IT’S perhaps no surprise that Lisa Marie Presley was something of a reluctant pop star.
Of all the famous singing dads, her father Elvis cast the biggest shadow.
But no doubt Sean Lennon, James McCartney, Jakob Dylan, Adam Cohen and Kelly Osbourne know how she felt.
By any stretch, Lisa Marie was an accomplished singer with a sultry, bluesy voice that betrayed a degree of inner sadness.
With her father’s hooded eyes that could stare right through you and her mother Priscilla’s good looks, she also looked the part.
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It took her until 2003, when Lisa Marie was 35, to really go for it and release her debut album To Whom It May Concern.
It was decent enough, in the all-American Kelly Clarkson pop-rock mould but sounding more like Cher.
Crucially, there was nothing saccharine or sentimental about lead single Lights Out despite its reference to the back lawn at Elvis’s mansion Graceland where she played as a child.
Working with Pink collaborator Linda Perry, album No2 Now What was actually stronger and included a rousing cover of Don Henley’s Dirty Laundry.
Despite being loaded with hooks, the collection of moody rock-orientated tracks sold poorly and proved her last for Capitol Records.
Then, in 2012, Anglophile Lisa Marie made the best music of her life with the help of Richard Hawley, Ed Harcourt, Travis singer Fran Healy and the man who co-wrote James Blunt’s You’re Beautiful, Sacha Skarbek.
Though it proved to be her final album, Storm & Grace toned down the pop and drew on country, folk and blues.
It benefited from superior production by T Bone Burnett, known for his work with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.
“What I heard was honest, raw, unaffected and soulful,” said Burnett.
“I thought her father would be proud of her.”
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The best track, the aching and acoustic Hawley co-write Weary, indeed had all the hallmarks of a serious artist.
Lisa Marie toured the album but sadly her dates in the spring of 2014 were to be her last.
