' Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman's 'Viva Las Vegas' (1963), was custom-written as the title song for Elvis Presley's 14th film, a rollicking tribute to the city of gambling given a spirited performance by Presley and his session musicians; strangely, it remained an underrated Presley song for a long time, finally beginning to gain some recognition from an unexpected quarter when the 'Dead Kennedys' recorded it in 1980, their radical recontextualization of it helping the song to an independent life beyond its origins; on its own, it can now be appreciated as a tribute to Las Vegas that probably deserves to be the city's official anthem.

'In the early going at the Charlotte Coliseum, there were scattered notes here and there that made you wonder if finally he was gonna do it but, always, he wou…

'Even in his laziest moments, Presley was a master of intonation and phrasing, delivering his rich baritone with a disarming naturalness. And when he caught a …

' He had an incredible, attractive instrument that worked in many registers; he could falsetto like Little Richard, his equipment was outstanding, his ear unca…

When we experience a film, we consciously prime ourselves for illusion. Putting aside will and intellect, we make way for it in our imagination. The sequence o…

I feel about Keaton the way an organist thinks of Bach.

'She bangs, she bangs...' (Singing Ricky Martin's, She Bangs)