If you loaded up your 1960 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz convertible, the baby blue one with the sky-high fins, and you applied some extra Brylcreem to your pompadour and made sure the AM dial on your radio worked just fine, it would still take you over a day to drive from Palm Springs to Memphis, Tennessee.
Surely it would be an important drive, if you treasure the legend of The King and all of the major music, and influences, he left the world to enjoy. But you can save the 1700+ miles, at least for the time being, and mark the 82nd anniversary of the birth of Elvis Presley at the famous desert-snazzy Honeymoon Hideway.
The acclaimed abode, which is where Elvis and Priscilla Presley spent the days following their 1967 wedding, will once again honor the legend's birthday with more music, memories, and tours than you can fit into a tour bus, proverbially.
The date? It's all going down, with hip shakes and thankyouverymuch-ing, on the eve of Mr. Presley's Jan. 8 birthday.
So you'll need to be at the lauded Ladera Circle locale on Saturday, Jan. 7 to catch performances by a pair of tribute artists (George Thomas'll be homaging Elvis while James King will step in for Frank Sinatra) and a trio of midday "Tours of the Kings House."
Other happenings, like an appearance by Dick Grob (who worked for The King), as well as The Palm Desert Strummers, fill out the daytime schedule.
You'll want to secure a ticket before gassing up the convertible, so do that, blithely, as you hum "Love Me Tender" or another croony hit.
The Scene
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Of course, if you're a through-and-through King fan, making the highway-epic drive to Graceland, with, perhaps, an emotional stop in Tupelo, Mississippi, is a commendable dream to have. (Tupelo, of course, was the birthplace of the icon.)
And Elvis was very much a dream-maker. His songs were lush with fantasy and hope, as was his life, outlook, homes, cars, and fabulous glittering jumpsuits.
It is good to have a dream, in short, and that The King's birthday arrives just days after the new year is a buoyant reminder of this notion. Need to find that hope-filled thread again? Put on a few songs, sway the hips, and pursue a Presley-themed party now.
