When Elvis Presley died in 1977 at the age of 42, his career was doing almost as poorly as his drug-filled personal life. Presley's recorded output had been reduced to an assortment of live albums, second-string picks from years-old studio sessions, and newer recordings he couldn't be bothered to leave the house to make. Rock 'n' roll, which at the time was busy exploring lysergic prog landscapes, considered him a relic?"and while he toured constantly, his live show had become a schlocky, Vegas-style revue aimed at the middle-aged crowd who'd first latched onto him as teenyboppers decades before. While Elvis also maintained fan bases in the often overlapping realms of country and gospel, the pop world was pretty much done with him.