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Thursday, July 17, 2003

By Ed Masley, Post-Gazette Pop Music Critic

From growing up at Graceland with the King of Rock 'n' Roll to marrying the self-styled King of Pop (and then, for several months, a noted Elvis nut who dressed up in her father's famous stagewear in at least two different films), she's lived a fascinating life.

	Information Lisa Marie Presley Opening for: Chris Isaak. Where: Chevrolet Amphitheatre, Station Square. When: 7:30 tonight. Tickets: $30-$47.50; 412-323-1919.

And for most of her 35 years in the spotlight, Lisa Marie Presley didn't have to talk about it -- which, of course, just made her life seem that much more mysterious and fascinating.

Why is she marrying Michael Jackson?

Why is she marrying Nicolas Cage?

Did Elvis let her shoot the TV?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Then, earlier this year, she went into the family business with "To Whom It May Concern," so now she has to talk about it.

Constantly.

She showed surprising candor back in April when she opened up in Rolling Stone.

But three months later, one week into her first tour with her first band, the strain is already beginning to show.

Ask about her memories of Graceland and she answers, "Well, I have a lot of them. I don't really like to go there if I can help it. There's a lot, but those are sort of mine. It's something I don't really want to be capitalizing on."

Ask if she was into Michael Jackson growing up and the irritation in her voice begins to rise. "Probably like anybody else. I wasn't over the top, but I'm sure you would have found me dancing to some of his music in a club here and there. Way back when."

	Lisa Marie Presley says she knows curiosity will bring some people to her concerts, but adds that her record, "To Whom It May Concern," is "gonna hold up on its own." (Donna McWilliam, Associated Press)

As to what attracted her to Michael when they met, she moans, "You know, I've kind of gone into this so-o-o many times" before working her way around to a fairly fascinating revelation. She was attracted, she says, to the fact that he was "raised in a fishbowl."

And if there's one thing Presley should be able to relate to, it's the inside of a fishbowl.

There's a song about her childhood on the album.

"I was crying every time I'd leave you," she sings, "and then I didn't want to see you."

There's also a more cryptic moment in the song where she sings, "I still keep my watch two hours behind." As she explained in Rolling Stone, after her parents' divorce, when she was 4, she lived in Los Angeles with her mom but kept her watch on Memphis time.

The song is not about her dad, though.

"It's about a time and place. It's very conceptual. It's not about a person. Sure, you know, he's part of that. But it's not him."

She started writing songs at 22.

The first one, "Give Me the Strength," "wasn't too awful. I mean, it wasn't anything I'd put on my record. But it wasn't that terrible for a first song being written."

Presley nearly signed a deal at 24 or 25, she says, but decided to have another child instead.

Why now? "Because it happened that way," Presley says. "I don't know. I'd gone through my second divorce and was sort of aimless at that point and someone basically said, 'Why don't you just do this now?' And I thought I'll use everything I feel to channel it into this record."

While there are clearly aspects of her life she'd rather not discuss, there's nothing about her life, Presley says, that she didn't feel comfortable writing about.

"When you write, you're sort of purging," she explains. "It's kind of a therapeutic thing. So if you're gonna do that, you have to go there, somewhere substantial."

Presley understands that there are people whose primary interest in hearing her record may have more to do with who she is than what she's purging.

Which is why, she says, she called the record "To Whom It May Concern."

"People that are coming to the show, I'm sure that half is curiosity and half is because they like the music or whatever. But I also know that people like the record. That's what's gonna stand. That's what's gonna hold up on its own."

At first, her mom, Priscilla, tried to talk her out of going into music.

"She discouraged me," she says, "because she felt like I'd have too tough of a row to hoe. She was worried about the shoes that I would have to fill."

But Lisa wasn't worried.

"Not really," she says. "It did intimidate me for a very long time, but I just decided that I couldn't not do what I feel is instinctive inside of me because of that -- because of him."

When you first hear "To Whom It May Concern," the voice sounds eerily familiar.

But it sounds like Cher, not Elvis.

There are times, though, when she hears her father in her singing voice.

"Occasionally," she says, "but not intentionally. There are songs that are not on the record where that's been a little more prominent. Where it sort of startled me."

It's important, after all, for people to start seeing her for who she is outside the context of her famous dad and famous former husband.

"Very possibly I'll never shake that," she says of the public image she acquired when she hit the tabloids as the girl who married Wacko Jacko, "but I don't care."

Well, she cares a little.

"I don't want them to perceive me wrongly," she admits. "I mean, I'd rather them perceive me correctly and decide based on that what they think as opposed to some sensationalistic idea of me that I never had anything to do with. I can tell you my logic or my method behind my madness, and if you don't like that I can understand, or I'll respect that. But don't judge me before you actually ask me a question and try to figure out where I'm coming from."