Kentucky Rain

When I was a little kid, I used to play my parents' Elvis records, including the then-brand-new hit "Kentucky Rain", which reached #16 on Billboard's Top 100 charts, and #3 on their Adult Contemporary charts in 1970.


Then, as now, I listened to the song and could only think of one thing: I wanted to know exactly what Kentucky towns Elvis was singing about as he walked and hitchhiked his way across the state!

Being as my stomping ground as a child was the area encompassing Boonesboro, Winchester, Richmond, Berea, Waco, College Hill, Bybee, and Irvine, I often imagined Elvis as the song's protagonist traipsing through these places when I listened to "Kentucky Rain". The line about "thumbing for a ride on this lonely Kentucky backroad" usually conjured up images of Flint Road in Waco, or Redhouse Road in Madison County, between Richmond and Redhouse.


The part where he talks to a couple of old men sitting on a bench outside a general store made me think of a gas station/grocery in Irvine with tobacco-chewing guys sitting out front. (The place is still there, in fact, but I'm drawing a blank about what it's called.)


The song was written by Eddie Rabbitt, who unfortunately died thirteen years ago so we can't ask him if he had any specific locales in mind when he came up with it.

Did the song ever make you picture any familiar Kentucky places in your head? Or am I the only one?

106.7 Goes All-Elvis

The Wallingford Broadcasting Company has made the wacky decision to change the programming of their Richmond, KY station 106.7 to an all-Elvis format. Though it smells like a publicity stunt - they're urging listeners to give feedback on the website - the change is said to be permanent.

You might think an Elvis-only station would quickly get monotonous and redundant, but Elvis' catalogue consists of approximately 1000 different songs, and that's not even counting bootlegs and marginally-released material. Furthermore, this number skyrockets exponentially when you consider E's voluminous wealth of live versions and alternate takes.

(The Beatles, by comparison, only released approximately 300 songs and made only a handful of live recordings.)


Then again, some of the arcane material in the King's mighty oeuvre is pretty out-there. The common radio listener who might tune in expecting "Hound Dog" or "Suspicious Minds" might be a tad confuzzled by such obscure Elvis tunes as "Queenie Wahine's Papaya", "There's No Room to Rhumba in a Sports Car", "Dominic the Impotent Bull", "He's Your Uncle Not Your Dad", "Petunia The Gardener's Daughter", "The Fort Lauderdale Chamber Of Commerce", and my personal favorite, "Do the Clam".


You can listen to 106.7 online by clicking here.

Elvis and Meatloaf

Several years ago, I happened to see a van proudly proclaiming ELVIS AND MEATLOAF in big red letters, hawking an act claiming to be the world's first and only combination Elvis and Meatloaf impersonators. And of that, I had little doubt.

I always wondered whatever happened to them, and just now, I inadventently stumbled onto their website, elvisandmeatloaf.com. Turns out Kentucky's Ersatz Elvis and Make-believe Meatloaf are still plying a good trade in the doppelganger business. In fact, the men, known as the Perkins Brothers, have expanded their operation to include Buddy Holly, Dean Martin, Roy Orbison, Rod Stewart, Hank Williams, John Lennon, George Jones, Neal Diamond and more. (Can imitations of Alice Cooper, Tiny Tim, Jerry Lewis, and Ferlin Husky be far behind?)

Check out their website to hear mp3 samples of the Perkins Brothers in each of their various incarnations!

Blue Moon

Random disassociated fragments, in search of glue:

1. Elvis Presley, in private moments filtered through his own internal gobo of pills and vodka, often stated that he felt as if he was not of this world.

2. The mysterious term "blue moon" is one whose origin is shrouded in antiquity, and has seemed to have had numerous meanings over time. The first recorded instance of the term was in British in the year 1528. Interestingly, the first recorded instance of the idea of moon being made of green cheese was one year later, in 1529.

3. According to some ancient myths, a blue moon is a rarely occurring magical event during which the moon's cratered face speaks.

4. The term "blue moon" is most commonly used metaphorically to describe a rare event, as in the saying "once in a blue moon".

5. Kentuckian Bill Monroe, the father of bluegrass music, wrote "Blue Moon of Kentucky" in 1947.

5. According to Wikipedia: "Most years have twelve full moons which occur approximately monthly, but each calendar year contains those twelve full lunar cycles plus about eleven days to spare. The extra days accumulate, so that every two or three years there is an extra full moon (this happens every 2.72 years). Different definitions place the extra moon at different times - the extra moon is called a blue moon".

6. Many people call a full moon a blue moon if it was the second of two full moons to occur in the same calendar month. However, this definition of "blue moon" originated from a mistake in an article in the March 1946 Sky & Telescope magazine. This mistake has perpetuated and taken on a life of its own since 1946.

7. Elvis Presley had an unusual propensity for recording "blue" songs, and three of them specifically were blue moon songs: "Blue Moon", "Blue Moon of Kentucky", and "When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again".

8. "When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again" was written in 1941 by Kentuckians Wiley Walker and Gene Sullivan.

9. The band R.E.M. featured a blue moon on the cover of their "In Time" compilation CD.

10. One of R.E.M.'s biggest hits was "Man on the Moon", which seems to express doubt that mankind actually went to the moon, and also mentions Elvis.

11. In an early interview, Michael Stipe said that R.E.M. actually stood for Ralph Eugene Meatyard, a Kentuckian best known for his epic photographic work The Family Album of Lucybelle Crater.

12. The blue people of Kentucky were originally believed by some to be aliens, or angels, from another world.

13. The matriarch of the best-known Kentucky blue-people clan was named Luna.