We’ve been trying to figure out which came first, the Oak Ridge Boys singing Elvira or Cassandra Peterson performing the character, Elvira - Mistress of the Dark. Dallas Frazier and others were performing the song, Elvira, all the way from 1966 to 1979. The Oak Ridge Boys recorded their Elvira song in early 1981, which is also about the same time when Cassandra Peterson selected Elvira as the name for her character.
Little did Elvira (Peterson) know when she began her campy dress that, 20 years later, grown women would dress up like her, not as a Halloween stunt but every friggin day as a fashion statement.
Back around the same time Dallas Frazier was crooning Elvira, The Munsters sitcom was on tv with the running joke about the pretty blonde being treated like the ugly stepchild. Today, between Goth and feminism, the pretty blonde is becoming more like the ugly stepchild. We truly are living in a bizarro world.
I broke the internet looking for a late 50s or 60s rockabilly song about Vampira (a 50s LA movie hostess). I’d misremembered it as Elvira so I searched for Elvira and wound up locating this Chinese sung vocal version of the theme to A Fistful of Dollars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQvxFb5btXw
Here’s the Bobby Bare song about Vampira:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMQmTSPuFbw