Elvis festival marks 50th anniversary of the king's grand Tupelo homecoming

 

Fifty years ago, Elvis Presley returned to his birthplace of Tupelo and performed for the first time since setting the musical world on fire and becoming the king of rock 'n' roll.

 

Needless to say, it was pandemonium.

 

For the eighth annual Elvis Presley Festival on Friday and Saturday, the city of Tupelo hoped to recreate and relive Elvis' grand homecoming half a century ago :dance:

 

Here's a few of the articles that have appeared in the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal :D

 

Fifty years ago Tupelo reached new heights of recognition and international stature when it became known around the world as the birthplace of Elvis Presley.

 

Presley, the iconic and undisputed King of Rock n' Roll, kicked his young but already soaring career into even higher orbit in 1956 with a special hometown concert at the downtown fairgrounds arena - the site occupied by today's City Hall and the rapidly developing Fairpark District.

 

This weekend's annual Elvis Presley Festival - sponsored by the Downtown Tupelo Main Street Association - marks the milestone 50th anniversary of that performance, which helped change the face and the heart of American musical entertainment.

 

Presley - as compassionate and generous a musical star as has ever lived - was undeniably a radical and controversial entertainer. Time has dimmed some of the controversy and furor that his hip-thrusting, sensual performances generated, but his meteroic rise was accompanied by a wail of protest from many preachers, conservative church people, and music traditionalists.

 

But Presley touched the rhythmic heart of post-World War II America - and his style grabbed hold of both adolescents born just before World War II and the post-war Baby Boom generation.

 

The overflowing, screaming crowd at the fairgrounds concert of 1956 proved that nothing could stop Presley and his music from mass appeal and an eventually universal fan base. Many streams of uniquely Southern music coursed through his songs and stage presence. He easily, intentionally embraced the soulful music and persona of African-Americans, gospel music, blues, and what would become known as country and western.

 

It is virtually impossible to travel broadly and not encounter Presley's presence in posters, murals, fashion, and pop culture. His music endures, with original and early recordings soaring in collectible value, and new, digital versions etching his popularity always deeper.

 

Untimely death - partially induced by his personal excesses - came in 1977 at Graceland, the Memphis mansion that was his permanent residence in adulthood.

 

In Tupelo, nothing about Presley is acquired. This is the birthplace. The simple shotgun house is here. Multiple generations of surviving cousins live in significant numbers in Tupelo and Lee County.

 

The Elvis Presley Festival is the unique celebration of an enduring, occasionally uneven, but almost magical relationship between a town and a legend.

 

The 50th anniversary of the 1956 concert is in fact a celebration of an era in American music born in and indelibly identified with Tupelo, the birthplace of The King.

 

The girl who kissed the King

 

Elvis Presley's warm lips pressed against Sarah Patterson's cheek. It was her 15 seconds of fame as she stood on stage with the King.

 

It's been 50 years and Patterson still has a quite rusty spot on her cheek.

 

"My husband swears I never washed the side of my face," she said, laughing.

 

Patterson was just an awe-struck 16-year-old at the 1956 homecoming concert for the King. After placing a cap on Elvis' head, the King dove in and gave her a smacker she'll never forget.

 

"He grabbed me around the waist and kissed me," she said, trying to keep herself under control as she told the fairy tale-like story. "The girls at my school were so jealous."

 

So were many other Elvis sweethearts from around the world. Patterson would soon find out that she had become a celebrity overnight. The next month the picture of Elvis kissing her came out in movie magazines. She was, officially, the girl who Elvis kissed.

 

"I started receiving fan mail asking, What was it like to be kissed by Elvis?'"

 

At the time, Patterson worked for Memphis Commercial Appeal photographer James Kingsley, who had grown up in East Tupelo with Elvis. Patterson pleaded with Kingsley to find a way to get her to the concert, begging him from the moment the concert was announced.

 

"I think he stayed out of the office so that he wouldn't have to hear me," she said.

 

Patterson, of course, found a way to the concert, and she will never forget it.

 

 

Picking cotton to find a way

 

Sixteen-year-old Barbara Mallory also found herself trying to find a way into the '56 homecoming concert.

 

Mallory and her best friend had to pick cotton in order to buy tickets to the expensive event, which was held in what is now Fairpark.

 

"I'm just an Elvis fan," said Mallory, who started Tupelo's first Elvis fan club. "I have been since 1954. And I guess I will be until I go to Tupelo Memorial (Gardens Cemetery)."

 

When the two finally made enough cash to buy tickets, they had to find something to wear. So they picked more cotton to buy the proper attire, which were, of course, fancy dresses.

 

 

The Alamo Girls

 

Joyce and Royce Byrd are twin sisters from Alamo, Tenn. They were two of the six friends who helped lift Judy Hopper onto the concert stage in 1956.

 

Joining the twins in the hoist was Gloria Wedgeworth, also one of the "Alamo Girls," as they call themselves. Wedgeworth's mother drove the girls to the concert that day.

 

"Judy was crazy, crazy, crazy about Elvis. ... I was half that crazy," Wedgeworth said.

 

After lifting her friend onto the stage, Wedgeworth said everything else was in slow motion, like a movie clip slowed almost to a pause.

 

"It was sureal," she said. "When (Judy) got up there, she walked across real slow, and he laughed."

 

"They got her before she ever got to him," Joyce Byrd said, chiming in. "She was in a trance."

 

The Byrd sisters are making their first return to Tupelo since that day in 1956. They are happy to return to the town that gave them so many precious memories.

 

"I don't know what the word would be," she said, trying to describe her emotions of returning to the King's birthplace after 50 years.

 

"Awesome!" said her sister, Royce, interjecting with much enthusiasm. "It's just awesome."

 

 

 

TUPELO – Decked in a purple satin shirt, tight black pants, white shoes and a sparkling white belt, the King – guitar slung over his shoulders and his coal-black hair flipped upward – stepped into the spotlight.

 

Then he began to sing in that deep, booming voice - a voice so familiar to Tupelo.

 

Before reaching the second verse of the opening song, hundreds of women - and some men - rushed from their seats to the front stage to get a closer look at the lavish Elvis Presley impersonator, who swung his hips, bent his lips and wiggled his fingertips like Elvis did here a half-century ago.

 

Most of the same teenagers that lined the front row in 1956 were there - in the same place - Saturday night. The 60- and 70-year-old Elvis fanatics leaned over the stage, waving their arms and screaming as they clawed at the impersonator's clothes.

 

His hands reached out and touched their fingers like the real King's did 50 years ago - on that exact spot in what is now Fairpark.

 

The re-enactment of the 1956 Elvis Presley concert had begun, and it wouldn't end until the last song was sung.

 

Three Elvis impersonators rotated throughout the night, singing various hit songs from the legendary, Tupelo-born entertainer. In between songs, audio and video clips from the '56 "homecoming" concert danced on two gigantic screens that flanked the stage at the footsteps of City Hall as fans stretched from the gates of Fairpark to the edge of the stage - with no room to spare.

 

Elvis, key to the city

 

"There are 10 times as many people as there were last night," said Sheila Davis, who manned the gates of Fairpark Friday and Saturday nights.

 

Main Street Association director Jim High concurred.

 

"We've doubled the size of the festival," he said, looking over the park where people continued to pour in at 9 p.m. "This is as big of a crowd as we've ever had."

 

Before the very first Elvis impersonator began, a spokesman for Gov. Haley Barbour stepped on stage to present Tupelo Mayor Ed Neelly with a document that specially recognized the night's re-enactment.

 

 

"This is truly a great occasion for the city of Tupelo," Neelly said. "Elvis will always be the key to the city."

Thanks Tilly :)

Tupelo Festival wrap:

 

The carnival rides no longer scrape the sky. The stages are all packed up and put away. And the thousands of people are back to their daily lives. As Elvis Festival officials wind down from what was quite a busy weekend, their thoughts are definitely not on the 2007 event. "We're still trying to catch our breath. We haven't even gone there yet," said Linda Butler Johnson, executive director of the Tupelo City Convention and Visitor's Bureau.

 

Main Street Association assistant director Jim High said there are no current plans for next year's festival - just to make the event "as good or better" as this year's. Between the two sites - the main stage and the City Hall stage - Friday's attendance was about 8,000, High said. He estimated Saturday's crowd at 14,000.

Johnson said her team will have to regroup before thinking of next year's festival. After all, the CVB produced Saturday night's 1956 re-enactment.

 

No Memphis re-enactment: Elvis Presley Enterprises wanted the CVB to produce the re-enactment in Memphis in August. Johnson said the CVB will not finance or bring the production to Memphis, but if EPE intends to produce the re-enactment themselves, they will be glad to help. EPE licensing technical coordinator Shalon Turner said the re-enactment will not be done this August, and there are no plans for it in the future. "We just have so much on our plate for August," said Turner, who traveled to Tupelo for the festival. "I think they did a really nice job," she said of the re-enactment.

 

Gospel collection doubles: High wasn't surprised when the collection money from the Elvis Presley Festival's Sunday Gospel Concert doubled last year's amount. Everything else from the record-breaking festival had doubled. More than $1,900 was collected at the concert and will be donated to St. Jude's Hospital. Last year's total was below $1,000. "Our job is to continue to improve the festival," High said. "Our festival had more Elvis flare this year than ever."

 

(News. Source: djournal.com)