, its funds have been cut and for a while the Murdoch Empire was able to take pot shots at the Corporation at will.  Not that long ago James Murdoch would stand behind a podium and claim that only the financial greed of people like him could guarantee media impartiality.    Nothing lasts forever and soon afterwards the hacking scandal had Murdoch looking for somewhere to hide, podiums he now sidesteps.  Around the same time, the BBC found in their basement an unused Danish TV series called ‘Forbrydelsen’.   Bought dirt cheap, the show had originally been deemed unfit for British audiences and had gathered dust but after the success of ‘Wallander’, a Swedish detective series, something Scandinavian was needed and ‘Forbrydelsen’ sounded just that.   The show became a massive hit, so successful that it persuaded Channel 4 to buy the American remake.

The original series was not perfect because it was obliged to mix a serious study of the impact of a murder on the family of the victim with red herrings and suspense.   Neither was the idea of using just one case as a basis for twenty episodes as original as the partisan but charming Radio Times claimed.   This had been done earlier in the American series, ‘Murder One’.   The programme, though, was irresistible.  When Sarah Lund was betrayed or compromised she did not scream, shout or cry.  She merely looked at the camera or looked away and I used to wait for these glorious moments with the belief I had an entitlement and it consisted of a quota.   The actress Sofie Grabol had a thousand different ways of staring into space and I like everyone else in the audience would just sit there and watch her staring.  She is now a superstar in Britain.   The sweater she wore in the show is considered a fashion accessory and sales of this not inexpensive £250 item have increased to the extent that the factory in The Faroe Islands which makes these sweaters can no longer cope.    The show insists on a certain authenticity and I assume that Danish policewomen can afford them because the sweaters are cheaper over there.   The Danes need to be careful.   The British have form when it comes to invading sparsely populated remote islands.  Cheaper Sarah Lund sweaters could fall within British military parameters.

Because this is an Elvis blog I am obliged to note that her sweater has become an icon equivalent to his white suit.  Both garments hinted at determination.  Sarah wore the same sweater in every episode because she was too involved in her work to worry about a varied wardrobe.   Elvis stayed with his white suit because he wanted to communicate an identity beyond music.  They initially suggested remoteness although this has since been lost.   The first series became a hit DVD box set and the second series used another sweater from the same factory.   Not only did Elvis persist with his jump suit for too long he posthumously acquired 250,000 imitators.

Prior to the second series appearing on the BBC one of the producers talked about how they had wanted to do something different.  To ensure that they avoided repeating themselves, they decided to try and create more dangerous situations for Sarah Lund.   Again, I have yet to meet anyone who believes that the second series was the equal of the first.   The extra suspense and violence meant more mechanical plotting.  The visit by Sarah to Afghanistan may have been plausible but it felt like added exotica.   Sarah had a new detective as a partner but he lacked the hidden charm of Meyer and nobody criticised Sarah when she emptied her gun into his body.   He had killed six people merely to protect himself and Sarah felt quite correctly that this counted against him.

I am, though, still loyal and am awaiting the third series.   I tell myself that perhaps they will have learnt from the last series and avoid the melodrama and realise that ‘Forbrydelsen’ does not need a panoramic sweep to be interesting.   Again I have not met anyone who has watched both series and is not committed to watching the third.     I understand my own loyalty.   I do not believe that my entitlement to the stares of Sarah is exhausted and I remember those scenes in the kitchen of the Larsens when the family would both console and doubt one another.   ‘Forbrydelsen’ was made in Denmark where the Dogme films where launched.  These austere films both gripped and tested audiences.  ‘Forbrydelsen’ is not Dogme film making but it is no coincidence that it came from the same country.  The actress, Ann Eleonora Jorgensen, who played the mother of the victim, has appeared in a Dogme film and her honest performance as the mother was a key reason why we took the first series so seriously and will return to series three even though its impact will inevitably diminish.   As ‘Forbrydelsen’ continues to increase in popularity the memory of Dogme will become increasingly irrelevant.

Not everybody who was thrilled by the arrival of Elvis stayed loyal but I did and so did many others.   This was not because we did not recognise the decline.     As with the stares of Sarah there are moments that once experienced give you a sense of entitlement and you want them repeated.   This is usually accompanied by a belief that there is something or someone worthwhile at the core and that it or them are beyond others and that they or it led the way.     In ‘Forbrydelsen’ the core consists of an honest look at human nature and a capability within its performers to represent that perfectly.    Elvis may not have always been honest but he had an openness that was unusually revealing and his talent expressed an identity as complex as any that have existed in American popular music.   For me, there is a parallel with his Sun hits and the Dogme movies.  Both leave their memories.  His Sun records affect how I listen to all his music and the echoes of Dogme in the Larsen kitchen mean I watch the subsequent melodrama of ‘Forbrydelsen’ differently to how I watch other thrillers.   The great strength of Sarah is that she identifies with her victim.   She does her best because anything else would be disloyal.  Elvis has often been described as a sell out but I think he was far more loyal to his working class roots than people realise.   I will not convince everyone but I know why I stayed loyal and why his best moments like the stares of Sarah still put a smile on my face.