Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
Lots of great Elvis photos here.
Elvis would have turned 75 today. There are a number of birthday weekend events to celebrate, including a fun tribute at Asheville Community Theater.
There’s also Elvisfest in Chapel Hill. Asheville’s Mad Tea Party will be playing the event, according to a story in the Raleigh News & Observer:
Most homages to Elvis include impersonators, but that’s not so at Elvisfest. “It would be cool to have one or two Elvis impersonators,” Quick says. “That would be funny, if nothing else. There’s [Chapel Hill’s] Keith Henderson, who is the best Elvis impersonator that I ever saw, but we do it a little different here.”
Each recording artist that takes the stage at Elvisfest can do whatever it wants, as long as two Presley songs are rendered.
“If they want to get paid, that’s what they got to do,” Quick says while calling from his Pittsboro home. “Just give me the two songs and do your thing.”
That’s not an issue for Mad Tea Party, which will perform Saturday. The Asheville-based band is preparing for its second consecutive performance at the event.
“We loved doing it last year,” vocalist-ukulele strummer Ami Worthen says. “We have no problem doing Elvis songs We have no idea what we’re going to do yet, but it won’t be the same as last year.”
The Mad Tea Party, which also includes multi-instrumentalist Jason Krekel, delivered “Mystery Train” and “I Don’t Care If the Sun Don’t Shine.”
“I really loved doing [“Sun Don’t Shine”] since it’s not the most popular song, and it’s a country song,” Worthen says. “The great thing about Elvis is that he sung country, rock ‘n’ roll, rockabilly, gospel and so on. You have plenty to choose from.”
It looks like the lamestream media is trying to poison the Tea Party supporters by convincing them the GOP is taking control of it, when in reality; it is a majority of republicans who are part of the Tea Party with little concern for what the GOP thinks one way or another. The GOP has let us down since Reagan, having rebelled against Reagan’s policies. Be the "go to" person Rush spoke of. See claysamerica.com for the roots of what separates us.