{"id":8716482,"date":"2023-01-14T09:22:56","date_gmt":"2023-01-14T17:22:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eastbaytimes.com\/?p=8716482&preview=true&preview_id=8716482"},"modified":"2023-01-15T09:59:18","modified_gmt":"2023-01-15T17:59:18","slug":"lisa-marie-carved-her-musical-path-as-she-bore-elvis-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eastbaytimes.com\/2023\/01\/14\/lisa-marie-carved-her-musical-path-as-she-bore-elvis-legacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Lisa Marie carved her musical path as she bore Elvis\u2019 legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kristin M. Hall | Associated Press<\/strong><\/p>\n

NASHVILLE, Tenn. \u2014 She was dubbed a \u201crock princess,\u201d but Lisa Marie Presley staked her own musical claim as a singer-songwriter, allowing her to express herself apart from \u2014 but sometimes alongside \u2014 her megastar father.<\/p>\n

Presley, who died Thursday at 54, bore a heavy weight: The daughter of musical royalty, the face of the Elvis estate and fodder for tabloid gossip about her marriages.<\/p>\n

There was no question music would be a center point of her life, starting when she was a child singing for her father, the King with the unmistakable voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s always been a huge influence on me my whole life always. It\u2019s the first thing I ever heard,\u201d she told The Associated Press in 2012.<\/p>\n

As the sole heir of Elvis\u2019 estate, her early life was defined by the Elvis brand and her role building that legacy with her mother Priscilla. That often meant Elvis fans put their own feelings about her father and his music onto her and Priscilla.<\/p>\n

Charles Hughes, an author and director of the Lynne & Henry Turley Memphis Center at Rhodes College in Memphis, noted that Presley faced sexism and racism in the tabloids \u2014 and among some Elvis fans \u2014 throughout her life, especially surrounding her relationship to another icon, Michael Jackson.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are very few people I can think of who had to do what she did \u2026 being the Presleys\u2019 daughter, but being Michael Jackson\u2019s ex-wife and being a mother and being in the public eye as long and as complicatedly as she was,\u201d said Hughes.<\/p>\n

She was 35 and a mother when her debut album \u201cTo Whom It May Concern\u201d came out in 2003. The music was in the vein of the rock-pop sound influenced by Sheryl Crow, her sultry alto over distorted guitars and raw dark lyrics that hinted at her past relationships.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe daring thing about her music, the daring thing about her recording career, the daring thing about her was her willingness to speak her truth,\u201d said Joe Levy, editor at large at Billboard. \u201cThe songs on those first two records are more challenging, more daring, and more exciting for their lyrics than for their music.\u201d<\/p>\n

The album was well-received and certified gold, even though she didn\u2019t play publicly very much, and it hit No. 5 on the Billboard 200 chart. Her first single \u201cLights Out\u201d reached a No. 18 peak on Billboard\u2019s Adult Pop Airplay. Over her career, she sold 836,000 albums, while her songs have drawn 9.5 million official streams in the U.S., according to Luminate.<\/p>\n

Hughes said he still regularly plays the \u201cLights Out\u201d music video for his students when he teaches about Elvis.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is such a compelling and a complicated take on the legacy and on her role in it. It\u2019s not about him. I mean, it is, but it\u2019s really about her,\u201d said Hughes.<\/p>\n

But doing press interviews in 2005 to promote her second album, \u201cNow What,\u201d meant being subjected to an endless barrage of questions about Jackson and her third husband Nicholas Cage, rather than the music.<\/p>\n

Author Steve Baltin, who interviewed her several times over her career, said within music circles Presley was able to be herself and be accepted for her own talent. During her career, she worked with Pink, T Bone Burnett, Linda Perry, Richard Hawley, Ed Harcourt and many more.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was very respected as a musician, and while everybody else saw her as Elvis\u2019 daughter, people in music loved her and they appreciated the fact that, one, she was talented, but two, she really supported music,\u201d said Baltin.<\/p>\n

Her third album, \u201cStorm & Grace,\u201d came out in 2012, after a period in which Presley had moved to England to work with British songwriters on what turned out to be a very American record. More bluesy and acoustic than her earlier records, the songs are full of melancholy and heartache.<\/p>\n

On the song \u201cSticks and Stones,\u201d she addresses critics with scorching mimicry, singing \u201cShe\u2019s ain\u2019t just like her daddy\/oh what a shame\/She\u2019s got no talent of her own\/it\u2019s just her name.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baltin said Presley stopped trying to avoid the comparisons at that point in her career.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat record, in particular, was the first time that she really started to accept who she was and accept all of her roots and how this played into her,\u201d said Baltin. \u201cSo I think it was the record that was most completely her because she wasn\u2019t trying to deny her past.\u201d<\/p>\n

Songwriter and musician Clif Magness worked with Presley for about two years making the first record, saying she was excellent at writing \u201cdark and quirky\u201d lyrics. He said he rarely pried about who inspired which songs, but he recalled her writing a song about her dad called \u201cNobody Noticed It.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took about six months to get her to the point where she can be honest with herself and creative with her words and talk about her dad,\u201d he said. \u201cSo that was really special.\u201d<\/p>\n

Presley\u2019s lyrics to \u201cLights Out\u201d were written after she had come back from a visit to Graceland, said Magness, where her father and her grandparents are buried in the back lawn, along with extra space for other Presley family members. Years later, in 2020, her 27-year-old son Benjamin Keough was buried there as well.<\/p>\n