American Top 40 Flashback - ELVIS!

There's a wonderful moment in the expanded edition of Stephen King's "The Stand" where Stu tells Frannie a story about the night Jim Morrison came into his gas station, years after he had supposedly died over in Paris.  Even though the story lasts no more than a couple of pages, it fits in perfectly with the tone and mystery (and danger) of the greater story that King is telling.

From time to time, I think about a similar story involving another King - Elvis Presley.  In my story, Elvis is still out there somewhere - maybe working in a late-night diner somewhere in the south, maybe overseas relaxing on a secluded beach, maybe just hanging out in New York City, drawing looks every now and then but ultimately nothing more than a thought from those who see him that "wow, that guy could have passed for Elvis, about 30 years ago."

In my story, the day arrives when Elvis decides, a la John Lennon circa 1979, that it's time to get the ol' axe out and hit the studio.  And, in a clandestine session produced by Rick Rubin, an album is recorded by a mysterious figure who sounds so much like Elvis that even Bruce Springsteen is tempted to make another late-night visit to Graceland.  And women in their seventies are heard to exclaim, "Lord almighty!  I feel my temperature rising..."

Someday, that story will be told in these pages.  For now, we have "Burning Love," Elvis' last great AM radio hit, where he made it sound easy.  A hunk of burning love, indeed.  From the Fall of 1972.