Lisa Marie Presley was born February 1, 1968, to Elvis and Priscilla Presley in Memphis, Tennessee, nine months to the day after her parent’s wedding. After her parents divorced, she lived with her mother in Los Angeles, with frequent stays with her father at Graceland in Memphis. She would be Elvis’ only child. She seemed destined to lead a life in the public eye, thanks to looks that mirrored those of her father and a notable singing voice to match.
When her father died in August 1977, nine-year-old Presley became joint heir to his estate with her 59-year-old grandfather, Vernon Presley, and Vernon’s 87-year-old mother, Minnie Mae. Upon the deaths of her grandfather in 1979 and her great-grandmother in 1980, she became the sole heir; on her 25th birthday in 1993, she inherited the estate, which had grown to an estimated $100 million. Presley sold 85 percent of her father’s estate in 2004. In the late 1970s, a year or two after her father’s death, she attended her first rock concert when she saw Queen at The Forum in Inglewood, California. She gave Freddie Mercury a scarf of her father’s after the show and expressed her love of theatrics. Lisa Marie was sexually abused by her mother’s new husband Michael Edwards when she was a teenager.
Her debut album was To Whom It May Concern released on April 8, 2003, on Capitol Records. Two singles were released, “Lights Out” /”Savior” (February 10, 2003) and “Sinking In” (2003). “Lights Out” peaked in the Top 40 on the Billboard charts. A music video directed by Francis Lawrence was made to promote the single. The album sold 142,000 copies during its first week of release and debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 album chart.
The music on her new album, has a stark, uncompromising tone. Presley’s gutsy blues-edged voice has a distinctive flair.
Robert Hilburn – Los Angeles Times critic
This is a sharp, ambitious mainstream pop/rock album performed by a singer with real character – thankfully, one that’s surly, not sweet, since there’s been too much sweetness from divas in the 2000s”, giving the album four out of five stars.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine – AllMusic critic
Pat Benatar and Presley performed at the VH1 Divas Duets, a concert to benefit the VH1 Save the Music Foundation held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 22, 2003, in Las Vegas. Together they sang Benatar’s hit “Heartbreaker”.
Presley’s second album, Now What, was released on April 5, 2005, and reached No. 9 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. She co-wrote 10 songs and recorded covers of Don Henley’s “Dirty Laundry” (the album’s first single, which hit No. 36 on the Billboard chart), and the Ramones’ “Here Today and Gone Tomorrow”. The song “Idiot” is a jab toward different men in her life.
Presley covered Blue Öyster Cult’s “Burnin’ for You” as a B-side. Pink made a guest appearance on the track “Shine”. The video for “Dirty Laundry” was directed by Patrick Hoelck and singer George Michael made a cameo appearance in it.
Lisa Marie performed in the 2006 benefit concert to celebrate the Ramones’ 30th anniversary and raise money for cancer research. She also appeared in the music video for Johnny Cash’s “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” in 2006. The single “In the Ghetto” was released in August 2007. Elvis Presley originally released the single in 1969. In the new version, Lisa “duets” with her father. Her third album, Storm & Grace, was released on May 15, 2012.
It is produced by Oscar and Grammy winner T Bone Burnett[1]. Spinner.com described it as “the strongest album of her career” and Entertainment Weekly praised the “smoky, spooky” single “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet”. On October 3, 1988, Presley married Chicago-born musician Danny Keough. They had two children: a daughter, Riley Keough, an actress and model, and a son, Benjamin Storm Keough.
When songs from Lisa Marie Presley showed up at my door, I was curious. I wondered what the daughter of an American revolutionary music artist had to say. What I heard was honest, raw, unaffected and soulful. I thought her father would be proud of her. The more I listened to the songs, the deeper an artist I found her to be. Listening beyond the media static, Lisa Marie Presley is a Southern American folk music artist of great value.
T-Bone Burnett
Presley obtained a quickie divorce in the Dominican Republic on May 6, 1994. Her son Benjamin committed suicide on July 12, 2020, at the age of 27. On May 26, 1994, 20 days after her divorce from Keough, Presley married singer Michael Jackson. As child molestation accusations against him became public, Jackson became dependent on Presley for emotional support. She was concerned about his faltering health and his drug addiction.
I believed he didn’t do anything wrong, and that he was wrongly accused and, yes, I started falling for him. I wanted to save him. I felt that I could do it.
Lisa Marie Presley – on Michael Jackson
In January 1996, citing irreconcilable differences, Presley filed for divorce, according to legal papers. Lisa Marie broke off her November 1998 engagement with John Oszajca after meeting Nicholas Cage. They were married on August 10, 2002. Cage filed for divorce on November 25, 2002, and the divorce was finalized in 2004.
On January 22, 2006, Presley married for a fourth time, Michael Lockwood, her guitarist, music producer, and director. On October 7, 2008, Presley gave birth to fraternal twin girls, Harper Vivienne Ann Lockwood and Finley Aaron Love Lockwood. Presley said painkillers prescribed after the birth of her twins eventually led to a full-blown addiction. In 2016, Presley filed for divorce from Lockwood after ten years of marriage.
Presley, along with friend and fellow Memphian and Scientologist Isaac Hayes, opened the Literacy, Education and Ability Program (LEAP) in October 1997. LEAP is run by Applied Scholastics, a group run by Scientologists. Presley left Scientology in 2014, though she had been experiencing growing discontent with the organization as far back as 2008.
On Thursday, January 12, 2023, Lisa Marie Presley suffered an apparent cardiac arrest at her home in Calabasas, just north of Los Angeles, and was taken to a local hospital. She died hours later at the age of 54. Presley will be buried in Graceland with her father Elvis and son Benjamin.
It is with a heavy heart that I must share the devastating news that my beautiful daughter Lisa Marie has left us. She was the most passionate, strong and loving woman I have ever known.
Priscilla Presley
Footnotes
- Joseph Henry “T Bone” Burnett III (born January 14, 1948) is an American record producer, guitarist, and songwriter. He rose to fame as a guitarist in Bob Dylan’s band during the 1970s. He has received multiple Grammy awards for his work in film music, including for O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), Cold Mountain (2004), Walk the Line (2005), and Crazy Heart (2010); and won another Grammy for producing the studio album Raising Sand (2007), in which he united the contemporary bluegrass of Alison Krauss with the blues rock of Robert Plant (ex-Led Zeppelin). Burnett helped start the careers of Counting Crows, Los Lobos, Sam Phillips, and Gillian Welch, and he revitalized the careers of Gregg Allman and Roy Orbison. He produced music for the television programs Nashville and True Detective. He has released several solo studio albums, including Tooth of Crime, which he wrote for a revival of the play by Sam Shepard. [Back]
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RIP 🙏💪