In the fall of 2015, Lisa Marie Presley spent an evening at Kid Rock’s home just outside Nashville. It was a relaxed night among friends. The country singer T.G. Sheppard was there with his wife Kelly Lang, and so was Lisa Marie’s husband at the time, Michael Lockwood. A photo from that gathering shows Lisa Marie smiling easily, right at home in a room full of musicians.
That was the world she moved in. As the only child of Elvis and Priscilla Presley, she could have leaned on the family name and nothing else. She did not. Lisa Marie built her own career as a singer and songwriter, putting out albums of her own and earning respect for her deep, smoky voice instead of her last name.
But there was one musician she most wanted to sing with, and he had been gone since she was nine years old.
Her father.
Elvis died in 1977, when Lisa Marie was still a little girl. For most people that would be the end of any chance to share a song. Lisa Marie found another way. Using her father’s original recordings, she went into the studio and sang along with his voice, turning old tracks into something that sounded like the two of them standing side by side.
The first time she did it, people could hardly believe what they were hearing.
Elvis & Lisa Marie Presley Duet: In The Ghetto
She created that duet for the 30th anniversary of her father’s death, and it later aired on television to a stunned audience. A daughter’s voice wrapped around her dad’s, long after he was gone, hit people somewhere they were not expecting.
She was not finished. Years later she came back to the idea with a gospel song her father had loved, and this one got an official release, polished and full. It may be the most moving of them all.
Elvis Presley – Where No One Stands Alone (with Lisa Marie Presley)
Lisa Marie passed away in 2023 at the age of 54. That makes these recordings feel even more tender now. A father and daughter who were split apart far too early, brought back together by nothing more than her voice and his.
Press play and hear what she did. You might want a tissue nearby.