Lisa Marie hopes songs convince suspicious minds

NEW YORK -- In a small studio space filled with music industry executives, critics and a smattering of celebrities, Lisa Marie Presley steps onto the stage, and before she sings a note, gives the audience a nervous glance, as if she can sense the doubters in the crowd.

As the daughter of Elvis, ex-wife of Michael Jackson and also the ex-wife of Nicolas Cage, she has the celebrity and publicity many artists only dream of. But Presley -- making her recording debut at age 35 -- knows she's got a lot to do before being accepted as a serious musician, and not just a tabloid oddity.

"There are people who are ready to just blow me away, before I even get out the gate," Presley states matter of factly. Her first album, "To Whom it May Concern," was released earlier this month.

Not only must she live up to the legacy of her father -- arguably rock's most revered icon -- she also has to live down the notoriety of her brief and bizarre marriages to Jackson and Cage.

"That tabloid image has had a life of its own for 30, 35 years," said Presley as she curled up in a chair at the offices of her record label in Los Angeles a few days before her New York performance.

"People's general ideas of me are that. Whether it's my marriage, this or that, or Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson," said Presley, dressed in jeans and a baggy sweat shirt; blond highlights in her auburn hair.

"I understand that curiosity, I want to answer the questions, but at the same time, I'm trying to do something here, so it's kind of me trying to find my way right now."

"To Whom it May Concern" may help her carve out her own identity. The disc, which deals with her troubled relationships, has garnered favorable reviews from critics.

David Bauder of The Associated Press wrote: "It would have been easy for Presley to become a pop tart, or trade more obviously on her fame. Instead, she waited until she had something to say, and says it in a solidly professional manner. That's worthy of respect."

Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times said: "Presley wants to pass the credibility test, and she does."

Grammy-winning producer David Foster, who's been a friend of Presley's for a decade, describes her as someone "with a lot to say, and you listen to the lyrics ... they're moving, they're evocative, they make you think."

Presley began singing when she was 3, and as a teen, learned to play the guitar and drums. But her mother, Priscilla Presley, wasn't encouraging.

"She was like, `You have some big shoes to fill,'" Presley recalls her mother saying about her father, who died when she was 9. "She was worried about me taking this path."

So Presley, whose resemblance to Elvis is almost eerie, put her music on hold. She married musician Danny Keough when she was 20, and had two children by the time she was 24.

"I needed to ground myself and build a foundation before I went out trying to do all these things," says Presley, whose teenage years were marked by drug use.

Still, music was never far from her mind. She began writing songs with Keough, and later made a demo, a cover of Aretha Franklin's "Baby I Love You." But when she got close to being signed by a record label, Presley backed out.

"I wasn't emotionally ready to take that on," she explains.

Yet a few years later, at 26, she made what may have been one of the most nerve-racking decisions of her life. She left Keough and leapt into marriage with Jackson -- perhaps the biggest and weirdest celebrity on the planet -- at a time when the pop star was reeling from sexual molestation allegations. (He settled with his 13-year-old male accuser for millions of dollars, but continues to deny the allegations.)

Though she famously declared their love (and active sex life) in a 1995 interview with Diane Sawyer, Presley now discusses their 20-month marriage with disdain.

In recent interviews, she has suggested that Jackson may have used her to boost his image, described him as manipulative, and said she didn't know if he was "technically psychotic" during their marriage.

Yet Presley says she "doesn't regret any of it."

"I can only say I was in a relationship with someone whom I happened to fall in love with. ... I don't want to bash him. I don't hate him. I don't feel that I want him to go down or anything like that. I went through a period of that, but I came out of it."

Presley explains that Jackson's own fame, in part, made her feel comfortable with him. (They first met in Las Vegas where The Jackson Five performed. She was 7, he was 17.)

"I was very happy being next to someone that was even more ... high-profile than I was," she says. "It felt right for me, to be supporting somebody and being like a woman and a wife for someone, and admiring my husband. ... Anytime I was in a relationship before that, I was always the one, and it was smothering to someone."

Adds Presley, who was later engaged to rock musician John Oszajca and married less than four months to Oscar-winning Cage, "That's why you see me vacillate between incredibly famous (men) and not completely. ... I haven't been able to find my way."

Presley says she stopped pursuing music to focus on her marriage to Jackson and didn't start writing again -- "as a cathartic thing" -- until after the relationship had faltered.

But she didn't consider music as a career, Presley says, until Foster sat her down and told her to get serious.

"I think it was kind of as much a parental talk as it was a music business heart-to-heart talk," Foster recalls.

"From the time that I've known Lisa, which has been about 10 years, I always knew she was musical and had talent, and she always talked about it but never did anything about it."

When Presley finally decided to pursue a musical career, she wanted it on her own terms.

"I think there was a high risk of people possibly trying to say, `Hey, do a bunch of covers, your father's covers, or do a duet album ... or wear a white jumpsuit," she laughs.

Foster admits he tried to steer her in that direction after working with her on "Don't Cry Daddy," on which she sang to a track of her father's voice. The song was recorded for the 20th-anniversary commemoration of Elvis' death.

Foster, who produced Natalie Cole's Grammy-winning album of songs of her late father, Nat King Cole, thought he had another hot project.

But Presley said the song was just for the concert, telling Foster it would never be sold. "That's not how she wanted to come to the public," he said.

Eric Rosse, who produced "To Whom it May Concern," said Presley isn't seeking pop stardom.

"I think this album is going to be a way for her to make a statement about who she is, lyrically and musically, and kind of turn some perceptions around," he said. "She's a celebrity already, but she really wants the credibility out of all of this, and I think to be seen as an artist."

Other children of music royalty -- Cole, Rosanne Cash (daughter of Johnny), Jakob Dylan (son of Bob) and John Lennon's sons, Sean and Julian, have established their own careers, though comparisons to their parents were never far away.

"I think living in the shadow of her father's status and his incredible success, and the thought of having the public at large constantly making comparisons between the two, was probably very daunting," said Rosse, who also produced Tori Amos.

Presley acknowledges that her mother was right -- she does have some big shoes to fill. "It's incredibly intimidating," she says.

Yet, she adds: "I can't think like that or I wouldn't live my life. I had to sort of park that and just do what I would do instinctively without that being part of my life. I don't want to live my life in fear."

On the Net:

Lisa Marie Presley Web site: http://www.lisapresley.com