Elvis: He's Changed, But He's Still King
By Brenda L. Camp
Macon Telegraph
June 2, 1977

"Is that Elvis?" I kept wanting to nudge the excited woman next to me in the packed Macon Coliseum.

Is this the semi-God that my Big Sister used to drool over when she condescended to take me ad grubby brothers to the picture show?

It had to be him. The moment, the music of 2001, A Space Odyssey was over, out bounded this chalky-faced but very sleeky at tired man in bright white and it had to be him.

And it had to be me watching him, much like back in the sixties when he appeared in my hometown's dinky movie house.

Come to think of it the only folk of my kind at the coliseum numbered two at th emost and they hawked souvenirs.

Elvis used to appear on the big screen in his viva Las Vegas and Double Trouble, his hair so blackit was iridescent blue. I would always be hedged in between teo brothers were who wanted constantly pop corn and always popping me in the eye with the salty kernels.

My sister always sat a couple of seats away, he rnose turned upat my "thousand plits" my Ma insisted on arranging my hair in, her own hair longer and straightened, tessed and pushed up in the style of the day.

And she'd drool at Elvis, and dare you stare at her. Had she seen this hulk of a man gyrating on stage, many years later, she would swear it wasn't Elvis.

But it was the King and the voice was there, belting out ballads and foot-stompers like the reed of a man did a decade ago. Women still gush and one housewife shrieked, "Watch him move his leg, watch him move his leg!"

In ritual fashion, the Old Hound Dog teased the women with scarves after mopping his brow, finally tossing them intomany grasping hands.

Pausing, rather, stopping a tune becuase of "a frog in my throat," the showman drank a sip of water as screams of delight pealed out int he dark auditorium, blue and purplish lights castling an eerie glow his face.

His rendition of C.C. Rider didn't compare to the days when he didn't move his leg as if they were spastic. His movements used to be oiled poetry, now the only oil that stood out was on his hair.

This was Elvis, the man a young woman with rheumatold arthritis had picked for a hobby, a man she travelled over the country to see, Elvis was the man whose road manager squelched her hopes of meeting him on stage with: "There's nothing I can do for you."

Courtesy of Scott