His Estate has done an awful job of promoting and highlighting Elvis' music, impact, career, and legacy beyond the silver haired class. I've heard - but cannot confirm - that attendance at Graceland is way down from prior years. If you ask Millenials or GenZers about Elvis, it's most likely that they'll laugh and talk about fat impersonators - and even THAT would be an improvement over "who?"
Frankly, the last attempt I saw to make Elvis relevant to youths was the movie Lilo & Stitch...that kinda worked, but it faded, in part because the Estate had no plan to expand upon that foothold.
A similar situation exists with Frank Zappa, insofar as his late wife Gail did a great job of frittering away his legacy by, among other things, suing tribute bands and festivals. Certainly Zweezil has done more than anyone to keep Frank's legacy of outstanding compositions and musicianship alive. The Zappa Band, largely backed by Ahmet, also does a nice job. Thankfully, Frank appeals to musicians and classical liberals and people of good taste, and his fans are essentially evangelists and have passed along the legacy to their kids. I doubt (fingers crossed) Frank will become irrelevant in 20 years.
However, I can see Elvis becoming a big footnote by 2042...time will tell
Priscilla deserves credit for making the Elvis estate worth what it was...but when the rights were sold things have gone downhill.
Tina Turner sold her rights off then bought a 78 million dollar house. I think she is probably in her last years so no reason to keep them since her son killed himself
The only thing kids today know about Elvis is that he didn’t share his royalties for Hound Dog with Big Mama Thornton....guess where they get that?
Too bad they don’t realize that the royalty business was different back then...royalties went to the performer, not the writer
I wonder about that myself is will Elvis fade as time goes on? A side note, my uncle served with Elvis when he was in the Army, they had a big write up in the Orlando Sentinel in 1958 about it.