There's something very important about Elvis that no-one has mentioned here,
to explain his enduring popularity even in the new millennium.
He toured for two years as a live act, singing and playing guitar with a guitarist and drummer,
made studio singles that became huge chart hits, made controversial television appearances,
and then, as many people think, joined the army to help the American war effort to avoid criminal charges.
They came after him, and look what happened afterward.
He didn't tour as a live band. He only made movies with Hollywood soundtracks.
That's why he has more presence than any other recording artist of his time, 26 years of movies.
He was the rock and roller of Hollywood fame, an icon who became more popular than Mickey Mouse.
I agree with AlderonFrederic about Frank and the Beatles and Elvis being like a dinosaur.
However, here's some serious Elvis trivia you might not know.
Douglas Roy is a Metis man from Niagara Falls Ontario, his father owning a used car dealership.
His father let him use a room on the car lot to start a band.
Douglas bought the same Shure P.A. Elvis used, a Vocalmaster, and Shure SM58 mikes.
He bought a Fender Twin, a Fender Quad Reverb and the same bass amp, hiring musicians to back him up.
When they started touring as an Elvis copy band they went far, into the States and going to Hawaii.
They had a gig in the bar/hotel that was in an Elvis movie, where Elvis was a helicopter tour guide,
taking his date to that outer island for a romantic rendevouz in the bar and on the beach.
The owner of the bar told Douglas he would pay to get an Elvis jump suit made for him,
and pay to make one of those 45's that had two songs on each side, something Elvis put out.
Douglas was making $5,500 a week already doing his Elvis show. He went along with the bar owner.
When Elvis came back to Hawaii for a reunion gig Douglas dressed up and took a record with him.
He made it to the front of the stage and threw the record up there. Elvis saw the record, looked at Douglas,
and stopped the show. He motioned for Douglas to come up and asked him to sing a song, holding the mike for him.
After the show, Elvis took Douglas backstage and gave him two shirts to go with the jumpsuit.
Douglas Roy is the only Elvis imitator to appear onstage with Elvis and sing a song.
As a Toronto show-band player I was a salary lead guitarist for "Selvis", the second biggest earner, for eight months.
"Elvis Little", an imitator from St. Catharines, would hitch-hike to Toronto to hand Selvis the scarves he gave away onstage.
I helped him start a band after I moved back home to Welland.
When I was playing with Selvis in Toronto our band would hang out with Douglas and his band when they were in town,
and after I moved back to Welland Douglas would hire me when he had a special concert in Niagara Falls.
Douglas gets paid a lot to do his Elvis thing in motel and hotel rooms in Niagara Falls, a very special act for many Americans.
He's not into the "young stuff" like Elvis was, but he's into all "the action and attraction" he can find.
If there is something musical about Elvis songs that I really liked, it was doing "Suspicious Minds".
Going to the Em chord there is one of my favorite Em applications.
Doing it in G, the Scotty Moore strumming goes to an open C chord, and then a three finger open D chord.
I didn't do that, taking the open C chord up two frets as a barre chord to continue the same picking pattern.
Every Elvis imitator I worked with or saw said the same thing.
If Elvis was alive he would want the best guitarist to be on stage with him, and that would be Jimi Hendrix.
Doing Elvis songs with a Jimi style really went over and all the musicians thought it filled out the sound.
Using all six strings almost all of the time with a Stratocaster tremolo unit, I still get into and get off on that.
It's also hard not to like "Viva Las Vegas" when you can dance around to that rhythm.
Here's a Dini Petty TV show appearance by Selvis.
His father was an opera singer from Italy and Selvis promoted himself as singing the high notes Elvis couldn't.
Salvatore Accaputo cleared over $80,000 himself that year, doing one set of Elvis while we did two show-band sets.
We could be playing in a mall on a Saturday afternoon, and after the gig people would be rocking the van we sat in.
Elvis also did his first return to the stage concert in Niagara Falls Ontario,
rehearsing and setting up the show there and then performing one night before he took his show into the States.
What happened there is legendary in Niagara Falls music, motel and casino circles.
