Welcome to the New York Times podcast, you're, I can't move, I can't sing, but music

music criticism, I'm your host, John Garamonka.

Suspicious minds, Elvis Presley.

We're taking the time machine on this week's episode.

We are going to talk about the career of Elvis Presley as filtered through the fantastical

lens of Bas Lerman in the new biopic, Elvis, which I saw and I very much liked, I understand

there are problems with it.

However, as a film building experience thought it was close, I always say top rate, but it

was up there.

It was very good.

We are going to be having two conversations today.

First, A.O. Scott, A.K.A. Tony is going to come through and talk about Bas Lerman as a

filmmaker and the biopic tradition and how this movie is or is not faithful to the spirit

of Elvis and who the hero the movie really is.

Later, Atlanta Nash is going to call in in Atlanta's and Elvis historians are in a bunch

of books and we are going to get a little bit more in the weeds about what's real, what's

not and whether it's important if it's real or not.

The legacy of Elvis Presley is not an uncomplicated one.

Elvis, depending on how you look at him, is either a kind of radical innovator of music

styles, someone who helped popularize styles that had been predominant in black popular

music of the day and brought them into white spaces again, often derided for that.

As I was saying, not everybody is a fan of what Elvis did or what Elvis represents,

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