Riley Keough talks about carrying on Elvis Presley’s legacy
Riley Keough, actress and daughter of Lisa Marie Presley, speaks about how she and her family carry on her grandfather Elvis Presley’s legacy.
Elvis Presley has millions of admirers around the world, but Jacob Jeffery of Little Rock prefers a different member of the Presley family.
Since childhood, he has devoted much of himself — his thoughts, his enthusiasms, his internet activism, even some of his skin — to Elvis’ daughter, Lisa Marie Presley.
Jeffery, 28, has a tattoo of Lisa Marie’s autograph on his chest. He grieves over her 2023 death and bemoans the sorrows he believes hastened it, including the death of her father, in 1977, and the suicide of her 27-year-old son, Benjamin Keough, in 2020.
Said Jeffery: “They say it was a small bowel obstruction, but to me I think she died of a broken heart.”
At 7 p.m. Feb. 1, Jeffery will be in Memphis, on a sidewalk outside Graceland, to host what might be considered a modest complement to the fascinating five-decade ritual that is Memphis’ most celebrated annual event.
As a social media invitation posted by Jeffery states: “The Lisa Marie Presley Fan Club is honored to host the Second Annual Birthday Vigil in celebration of Lisa Marie’s life, legacy, and light.”
The first Lisa Marie Birthday Vigil last year attracted “about four people,” Jeffery said, “but we had a lot tune in online.”
He’s not discouraged. After all, the original Graceland “Candlelight Vigil,” first organized in 1978, also began as a small fan event, to mark the anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death on Aug. 16, 1977. Now, it is an Elvis Presley Enterprises-embraced tourist spectacle that every year attracts thousands of faithful fans and curious onlookers to the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s mansion.
Also, Jeffery pointed out, early February is hardly peak Graceland tourism season. If attendance was his priority, he could move the vigil to the anniversary of Lisa Marie’s death (Jan. 12), which is close to Elvis’ birthday (Jan. 8), which brings hundreds of fans to Memphis.
Explained Jeffery: “We do it on her birthday, because we don’t want focus on the loss. Yes, we know she’s gone, but we want to focus on her time on Earth.”
“I hope you’re runnin’ free…”
Unaffiliated with any Presley estate or commercial enterprise, the Lisa Marie vigil “is a way to honor what she was versus what the world saw,” Jeffery said. “We have the human versus the celebrity. We have the daughter of Elvis, we have the musician, we have the humanitarian.”
As one of Jeffery’s social media posts states: “Bring a candle, a flower, a photo, or simply your heart. Let’s make sure Lisa knows she is not forgotten. Your presence matters. Help us show the world that her story lives on.”
Leigh Hetherington of Franklin, Tennessee, will bring a song. The country/Americana artist will be at the vigil, and then she’ll be at B.B. King’s Blues Club on Beale, as a guest artist. At 9 p.m. Feb. 1 she’ll perform her original song, “Lisa Marie,” which she recorded in 2025. “I hope you’re runnin’ free,” she croons, on the chorus. “A graceful wind blowing through Tennessee/ Lisa Marie…”
The “analogy of a wild horse,” Hetherington said, is a reflection of Lisa Marie’s love of horses, which began in childhood, when father and daughter would ride together at the Graceland stables.
“When I heard of her passing, I felt a kindred connection to her, the struggles she was going through as a mother,” said Hetherington, the single mother of a high-school senior. “She was scrutinized by the press her whole life, and she deserved to have the human side of her life told, and I felt a tribute song was a way to do that.”
When Lisa Marie (called simply “Lisa” by her friends and fans) died in 2023 less than three weeks before what would have been her 55th birthday, Jeffery — who works in hospitality and customer service — did not have time to organize a Graceland birthday tribute.
Instead, he said, “I got on TikTok and made a cake that was yellow and blue, and played ‘Where No One Stands Alone,’” an Elvis gospel recording made into a duet with Lisa Marie in 2018.
The cake was yellow and blue because “‘Yellow to Blue’ is a song from her ‘Now What’ album that you can’t find unless you have the Japanese import version. It’s a power ballad about how she was struggling but she overcame it.”
‘She paved her own way’
Jeffery said he discovered Lisa Marie “by sheer accident” one day when he was “7 or 8,” watching TV with his grandmother in Comanche County, Oklahoma, where he was raised.
“I saw her music video for ‘Dirty Laundry’ when I turned over to MTV right after watching ‘Desperate Housewives,’” he said. Somehow, he was captivated by the sulky, smoldering singer with the hooded eyes and insouciantly curled lip.
“My grandma said, ‘I don’t know if I like the Presleys, but if I’m not mistaken, that’s Elvis’ daughter.’”
Jeffery already knew about Elvis; he was a fan, but not a super-fan. “My aunts on one side, they’re all obsessed with Elvis. And on my grandma’s side, they’re all obsessed with Jerry Lee Lewis. So I would have go to Jerry Lee’s ranch one year” — like Graceland, the singer’s ranch-style home in Nesbit, Mississippi, is a tourist attraction — “and then go to Elvis’ house the next.”
Jeffery’s Lisa Marie love-at-first-sight was so intense his very indulgent grandmother went out and bought her grandson four copies of “Now What,” Lisa Marie’s 2005 second album on Capitol Records, which contained her cover of Don Henley’s “Dirty Laundry.” (The song critiques the media hunger for celebrity gossip, a subject certainly familiar to Lisa Marie, given her family history and her marriages to Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage).
Grandma also gave her grandson four copies of Lisa Marie’s first album, “To Whom It May Concern,” and one copy of “Sounds of the Season – The NBC Holiday Collection,” an anthology album that featured Lisa Marie’s rendition of “Silent Night,” along with Christmas covers by such artists as Norah Jones and Liz Phair.
Why multiple copies? “I guess my grandma recognized the importance of how much Lisa resonated with me, because she wanted me to still have a copy in case I lost one. You know how children are, they lose things.”
As the years passed, Jeffery never lost his devotion to Lisa Marie, even when she stopped making records and slipped outside of public view. He collected memorabilia, founded the Lisa Marie Presley Fan Club in 2021, and launched “The Memphis Princess Podcast,” devoted to Lisa Marie.
For Jeffery, Lisa Marie embodied “the never-ending truth to be who you are, to always fight, to stay honest and true, and believe in yourself,” he said. “And quite frankly, she didn’t give a damn. She paved her own way.”
Those qualities explain why Lisa Marie Presley has “a large gay fan base,” he said. Nevertheless, his husband, Bryan — a registered nurse Jeffery met through Facebook — prefers a different Presley, as is apparent to any visitor to their home.
“My husband’s room is all Elvis,” Jeffery said. “My room, you open it up, it’s all Lisa Marie.”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.commercialappeal.com ’
