From an Australian newspaper article: Girl happy August 9, 2007 Jane Dust, Susan Shaw, Sherry Rich and Tanya Lee Davies on Davies' bed, over which The King keeps watch. Picture: Chris Beck A week today, it will be 30 years since Elvis Presley died. Many women want never to forget. Chris Beck meets four of them. ELVIS and girls have been attached at the hip ever since teenagers swooned at his swivelling hips in the '50s. And decades after his death his image is still kissed goodnight. Elvis movies had a continual rollcall of sexy female co-stars: Ann-Margaret, Juliet Prowse, Stella Stevens, even a chaste Mary Tyler Moore in his final narrative film, Change of Habit. Titles such as Girl Girls Girls, Girl Happy and The Trouble With Girls made no secret of the flavour of the wafer-thin plots. The King married his long-standing love, Priscilla, in 1967. Despite his indiscretions with other women, she was his heartbeat even after they divorced six years later. A popular component of his Las Vegas act in the '70s was roaming the stage kissing eager women from the audience, smack on the lips as he sang Love Me Tender. Someone once said that in a perfect world Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead. The Age spoke to four female musicians who are touched by the music and presence of the true Elvis Presley. Tanya Lee - singer/songwriter and cabaret dabbler Elvis has always been in my life. I feel like John Lennon - before Elvis there was nothing. The movies were pretty kooky but who else could have muttered that stupid dialogue and still look self-possessed and poised? It's like when he was on the Steve Allen show in the '50s singing Hound Dog to a basset wearing a top hat. He didn't look stupid. Steve and the dog looked stupid. He has such extraordinary stage presence. I was watching one of his Vegas shows on DVD when he does the karate moves and I was thinking, "Who else could get up on a stage in those amazing jump suits and be so credible?". Good cabaret is high art and Elvis is high art. I love the rehearsal tape for his Vegas shows that I've seen. That's when you really get him. You see him in his environment and see how much input he has into what he does. He was able to interpret such a broad cross-section of music passionately and convincingly. You can hear his profound love for music. I still think of him as alive, it's a bit sad, really. I know he's not around. I was at art school on the day he died. I was devastated. The boy I was dating wore a black armband. He and Elvis were my first true loves. While he was married to Priscilla would you have slept with him? I'm not going to answer that. That's f---ing disgusting. It's like - he's married to this woman that he loves but would you sleep with him anyway? Oh God ... I couldn't just sleep with him. I'd want us to be in love. Sherry Rich - folk rock singer/songwriter My mother, a country folk singer, said she married my father because he looked like Elvis. He still does. The first record I owned was an Elvis 45, Such a Night, when I was five or six. I was growing up with music all around me so it wasn't just his sex appeal. I love the '68 Comeback Special (where a steamy Elvis wore a black leather jumpsuit and sang rock, gospel and roots music in front of an audience for the first time in more than eight years). He could say so many things from just moving a little bit. He didn't have to thrash around and jump up and down - he could just curl his lip or raise an eyebrow. I met my (musician) husband, Rick, in Nashville. We were married on Elvis' birthday (January 8). Rick played recently in a studio in Nashville where they still had a trapdoor that Elvis escaped through to his Cadillac when he got sick of the session. I went to Graceland a couple of times. You get very emotional after you've done the whole tour, listening to the Elvis story told by Priscilla on the headphones. By the time I got to his grave I was overcome with emotion. You just realise what he went through. I was at a girl-guide camp when he died. I remember my sadness when a girl came through the woods telling me Elvis was dead. When he was married to Priscilla would you have slept with him? I'd say yes. My husband would have given me the go ahead. Jane Dust - indie-country singer I went to Sun studios in Memphis and stood on Elvis' spot and sang Love Me Tender. But I found Graceland a bit macabre. I'm like a born-again Elvis believer. I picked up a compilation of Elvis in Nashville five years ago. I love '70s country tracks, Little Cabin on the Hill and It's Still Here. There is a lot of cheese and razzamatazz with Elvis but beyond that there are three chords and the truth. And he had a good sense of humour about himself. He would be funny to have in your life: gatecrashing the White House to get a narcotics agent badge from Nixon and stuff. I was one when he died, so I might have been crying about something else. When he was married to Priscilla would you have slept with him? Probably not. Elvis had to spread himself pretty thinly across all of his women so I would be frustrated by that. I'd want more. Susan Shaw - rock'n'roll drummer and gospel/bluegrass singer I discovered Elvis when I was a teenager. I love Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard. Elvis' voice has the love-tone. It's so rich and warm and sexy. I love the Sun recordings (from the '50s) especially. You can see a vulnerability in Elvis that women love. Little Richard was amazing but no one could handle a crazy gay piano player being sexy. Elvis knew exactly what was needed. As a drummer I love D.J. Fontana; that Sun sound is something I will often try and emulate in recording. I've stuck a wallet under the snare drums to get a certain sound like they did. I grew up in a Johnny Cash household. I have a funny video of him impersonating Elvis and he acted really faggy. My husband, who is a big Elvis fan, said that's a bit rough. But I said not really, because Johnny Cash was always a man and Elvis was a bit of a boy and a bit effeminate. I remember coming home from school and hearing on the radio Elvis had died and being saddened to live in a world without him - it was later that I fully appreciated him and realised that he does live on. When he was married to Priscilla would you have slept with him? OK what year was it? 1967? He's still hot, right? And I'm single? Yeah, absolutely. Tanya Lee, Sherry Rich, Jane Dust and Susan Shaw and others including Collard Greens and Gravy and Sarah Carroll will perform Thursday, August 16, at the Corner Hotel, Richmond, for A Tribute to Elvis - The 30th Anniversary. home | new | the man | lisa marie | priscilla & others | fun | clothes | photos | records | movies | concerts | gifts | web | guide | e-cards | today | facts Click here for more info on the book The Girls' Guide to Elvis Click here to check out sister book The Girls' Guide to Country Click here to check out the latest sister book The Ultimate Guide to Chick Flicks