BackinMemphis

Steve Popovich & Steve Popovich Jr.  It is with deep sadness, we report the passing of Steve Popovich. The legendary music executive passed away at the young age of 68. Our condolences go to Steve Popovich Jr and his family. Steve Jr. produces Cowboy Jack Clement's SiriusXM show which is now in it's 7th year. Please keep Steve and the Popovich family in your thoughts & prayers. Steve Popovich, a veteran music-industry executive who ran Cleveland International Records and who was based here for much of his storied career, had numerous claims to fame. The biggest was his key role in one of the best-selling albums of all time, Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell.” Popovich died Wednesday morning at his apartment in Murfreesboro, Tenn. He was 68. The cause of death has not been determined, according to his son, Steve Popovich Jr. Popovich was a music-industry insider, but also a working-class maverick who worked outside the corporate system. He played a vital role in th...

If you're in Memphis this weekend, and looking for a GREAT Rockabilly show, head on down to Blues City Cafe on Beale St to see Brandon's Stunning Cunning Band perform. Blues City Cafe 138 Beale St Memphis, Tn 901-526-3637 www.bluescitycafe.com

Well, Presley has been manning the fort while I was on the west coast. Lots of interviews & news coming soon! Check back tomorrow for some REALLY cool stuff!

Actor Ross Hagen has died at the age of 72. Hagen, a regular on the 1960s TV adventure show Daktari, passed away on 7 May (11) in Brentwood, California after a battle with prostate cancer. The actor made appearances on TV Westerns such as The Big Valley and The Virginian in the mid-1960s and also co-starred with Elvis Presley in Speedway. He is best known for playing hunter Bart Jason in Daktari, about an animal study centre in Africa. Hagen also went on to write and direct, helming Time Wars and The Media Madman. He is survived by his partner, Lee Srednick, a son and a daughter, according to Variety.com.

Elvis Presley is so iconic, it's sometimes hard to remember he was just a guy. And bodyguard Sam Thompson remembers Elvis as a funny guy. Elvis would quote Peter Sellers' lines from "Pink Panther" movies on tour, Thompson says: "Things would be going crazy, and he would look at somebody and go, 'Do you have rhoom?' " in Sellers' Inspector Clouseau accent. Or, "Does your dog bite?" The King loved "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," the Black Knight scene in particular. After a bad show, he would tell guys backstage, in character, "It's only a flesh wound." Thompson, who later became a lawyer, judge and music producer with David Foster, lives in Las Vegas. This weekend, he, local singer Nellie Norris and I judged Fremont Street's Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist Contest. (Winner: Las Vegan Johnny Fortuno.) Thompson regaled the crowd with a great story about Elvis' onstage splits. "Elvis would ...

America may not find out the winner of this season’s popular TV show “American Idol” until the end of the month, but the fate of its parent company is clear.Media company CKx Inc., which owns proprietary rights to “Idol” and “So You Think You Can Dance,” said Tuesday is being sold to a private equity group for about $511 million in cash.. CKx also owns the rights to the name, image and likeness of Elvis Presley and Muhammad Ali. The buyout group, led by Apollo Global Management, agreed to pay $5.50 per share for CKx, a 24 percent premium to the stock’s closing price Monday of $4.45. Shares rose $1.02, or 22.9 percent, to $5.47 in morning trading Tuesday. The company had about 92.9 million shares outstanding as of March 31. The board and The Promenade Trust, a group that benefits Lisa Marie Presley and is the company’s partner managing the Elvis Presley name, support the deal, as does Robert F.X. Sillerman, the company’s largest shareholder with a nearly 21 percent stake. A cash ten...

Yvette Vickers, an early Playboy playmate whose credits as a B-movie actress included such cult films as “Attack of the 50-Foot Woman” and “Attack of the Giant Leeches,” was found dead last week at her Benedict Canyon home. Her body appears to have gone undiscovered for months, police said. Jan Shepard who starred in Attack of the Giant Leeches with Yvette told backinmemphis.com exclusively, she was very sad to hear the lost of her friend Yvette. Vickers, 82, had not been seen for a long time. A neighbor discovered her body in an upstairs room of her Westwanda Drive home on April 27. Its mummified state suggests she could have been dead for close to a year, police said. The official cause of death will by determined by the Los Angeles county coroner's office, but police said they saw no sign of foul play. Vickers had lived in the 1920s-era stone and wood home for decades, and it served as the background for some of her famous modeling pictures. But over time it had becom...