Head Tale

I have lots of Elvis memories from growing up.

When I was a kid, I used to spend hours listening to my parent’s record collection.  My dad was a big Elvis fan and passed that love of “The King” on to me via the various Elvis records he owned.

I used to argue with one of my best friends in school.  He was a big Beatles fan and I was an Elvis fan so we’d debate who was better.  (I relayed this story to Rory Allen and he made the very relevant point that Elvis became the biggest star in the world all by himself while the Beatles had four guys to rely on.  Plus the Beatles would be the first to acknowledge they followed a path made by The King.)

When I was in high school, we took a family trip to Florida which included pilgrimages to Tupelo and Memphis to see the town where Elvis was born and the city where he lived most of his life.

Obviously getting to hang out with “Elvis” wasn’t the whole reason I wanted to book Rory Allen for my library’s 50th Anniversary Event – I knew he’d be a big, unique draw and make for a memorable experience that would be *very* different from a lot of library events.

But on some level, I did have selfish motives as well.  It was pretty cool to think back to how much Elvis meant to my dad and me over the years.  (One of my strongest childhood memories of listening to music is playing “American Trilogy” over and over to hear the lines: