Tuesday, November 09, 1999
Everything you ever wanted to know about Elvis
BY LARRY NAGER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
With his acclaimed, two-volume biography, 1994's Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley and this year's Careless Love: the Unmaking of Elvis Presley, Peter Guralnick is the undisputed authority on all things Elvis.
His new book, written with Elvis recording expert Ernst Jorgensen, is a massive timeline packed with previously unpublished photos and Presley memorabilia.
Next week, Mr. Guralnick hits the Tristate for signings (1:30 p.m. Sunday, Books & Co, Kettering; and 7 p.m. Monday, Joseph-Beth, Norwood). We caught up with him for a pre-appearances interview:
Question: After living with him for more than 10 years, writing your two biographies and now Elvis Day By Day, are you tired of Elvis yet?
Answer: One of the saving graces is that there are so many different worlds to explore, and I've always taken that as my mission, whatever I've been writing about. There are a number of different stories even here (in Elvis Day By Day): the Colonel (Parker, Elvis' lifelong manager) story, the Vernon (Presley, Elvis' father) story, the business story.
I've tried to pursue a number of different story lines.
Q: What is Elvis' place in the history of the 20th century?
A: Elvis was at the forefront of a cultural revolution, he opened the way for the triumph of vernacular culture. I think to the extent to which we see creative artists like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Merle Haggard, Lefty Frizzell celebrated today is the result of a validation of vernacular culture that simply was not conceivable when Elvis first arrived.
Q: Where did Elvis go wrong?
A: I don't think there's ever any one place. One thing that happened to Elvis was he fell into what could be called a clinical depression starting roughly in 1973.
It was something from which he never fully emerged. And where he went wrong, in that sense, was his inability to seek professional help. And everyone who tried to affect him was working for him. Elvis' response to everyone, from his father down, was, “Hey if you don't like it, there's the door.”
Q: What does Elvis Day By Day do that your previous Elvis books couldn't.
A: It's a different way of telling the story. The biography wasn't just a repository for facts, it was intended to tell a story, to illuminate a character, not to be a compendium or a catchall.
Once I got into the archives, there was so much factual information of key importance, whether to someone who was just casually interested in Elvis or if, say, you were going to write a biography of Elvis tomorrow. I just wish I had had a book like this.
Q: Was there anything in the archives that you couldn't believe you found, the Holy Grail of Elvis?
A: There was just a whole bunch of things. We found his employment application for the Tennessee Employment Agency, where he says what he likes to do, “play guitar, fool around with cars.” Or finding Vernon's postcards from prison, or the (very young) picture of Vernon and (Elvis' mother) Gladys.
Q: What are the best Elvis records?
A: There's a range: the Sun sessions; the '69 sessions in Memphis, which are now out on a two-CD, Reconsider Baby;the Elvis is Back sessions when he got out of the army; the gospel albums.
Q: The best Elvis movies?
A: The pre-army movies — Loving You, Jailhouse Rock, King Creole. You'll see him get better with each one. In King Creole,you'll see him totally losing himself in the scene, you can see him just being alive in the scene. And you'll never see that again after the army.
Q: Your favorite Elvis movie?
A: Loving You. I get a kick out of that. It's charming in its artlessness. It's a clever kind of satire, an appreciation and a satirical thrust. And there's a playfulness in Elvis' performance, a lightheartedness in telling this alternative tale of Elvis' own rise through a fictional prototype.
Q: Could Elvis have emerged from anywhere but the American South in general and Memphis in particular?
A: Memphis represented the confluence of so many different traditions and cultures and styles. I don't think he could have come from anywhere but there in the South.
The fertile ground from which his music came is American, but there's nowhere it gained greater expression and greater legitimacy than the South.
Q: Is there life after Elvis? What are you working on now?
A: I just got back from Memphis, working on a two-hour documentary for A&E on (Sun Records founder) Sam Phillips, and I'm doing a Sam Cooke biography.
Q. Will the public's insatiable hunger for Elvis demand a sequel to Elvis Day By Day? Elvis Minute by Minute, perhaps?
A. No (laughs). No, not from me, anyway.
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