Jan. 29, 2023, column from the Amarillo Globe-News:

Reflecting on Elvis' birthday celebration, Lisa Marie's service at Graceland

By Mike Haynes

                A week ago today, Jason Clark and the Tennessee Mass Choir ended a memorial service by singing – while slowly swaying left and right – “The Lord our God is mighty, the Lord our God is omnipotent, the Lord our God, He is wonderful.”

                On the same stage in front of the Graceland mansion, the Blackwood Brothers Quartet had vocalized “How Great Thou Art” to piano accompaniment, much the same as their predecessors had done at many sold-out concerts in the 1970s – but of course, this time without the stirring voice of Elvis Presley.

                That spiritual music was just part of the event at the longtime Memphis, Tennessee, home of “the King of Rock ’n’ Roll” that honored his only child, Lisa Marie Presley. Lisa Marie had died of a heart attack at age 54 on Jan. 12 – four days after her last visit to Graceland to attend the annual birthday celebration for her father, who had died in 1977.

                My wife, Kathy, and I were on our first visit to Graceland during that birthday week, inspired by the 2022 hit movie, “Elvis.” We showed up at 8:30 a.m. Jan. 8 with 800 to 1,000 other fans to see the five-foot birthday cake and Lisa Marie, who had been almost a recluse at her home in Los Angeles since the death of her 27-year-old son, Ben Keough, in 2020.

                In Lisa Marie’s brief comments under a tent on the Graceland front lawn two weeks ago, she thanked the devoted fans who braved the cold weather. “I keep saying you’re the only people who can bring me out of my house,” she told them. “I’m not kidding.”

                Then she spent an hour or so slowly walking down a line of fans, roped off from the tent, signing autographs and posing for pictures with people, almost 100 percent of whom were wearing Elvis shirts or other paraphernalia.

                So with our friend Leslie, we watched Lisa Marie’s service online last week. It took place a few yards from where her dad’s birthday cake had been.

                I know little about Lisa Marie’s beliefs. I do know she sang a beautiful duet, along with her father’s voice from many years ago, called “Where No One Stands Alone.” The lyrics include, “Oh, Lord, don’t hide your face from me,” and “Take my hand, let me stand where no one stands alone.”

 

               Elvis’ faith is well known. Despite the celebrity life he lived, he made his love of God clear. His stepbrother, Billy Stanley, published a book last year called, “The Faith of Elvis,” in which Stanley offers example after example of the megastar’s generosity and his trust in the Bible. The much younger brother says Elvis often urged him to read scripture. According to Stanley’s book, “EP” once told him:

                “Remember, Billy, the mind is the devil’s playground. Everybody knows the master of confusion is the devil. The mind believes it is the strongest organ. But the heart is God’s playground. The heart is what keeps you going.”

                That recollection rings true to the place where Elvis’ Christian walk began: a small Assembly of God church in Tupelo, Mississippi, where he lived until his family moved to Memphis when he was 13.

Kathy and I took a bus tour from Memphis to Tupelo a couple of days before Elvis’ birthday celebration and sat for a presentation in that church. Surrounded by three video screens, we saw a 15-minute recreation of a 1943 worship service with impassioned prayer and preaching plus a gospel quartet doing “I’ll Fly Away” and the congregation singing “Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb?” followed by shouts and clapping.

Plus, the video showed a young boy portraying an 8-year-old Elvis singing his first public solo: “Jesus Loves Me.” The future star probably stood next to the original, simple pulpit that remains in the small, white church.

It’s easy to see why Elvis Presley had a life-long love of gospel music. His first goal was to sing in a gospel quartet like those of his youth. He released several gospel albums and in the 1970s included songs such as “Swing Down, Sweet Chariot” and yes, “How Great Thou Art,” in his concerts. He and his buddy musicians often jammed in the studio or after performances to tunes such as “Bosom of Abraham” and “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho.”

The presence of Lisa Marie’s father couldn’t be overlooked at her service last Sunday, not with the Blackwoods’ harmony, recollections by Elvis’ “Memphis Mafia” member Jerry Schilling and one of the most iconic houses in the world serving as the backdrop.

But touches of her own life included songs by Alanis Morissette, Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins and Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses plus tender words by her mother, Priscilla Presley; her daughter, Riley Keough; former Memphis Mayor A C Wharton; Pastor Dwayne Hunt; and her friend, Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York. A new friend of Lisa Marie and Priscilla, “Elvis” movie star Austin Butler, was in attendance.

In a moving talk, Wharton said he and others who knew Lisa Marie “won’t connect in this same place in the same way ever again.” But I pray that Billy Blackwood’s introduction to “Sweet, Sweet Spirit,” which Elvis included in his later shows, will come true for the family and for everyone:

“May this song be the ushering in of God’s peace and presence in your life.”