BOCEPHUS-Memphis, TN (BASS SOLO)

The first time I had the pleasure of seeing ole Hank Jr. "live", was a few years before this clip. He's always been one of my favorites. Many people at the show back then, wanted him to just do his father's music. Hank Jr. did do a couple of his dad's hits, but stuck to doing his own music, and I was glad that he did.

Del Reeves-Girl on the Billboard

Franklin Delano Reeves. Del's parents loved F.D.R. so much, they named Del so their initials were the same. Got to see him twice. Very good entertainer. He did a great version of "You comb her hair".

Hank Williams Jr.-Texas Women.

This clip from 1981, shows Ole Hank Jr. doing another great job on stage. Saw him about this time, at the Santa Monica Civic Center in California.

Billy "Crash" Craddock-Knock Three Times

Billy got the "Crash" nickname from his football playing days in school in North Carolina. Here he is with a crossover hit. Tony Orlando also had a hit record of this tune.

Thirteenth Floor Elevators: Benny Thurman, Original Bassist RIP

Benny Thurman in 2004

Benny Thurman, the original bass player for the Thirteenth Floor Elevators, passed away last month. Thurman, 65, died June 22 after two and a half weeks in the intensive-care unit of Austin's Seton Hospital with an undisclosed illness, according to a report on Austin '60s blog The Rag.

A classically trained violinist and Marine Corps veteran, Thurman, born February 20, 1943, played with the Elevators from late 1965 to mid-1966. Previously, he played with future Elevators John Ike Walton and Stacy Sutherland - whom he met at the famous Austin UT-area hamburger stand Dirty's - in the Lingsmen, an Austin dance band that relocated to the Gulf Coast and established a popular residency at Port Aransas beachside concession stand/club the Dunes.

They were discovered by Tommy Hall, the electric-jug player who drafted the Lingsmen's rhythm section for the new group he was starting with singer Roky Erickson. Though he didn't even really play bass, Thurman was convinced to come along.

"I was a fiddle player, violin," Thurman told Austin Chronicle writer Margaret Moser in 2004. "I couldn't play bass worth a darn, but I said I'd learn. It was hard, but I got a big ol' jazz bass from John Ike [Walton]. I could keep up and was on a lot of the fast rock stuff, but then they got into those romantic love songs, with Roky singing."

The Lingsmen: Benny Thurman, John Ike Walton and Stacy Sutherland

The Elevators, Thurman said. "caught the wave and held onto our surfboard. It was all an experiment, but it was a great experience. A lot of people never get to experience anything at all. Not just performing, but the life around it, the sparkle of it, the groove. I got some of it."

He sure did. Thurman, a longtime State of Texas employee, went back to violin and played in the Austin band Plum Nelly before retiring from music in the 1970s. He is survived by his daughter, Jennifer. No funeral arrangements have been announced, but a likely place to look is the memorial thread on the Texas '60s Music Refuge Yahoo message board.

The Elevators' 1966 appearance on American Bandstand, still one of the most surreal moments in all of '60s pop-culture history:

If anyone has any further information to add about Thurman, the Lingsmen, the Dunes or the Elevators, please leave it in the comments. Houstonians and psych fans in general could always stand to know a little more about that era.

ZZ Top: Hard Rock Houston

ZZ Top appeared at Houston's Hard Rock Cafe Monday night to release their Live in Texas DVD and donate the famous "poodle" guitars from the "Legs" video to the Hard Rock's collection.

Sugar Hill Studio (HUEY MEAUX'S OLD STUDIO): Dan Workman (INTERVIEW)

Dan Workman, co-owner of Sugar Hill Studios in Houston, Texas, talks about the historic studio, the longest continually operating recording facility in the Southwest.

JERRY LEE LEWIS: HUEY MEAUX: Pedophilé Gumbeauxxx (Southern Roots Studio Outtakes)

George Jones via last.fm

"I'm going to record 'Old Shep' in rock and roll - only Old Shep is gonna die in my song. I think I'll send him up to Elvis's place and let it bite the hell out of him."-- Jerry Lee Lewis

Huey P. Meaux ~ The Crazy Cajun

---

Huey Meaux [b. March 10, 1929] grew up outside of Kaplan, Louisiana, a small community surrounded by rice fields near Lafayette. His parents and siblings were poor sharecroppers who spoke mainly Cajun French, worked hard in the fields all week, and played harder on Saturday night, when Creoles and Cajuns would push back the furniture in a house, get roaring drunk, and dance to a band all night long.
"Back in them days, my dad worked for the man-picked cotton, hoed, grew rice, shucked it, and harvested it," he told me one time. "We had four shotgun houses, two black families, two white families. Music was a release. If somebody didn't get cut up and beat the shit out of someone, the dance was considered bad. I was raised that way."
He moved with his family to Winnie [Texas] at the age of twelve, part of the Cajun migration west across the Sabine River to greener rice fields and better jobs. His father, Stanislaus Meaux (known to all as Pappy Te-Tan), played accordion and fronted a group with teenaged Huey as the drummer. "I wasn't worth a damn," Huey told me once, but the excitement of being in a band stayed with him. In his twenties, he cut hair at the barber shop by day. "A barber is like a bartender, he knows who is screwing whose wife, when, and what time. I dug all that because I was part of something," he said. After hours, he was a disc jockey, hosting teen hops in Beaumont [Texas] and promoting dances all over the Golden Triangle.
His colleagues on the local music scene included singer George Jones, pianist Moon Mullican, and disc jockey J. P. Richardson, a.k.a. the Big Bopper. ("I was riding with him in the back seat of a car from Port Arthur to the studio in Houston when he wrote the lyrics for the B side of a novelty song he was cutting called Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor. He called the B side Chantilly Lace," Huey told me back in the seventies.) A local promoter and record producer named Bill Hall taught Meaux the nuances of the business of music, mainly by never paying Meaux what he was owed. "That was my college education in the bidness. I didn't think people were supposed to get paid for having fun. So Hall would take my records, put his name on them, and take them to the record companies. When we'd go to Nashville, he'd tell me to keep my mouth shut. He said they'd laugh at my accent up there. And I believed him," Huey said.
In 1959 Meaux produced the first hit with his name on it, Breaking Up Is Hard to Do, a maudlin lament by Jivin' Gene, as Meaux had rechristened Gene Bourgeois. The song's hook, he liked to tell people, was the vocal's echo effect, which was accomplished by "sticking Gene back in the shitter, surrounded by all that porcelain." Subsequent hits such as Barbara Lynn's soul stirrer You'll Lose a Good Thing, Joe Barry's swinging I'm a Fool to Care, Rod Bernard's This Should Go on Forever, T. K. Hulin's As You Pass Me By Graduation Night, and Big Sambo and the Housewreckers' histrionic The Rains Came were all expressions of teen sincerity tailor-made for belly rubbing on the dance floor. The sound was dubbed swamp pop in honor of the region the artists came from.
Meaux was on his way to becoming a one-stop hit factory; eventually he would own many labels and Sugar Hill Recording Studios and manage artists; he would publish his artists' songs, collect their royalty checks, and promote their records to radio stations. The way Meaux told it, his first royalty check, $48,000 for Barbara Lynn's You'll Lose a Good Thing, attracted too much attention around Winnie. "Even today people think I made that money selling dope," he told me years ago. "I never sold any dope in my life. Sold some whiskey before, took some dope, but never did sell none." He shifted operations to Houston, where peers like Don Robey at Duke and Peacock Records and H. W. "Pappy" Daily at D Records were cutting and selling hits as if the town were Nashville and Memphis combined. Among such company, Huey was well known for his good ear and even better known for his promotional talents. "The song is number one. The singer is probably third or fourth," he explained to me. "The song makes the singer and the producer. Promotion makes all of it. It's up to the man behind the desk, spending money here and there, taking care of favors, just like you elect a president or governor."
As a promoter, his most brilliant stroke was co-opting the British invasion of the early sixties by finding a Tex-Mex rock band from San Antonio, dubbing them the Sir Douglas Quintet, dressing them up in British mod outfits, and even releasing their record on the London label. The record was She's About a Mover, which broke onto the Top Ten pop charts in 1965. Image was everything. "He used to make the married members of the band take off their wedding rings before going on stage," recalled organist Augie Meyers. "He didn't want to spoil the illusion."
Thanks to Meaux's relentless efforts, an all-Mexican San Antonio band called Sunny and the Sunliners broke the racial barrier on television's American Bandstand by performing a bluesy version of Little Willie John's Talk To Me in 1962. Soon after, Meaux had another hit--a slow and thoroughly teen rendering of Hank Williams' I'm So Lonesome, I Could Cry by a young white band from Rosenberg called the Triumphs, fronted by a pimplefaced kid named B. J. Thomas.
"The reason why I had so many hits was that around this part of the country, you've got a different kind of people every hundred miles--Czech, Mexican, Cajun, black," Meaux said. The names came and went--Roy Head, Chuck Jackson, Ronnie Milsap, Mickey Gilley, Lowell Fulson, Joey Long, Doug Kershaw, Clifton Chenier, Big Mama Thornton, Johnny Copeland, Lightnin' Hopkins, Archie Bell and the Drells, Tommy McLain, Cosimo Matassa, and Jerry Wexler--all of them made records or worked with Meaux at one time or another. For two generations of Gulf Coast rock and rollers--or any musicians from Baton Rouge to San Antonio--he was the pipeline to the big time.
But for every Dale and Grace topping the charts with perfect pop hits like I'm Leaving It Up to You, there were twenty failures. Meaux's magic never worked for two talented young boys from Beaumont, Johnny and Edgar Winter, whom he recorded under the names The Great Believers and Texas Guitar Slim. "We'd put them on a local television show called Jive at Five, and their records would stop selling like you turn a light switch off," Meaux said. "People would freak out, being as they was albinos." He said he never got credit for his part in the discovery of ZZ Top and years later took great pleasure in suing the band and manager Bill Ham on behalf of Linden Hudson, a songwriter who was never paid or credited for a song the band recorded. Huey had a copy of the settlement check framed on his wall.
The flip side of his skills as a producer and a promoter was his willingness to take advantage of his artists. An artful con man, Meaux would mockingly warn his acts, "I wouldn't sign that if I were you" at the contract table. Another time he said, "I like to keep my artists in the dark so their stars shine brighter." The artists, hungry for fame and fortune, never balked-and many enjoyed long friendships with Meaux even though he took advantage of them. Gulfport, Mississippi, songwriter Jimmy Donley was a sentimental lyricist who sung in what Meaux called the heartbreak key. Donley sold compositions such as Please Mr. Sandman, Hello! Remember Me, and I'm to Blame to Meaux (and to Fats Domino, among others) for $50 apiece because he needed the money and figured he could always write another song. Even though Donley hardly profited from the relationship, he and Meaux remained close friends; Donley called him Papa. In the liner notes Meaux wrote for the Donley memorial album, Born to Be a Loser, he says that in 1963 Donley called him to thank him for all he'd done for him; 45 minutes later, Donley committed suicide.
Huey's gift of gab made it possible to overlook the gray areas of his personality--the way he treated his artists, his open interest in young women, and his hedonism. The first time I walked into Sugar Hill Recording Studios, in 1974, two years after Meaux bought it, he regaled me for the entire day with the story behind each of the gold records, the publicity photographs, and other mementos hanging on the wall and cluttering the desk in his office. It was a history lesson about roots before the roots of rock were cool.
His showmanship peaked as the Crazy Cajun on his Friday night radio program on KPFT-FM [in Houston]. Huey didn't just announce records, he went wild-stomping his feet to the music, whooping, singing, and yakking nonstop: "Give it to me good, Houston, unh, you sure betta b'lieve it. Come close to the radio and give your papa some sugar, sweet cher ami." A good portion of the radio audience was "the men and women in white up in the TDC"-- prisoners in the state system, mostly up in Huntsville. Huey read their letters, sent them dedications (Release Me was a popular request), and visited with their relatives in the studio.
One night when I was in the studio watching him do the show, he auditioned two new singles he'd just released on his Crazy Cajun label--Country Ways, by Alvin Crow and the Pleasant Valley Boys, from Austin; and Before the Next Teardrop Falls, by Freddy Fender, a fifties-era Tex-Mex rocker from San Benito [see Music: Wasted Days, Texas Monthly, October, 1995]. The Crow tune never went very far, but the Fender cut was Meaux's biggest meal ticket of his career. Fender had a promising career interrupted by a stint in Angola State Prison in Louisiana for possession of two marijuana cigarettes in the early sixties. He had come to Meaux, citing the common bond of their experiences behind bars. The two had tried a variety of combinations, including Jamaican reggae sung in Spanish, to no avail until Meaux cajoled Fender into singing on top of an instrumental track recorded by an anonymous Nashville country band.
Before the Next Teardrop Falls was the unlikeliest country and pop hit of 1975, eventually reaching number one on Billboard's Hot 100. The follow-up, a remake of Fender's 1959 regional rock hit Wasted Days and Wasted Nights, went to number eight. Fender and Meaux had discovered a formula: recycle the swamp pop melodies into modern country music by replacing horn charts with steel guitar fills and female choruses. Meaux was Fender's producer and manager, meaning he received a bigger cut than his artist. Freddy didn't care because they were both getting rich with hits like Secret Love, You'll Lose a Good Thing, Living It Down, and Vaya Con Dios. Freddy bought a house on Ocean Drive in Corpus Christi, where he parked his custom hot rods on the front lawn. Huey bought himself a Beatles-style shag wig and a Lincoln Continental, paid off his note on Sugar Hill Studios, and received major record company funding for his custom record label with a growing stable of acts.
By the end of the ride, in 1980, Fender was strung out on dope and booze and bankrupt with $10 million in debts. He was also accusing Meaux of taking advantage of him through unscrupulous contracts. Huey, who had previously specialized in one-hit wonders, was ready to sever the relationship too, blaming Freddy for squandering his earnings. In 1981 Meaux survived a bout with throat cancer. Save for one last novelty hit--Rockin' Sidney Simien's 1985 zydeco ditty (Don't Mess With) My Toot-Toot-Huey more or less bailed out of the producer-manager-promoter realm and moved into music publishing. He augmented the Crazy Cajun song-publishing catalog by purchasing, among other tunes, Desi Arnaz's signature song, Babalu, and a number of soul composer Isaac Hayes' songs from the Memphis bank that assumed ownership of them after Hayes went bankrupt.

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Punk Medley: CIRCLE JERKS, IGGY POP, ET. AL. (1983)

Promo previews of Target video's productions

ELIZA PRESLEY

Hi, everyone,

I asked just as a stream, and I INTABYUEAZU,

6 & 10pm and 10pm, from 11pm to Q & A with the Cleveland, Ohio viewing area, the dead of winter 19 @ @ 18, Wed to the fire of God, and you sympathy if you can see it - that is, for me, for him it is important to see it.

MS. IRAIZAPURE

Six years later, the doctor Elvis Presley, and finally her half-sister of Elvis, Elvis the man's DNA matched DNA from has been argued later, DNA from the Elvis Presley family members to prove Eliza The DNA matched the DNA test was? BANONPURESURI the DNA of the daughter of her support, and is not dead! That more interesting about the survival of Elvis.

"I'm the only person that Elvis Presley Jesse's DNA, the DNA of living humans have DNA from DNA from the name of Elvis impersonators do, but I'm around you in the DNA of the Eliza imitating Elvis You get to the heart, and I can not. "

PRE-monarchies IRAIZAPUREARISUERIZABESU old Tiffing a request for a DNA sample from her to change her name JESHIPURESURI he also believes Elvis Presley, in fact (he) can not send ERUBISUPURESURIBANONPURESURI Was made has not been set, but he argued the merits of the mother of Elvis Presley, some of the original Elvis, amphibians, child / man, died in 1977 and is generally thought The father, Elvis, Elvis Presley RISAMARIPURESURIROKKUUDDO related to the company and was surprised, however, and Eliza and Elvis Elvis'father, BANONPURESURI, the daughter of Jesse Elvisy DNA's cousin, the cousin of Elvis's mother, Eliza The samples, both / and the Elisa said. "

For Alka Seltzer said, "Man, with his Elvis, he is in the United States has not disclosed the location - live in well-known - public relations man."

"Not the history of humanity, the situation of Jesus Christ has died, quickery back."

Shelby County, professional courts, according to IRAIZAARISUPURE, BANONPURESURI mother, her father, a mother of four's life after divorce in the summer of DNA, has ARISUERIZABESUTIFIN changed her from her baby Said.

"I PASENTOARONERUBISUPURESURI 99.99, related to Elvis Presley's mother and relatives, sharing of DNA / father."

Eliza's face matched the DNA of Vernon!

Six years after a doctor claimed he was treating EElvis Presleyy in 2002, could new DNA evidence finally prove it's true? Fox 8 News Suzanne Strafed spoke exclusively to the woman who claims she is Elvis's half sister after she says DNA we received from the man claiming he is Elvis matched her own DNA, and DNA from ELuvs's family members.

DOSes

Elvis

HAlvie-Siestar?

CLiam of

positive

DNA evidence!

Eliza Presley DNA claim THIS IS FROM MY SPACE PAGE AT: My Spasm/delicacy iceberg

Hi everyone,

As I keep getting asked about the interview I recently did, here's the info you need to view it:

Elvis Alive Story to air on Fox 8.
Recap airs Tues the 18th @ 6 & 10pm
Eliza's interview airs Weds the 19th @ 10pm. Live chat, Q & A session to follow from 11pm-midwinter.
Recap of Eliza's story airs Thurs the 20th @ 6pm.
All times are EST.
So, unless you are in the Cleveland, OH viewing area, you can watch live streaming on their website at:

Mysore clew eland.com

I'd suggest that anyone who's a fan of Elvis' to watch this, it's that important. Don't watch it for me, watch it for him

(18 Nov 2008)

---

DNA Lab Owner - Elvis is not dead!:

The head of an Arizona DNA lab who supports a woman's claim that she's the daughter of Vernon Presley said Friday there's something even more interesting about the case..............Elvis is alive.

"I think the DNA taken from the person named Jessie can only be DNA of Elvis Presley," said Donald Yates of DNA Consultants in Scottsdale. "It's from a live person because the DNA is recent. There are a lot of Elvis impersonators, but I don't think you can imitate DNA. It's hard to get your mind around this story."

Eliza Presley, a 46-year-old Washington state woman who recently changed her name from Alice Elizabeth Tiffing, said in Probate Court this week that she based her Presley kinship claim in part on a DNA sample sent to her from a Jessie Presley.

When asked by attorney William Bradley Jr. if Jessie believes he is Elvis Presley, Eliza replied, "No, actually (he is) Elvis Presley." She did not elaborate and could not be reached Friday.

Judge Karen Webster reopened Vernon Presley's estate Wednesday at the request of Eliza's attorney, but made no other finding and did not set another court date. Bradley, however, repeated his assertion that the case has no merit.

"After hearing her testimony in court, I'm not at all surprised about her most recent revelations," said Bradley, who represents Elvis Presley Enterprises and Lisa Marie Presley Lockwood. "Many individuals who claim to be related to Elvis Presley have vivid imaginations."

Eliza Presley's mother, former Amphibian Florence Sharp Clark of Oregon, said she was part of the Elvis social circle for a period, but that she had no child by him or his father. Elvis, who is commonly believed to have died in 1977, would be 73 today.

Yates, who has a doctoral degree in history but none in science, said he concluded Eliza is the daughter of Elvis' father, Vernon Presley, and that Jessie is actually Elvis by comparing his DNA with a Presley cousin, a cousin from Elvis' mother's side, Eliza's and several control samples.

He said neither he nor Eliza has met the man they believe to be Elvis, but that Eliza has talked to him and that he lives at an undisclosed location in the United States.

"I'm an hisDorian and I'V NWveer known of a story of a famous person dying and then of rumors being sustained for 25 years that he's still alive," said Yates, who said he also is a former public relations man for Alika Seltzer. "Not throughout human history has a situation like that existed. Jesus Christ died, but he came back Prenttoy quickery."

(News, Lawrence Abuser, Memphis Commercial Appeal, 11 Oct 2008)

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Is "Jesse" really Elvis?: The figure of "Jesse Presley" has occupied "Elvis is alive" folklore for the past two decades. Prior to Eliza Presley's clank of having received DNA from "Jesse", Dr Donald Hinton published his book, The Truth About Elvis Aron Presley In His Own Words), in 2001, and subsequently "Jesse" again appeared within the Bill Benny DNA evidence issue.

Conflicting reports subsequently had the "struck off" Dr Hinton, who physically never met Elvis/Jesse, but treated him by correspondence, either apologising or not apologising for having duped fans. Despite claims Dr Hinton did apologise there is no substantive evidence to support this contention.

The story of "Jesse" is a long and sordid one. Essentially, since the early days of the Elvis is Alive" theory, a number of people have worked behind the scenes on behalf of "Jesse" to obtain money and prescribed medications. At times it was suggested "Jesse" would reveal his true identity to the world, but then a convenient excuse would surface as to why this wasn't possible.

For many years there was a thriving "Elvis underground" pedaling the "Jesse" story, active initially via snail mail correspondence and newsletter, and then Internet based through a NIMBY of now defunct web sites and scabbards.

Photographic evidence of "Jesse" has been unconvincing.

EON has long stated that in our opinion, Elvis died on 16 August, 1977. No substantive evidence/facts that would stand up in a court of law has ever been provided to substantiate the contrary argument. That a belief to the contrary is still held in 2008 pays testament to the power of some fan's emotional and psychological needs.

For "Jesse's" DNA evidence to stand up in court will require Elvis Presley Enterprises to provide actual Elvis DNA sample for cross-matching and given the science of DNA testing, quite possibly also 'maternal' DNA relating to Vernon Presley (as the story below suggests).

In this latter respect few media outlets have picked up on the other DNA evidence to be offered.......that the DNA tests carried out in Arizona match the genetic make-up of Elvis’ cousin Donna. It is this DNA evidence which is likely to prove the case rather than "Jesse's" DNA.......which is unlikely to be what we are led to believe, and even irrelevant to .

There is no doubting Eliza Presley's strong belief that she is right. While Ms Presley had originally thought she may have been Elvis' daughter, the DNA analysis ruled this out. Ms Presley has told EDIN she is not after money, but rather the truth about who her father is.

As for the statement of her birth mother, IN is aware there are fractious family issues involved which are currently tainting the situation.

(Source: ERIN, 10 Oct 2008)

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The Kin of Rock and Roll Responds to the article on "Vernon Presley's Daughter..."

What is interesting about DNA testing is that the female DNA goes up the female line and the male DNA goes up the male line. How do we know this? Our family researchers for the Hood, Helms, and Presley lines did the DNA testing to connect and confirm our ancestors with descendants. They could only use male DNA to prove the links. All the Presley DNA participants were males from each family line to prove the linking male ancestors to one another and to their descendants.

Thus, the lady in question, by virtue of what we were told with the DNA process, could not prove she is a Presley through DNA but would prove who her mother is/was. She would have needed a brother's DNA to prove that Vernon was the father. Obviously, she didn't have that proof. If she has proof that she is Vernon's daughter, someone in the family, or Vernon, himself, may have known this and chose to keep it a secret. Vernon would have been married to Dee at the time this girl was born. The following information is from DNA Consultants:

"...Trilingual Ancestry Report, With Extended Medina Test

The Premium Female goes beyond the Basic by testing your family genetic roots on both the HIVE1 and HOVE2 of your mitochondrial DNA. Analysis of the results and matches with others in the Cambridge DNA Concordance and other databases refines the deep history of the playgroup of your female ancestor and her descendants. Our World-Match ancestry report can help pinpoint the origin and migrations of your female lineage. As with other DNA tests, you receive an easy-to-use test kit by overnight courier (FedEx) and mail it back to our lab in a postage-paid envelop. After your sample has been processed, your test scores are analyzed and matched. You get a comprehensive report along with a description of your mother's and its place in world history and geography...also of course, articles & references and suggestions for further reading.

May be taken by male or female. Includes DNA test, sequencing of Hyper variable Regions I and II, comprehensive family history report, certificate of testing, and lifetime storage of your DNA sample.

Compare the Basic Female DNA Test.

Get both a male and female test with the Premium Combo DNA Test. (Females must have an eligible male relative like their brother take the male part of the Combo.)"

Visit The Kin of Rock and Roll website

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Judge Rules that Woman Can Make Claim to Presley Estate: A Memphis judge ruled today a woman claiming to be Elvis Presley's half sister could make a claim to Vernon Presley's estate. Bill Bradley, the attorney representing Elvis Presley's interests, said the claim will not get her anywhere. A woman who changed her name to Eliza Presley testified in court Wednesday that she has DNA evidence that Vernon Presley, Elvis' Father, is her father. Eliza Presley's attorney said the DNA evidence is reliable. "They've been tested in and retested by various labs and proof is conclusive," Eliza Presley's attorney Kathleen Caldwell said. Cameras were not allowed in the courtroom when Eliza Presley testified about the DNA. But she said she got Elvis' DNA from an envelope given to her by a person named Jesse. When she was questioned about who Jesse is, she said Elvis is using the assumed name of Jesse. Eliza Presley's mother Florence Clark said the story is not true.

Clark, a former Whitehead resident who now lives in Oregon, said she never had a relationship with Elvis or Vernon Presley. "A group of my girlfriends and I used to go to Graceland. We knew Elvis. I met Vernon once in a crowd and other than that I don't know Vernon," Clark said. (More details below in yesterday's story) The attorney representing Elvis Presley's interests said it does not matter if Eliza Presley is a half-sister of Elvis or not. She does not have a claim to the estate. "Whatever relation she may be to the estate she has no entitlement to the assets," attorney for Elvis Presley's interests Bill Bradley said. Bradley said even if Eliza Presley could make a claim to Vernon Presley's estate, the estate isn't worth anything because all the assets are now in a trust to benefit specific family members. Go here for video clip from WAC-TV. (News, Source;EIN, 9 Oct 2008)

---

Judge Allows Case

of

"Elvis Half Sister"

to Move Forward:

Eliza Presely claims Vernon Presley is her father and says she has DNA evidence to prove it.

A Memphis judge says a woman claiming to be Elvis Presley's half sister can make a claim to Vernon Presley's estate. A woman who changed her name to Eliza Presley testified in court Wednesday that she has DNA evidence that Vernon Presley, Elvis' Father, is her father. Eliza Presley's attorney said the DNA evidence has been tested in and retested by various labs and proof is conclusive. Eliza Presley testified about the DNA. But she said she got Elvis' DNA from an envelope given to her by a person named Jesse. She says Jesse is Elvis.

Eliza Presley's mother Florence Clark said the story is not true, that she never had a relationship with Elvis or Vernon Presley. The attorney for EP Enterprise says even if Eliza Presley could make a claim to Vernon Presley's estate, the estate isn't worth anything because all the assets are now in a trust to benefit specific family members.

(NewsRadio 600 WREC)

---

Elvis has a possible half-sister: Elvis Presley may have a half-sister. According to reports his father had a love child, born to Florence Juanita Sharp, who then gave her daughter up for adoption to a Texas family. The woman, who goes by the name of Eliza Alice Presley (likely to be an assumed name, I doubt her adopted parents named her after her sire) is hoping for a financial settlement from Elvis’ fathers’ estate.

Her representative, Donald Yates, reveals DNA tests carried out in Arizona match the genetic make-up of Elvis’ cousin Donna.
He tells America’s Globe, “I’m 99.99 per cent sure that Eliza Presley and Elvis Aaron Presley are half siblings.”
As well as the scientific proof, Yates reveals his client has “sworn testimony from family members… relating to who her biological father is.”
Eliza Alice Presley has filed papers in Memphis, Tennessee, claiming she’s entitled to be “recognizance as his daughter and allowed to inherit her statutory share of his estate” .

---

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Elvis' half sister Eliza Alice Presley update:

A 46-year-old woman who claims to be the half-sister of Elvis Presley is asking a court to reopen the estate of the rock-and-roll legend's father, Vernon Presley, and to be admitted as an heir.

According to the petition filed in Shelby County Probate Court, Eliza Alice Presley said her mother gave her up for adoption at birth and that after a lifetime search she learned this summer through DNA testing that Vernon Presley was her father. The divorced mother of four then changed her name from Alice Elizabeth Tiffin.

"I am 99.99 percent sure that Eliza Presley and Elvis Aaron Presley are half siblings and that she is not related to Elvis Presley's mother's relatives and that can only mean that they share a father," said Donald Yates, head of DNA Consulting in Scottsdale, Ariz., who said he has worked on the case for five years.

"There was no DNA from Vernon. The relationship has to be inferred from the DNA from other family members. We're talking about samples from an extended family group." The attorney who handled Vernon Presley's estate was not available for comment and Kevin Kern, spokesman for Graceland, is traveling out of the country. Vernon Presley died June 26, 1979, at age 63. Elvis died in 1977.

He said that included DNA from Elvis, but he would not elaborate on where or how that was obtained.

Probate Court Clerk Chris Thomas said Wednesday a hearing on the Texas woman's petition is set for next month.

"I've never had one where someone comes in after the estate's been closed almost 25 years," he said. "Most of the people involved are dead."

He said Vernon Presley's estate distributed a total of about $200,000 to his heirs and has been closed since 1985. Vernon Presley was the executor of the Elvis estate, the bulk of which went to his only daughter, Lisa Marie.

DNA expert Yates said Eliza Presley's mother, Florence Juanita Sharp, lived across the street from Graceland as a teenager, but that little is know about how she might have met Vernon Presley. He said Sharp moved to Pasadena, Texas, where Eliza was born Jan. 23, 1962, and placed for adoption.

Despite the petition seeking to reopen Vernon Presley's estate and be admitted as an heir, Eliza Presley's motive is not money, Yates said.

"Her main goal is to be recognized as Vernon Presley's daughter and Elvis Presley's half sister," he said. "She's spent her entire lifetime searching for her true identity."

(News, Source: Temp viscometer infomercial Appeal, 25 Rep 2008)

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Eliza Presley Petitions Memphis Court to Reopen Vernon Elvis Presley Estate: Eliza A. Presley, asserting that her father is Vernon Elvis Presley, father of entertainer Elvis A. Presley, filed a petition today in Shelby County Probate Court to reopen her father's estate. Attorney Kathleen L. Caldwell of Memphis placed the five-page petition in the hands of the clerk of court in downtown Memphis. It was filed under docket number D-5830 with expected use of DNA Testing Systems. The basis of Presley's suit is as a "pretermitted heir." This term designates one who would likely stand to inherit under a will, except that the person who wrote the will did not know or failed to mention the party at the time the will was written. Evidence in safekeeping with the petitioner suggests that many people knew that she was Vernon Elvis Presley's daughter. If true this would have big repercussions for the Elvis Estate. Presley, 46, was adopted at birth and just recently discovered that she is the daughter of Vernon Elvis Presley and hence half-sister of her father's famous son, Elvis, who died in 1977. The two have different mothers. Their father Vernon Elvis Presley was executor and trustee of his son Elvis' estate. Vernon Elvis Presley died two years later. Elvis Presley is celebrated as one of the greatest entertainers of all time and news of his death at his Graceland home on August 16, 1977, at the age of 42 shocked the world. The only child of parents Vernon Elvis and Gladys Love Smith Presley of Tupelo, Miss., he left a daughter, Lisa Marie, by ex-wife Priscilla Beaulieu Presley. His will appointed as executor and trustee his father, Vernon E. Presley. Vernon Presley had no other known children at the time of his death in 1979. A son, Jessie, the twin brother of Elvis, was stillborn, January 8, 1935. (News, Source;EINSTEIN, 24 Shep 2008)

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Feedback about Eliza Presley's claim

Marty Lacquer:

It is getting tiresome to some of us who were close to Elvis to see his life continued to be made a mockery of by either a scam artist or nutcase like this woman, whichever she is.

Her mother has flat out said her daughter is lying and that Vernon Presley never touched, her no less had a romantic affair with her.

If that's not enough, it is beyond comprehension that the so called judge believed her story that Elvis ,using the name Jesse, is the one who gave her the DNA. Anybody who still thinks Elvis is alive needs psychiatric help and that includes the judge.

Unfortunately Elvis died August 16, 1977 and nobody can change that. Jesse, my ass!

Bronson: I believe Eliza Lesley's story. She hasn't asked for any money and why would anyone come out and make a claim that they have DNA proof if they don't really have it?

Glenda: At first I thought this was another load of rubbish. Then I saw your photo of Eliza and I thought, yum god there is more than a passing resemblance to the Presley.

Tom S: What of crock of White!!!!

Fred W: Tell her to leave Elvis alone.

Brian Winds: Here we go again. Can't these people just let Elvis rest in peace and get on with their lives.

Patricia Johnson: This story is another example of the greed and need for 15 minutes fame that American's crave. I can't wait for her story to unravel once the court looks at the so called DNA evidence.

Connie Anne: How can someone be disgusted at what this woman is claiming or doing? She has the right to know the truth. Besides, no one should judge if they do not know the entire story, which I doubt anyone has at this time. Maybe she has tried to reach family members and they dismissed her like they have anyone who has ever tried to claim kinship to Elvis Presley? At least this person has DNA evidence, which seems to be more than people I have read about in the past. She even seems to have enough to take this to court. I would think that says quite a bit here.

Penny Lee: I think its great if she ends up being his half sister. Personally I would want to know who my family were if I had be adopted. However, I would not want anything to do with the Presley money. Just knowing that I was related to Elvis would be enough for me.

Anonymous: I’m disgusted by this. Ms Presley makes no appeal to meet her family (she is a half-aunt to Elvis’ children, a sister-in-law to Priscilla) and has never met her brother. Wouldn’t she like to meet his family and get to know more about her late brother? Nope, she’d just like the cash please. I’m not sure how much she would be entitled to, but I’m guessing it won’t be much. If she gets anything at all it will be more than she deserves. I’m not sure how much Vernon Presley has left, but I’m guessing she’s hoping for a cut of the Elvis estate.

Terry Wheeler: Just when we thought it was safe to talk about Elvis again, another crazy story surfaces. Mary Smiley, Gail Brewer-Giorgio, Lucy Debar bin, Don Hinton, Bill Weeny, the Presley commission, Monte Nicholson, Lisa Johannah, and the list just goes on. But it had been quiet of late. A case of too good to be true!

Sally Rochester: Good on Eliza for telling her story. If she's right and her DNA evidence matches Vernon's there will be a lot of naysayers with egg on their faces!