‘Bush is comparing me to Elvis. I don’t think Bush liked Elvis very much and that’s just another thing that’s wrong with him.’
President Clinton
Elvis Presley was so distinctive in his jumpsuits that Elvis impersonators were lining up long before his death. Indeed, you could argue that Elvis Presley had become the first Elvis impersonator.
In the mid-70s, Todd Slaughter, who ran the UK fan club, asked Freddie Starr to play the annual convention and but warned him to be careful. The audience would turn on him if that they thought it was a send-up. He did it brilliantly and blew them away.
Tom Jones’ road manager, Tony Cartwright, took Freddie to Vegas but he was apprehensive about introducing him to Elvis as Elvis might be offended. When Freddie did meet Elvis, he did an impression and Elvis laughed and said, ‘You’re good, man.’ Elvis gave him a letter of endorsement and so he was close to being the official Elvis Presley impersonator.
His main rival was American TV comedian Andy Kaufman, who often performed as Elvis for comic effect. When he appeared on the 1979 edition of The Johnny Cash Christmas Show, he played the Vegas Presley, singing ‘That’s When Your Heartaches Begin’.
Before his death, Elvis had become such an iconic figure that he had spawned hundreds of impersonators. Colonel Parker hadn’t seen this coming and he hadn’t liked it, ordering them to stop and threatening to sue. Then he saw how they could help him when Elvis died.
Not wanting to lose out on bookings at the Las Vegas Hilton, Colonel Parker put together A Tribute to Elvis with Alan Meyer performing his songs. Images of Elvis were shown as Meyer performed with dancers, singers and musicians. It sold out for 16 weeks with three shows a day. Meyer’s single, ‘The Lonely King of Rock’n’Roll’, didn’t make much headway but he was shifting 800 albums a week at his shows. Parker thought this would continue forever and indeed, there are Presley shows in Vegas to this day with similar shows around the world.
Parker didn’t benefit from them: one, he lost control of marketing Elvis Presley and two, a totally unofficial market developed of Elvis tribute acts. There is now the Professional Elvis Impersonators Association, but that is the tip of the iceberg as tributes can occur at any time and in any place. I was amongst the bars and restaurants in London Docklands one morning and I saw a team of cleaners at work – dressed in jumpsuits with jet black wigs and stick-on sideburns. Only last week I saw the test cricketer Freddie Flintoff dressed as Elvis and singing his songs in the TV comedy quiz, A League of Their Own.
I am sure that there are fine Elvis impersonators in every city and probably every town in the UK. I have been particularly impressed by Chris Clayton in Liverpool but I have no yardstick for comparing him with the rest of the UK. However, he has one of the few tributes that does justice to both the Sun Elvis and the Vegas Elvis. I know too that he performs from a great love of the music and the man himself.
Then again, Billy, an Elvis impersonator from Merseyside, died when a concrete staircase fell on him. He had been singing Elvis songs since the 60s and everybody knew him as Billy Elvis. He was buried in his Elvis outfit and over 100 people went to the funeral dressed as Elvis.
During 2016, Judge Rinder on ITV was hearing a dispute between Patrick Duggan, the owner of the Epstein Hotel in Liverpool, and an Elvis impersonator, Johnny Rocco, who had played the Cavern in the early 60s. Johnny was booked for £300 to entertain at a charity event. He arrived without a band and without backing tapes and sang ‘American Trilogy’ a cappella. Everybody was sniggering. Patrick refused to pay him, and Judge Rinder agreed.
Although nearly everyone would agree that the 1950s records represent the most creative period of Elvis’ life, 80% of the impersonators choose the latter-day Elvis. Why? Because you have to be young and good looking to stand a chance as the young Elvis but you can be any shape you want as the older Elvis. I don’t see that as a bad thing – dressing as the older Elvis has provided much fun and entertainment. After all, one of the US TV commercials for Viagra features a rewritten Elvis hit, ‘Viva Viagra’.
Donna Presley Early: ‘Elvis impersonators are involved in nearly all the Elvis events that I go to and as they want to keep the music alive, that’s fine by me. If it is done with integrity and love and honour and wanting to give back to Elvis what he has done for them, that’s great.’
Some impersonators take it more seriously than others, but this is not confined to Elvis. I have not personally met anyone who has had his features changed because of Elvis but I have met someone who changed his nose to look like Paul McCartney. A lot of people, both men and women, have had an Elvis tattoo, so that they can wake up to Elvis every morning.
Neither race nor gender is an issue. The scriptwriter Mark Kelly says, ‘I went for a meal in a Chinese restaurant in south London and the attraction was Chinese Elvis. On arrival, we were told that he had been double-booked but he should turn up later. His replacement was another Chinese Elvis. He was quite good as a Vegas period Elvis but then the ‘real’ Chinese Elvis, also a Vegas Elvis, turned up and we had them alternating, though not performing together.’
Elvis Presley was pronounced dead at 3.30pm on 16 August 1977 at the Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Or was he? Over the years, I have assembled newspaper cuttings and press releases on hundreds of musicians and my Elvis files are subdivided by category. It is with some embarrassment that I have one marked Elvis Lives. Ever since 1978, I have kept stories about people who thought that Elvis was still alive.
Mostly this is seen as fun and harmless, but there are serious implications. Rock historian and academic Greil Marcus: ‘There is a deeply coded impulse in Western culture to refuse to believe that heroes who die prematurely and with their legacies unsettled have actually died. It goes back at least as far as King Arthur and possibly further than that. Billy the Kid died in the 1880s when he was shot by Pat Garrett and in the 1920s you couldn’t visit New Mexico without tripping over someone who was claiming to be Billy the Kid. The same thing happened with the aviator Amelia Earhart in the 1930s. The public doesn’t want to let them go.’ (Don’t want to argue with the mighty Marcus but King Arthur was probably fictional.)
The rumours about Elvis’ continued existence have subsided by now but around 1993, the odds with the bookmakers, William Hill, on Elvis being alive were 500 to 1. Ciara Parkes of Hammersmith, west London placed a £250 bet with the bookies and was hoping for a £125,000 pay-out. She didn’t have a ghost of a chance, but maybe she had been in touch with Liz Prince of Atlanta, Georgia, who claimed a three-year fling with Elvis from 1978 to 1981 and said she received a call from him every Christmas.
The answer to any question in a book title is invariably no, so I was sceptical when the journalist Gail Brewer-Giorgio wrote a book called Is Elvis Alive? She reported that when an Elvis lookalike died at Graceland, Elvis saw this as an opportunity to disappear. His gravestone says ‘Elvis Aaron Presley’ and yet he was born ‘Elvis Aron Presley’. Apparently, the King thought it would be bad luck to have his real name on a gravestone.
And that’s not all. The first Elvis sighting after his death was by mother-of-five Louise Welling and further sightings followed in Tennessee, Oklahoma, Michigan, Hawaii and New York. In 1989, The People reported that they had located Elvis on a farm in Georgia and had the photographs to prove it. Oh yeah?
Elvis sightings have disappeared by now, as Elvis would have to be over 80, but they were rife in the years following his death. Some were serious, some were fun, such as Elvis eating burgers in McDonalds or running a fish’n’chip shop in Yorkshire. It prompted the hit single by Kirsty MacColl, ‘There’s a Guy Works Down the Chipshop Swears He’s Elvis’ (1981).
The Southern record producer, Major Bill Smith, discovered Bruce Channel and Paul and Paula, and knew Elvis well. So much so that Elvis called him in 1980 and told him that his ‘death’ was all part of an insurance fraud.
In 1989, the DJ Tony Blackburn stated that his TV had been taken over by aliens singing Elvis Presley songs. Elvis was using them to thank him for playing his music.
This is Jimmy Webb telling me about his 1993 song, ‘Elvis and Me’: ‘It’s a diary entry but it is also a fan story – the fan who still believes he’s alive, the fan who thinks he’s in that empty chair, the fan who’ll buy anything. In the last verse, I say, ‘And I know that’s wrong, but I just can’t set him free’, so on another level of perception, it’s about the American mysticism of Elvis and the fact that every year, on the anniversary of his death, more and more people show up at Graceland, holding candles in a very eerie vigil, almost expecting a resurrection. Many thousands don’t accept the fact that he ever died, so it’s a new pop theology and who knows where that leads? How will this guy be perceived 100 years from now? I see people on talk shows saying they’ve seen him and they are playing taped conversations. Okay, they’re fakes but it makes you think twice. The concept of Elvis being alive is more important than whether he really is or not. If so many people want him alive, then he’ll be alive. I’d love to be around in a couple of hundred years’ time to see how this has mutated. It’s an amazing phenomenon and Elvis may be the leader of a new religion.’
If this happens, you can imagine the Elvis commandments: ‘Love me tender’ and ‘Don’t be cruel’, and you can see the potential for this in Carl Perkins’ assessment, ‘We’ve lost the most popular man that ever walked on this planet since Jesus Christ himself was here.’
I’m not sure that Elvis/Jesus comparisons hold any substance but they have amused stoned writers like Hunter S. Thompson and Kinky Friedman (Elvis, Jesus And Coca-Cola, 1993). There is a very entertaining painting, The Last Supper, with Elvis as Christ by Guy Peellaert, where the 12 disciples are fellow rock’n’roll stars and all sharing burgers and Coke. I’m not sure that the Elvis and Jesus comparisons hold much weight. Elvis was too fond of food for starters and would never have fasted in the wilderness.
If Jimmy Webb’s instincts are correct, maybe Elvis will turn out to be the new L. Ron Hubbard, and it is not without irony that Priscilla converted to Scientology in the early 1980s. It was thought that the religion was hoping to capture the considerable funds that Elvis was generating. That hasn’t happened, largely because Lisa Marie has broken with Scientology. In her 2012 song, ‘So Long’, she was putting the religion behind her: ‘Religion so corrupt and ruining lives.’
Because Lisa Marie was only a child when her father died, the Memphis courts had to scrutinise any financial dealings on her behalf and this proved to be Colonel Parker’s downfall. As soon as Elvis died, Colonel Parker had Vernon Presley sign an authorisation so that he could continue to manage Elvis, but the Memphis courts set this aside – the court was representing Lisa Marie’s interests and so all agreements between Elvis and Colonel Parker ended on Presley’s death.
The judiciary realised the deals were far more beneficial to Colonel Parker than the Presley family. The court was highly critical of Parker’s high percentage and concluded that Presley had been exploited for years. Parker’s contract would not be renewed and, although divorced from Elvis, Priscilla would administer the estate until Lisa Marie was 25.
Vernon’s health had not been good for many years – at one stage, he and Elvis had been in adjacent hospital beds – and he died of a heart attack on 26 June 1979 at the age of 63. He was buried in Graceland between Gladys and Elvis: some say he shouldn’t be between them but he was the head of the family.
David Stanley: ‘The only thing that Elvis and Vernon had in common was an incredible sense of humour. If you couldn’t cut a joke, you couldn’t be around them. Other than that, there were no similarities. Who was Elvis like? Elvis. Who does Elvis remind you of? Elvis. Does Elvis remind you of anyone else? Only Elvis. He was charismatic and he would dominate a room. I could tell instinctively when Elvis was in Graceland and when he wasn’t. His presence was inexplicable. His magnetism was beyond comprehension.’
Rocking in the background and taking her snuff was Elvis’ grandmother, Minnie Mae. She, Vernon and Elvis’ daughter were the only beneficiaries of Elvis’ will. Elvis did not leave anything to Colonel Parker, but what can you give a man who already has your soul? Minnie Mae outlived Gladys, Vernon and Elvis, dying in 1980 at the age of 86.
This being America, there have naturally been others wanting a share of the booty. Elvis Aaron Presley Jr, for example, claimed to be the love child of Elvis Presley and Dolores Hart.
Priscilla received a goldmine in the mid-80s when a court ruled that the Presley estate owned his image. This overthrew the standard principle that the dead had no rights.
Colonel Parker was out of the picture. He didn’t take on another client, although he did offer Rick Nelson some advice. For all his faults, he had been an important figure in Elvis’ life and in the commercial world at large. Surely the aggressive marketing that we often see today owes something to Parker’s behaviour.
His wife, Marie, who’d had Alzheimer’s for some years and didn’t recognise him, died in 1986. To everyone’s surprise, Parker then married his secretary Loanne Miller, who was 26 years younger than he was. Parker was in a wheelchair, mostly living in Vegas and still gambling: it seems likely that the casinos gave him special counters so that the bets didn’t count. He made occasional public appearances, such as launching the commemorative postage stamp for Elvis’ birthday in 1993 and showing he was still stuck on Elvis. At his 85th birthday party, he said, ‘I’m still working for you, Elvis,’ but this was a vain boast. He died on 21 January 1997 at the age of 87 and, in view of his gambling, it is surprising that he left as much as $900,000.
Just like Elvis, ‘How Great Thou Art’ was sung at the Colonel’s funeral. The hotelier Henri Lewin said, ‘You and Elvis are together again. I know you both looked forward to this moment.’ I somehow doubt that.
Shortly after his death, the Memphis Mafia was disbanded. Many of them have appeared at Elvis conventions and given talks about the King. Red West became a Hollywood actor, appearing in supporting roles in many films and TV series. Sonny West has done this too, working as a stuntman for some years. Jerry Schilling became the road manager for Billy Joel and Joe Esposito worked for the Bee Gees and Michael Jackson.
Joe’s ex-wife Joanie married into the Kardashian family and there are several Presley links here, as the patriarch Robert Kardashian dated Priscilla Presley and then married Kris Jenner, whose husband Bruce had been married to Linda Thompson.
If Elvis had returned in the 1980s, he would have been surprised to see Priscilla running his estate and furthermore, making such a good job of it. From the start, she rewrote history, acting as though they had been eternal lovers and never divorced. In reality, Elvis had tried to woo her back, but she wasn’t having any of it. He was acting so irrationally that it would have been walking into hell. She must have been worried whenever Lisa Marie was with him at Graceland: not that she feared for her safety but that the little girl would notice things that she shouldn’t.
Priscilla Presley was astute and didn’t see Colonel Parker as a Dutch uncle. She knew how show business operated and she realised that Elvis’ actual financial assets were nothing compared to the potential of a dead Elvis. As a property, Graceland might fetch a couple of million dollars but if it became a tourist attraction, the rewards could be endless. What is more, she had had the city of Memphis completely on her side.
Fortunately for this venture, Elvis had never thrown much away. He even kept his old shirts. There were eight warehouses packed with his possessions and so a lot of care could be taken in getting Graceland right.
Priscilla wrote a memoir, Elvis and Me, in 1985, but it glossed over the most intriguing aspects of their relationship and read like a PR exercise. In 1975, Priscilla broke up with Mike Stone, who became a card dealer in Las Vegas. Priscilla then had a period where she was almost as carefree as Elvis. She lived with a former marine, Mike Edwards and left him for flings with Julio Iglesias, and Richard Gere. She was with the photographer Terry O’Neill for some time and then the film producer and entrepreneur, Marco Garibaldi, with whom she has a son, Navarone.
Priscilla could hardly have welcomed, Priscilla, Elvis and Me, written by her former boyfriend, Mike Edwards. Edwards, who had done a photoshoot for Playgirl, was with Priscilla for some years. He became an alcoholic, partly because he was replacing Presley in Priscilla’s affection, but he provided a level-headed account of life in Presleyworld. According to the book, Mike and Priscilla agreed to an abortion which they both regretted. There were some uncomfortable comments regarding his feelings towards Lisa Marie, who was 13 at the time.
Elvis was unhappy when Hal Wallis had suggested Priscilla could make some films as the camera would love her, but that has proved to be the case. She had success in the TV series Dallas as Jenna Wade and in the film franchise, The Naked Gun (1988, 1991, 1994), with Leslie Nielsen. She has created the top-selling perfumes, ‘Moment’ and ‘Experiences’.
In recent years, Priscilla has appeared in the UK in pantomime in Wimbledon, Milton Keynes and Manchester, twice as the evil witch in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in which she sang ‘Trouble’ and once as the genie of the lamp in Aladdin. She had no financial need to do this, although it was good PR for Graceland and something she enjoyed. There is no American equivalent to pantomime but it was surely the inspiration for Elvis’ film, Harem Holiday. If Elvis had thought about it, he could have turned it into a stage show.
On a more serious note, Priscilla has been campaigning of late to have horse soring outlawed. When Priscilla was with Elvis, she had a pair of Tennessee Walking Horses, but when she found that their talent was acquired through doctoring their feet, she was horrified. It looked as though President Obama would abolish the practice, but President Trump cancelled the bill and it remains to be seen what will happen next.
When Lisa Marie was 20, she married the Chicago musician and Scientologist, Danny Keough. They purchased Buddy Kaye’s home in Tarzana, California and their daughter Riley was born in the room where Buddy Kaye had written songs for Elvis. They had a second son, Ben, but divorced in 1994, remaining good friends to this day.
When Lisa Marie was 26, she married the singer Michael Jackson in the Dominican Republic. She said, ‘I am very much in love with Michael and I dedicate my life to being his wife,’ Well, 19 months of it anyway. They were just very good friends, two people caught up in an extraordinary bubble of extreme fame.
Her third marriage was to the Hollywood leading man and Elvis fanatic, Nicolas Cage, and her fourth marriage to Michael Lockwood. She and Michael had twins, Harper and Finley, in 2008 and twins ran on both sides of her family. The marriage ended in 2016 with Lisa Marie claiming that he had used her credit cards extensively without her knowledge and she also made some serious allegations about his behaviour. She is said to be broke, owing taxes in both the US and the UK, and she is now living with her daughter Riley. A counter-claim is that she had hidden several million dollars so that it does not form part of the settlement. This is proving very difficult to unravel and only the lawyers are going to benefit.
Lisa Marie has had a sporadic career as a singer and songwriter, both touring and recording, releasing the albums, To Whom It May Concern (2003), which sold over a million copies, Now What (2005) and Storm and Grace (2012). She had had hit singles with ‘Lights Out’ (2003) and ‘Dirty Laundry’ (2005). She’s certainly no embarrassment to Elvis, and, what’s more, she curls her lip like him when she sings. In the court deposition, she claimed that she had made little money from her records. A special exhibition, Elvis – Through his Daughter’s Eyes, is part of the Graceland experience.
Graceland and its grounds are now a major tourist attraction. Upstairs is out of bounds and so fans can’t see Elvis’ bedroom or where he died. One upstairs room contains Gladys’ clothes, clean and neatly pressed, as though she is going to return. Elvis’ cars, including a pink Cadillac, have been lovingly restored and are displayed in a showroom. The humorous travel writer Ian Clayton admits, ‘I was very nearly thrown out of Graceland for joking with my mate Kevin Reynolds about how fat Elvis was. The tour guide felt very insulted and said, ‘Elvis was never more than 240 pounds’. Kevin said, ‘Well, that’s fucking fat enough in my book’.’
Somewhat cynically and displaying superiority, Clive James delivered this assessment in Fame in the 20th Century (BBC Books, 1993): ‘Graceland, where the architectural traditions of Walt Disney, Hugh Hefner and Liberace all came together in one transcendentally tasteless apotheosis, was incorporated as a cash-generating shrine.’ It appears even truer today where the number of properties on the estate has increased and you can ‘Visit Elvis Presley’s Graceland and stay at our new resort.’ With amusement park rides, See See Rider has turned into See-Saw Rider.
Graceland has now passed into the hands of really big business. Robert Sillerman’s company CKX bought an 85% shareholding in Graceland and this in turn went to Apollo Management, as they purchased CKX for $512m. in 2011. There has been a tie-up with The Beatles Story, with an exhibition in Liverpool, Elvis and Us (2011) and there are likely to be further developments.
There has yet to be a permanent Elvis museum in the UK and there may never be. Todd Slaughter opened one in Blackpool but it closed in 1991, having only been open for a year. It cost him his savings and his health. He had a heart transplant in 1994 and recorded a charity single, ‘Take Another Little Piece of My Heart’. An Elvis museum on a high street in Islington, London had few original items – a pair of shoes and toothpaste and soap from his plane.
That sounds like nothing, but I admit that I walked across Waterloo Bridge solely to see Elvis Presley’s wart on display in Joni Mabe’s Travelling Panoramic Encyclopaedia, a shrine to everything Elvis. Not only did it contain Elvis’ wart (obtained from a hospital) but also a toenail. Mabe had been to Graceland and found it in the shag pile in the Jungle Room. Who else but Elvis, she argued, would be allowed to cut his toenails there? A valid point, but hardly conclusive proof.
Returning to Memphis, the Sun Studio closed in 1959 but it reopened in 1987 and is a combination of a working studio and a tourist attraction. The strands combine when tourists with a bit of cash opt to make a record with the studio’s professional musicians and there are hundreds of examples on YouTube. Among the records which have celebrated Sun are Chip Taylor’s ‘I Want the Real Thing’ and John Fogerty’s two songs, ‘Big Train (From Memphis) and ‘I Saw It on TV’. Sun’s location hasn’t changed but the address has, as Union Avenue has become Sam Phillips Avenue. Memphis has a Heartbreak Hotel (hopefully with better room service than the song), a museum for the writer Alex Haley, and the National Civil Rights Museum at the former Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968.
One of the biggest teenage idols of the new century, Justin Timberlake, was born in Memphis in 1981. There is no Justin Timberlake museum as yet and it remains to be seen whether he has that staying power.
For many years there was discussion as to what to do with Elvis Presley’s Circle G Ranch. It is currently being restored and developed. The plans are ambitious and include stage shows, equestrian events and equine therapy.
Elvis Presley’s name and reputation is used to attract tourists to Las Vegas. The city hosts over 100,000 marriages a year and you can get married in the Star Trek chapel or be given away by an Elvis Presley impersonator. It is easy to see how Elvis songs can replace hymns – ‘Love Me Tender’, ‘Can’t Help Fallin’ in Love’ and ‘The Wonder of You’. The British country singer Hank Wangford recalls, ‘Las Vegas is a completely potty place, totally mad. My son was married by ‘Elvis’ in the Viva Las Vegas wedding chapel. If you want your marriage to last, don’t get married by ‘Elvis’ in Las Vegas.’
My friend and Elvis fanatic, Mick O’Toole, never has much money and he has asked me, should he die first, to take his ashes to Graceland. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘if you leave me the fare.’ You may not be permitted to leave ashes at Graceland in which case it would be a furtive operation: perhaps I could get away with the contents of a small envelope tipped on a flower bed.
Mick has never been to Graceland, so it strikes me that the best solution would be, when he has the money, to go and see Graceland for himself. He should wait until he feels he is about to die. Then he joins an official tour to Graceland. Halfway through, he says, ‘Sorry, I must go to the toilet.’ He rushes up the stairs, down the corridor and straight into Elvis’ bathroom. Out of his pocket, he takes out the book about the face of Jesus. He sits down, reads the book and keels over – the ultimate fan’s trip.
There are so many aspects to Elvis Presley’s career that there are numerous ways that it can be treated dramatically. By and large, productions that attempt to tell his full story from birth to death are doomed to failure because it is so rich in characterisation, behaviour and events that it can only ever be a whistle-stop tour.
The first tribute show, opening at the Astoria in the West End of London, in November 1977, was Jack Good’s highly successful Elvis with three actor/singers playing Elvis: Tim Whitnall brilliant as the young Elvis, Shakin’ Stevens making a name for himself as the late 50s/early 60s Elvis, and the unpredictable P.J. Proby being, well, P.J. Proby as the latter-day Elvis. It was highly entertaining but offered no insights into the King or his lifestyle. It won Best Musical of the Year in the Evening Standard Drama Awards. The seat prices ranged from £1.50 to £5.50, which gives you an idea of how long ago this was.
Tim Whitnall was an unknown but perfect as the young Elvis. ‘I’d never been to London and I’d never been on a stage before. I simply got on a train and got through the audition. I was in the sixth form on the Friday and singing ‘Hound Dog’ on the Monday. It seems precocious to say I would get the role but I did have a feeling that I would. It all happened so fast that I didn’t have to think.’
Alvin Stardust: ‘Elvis had been dead for about half an hour, and some clown phoned me up and said, ‘We’re looking for someone to play in this thing called Elvis.’ I said, ‘I’m going to put this phone down and if you ever ring me again, I’ll get a chair and wrap it around your neck. It is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard of. The guy’s only been dead a few minutes and here you are, cashing in.’ He said, ‘No, it’s a tribute.’ I said, ‘I don’t believe in tributes. Someone’s making money and it’s going into your back pocket.’ I put the phone down and left it at that but eventually I went to the Astoria to see it. Tim Whitnall who played the early Elvis was terrific but the fact that he was dressed in a clown’s outfit annoyed me. I didn’t like the taste of it, but when Shakin’ Stevens came on, it was almost like watching Elvis.’
Director Jack Good: ‘Of course it was tasteless, but we’re talking about rock’n’roll and vulgarity is the essence of rock’n’roll. I didn’t mind and I’m sure Elvis wouldn’t have objected either. He was probably looking down and saying, ‘Thank you, Jack, you’ve made me slim again, and Proby’s singing very well for me’. Proby was wonderful when he was singing, though he shafted me in the end.’
Tim grew up fast as he had to contend with Proby’s tantrums: ‘There was a boxing day matinee and I felt like I just wanted to go home. Jim had locked himself in his dressing room and he refused to go on. We didn’t have an understudy. They put me in a white jumpsuit singing ‘In the Ghetto’ and the later stuff and looking ridiculous with my light brown hair. The show had to go on and Shaky and I did the whole show between us.’
The production turned Shakin’ Stevens into a star. He had played the Welsh club circuit doing rockabilly numbers and perfecting his performance as Elvis in Loving You. Now he had hit singles as he revived fairly unlikely old 50s hits – ‘The Green Door’ and ‘This Ole House’ among them. Even his tough, no nonsense manager, Freya Miller, was referred to as ‘Colonel Parker’.
The semi-official bio-pic, Elvis – The Movie (1979) didn’t work, although it was directed by John Carpenter and produced by Dick Clark, both of whom should have known better. It was a tacky production where characters introduce themselves by answering the telephone. Unfortunately the ham is so thick, you could sell it at the supermarket. The film was written by Tony Lawrence, who wrote Paradise, Hawaiian Style, and it showed. When Elvis moved into Graceland, the first thing he did was hang up his gold records.
The music was okay, as Kurt Russell mimes to Ronnie McDowell’s vocal tracks, and the film ended with the Vegas Presley of 1969. Shelley Winters played Gladys Presley while Kurt Russell’s dad, Bing, was Vernon. Both Sam Phillips and Priscilla Presley were consultants and the Jordanaires, Charlie Hodge and Kathy Westmoreland took part. Kurt married the actress who played Priscilla, Season Hubley, although they were to divorce. A fuller version of the film, lasting 150 minutes, was shown on US TV and is on YouTube.
This is Elvis (1981) charts Elvis’ life through TV and film clips, newsreels and home movies: 50 songs in 100 minutes and even more on the extended 144 minute video release. We have ‘Hound Dog’ on The Steve Allen Show, the best movie sequences (‘Teddy Bear’, ‘Jailhouse Rock’), the homecoming show with Sinatra and the 1968 comeback special. Outtakes from Elvis: That’s the Way It Is and Elvis on Tour are included and you see in close-up how sweaty and bloated he became. The extended version includes Dolores Hart’s and Priscilla Presley’s home movies. The film is narrated by Elvis from beyond the grave, actually Ral Donner, and it’s a ridiculous conceit. Even tackier are the other Elvis Presleys who pop up during the film – Elvis at ten (Paul Boensh III), at age 18 (David Scott), at age 42 (Johnny Harra, in an unenviable role) and, marginally worse, Elvis in hospital played by Dana Markey.
In 1984, there was a UK tour for Nightmare Rock starring Peter Straker and Diane Langton in which Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson suspect that an Elvis duo are involved in body-snatching. They were hoping to compete with The Rocky Horror Show but it didn’t last.
In 1985 Alan Bleasdale’s play, Are You Lonesome Tonight?, directed by Robin Lefèvre, opened at the Liverpool Playhouse. The play started with a funeral and reverted to the moody, middle-aged Elvis reliving his last day on earth and thinking back to his youth (played and sung excellently by Simon Bowman). Martin Shaw from The Professionals was brilliant as Presley and didn’t do badly on the songs either, but this was a play more than a musical. He was visited by ghosts (Jesse, Gladys) and elsewhere his sacked bodyguards were telling a journalist what Elvis was really like.
It is unwise to reply to criticism and when the Liverpool Echo reporter Peter Grant said he hated the play but liked and respected Bleasdale, the playwright responded with ‘Mr. Grant claims to like and respect me. The feeling is not mutual.’ There were several complaints regarding the bad language, which made it unsuitable as family entertainment. Despite all this, it moved to the West End, was highly acclaimed and won the Evening Standard Drama Award for Best Musical. Another critic, Joe Riley, called the play a twentieth-century King Lear.
I hope the play hasn’t disappeared as there was much good Bleasdale humour channelled through Presley: ‘Last night I wanted to make love to a girl with the light on, but she said, ‘Oh no’ and closed the car door.’ It is a deliberately sad and depressing play – the answer to the question, ‘Are you lonesome tonight?’, being an empathic yes.
In 2003 Simon Bowman returned as the latter-day Elvis in This is Elvis: Viva Las Vegas, a UK touring show written by Philip Norman and endorsed by the Presley estate.
The musical of Jailhouse Rock was a UK success in 2004, although it was not allowed to use the songs from the film including ‘Jailhouse Rock’ itself and so it seemed incomplete. Mario Kombou was very good as Elvis and Donna Presley Early came to the UK to promote it,: ‘Jailhouse Rock is about the birth of rock’n’roll and it follows the film very closely as it talks about a young man from the wrong side of the tracks. He gets into a fight and accidentally kills someone and goes to prison. While he is in prison, he finds out who he is and he finds the music and he becomes a superstar. It also tells you about relationships and true friendship and true love, and it is not like you are sitting in the audience watching a musical. It draws you in. You are part of it. The music is fantastic and it will have you dancing in the aisles. We have had a complete age range watching it and everybody is enthralled. Elvis’ audience is getting younger and younger and touching people from all walks of life.’ The production was good but there is still the opportunity for recreating the movie Jailhouse Rock with the original songs on stage.
There have been Elvis characters in numerous films including Wild at Heart (1990), The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Kalifornia (1993) and My Fellow Americans (1996). There is Elvis kitsch in many of the scenes in True Romance (1993) but it is mostly ignored by the characters. There has been a two-part US TV series, Elvis (2005) with Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Elvis and Randy Quaid as Colonel Parker.
Set in a Memphis hotel, the ghost of Elvis loomed large in the film Mystery Train (1989) with plenty of weird going-ons but wouldn’t you feel weird if you knew the night porter was Screamin’ Jay Hawkins? Joe Strummer, Rufus Thomas and Tom Waits made for an eclectic cast.
In 2016 there was Elvis & Nixon with Michael Shannon as Elvis and Kevin Spacey as Nixon. It didn’t know whether it wanted to stick to the facts or depart from them and it might have been better if it had been played completely as a satire. Kevin Spacey was characteristically fine as Nixon but Michael Shannon didn’t look like Elvis and the actor playing Jerry Schilling was better looking that he was. There was little rapport between Elvis and Nixon, and maybe a fictional Elvis & Clinton would have been more fun: while Clinton was president, his code name was Elvis so that agents could say, ‘Elvis has left the building’ while guarding him.
In 2004, Kim Basinger and John Corbett starred in Elvis Has Left the Building. The plot revolved around somebody killing off Elvis impersonators. All the impersonators looked ridiculous and included a begging Elvis. At the end, the impersonators climbed onto a hotel roof to get a message from Elvis in the sky. The roof collapsed and the credits read, ‘No Elvis impersonators have been hurt during the making of this movie.’
I drafted this chapter in November 2016. The Top 10 best-selling albums included Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard, Michael Ball, Michael Bublé (two entries) and Leonard Cohen: this is 2016? Elvis has just been at No.1, singing with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the Abbey Road Studios in London. The real live Elvis of 1977 would have been mystified, as he never visited London nor sang with the RPO: in many ways, Dead Elvis is having a more exciting life that his real life counterpart and must be far easier to handle.
By definition, Dead Elvis is something that the Live Elvis would know nothing about. While she was performing, Linda Ronstadt was told that Elvis Presley had died, and she went immediately into ‘Love Me Tender’ by way of tribute. She recorded the song on her next album and a radio disc-jockey cleverly combined the two recordings – Presley (1956), Ronstadt (1978) – to create one of the first electronic duets.
Don’t be taken in, as some of these new records may not feature Elvis. In 1978 the relaunched Sun Records, under the ownership of Shelby Singleton, released a single ‘Don’t Cry for Christmas’ by ‘?’. In my view, the ? of ? & the Mysterians should have complained, but would-be purchasers were led to believe it was Elvis. Then Sun put out an album called Duets in which ? sang along with Jerry Lee Lewis. It emerged that ? was Jimmy Ellis, who otherwise worked as the masked Elvis impersonator, Orion – masked because he looked nothing like him. He wasn’t bad but a recent TV documentary showed what a sad case he was.
In 2002 Lisa Marie sang ‘Don’t Cry, Daddy’ at a tribute concert for the 25th anniversary of his death. She then sang ‘In the Ghetto’ with him and the duet, with both of them in black and white, is very effective, right down to her tears at the end. The song was used to make a comment on gun control, something Elvis would hardly endorse. In 2012, she took her father’s Sun recording of ‘I Love You Because’ and added a harmony.
Elvis has often been associated with Christmas albums but I wondered about the announcement for Christmas Duets in 2008. Just who had been singing with Elvis? Well, his duet partners were all female country singers – Sara Evans, Amy Grant, LeAnn Rimes, Carrie Underwood, Gretchen Wilson (a blusey, eight-minute ‘Merry Christmas Baby’), Wynonna and Little Big Town. You might assume that if Elvis had wanted to sing with Anne Murray or Olivia Newton-John, he would have done so while he was alive. The most interesting track was ‘Blue Christmas’ with Martina McBride and it was taken from the TV special and the photo-shopping was remarkable as it looked as though she was performing alongside Elvis and his four musicians. He even glanced her way.
The same trick was used for the video of Celine Dion and a small choir singing ‘If I Can Dream’ with Elvis for American Idol. In 2013, Susan Boyle from Britain’s Got Talent got together with the dead Elvis for ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’ for a Christmas album on which she sang with a live Johnny Mathis.
In 2011 Barbra Streisand had Elvis as one of her fellow artists for Partners in which they performed a three-and-a-half minute version of ‘Love Me Tender’. The original recording is nowhere near that long but Barbra has added an introductory verse.
In 2015, Elvis’ vocals were given a completely new backing as he was accompanied by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for If I Can Dream. The press release said that it would win Elvis new fans but more likely, it appealed to old fans who wanted to hear something in a different way. The album, which included a duet of ‘Fever’ with Michael Bublé, topped the UK album charts. It was followed by the similarly successful, The Wonder of You, for Christmas 2016. Although the process was artificial, the sound was better than most would have expected.
In 2016, Cliff Richard was put alongside a 60-year-old recording so that he could record a duet of ‘Blue Suede Shoes’. It was very cleverly done but you are trying to spot the joins. It would have been effective to have gone with a ballad: Cliff is 75, Elvis is 21, so it is like Elvis singing with his grandpa.
It is not only duets as from time to time Elvis’ old recordings have been given new backings. The first example was the album, Guitar Man, in 1981 when Felton Jarvis took his late-60s tracks and gave them contemporary arrangements. It was pointless and the new version of ‘Guitar Man’ with fresh guitar parts from Jerry Reed sounded a mess, although it sold well.
Since then, many of Elvis’ recordings have been doctored in one way or another and often alternative takes are regularly issued. It is often impossible for a casual fan to know whether or not they are buying the original hit recordings.
In 1985 Elvis was brought into line with the Hooked On… hit series and six of Elvis’ hit singles were sampled into one single. With the same theme, Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers ran several hits together to create a No.1 single, ‘Swing That Mood’. The record company, neatly called Music Factory, hadn’t been allowed to use the original RCA recordings so they remade them with Elvis impersonator Peter Wilcox.
In 1995 a live version of Elvis singing ‘The Twelfth of Never’ at a rehearsal in 1974 was issued as a single. The sticker said it was a ‘Recently discovered sensation’ but I would hardly go as far: just a nice, one-off workout, which deserved to make the Top 30.
In 2001 an alternate take of ‘A Little Less Conversation’ was used on the soundtrack of the George Clooney film, Ocean’s 11. Alerted by the film, Nike wanted it for their TV ads to coincide with the World Cup. The 34-year-old Dutch DJ Tom Holkenborg (Junkie XL) was asked to remix it, adding a modern dance groove and whatever sounds were thought necessary. The Elvis estate thought it was inappropriate for Elvis to be sharing the bill with someone called Junkie XL (or, perhaps, far too appropriate) and the name was shortened to JXL. The reaction to the advert, which featured Eric Cantona, and then the single, was overwhelmingly positive and it was predicted that it would go straight into the charts at No.1. It was Elvis’ 18th No.l and it took him ahead of the Beatles.
In 2005 and to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s birth, RCA/BMG reissued each of Elvis Presley’s 18 UK No.ls in chronological order and on a weekly basis. Two were issued in the first week, ‘All Shook Up’ (1957) and ‘Jailhouse Rock’ (1958). Because ‘All Shook Up’ came with a cardboard storage case to hold all the other singles, it was deemed ineligible for the charts. For the record but not for the charts, ‘All Shook Up’ sold 17,000 copies that week which would have placed it at No.2, just behind ‘Jailhouse Rock’ with 21,000. A neat touch was to issue the singles with the original US covers, which had not been seen in the UK before. The singles were also issued on 10-inch vinyl, playing at 45rpm, with sleeves replicating the RCA paper bags of the period with the original serial numbers.
Most critics welcomed these releases but there was an extraordinary outburst from Tim Luckhurst, a columnist for The Times, who was dismayed by this attention on Elvis. Resembling that ridiculous leader when Elvis died, Luckhurst wrote, ‘Like his fans, Presley was of very limited intellect and he cannot be held responsible for his image. The cleverest thing he did was to die.’ He added, ‘American giants such as Bob Dylan and Frank Zappa merit our affection. If he had started singing after John Lennon, Presley would not even merit a place on I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!’ We can only speculate on John Lennon’s comments to such risible remarks, but in all probability, he would have written an open letter to The Times saying that he wouldn’t have found his voice without Elvis. Indeed, Elvis’ rasping vocal on ‘Jailhouse Rock’ could have inspired John’s performance on ‘Twist and Shout’.
In 1958 ‘Jailhouse Rock’ was the first record to enter the chart at No.1 and in 2005 it became the first record to enter the chart for the second time at No.1. This time, however, its stay at the top was limited as it was replaced by the reissue of Elvis’s third UK No.1, ‘One Night’. That became the UK’s 1000th No.1. Elvis was the first person since John Lennon to replace himself at No.1.
Who could dispute the merit of Elvis having the 1,000th UK No.1? It rekindled interest in the charts and there was speculation as to whether Elvis could continue hitting the top with his former No.1s (‘Wooden Heart’ anyone?) or if normality would return. ‘It’s Now or Never’ reached No.1 but all the reissues made the Top 5. Ironically. fans were paying full whack for these reissued singles, while Elvis films and CD compilations were given away free with the weekend newspapers.
In January 2006, a fiftieth anniversary reissue of ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ almost topped the Australian US singles chart. The anniversary was marred by the demolition of the Nashville studio to make a parking lot, but its reverberations will last as long as there is music.
In 2007 there was another series of UK reissues, this time with a box of 18 greatest singles, outside of the UK No.1s. Again the first single, ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ was ineligible for the charts but each of the subsequent ones made the Top 20 which suggested that the same 5,000 people were buying them each week.
In the midst of this, ‘My Baby Left Me’, issued by the Memphis Recording Service, made the Top 20. This was a company run by Joseph Pirzada which specialised in good quality packaging of out of copyright recordings, which at the time was anything over 50 years old. The law changed in 2013 but anything issued prior to 1963 is out of copyright in the UK and you don’t need permission or need to pay the record company royalties if you issue an album of Elvis’ early hits.
The published sales for 2017 calendars in the UK made surprising reading as the contemporary stars were being outsold by Cliff Richard (No.1) and Elvis Presley (No.5). This was almost wholly down to grannypower with Cliff, but I suspect that Elvis had many younger fans.
As well as all these sales, Elvis, or rather Dead Elvis, was on the road in 1998, playing huge arenas around the world, so Elvis was coming to the UK at last. Elvis’ first European tour in 1999 featured a light show, original band members, a 16 piece orchestra and Elvis on film with just his vocal track. So Priscilla and Lisa Marie had Elvis back on the road and he wasn’t even there. How sad that Colonel Parker, who had died the year before, wasn’t able to witness this, which he would have considered the ultimate scam.
But it worked extremely well. With breath-taking technology, Elvis was there in person but on film, and the musicians, his old band and singers, were performing live. They would follow his every move and take their bows when he introduced them. At the end of the show, the audience would be standing, applauding and screaming for someone who wasn’t there.
Peter Asher from Peter and Gordon said, ‘There was a phase when the band was on the road and Elvis didn’t hang out with them at all. He was living his own weird life, and Ron Tutt said that when he went out on the Dead Elvis tour, it was exactly the same (laughs). They showed a film of Elvis introducing the band and the filmed Elvis would say, ‘That’s Ronnie Tutt’, and point at him. Ronnie said it was indistinguishable from playing a real Elvis gig.’
This has been followed in 2016/7 with tours based around the symphonic albums, If I Can Dream and The Wonder of You, hosted by Priscilla Presley.
Carl Perkins: ‘People ask me from time to time, ‘Carl, when is this Elvis thing going to die?’, and I say, ‘Why do you think it ever will? It will not.’ Elvis gave the world what it needed at the time, he was handsome, swift-moving, and he wasn’t vulgar on stage. You look back at him now and it is all motion and art. He was releasing that feeling right down through his body. He moved his legs like nobody ever did – he didn’t realise exactly what he was doing and he couldn’t help doing it. Moving is part of the music and if you don’t move, something is wrong.’