Jamie Aaron Kelley NEWS!!
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Hagerstown Maryland
For the third year in a row, Jamie was hired
by the Chamber of Commerce in Hagerstown Maryland to perform at their annual
Elvis Lives event, held the first full weekend in September of each year.
About 200 folks were on hand at this year's event and the weather was perfect
for it.
Also on the billing was David Lee of Birmingham Alabama and Quentin Flagg
of Michigan. The three performers took turns during the day on September 10th
with each singing two different times for the appreciative audience. Jamie
began his portion of the day of music in a white jacket. His closing part
of the day's shows found him wearing black pants and a special black with
gold long sleeve shirt and macrame belt. Hopefully, this event will again
be held next September along with a much bigger turnout as the Elvis fans
discover the fun had by those who did attend this year's event!!
Pictures thanks to Terri Mueller
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Edy's Icecream Tour
It's hard to beat ice cream in the Summertime, unless, it's Edy's Ice's two new Elvis flavors and a fun tour to help promote the new Love Me Tender and All Shook Up ice cream flavors. In June of 2004, Edy's launched their two new flavors throughout the Southern part of the US.
Edy's wanted to further enhance the advertising
of their ice cream by holding special locations in many stores including Schnucks
and Wal-Mart stores in Tennessee, Lousiana, Mississippi and Arkansas. So the
Edy's, with Graceland's approval, contacted Jamie, because he came highly
recommended (which was nice), to perform at each of the stores where Edy's
was going to give out samples of their new flavors of ice cream. The tour
turned out better than anyone had expected! Edy's did much better than they
had expected and the crowds loved hearing Jamie sing their favorite Elvis
songs.
This was an eight day tour with performances in Memphis to start out. It ended
in Bentonville Arkansas at the main Wal-Mart Headquarters. The ice cream containers
are quickly becoming very highly sought after. Both flavors contain different
pictures of Elvis right on the carton. And the ice cream is tops, too!
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Elvis Pinball Machine
The Stern Pinball Company of Chicago received Graceland's
approval to make the first musical Elvis Pinball Machine.
They are using Elvis' real voice for the singing on the musical numbers but
needed Elvis' speaking voice as well. They contacted Graceland to ask who
could they get to get as close as possible to the voice of the King. Shortly
there after, Jamie received the call from the Stern folks and was invited
to Chicago for three days of meetings and recording. After talking with Jamie,
the company knew that Jamie had a wealth of Elvis information, so they asked
him to also help write his dialogue for the game, and perhaps brainstorm on
other ideas as well. To help him with this, Jamie brought two good friends
of his, Teri Wolfe and Jeanie McCabe. Those meetings went so well, Mr. Stern
made the comment that they should have had Jamie there six months earlier
when they started designing the machine. Jamie offered many great ideas that
would improve the prototype that was there.The Stern people really liked his
ideas and implemented many of them into the game. Look for the light in Elvis'
large TCB ring in the back end of the game board - it lights up when hit.
The ring was one of those ideas.
The late Al Divorin was also brought in to do his famous line, "Elvis
has left the building" and a few others for the game. Since Jamie's father
used to be a radio announcer, they auditioned him for the Top Ten Countdown
part of the game and liked what they heard. So this may be the first time
ever that a Father/Son team has done the voice work for a pinball machine!
The game made it's public debut in Memphis during Elvis Week 2004. And it
was a resounding success!! Look for it in an arcade or game location near
you. It's even a collectors item, coming in a gold plated version as well!
On a related note: Jamie suggested that Stern
use Al Divorin and gave them his numbers to call about the pinball project,
and Jamie was very happy to be working with Al again. Al and Jamie had a great
time discussing Elvis, and Jamie gave him both of his CDs, "Unfinished
Business" and "The Sun Also Rises Vol.1". Al called Jamie on
the phone personally to tell him how much he enjoyed Jamie's two CD's and
that Elvis himself would have been proud of him and how he did the songs.
We're very proud of that, and thought we'd share it with you, as well as something
Al did for Jamie at the recording sessions for the Pinball game.... we hope
you enjoy it as much as we do. (click
here)
http://www.sternpinball.com/Elvis.htm
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AOL Elvis Superbuddy
The accolades continue for Jamie as he was selected
to do the voice and sounds of Elvis for AOL's 9.0 Elvis Super Buddies. Everyone
around the world who uses AOL is likely hearing Jamie every single day of
the year and several times during the day!! The Elvis face icon comes on screen
as several functions occur on those with AOL service.
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