Elvis Aefernus

According to some amateur sociologists, the '70s are really the '50s--with a few more ulcers and a few more lines around the eyes. A Republican sits in the White House again, and skirts are supposed to be below the knee. Most of all, Elvis Presley is back, gyrating his way, just as he did 15 years ago, through the primitive rock beat of "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog..."

The girls in pedal pushers and curler rolls who once listened to Elvis are now pushing 35 or 40, and the ducktailed boys of the '50s no longer have grease in their hair--if they have hair at all. Elvis, however, still sounds and looks almost like 1957. His hair, to be sure, is a little less shiny, and the famous Presley pout, an expression of his nearly platonic narcissism, has been replaced by the genial smile of acceptance and affluence. After 32 movies and untold millions in box-office receipts and record sales, Elvis at 37 is in many ways bigger than ever.

His comeback is perhaps the most impressive in the history of pop music. Though his B-grade movies were financially successful, he was nearly eclipsed for most of the '60s by the rock groups that followed in his path, especially the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Then, sensing that the time was ripe, he made a live appearance in Las Vegas in 1969, returning again and again in the past three years and touring the country as well.

Last week, he made his first appearance in Manhattan, where his four scheduled performances in Madison Square Garden drew some 80,000 fans and a gate of more than $500,000. If he sang like yesterday, Elvis looked like Mr. Tomorrow in a white cape and jumpsuit, covered throughout the concert by a blinding fusillade of strobe lights. He had lost none of his sexual, feline grace, and he still commanded an ear-shattering chorus of screams every time he tossed his head.

The only truly new thing about Elvis is his audience, which in the '50s was almost exclusively the under-20s. He has kept his original fans--and added their children and parents. Even Rolling Stone, the rock bible, has praised him, though it deplores some of his more saccharine songs, schlocky arrangements and "the tasteless wrapping of Cool Whip" that frequently obscures him.

Elvis professes to be bored by the kind of movies he used to make ("I'm tired of playing a guy who would be in a fight and would start singing to the guy he was beating up"). He now looks forward to straight acting perhaps, and to performing in Europe and Japan. If his New York audience is any indication, he will be a smash. What is his secret? At least some of it may be nothing more complicated than nostalgia. His once-lewd gyrations now seem almost suitable for Sunday school. "Man, I was tame compared to what they do now," he says. "I didn't do anything but just wiggle." To the top, that is.

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