Images and news reports of Japan Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi singing Elvis Presley songs and mimicking The King’s movements standing beside President Bush, Pricilla and Lisa Marie Presley during his visit to Graceland on June 30, 2006 reminds us how Elvis’ influence continues, even in places as far away as Japan, 29 years after his death.

Elvis remains an endearing figure around the world because he appeals to people on so many different levels. Like Koizumi, every Elvis fan has his or her favorite Elvis songs, favorite Elvis movies, or favorite Elvis legends. What those are depends on your age, how and where you experienced the Elvis phenomenon, and your own personal set of values.

I’m one who is old enough to have been an Elvis fan from the beginning. I was in the seventh grade in 1956/57. The summer after graduating from eighth grade two friends of mine and I formed a rock and roll band—two guitars and a drummer—because we wanted to be like Elvis. I played second guitar. We sang mostly Elvis songs at the local teen town in the basement of a church on Friday and Saturday nights. We weren’t all that good, and the band broke up when we headed off to different high schools that fall, but that summer was an intense experience. When we weren’t performing we spent all our spare time playing 45 RPM singles of Elvis’ songs, memorizing the lyrics and attempting to capture his sound and style. 

Elvis was already serving in the Army in the summer of 1958. He’d been drafted and went off to Germany after basic training. There was no Vietnam War to avoid then, but I can’t imagine he would have attempted to evade the draft had he been drafted in 1965, as I was, rather than 1958. As I rode the bus from the induction station in St. Louis to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, I recall thinking about what it had been like for Elvis when he made a similar ride.

Throughout Elvis’ career, one thing that many Americans admired about him is that he served honorably in the Army. Nineteen-fifties America was nothing like the rebellious years of the late sixties and seventies, but looking back from that vantage point, with so many who did evade the draft, Elvis’ service stood out all the more. How many popular young entertainers today would flee to Canada or France if he or she were drafted?

Elvis’ star faded somewhat in the 1960’s as the result of changing tastes and styles, the “British Invasion” led by the Beatles, and a series of “hum-drum” movies, as Priscilla Presley recalled in her 1985 autobiography, Elvis and Me. God only knows how his career might have developed had he been allowed to develop as an actor. The ubiquitous "Colonel" Parker convinced him not to take the lead role in the film version of West Side Story. The movie’s producers approached Elvis first for the part. He wanted to play the role, but Parker insisted he stick with the formula musicals. A big mistake in my opinion, I think he would have been perfect as Tony.

Something I admired a lot in Elvis was his interest and achievements in the martial arts. Elvis took up karate training in 1959 when he was stationed in Germany and was certified as a black belt after he returned to the U.S. in 1960.

Encouraged by a friend of mine who lived in my neighborhood, and who later became a Hollywood stunt man, I took up karate in 1962 following my graduation from high school. As I progressed in my own study of karate over the years I paid close attention to Elvis’ advancements in the martial arts. He ultimately achieved the rank of 6th Dan (degree) black belt on his own merit and an honorary 8th Dan. Elvis incorporated many karate moves in his Las Vegas performances and television specials, and by all accounts it was the one thing other than his music that he pursued passionately his entire life after he took it up in 1959.

Elvis had several instructors; among them Ed Parker, who trained many Hollywood performers and was instrumental in introducing Bruce Lee at his 1964 International Karate Championship in Long Beach, California. Parker was one of America's early karate pioneers and frequently appeared at karate tournaments with Robert Trias, the father of American Karate, who opened the first commercial Karate school in the United States. It was Trias who promoted me to 2nd Dan in August 1974 and personally visited and certified my karate school at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Having instructed karate students I could tell which celebrities had genuine karate skill and which didn’t. Elvis most definitely had it.