Spirit of Elvis still lives in Japan fans' hearts
June 28, 2006
By Linda Sieg
TOKYO (Reuters) - The "King" never came to Japan, but Japan's prime minister is making a pilgrimage to Graceland.
Elvis fan Billy Morokawa says Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will likely feel the power of Presley's enduring energy when he tours the rock-and-roll legend's home in Memphis, Tennessee, Friday with President Bush.
"I don't feel that he's still alive, but his spirit still lives," said Morokawa, vice president of the Elvis Presley Fan Club-Tokyo, who has visited Graceland four times.
"The energy he gave out when he was alive even now isn't disappearing, it's expanding. Maybe Koizumi can feel that energy when he goes to Graceland."
Koizumi, 64, is an Elvis devotee who not only shares a January 8 birthday with his idol, but picked out his songs for a 2001 charity album, "Junichiro Koizumi Presents My Favorite Elvis Songs." The prime minister appears on the album's cover standing next to Elvis outside Graceland in a composite picture.
Back in 1987 when Koizumi was a mere lawmaker, he and his brother Masaya, now a senior adviser to the Tokyo fan club, helped raise funds to erect a status of Elvis in the Japanese capital to commemorate the 10th anniversary of his death.
Three years ago the prime minister, an eclectic music lover whose favorites also include German composer Richard Wagner, sang his favorite Elvis hit -- "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You" -- with actor Tom Cruise, then in Tokyo to promote his movie "The Last Samurai."
Koizumi, a maverick politician who sprang to power in 2001 promising to breathe fresh life into Japan's stale politics and stalled economy, is hardly the only Elvis fan in Japan.
Fourty-eight-year-old Billy Morokawa of Japan, vice-president of Elvis Presley Fan Club of Tokyo,
speaks in front of a television screen showing Presley's concert during an interview with Reuters at
his home in Yokohama, South of Tokyo June 27, 2006. REUTERS/Kiyoshi Ota