Memories of Elvis

Michael Joseph Jackson has surpassed Elvis Aaron Presley as the biggest and weirdest of all the dead rock icons. But his soul will never suffer the eternal punishment of VFW hall impersonators or exult in the delicious decadence of a spectacle such as Memories of Elvis. St. Louis native Steve Davis takes his Elvis seriously. Ultimately he's less an impersonator than a Wizard of Elvis Oz, constructing an unreal kingdom that surveys the totality of the greatest career in pop music, from the invention of rock & roll to the Vegas agonists, and most all essential points in between. As a singer, Davis has chops, and even if he can't swing like the King, he gets the paradoxical grandeur — gospel meets glitter — that was Presley's genius and ultimate redemption.