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Being Elvis: A Lonely Life
Elvis Presley is a giant figure in American popular culture, a man whose talent and fame were matched only by his later excesses and tragic end. A godlike entity in the history of rock and roll, this twentieth-century icon with a dazzling voice blended gospel and traditionally black rhythm and blues with country to create a completely new kind of music and new way of expressing male sexuality, which simply blew the doors off a staid and repressed 1950s America.
In Being Elvis veteran rock journalist Ray Connolly takes a fresh look at the career of the world’s most loved singer, placing him, forty years after his death, not exhaustively in the garish neon lights of Las Vegas but back in his mid-twentieth-century, distinctly southern world. For new and seasoned fans alike, Connolly, who interviewed Elvis in 1969, re-creates a man who sprang from poverty in Tupelo, Mississippi, to unprecedented overnight fame, eclipsing Frank Sinatra and then inspiring the Beatles along the way.
Juxtaposing the music, the songs, and the incendiary live concerts with a personal life that would later careen wildly out of control, Connolly demonstrates that Elvis’s amphetamine use began as early as his touring days of hysteria in the late 1950s, and that the financial needs that drove him in the beginning would return to plague him at the very end. With a narrative informed by interviews over many years with John Lennon, Bob Dylan, B. B. King, Sam Phillips, and Roy Orbison, among many others, Connolly creates one of the most nuanced and mature portraits of this cultural phenomenon to date.
What distinguishes Being Elvis beyond the narrative itself is Connolly’s more subtle examinations of white poverty, class aspirations, and the prison that is extreme fame. As we reach the end of this poignant account, Elvis’s death at forty-two takes on the hue of a profoundly American tragedy. The creator of an American sound that resonates today, Elvis remains frozen in time, an enduring American icon who could “seamlessly soar into a falsetto of pleading and yearning” and capture an inner emotion, perhaps of eternal yearning, to which all of us can still relate.
Intimate and unsparing, Being Elvis explores the extravagance and irrationality inherent in the Elvis mythology, ultimately offering a thoughtful celebration of an immortal life.
In Being Elvis veteran rock journalist Ray Connolly takes a fresh look at the career of the world’s most loved singer, placing him, forty years after his death, not exhaustively in the garish neon lights of Las Vegas but back in his mid-twentieth-century, distinctly southern world. For new and seasoned fans alike, Connolly, who interviewed Elvis in 1969, re-creates a man who sprang from poverty in Tupelo, Mississippi, to unprecedented overnight fame, eclipsing Frank Sinatra and then inspiring the Beatles along the way.
Juxtaposing the music, the songs, and the incendiary live concerts with a personal life that would later careen wildly out of control, Connolly demonstrates that Elvis’s amphetamine use began as early as his touring days of hysteria in the late 1950s, and that the financial needs that drove him in the beginning would return to plague him at the very end. With a narrative informed by interviews over many years with John Lennon, Bob Dylan, B. B. King, Sam Phillips, and Roy Orbison, among many others, Connolly creates one of the most nuanced and mature portraits of this cultural phenomenon to date.
What distinguishes Being Elvis beyond the narrative itself is Connolly’s more subtle examinations of white poverty, class aspirations, and the prison that is extreme fame. As we reach the end of this poignant account, Elvis’s death at forty-two takes on the hue of a profoundly American tragedy. The creator of an American sound that resonates today, Elvis remains frozen in time, an enduring American icon who could “seamlessly soar into a falsetto of pleading and yearning” and capture an inner emotion, perhaps of eternal yearning, to which all of us can still relate.
Intimate and unsparing, Being Elvis explores the extravagance and irrationality inherent in the Elvis mythology, ultimately offering a thoughtful celebration of an immortal life.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published November 3, 2016
274 people are currently reading
1428 people want to read
About the author
Ray Connolly
60 books42 followersRay Connolly grew up in Lancashire, England. After graduating from the London School of Economics he began a career in journalism, and wrote a weekly interview column for the London Evening Standard, concentrating mainly on popular culture and music. Since then he has written for the Sunday Times, The Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Observer and the Daily Mail. Many of his interviews with members of the Beatles have been republished in his eBook, The Ray Connolly Beatles Archive.
His first novel, A Girl Who Came To Stay, was published in 1973. Several other novels followed, including Newsdeath, Sunday Morning, Shadows On A Wall and Kill For Love.
Working with producer David Puttnam he wrote the original screenplays for the films That’ll Be the Day and Stardust, and wrote and directed the feature length documentary James Dean: The First American Teenager.
He has also written for television, most notably the series Lytton’s Diary and Perfect Scoundrels, and the TV films Forever Young and Defrosting The Fridge, and worked with Sir George Martin on the documentary trilogy about music The Rhythm of Life.
For BBC radio he wrote Lost Fortnight, about Raymond Chandler in Hollywood, and Unimaginable, which concerned the twenty four hours around the death of John Lennon, whom he was due to see on the day the former Beatle was murdered.
In 2010 he adapted one strand of his novel Love Out Of Season as the radio play God Bless Our Love, while his novella about the Beatles, Sorry, Boys, You Failed The Audition, will be broadcast by BBC Radio 4 in 2013.
In 2011 he published his Christmas short story Let Nothing You Dismay as an eBook on Amazon. Others will soon follow.
Currently working on a screenplay for a movie about Dusty Springfield, he is married and lives in London.
His first novel, A Girl Who Came To Stay, was published in 1973. Several other novels followed, including Newsdeath, Sunday Morning, Shadows On A Wall and Kill For Love.
Working with producer David Puttnam he wrote the original screenplays for the films That’ll Be the Day and Stardust, and wrote and directed the feature length documentary James Dean: The First American Teenager.
He has also written for television, most notably the series Lytton’s Diary and Perfect Scoundrels, and the TV films Forever Young and Defrosting The Fridge, and worked with Sir George Martin on the documentary trilogy about music The Rhythm of Life.
For BBC radio he wrote Lost Fortnight, about Raymond Chandler in Hollywood, and Unimaginable, which concerned the twenty four hours around the death of John Lennon, whom he was due to see on the day the former Beatle was murdered.
In 2010 he adapted one strand of his novel Love Out Of Season as the radio play God Bless Our Love, while his novella about the Beatles, Sorry, Boys, You Failed The Audition, will be broadcast by BBC Radio 4 in 2013.
In 2011 he published his Christmas short story Let Nothing You Dismay as an eBook on Amazon. Others will soon follow.
Currently working on a screenplay for a movie about Dusty Springfield, he is married and lives in London.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 178 reviews
June 20, 2022
With the new Baz Luhrman biopic on Elvis coming out soon, I decided to read a brush-up on E’s life. Looking for something without too much exploitation, I chose this book by professional biographer/journalist Ray Connolly. It is a little short on the music itself, but not a bad summary of Presley’s life. The highly rated books by Peter Guralnick are just more than I’m interested in with a total of more than 1,300 pages.
While there isn’t a lot that’s new here if you know anything about Elvis, it does support the author’s stance that the man’s life was a jumble of contradictions. Elvis came from a poor white background in the middle South (born 1935) and was forever unable to stand up to the business manager who controlled most of his choices, or to rid himself of the droves of hangers-on or the doctors and dentists who were happy to supply him with all the prescription drugs his poor body could take for his 42 years of life. As Connolly says in his sub-title he lived “A Lonely Life.”
My husband and I took our children to visit Graceland in the 90s. I expected some fun looking at a picture of his over the top life…the jungle room, the crazy rhinestoned jumpsuits and all. However once across the threshold it was immediately apparent his life had been sad. It was very depressing and it goes without saying my children were 100% bewildered.
While there isn’t a lot that’s new here if you know anything about Elvis, it does support the author’s stance that the man’s life was a jumble of contradictions. Elvis came from a poor white background in the middle South (born 1935) and was forever unable to stand up to the business manager who controlled most of his choices, or to rid himself of the droves of hangers-on or the doctors and dentists who were happy to supply him with all the prescription drugs his poor body could take for his 42 years of life. As Connolly says in his sub-title he lived “A Lonely Life.”
My husband and I took our children to visit Graceland in the 90s. I expected some fun looking at a picture of his over the top life…the jungle room, the crazy rhinestoned jumpsuits and all. However once across the threshold it was immediately apparent his life had been sad. It was very depressing and it goes without saying my children were 100% bewildered.
February 16, 2017
Even though there wasn't much in here that I hadn't read somewhere else or heard before, as a fan, I still enjoyed revisiting Elvis's life. What was different about this book on Elvis was the revelation of just how sad and lonely his life really was. Elvis himself alluded to this in his lifetime, saying, “The image is one thing and the human being is another. It's very hard to live up to an image, put it that way.” It seemed that no matter how huge the fame, the adulation, the money, the constant people that surrounded him, he was still alone, that little boy from Tupelo, Mississippi.
January 10, 2025
Ray Connolly did an amazing amount of research in order to write this book and the thing that is most amazing to me is that Parker was NOT a US citizen. His real name was Andreas Cornelius van Kuijk and he had been born in Breda, Holland. He was very cruel to Elvis only thinking of himself and how much money he could get out of Elvis and so worked him to death. Elvis should have taken a break from work in 1977 as he had been in the hospital too many times recently as he was exhausted from taking too many prescription drugs.
It is no wonder that Elvis never got to tour abroad which he sure wanted to do as Parker was thinking about the fact that he might not be able to get back into the US. He built up too many gambling debts when he lived in Las Vegas.
If you are a fan of Elvis and want to know more details then this book will provide them. I have to say that I was horrified by many of them. Overall it was too sad.
It is no wonder that Elvis never got to tour abroad which he sure wanted to do as Parker was thinking about the fact that he might not be able to get back into the US. He built up too many gambling debts when he lived in Las Vegas.
If you are a fan of Elvis and want to know more details then this book will provide them. I have to say that I was horrified by many of them. Overall it was too sad.
April 17, 2018
I’ve read a ton of Elvis bios and while this one is far from being the worst (talking about you Albert Goldman!), it’s not exactly the best either. This is a great read for those who are either casual Elvis fans or those who have never read a bio of him before. There were a few tidbits that I didn’t know, just nothing groundbreaking. Nice to see more biographers treat Elvis and his music with respect, sincerity, and historical accuracy.
November 28, 2017
I'm not an Elvis fan, at least no more than a general like/appreciation for some of his songs. He died when I was 2. Yet, what does it say about a pop icon who still manages to figure into my life in small ways even though he died before my rock-n-roll time? My favorite great aunt talks about how she was first attracted to my uncle because he looked like Elvis (and he really did). I lived in Memphis for a few years, have been to Graceland, and spent those years avoiding downtown on his birth and death dates because of all the traffic. I took an Elvis head filled with popcorn hilariously bought at Big Lots to a white elephant gift exchange last year. How does a man born in extreme poverty, never wrote a song, was a notorious womanizer and addict still figure so prominently into culture?
This book does a better job of trying to answer those questions than any other source I've read. There are no idealized stories here filled with interesting fun facts on peanut butter and banana sandwiches - no mention of that here at all. This is in equal parts a reverent and critical, awe-inspiring and tragic look at the life of the first true mega pop star.
This book does a better job of trying to answer those questions than any other source I've read. There are no idealized stories here filled with interesting fun facts on peanut butter and banana sandwiches - no mention of that here at all. This is in equal parts a reverent and critical, awe-inspiring and tragic look at the life of the first true mega pop star.
May 25, 2020
How does a man born in extreme poverty, who never wrote a song, was a notorious womanizer and an addict, figure so prominently into culture? According to some readers-reviewers on GoodReads Ray Connolly does a better job of trying ‘to answer this question than any other source’ in ‘Being Elvis: A Lonely Life’.
I agree.
This review incorporates the views of other reviewers to show how complete and good reviews on goodreads are. This was also published as 'A Celebration of Ray Connolly's work (1)' at https://thebeatleshistoryreview.blogs...
In the media celebrities put on a face as good looking, happy and untouchable people, living fantastic, exciting and exotic lives. Being around tv-studios I have seen and experienced the difference between being convincing and loved with make-up and a nice hairdo, and coming across ugly and utterly forgettable on television without makeup and a decent haircut. Ask Dolly Parton, she knows image matters. Myth has it that Elvis once said:
“The image is one thing and the human being is another.
It's very hard to live up to an image.”
Rock and pop stars knew about the problem of celebrity, it does not mean most of them handled it very well. Most of these guys were caught in conservative models of masculine aggressiveness, homophobia, racism, looking back there also was a lot of misogyny and sexism, not just in presenting their instruments as phallic symbols.[4] In the late sixties, Randy Newman composed a song about celebrity life for Frank Sinatra. The text is actually quite modest:
I've been around the world
Had my pick of any girl
You'd think I'd be happy
But I'm not
Ev'rybody knows my name
But it's just a crazy game
Oh, it's lonely at the top
Listen to the band, they're playing just for me
Listen to the people paying just for me
All the applause-all the parades
And all the money I have made
Oh, it's lonely at the top
Listen all you fools out there
Go on and love me-I don't care
Oh, it's lonely at the top
‘Being Elvis’[5] focuses on what it was to be ELVIS and how Elvis Aaron Presley handled it from 1955 to 1977. A struggle between the man and his image. Connolly’s book is in equal parts reverent and critical, happy-sad, awe-inspiring, and a tragic look at the life of this twentieth-century mega pop star. In the book the King's transformation from a wide-eyed innocent hillbilly, to cultural phenomenon, to lonely middle-aged addict is carefully constructed and seamless.
Elvis is the man-child, possessed of amazing talent, who allows himself to be mismanaged and is ultimately done in by drug abuse. His drug habit began way back in the 1950s, pre-army when he and his band-mates would pop No-Doz when driving between gigs. He came by the uppers and amphetamines honestly. His mother popped the ‘diet pills’.
At least during his last few years, Elvis was one crazy dude. Asking a buddy to have Priscilla's new boyfriend ‘rubbed out’ (nothing happened). Shooting a toilet. Shooting a TV, because he didn't want to see Robert Goulet. Drug withdrawal? Overindulged bad temper? Southern gun-love taken a little too far? Exotic and exciting, yeah, maybe, it seems scary though. His family and friends, who should have helped him, enabled the massive self-indulgence that eventually led to his tragic end. It seemed that no matter how huge the fame, the adulation, the money, the people that constantly surrounded him, Elvis was still alone, that little boy from Tupelo, Mississippi.
Connolly grills Elvis on his hypocritical ways but seems a bit lenient on his womanizing personality. He does not tell the bright, shiny, happy story that Graceland portrays. If you do not intend to visit Graceland, this is required reading! If you are not visiting Graceland then this is a desirable alternative. The prospective reader should be aware ‘Being Elvis’ is not about the art, not about the music, not about Elvis’s wonderful, powerful and mesmerizing voice. As a reminder just listen to almost any music of the late sixties and early seventies or even better check out the nine tracks on ‘American Sound 1969’ revealing all 20 takes for ‘In The Ghetto’. What a voice.
I am with Kenneth Womack, in that we both prefer the stories biographers and other historians dig up should be aggregated and brought together “in such a way where the music is central to the tale”. In the case of Elvis, Janis Joplin, Elton John, Amy Whitehouse, Paul McCartney, or John Lennon, if we focus on the aesthetics of their creations we can learn what is amazing about these persons. Knowing about the private lives of the artist may open up windows for better understanding her or his art, but mostly the biographical, sordid and contemptible behaviors are a distraction from the aesthetic efforts.
Connolly ignores the music and never pins down Elvis' unwavering appeal, not even Elvis himself could figure that. The mystery of how Elvis created rock’n’roll, remains. Connolly focusses on Elvis Aaron the man, and how he dealt with his public life and musical talents.
Elvis’ coming into being is a sad tale of rather poor choices and a greedy manager. The financial dealings of innocent, uneducated Elvis and Vernon and the super wheeler-dealer Colonel Tom Parker make an awful painful reading. The story is a tragic one, and given that the book generally spins the tale to highlight his loneliness, it does have a very dark side. For some fans, this is almost impossible to appreciate. They suggest that although the story told is undoubtedly sad, the same story would read much differently if the author had chosen to highlight his success rather than his downfall. Connolly puts the spotlight on this dark side with sympathy. Connolly’s toned-down but dramatic, captivating, and supremely researched biography is written with a great deal of compassion in terms of the rush to fame at a relatively young age, and then what do you do with the rest of your life?
If, at the end of the book, you don't respect Elvis, or you're mad at him, due to his dependence on drugs and his God-like devotion to his self-serving manager ‘Colonel’ Tom Parker, don't blame Connolly. The author does an admirable job of getting out of the way. You can feel Elvis self-destructing page by page, pill by pill, tour by tour, and young woman after another. Freud would have a blast with the King's mother issues, but Connolly leaves that all up to the reader. The writer did not try to hide anything bad, and still one just loves Elvis.
‘Being Elvis’ reads like a gripping novel, with characters clearly laid out and it touches the heart. Fan-reviewers report they couldn't put down the book. That makes sense, this biography is beautifully written and it reads like a (very good) novel. Due to the fact that the life of Elvis is beyond understanding in many ways, it is hard to imagine that this is a biography and not fiction, enough striking details, insightful and concise. A piece of literary craftsmanship that touches many hearts, and beyond that it offers a good biographical historical analysis.
A thoroughly researched, detailed, well written,
and compelling biography of Elvis!
Connolly treats his topic ‘Elvis’ with respect, sincerity, and historical accuracy. There are no idealized stories here filled with fun facts on peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Although it doesn't have the academic sense of Peter Guralnick's twin biographies that set the Elvis gold standard, Connolly does an outstanding job of describing the Elvis character believably and thoughtfully. I love the small details that make a unique person even more unique, and Elvis a fascinating contradiction. The story makes Elvis seem considerably more accessible and human. I laughed and cried, cheered, and groaned. This made me and other readers appreciate Elvis more. Some fans write they miss Elvis AGAIN, which they never expected would happen after so many years. The way Connolly writes, evokes imagination and the loneliness of the main character, the emotional disaster, it all becomes believable and reminds me that it is not only lonely at the top, but people at the bottom are also just as lonesome or even lonelier. Rich and poor, smart and dumb, elite, or homeless we all have so much to be sorry for. Elvis’s suffering is not unique, it is
a universal theme and a heartbreaking tragic story
– and how lucky we are –
he left us such an astonishing artistic musical legacy!
Kenneth Womack recently said about the focus on private lives and behaviors of celebrity artists:
‘Everybody has things they're embarrassed about or regret, at a certain point nobody stands up to scrutiny.’
Let’s try to forgive, you don’t need to forget. The focus on the bad and the ugly in the privacy of public figures, and how they deal with fame, or worse, the interaction with bad-ass folks around them, helps to create understanding on a human level. Empathy and even compassion with the private person behind the image might happen. If a story is well written like Connolly’s ‘Being Elvis’, it touches, it moves, it makes you happy, and sad, and angry and there is even a sense of connection.
Discussion
This review essay started as a discussion in the Hawelka-Circle, when we discussed the meaning of the online reviews for ‘Being Elvis: A Lonely Life’ written by Ray Connolly. We noticed similarities with how the novels of Ray Connolly resonate with the readers. Connolly’s writing evokes emotions, feelings of connection and in this case, readers feel they are ‘missing Elvis again’. The online reviews incorporated in this article contain many autonomous responses, as any collective rants or worshipping was avoided.
Philosopher Matthew Pye observes:
“Elvis is a really weird mix. Seemingly without strain, he has an almost psychopathic urge to self-annihilation, and at the same time, he has this uncomplicated, natural ability to sing a song with beauty and power. So, whenever you listen to Elvis you can flick between tuning into either side of him.
Connolly makes it all available. He probes but he does not judge like a disappointed parent or fan. He puts all those typical Elvis things out on a plate, the sweet with the bitter, the plain with the exotic. So, you can enjoy Elvis as he was, and connect with him. It doesn’t really matter whether Elvis was bad or good, evil or an angel, the point is that you just have access to Elvis; Elvis Aaron and ELVIS.
What Connolly does in the book is that he makes Elvis accessible and approachable. Connolly has the gift of being able to connect us with people – people like Elvis or Lennon – in a way that is realistic.”
Connolly’s perspective on Elvis is an interesting deviation of many popular pathological life-stories of rock stars. These are known as ‘recovery disability auto/biography studies’, which Lovesey defines as:
“A celebrity career trajectory of conspicuous excess leading to illness, rehab, and often relapse and then dramatic recovery. A story-arch that both valorizes artistic integrity and distracts from the muse. It has become part of the celebrity-cycle.”
These meditations on the pathologies of fame sell like hell, and Keith Richard (‘Life’) and Elton John (‘Me: Elton John’) are their royal survivors. Elvis belongs to what Kurt Cobain’s mother called the “stupid club”. Besides Elvis, other members of the ‘stupid club’ are people like Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Tim Buckley, Brian Jones and Keith Moon. This is a group of rock stars, whose deaths were well-respected career moves, as murder and death form a marketable category of fame.
Most music stars live dangerous lives, as in showbiz almost everyone is surrounded by ‘fabricated people’. In this environment, it is easy to be infected with the incapacity to separate your private self from that which is projected on you by the media, the public, as well as family, friends and foes. Marianne Faithfull recognized this, as she writes that many “celebrities become burlesques of themselves in the end”. Whether that happened with Elvis, Connolly does not show.
Elvis’s life story leaves no other option to Connolly than to end with the down-kill side of it. Elvis has no recovery from addiction or disability to show for himself, like Keith Richard, Elton John, and Marianne Faithfull have. What Connolly does well is evoking compassion and understanding for Elvis, in that we are able to digest both ‘mad sides’ of Elvis. One, being the singer and rocker with a great feel and voice, and, the other, that violent addicted lonely man.
“Covid-19 has caused a complete disconnect in a lot of lives, we hanker for genuinely felt connections and touch. This makes Connolly’s literary qualities sharply relevant.
This is especially true because Covid-19 has hit a time of social media in which the lines between what is real and what is virtual are more blurred than ever. Many of those we are closest to we can only touch through electronic media. In these strange days, we are both oddly intimate and remote from those we love. Which is how it always was for the Elvis fan.
Whilst in this corona-crisis we are seeking a connection, our confined and claustrophobic lives have shrunk the world to a few rooms and we can feel surrounded by our mundane problems and long to escape.
This is exactly the paradox of Elvis. He lived in a twilight zone of the intimate and the remote; the local homey guy from Tupelo, Mississippi, and the mega-star, the superhero. The vulnerable young boy and the maniac rock hero. Thanks to Connolly who makes Elvis approachable, we can connect with both.”
From the online reviews, we learn that when fans read ‘Being Elvis’ they seem to remember the kind of a friend Elvis was for them, and they miss the twentieth century Elvis – the boy, the rocker, the soldier, movie-star and the Las Vegas performer. They miss him as a friend they lost – that feeling of missing wears down, but reading this book causes them to really feel that loss again.
This is a powerful response to a book and a big accolade for Ray Connolly. With Guralnick’s double biography I learned a lot about Elvis; with Connolly’s ‘Being Elvis: A Lonely Life’ I get a sense I understand the Elvis Aaron, feel compassionate and maybe dream of….
Ray Connolly proves with ‘Being Elvis’ he thinks and writes critically, constructively, and with empathy about the past and Elvis Presley. Ray Connolly has experienced Elvis as a young boy being a fan, he is of the same age as John Lennon was. Then Connolly observed Elvis as a journalist, and subsequently outlive Elvis. Connolly is willing and able to offer various points of view and he cites most of the credible evidence required. And you know what, sometimes it is shocking what we read, but Connolly does not make any outlandish claims and he offers a constructive dialogue.
I agree.
This review incorporates the views of other reviewers to show how complete and good reviews on goodreads are. This was also published as 'A Celebration of Ray Connolly's work (1)' at https://thebeatleshistoryreview.blogs...
In the media celebrities put on a face as good looking, happy and untouchable people, living fantastic, exciting and exotic lives. Being around tv-studios I have seen and experienced the difference between being convincing and loved with make-up and a nice hairdo, and coming across ugly and utterly forgettable on television without makeup and a decent haircut. Ask Dolly Parton, she knows image matters. Myth has it that Elvis once said:
“The image is one thing and the human being is another.
It's very hard to live up to an image.”
Rock and pop stars knew about the problem of celebrity, it does not mean most of them handled it very well. Most of these guys were caught in conservative models of masculine aggressiveness, homophobia, racism, looking back there also was a lot of misogyny and sexism, not just in presenting their instruments as phallic symbols.[4] In the late sixties, Randy Newman composed a song about celebrity life for Frank Sinatra. The text is actually quite modest:
I've been around the world
Had my pick of any girl
You'd think I'd be happy
But I'm not
Ev'rybody knows my name
But it's just a crazy game
Oh, it's lonely at the top
Listen to the band, they're playing just for me
Listen to the people paying just for me
All the applause-all the parades
And all the money I have made
Oh, it's lonely at the top
Listen all you fools out there
Go on and love me-I don't care
Oh, it's lonely at the top
‘Being Elvis’[5] focuses on what it was to be ELVIS and how Elvis Aaron Presley handled it from 1955 to 1977. A struggle between the man and his image. Connolly’s book is in equal parts reverent and critical, happy-sad, awe-inspiring, and a tragic look at the life of this twentieth-century mega pop star. In the book the King's transformation from a wide-eyed innocent hillbilly, to cultural phenomenon, to lonely middle-aged addict is carefully constructed and seamless.
Elvis is the man-child, possessed of amazing talent, who allows himself to be mismanaged and is ultimately done in by drug abuse. His drug habit began way back in the 1950s, pre-army when he and his band-mates would pop No-Doz when driving between gigs. He came by the uppers and amphetamines honestly. His mother popped the ‘diet pills’.
At least during his last few years, Elvis was one crazy dude. Asking a buddy to have Priscilla's new boyfriend ‘rubbed out’ (nothing happened). Shooting a toilet. Shooting a TV, because he didn't want to see Robert Goulet. Drug withdrawal? Overindulged bad temper? Southern gun-love taken a little too far? Exotic and exciting, yeah, maybe, it seems scary though. His family and friends, who should have helped him, enabled the massive self-indulgence that eventually led to his tragic end. It seemed that no matter how huge the fame, the adulation, the money, the people that constantly surrounded him, Elvis was still alone, that little boy from Tupelo, Mississippi.
Connolly grills Elvis on his hypocritical ways but seems a bit lenient on his womanizing personality. He does not tell the bright, shiny, happy story that Graceland portrays. If you do not intend to visit Graceland, this is required reading! If you are not visiting Graceland then this is a desirable alternative. The prospective reader should be aware ‘Being Elvis’ is not about the art, not about the music, not about Elvis’s wonderful, powerful and mesmerizing voice. As a reminder just listen to almost any music of the late sixties and early seventies or even better check out the nine tracks on ‘American Sound 1969’ revealing all 20 takes for ‘In The Ghetto’. What a voice.
I am with Kenneth Womack, in that we both prefer the stories biographers and other historians dig up should be aggregated and brought together “in such a way where the music is central to the tale”. In the case of Elvis, Janis Joplin, Elton John, Amy Whitehouse, Paul McCartney, or John Lennon, if we focus on the aesthetics of their creations we can learn what is amazing about these persons. Knowing about the private lives of the artist may open up windows for better understanding her or his art, but mostly the biographical, sordid and contemptible behaviors are a distraction from the aesthetic efforts.
Connolly ignores the music and never pins down Elvis' unwavering appeal, not even Elvis himself could figure that. The mystery of how Elvis created rock’n’roll, remains. Connolly focusses on Elvis Aaron the man, and how he dealt with his public life and musical talents.
Elvis’ coming into being is a sad tale of rather poor choices and a greedy manager. The financial dealings of innocent, uneducated Elvis and Vernon and the super wheeler-dealer Colonel Tom Parker make an awful painful reading. The story is a tragic one, and given that the book generally spins the tale to highlight his loneliness, it does have a very dark side. For some fans, this is almost impossible to appreciate. They suggest that although the story told is undoubtedly sad, the same story would read much differently if the author had chosen to highlight his success rather than his downfall. Connolly puts the spotlight on this dark side with sympathy. Connolly’s toned-down but dramatic, captivating, and supremely researched biography is written with a great deal of compassion in terms of the rush to fame at a relatively young age, and then what do you do with the rest of your life?
If, at the end of the book, you don't respect Elvis, or you're mad at him, due to his dependence on drugs and his God-like devotion to his self-serving manager ‘Colonel’ Tom Parker, don't blame Connolly. The author does an admirable job of getting out of the way. You can feel Elvis self-destructing page by page, pill by pill, tour by tour, and young woman after another. Freud would have a blast with the King's mother issues, but Connolly leaves that all up to the reader. The writer did not try to hide anything bad, and still one just loves Elvis.
‘Being Elvis’ reads like a gripping novel, with characters clearly laid out and it touches the heart. Fan-reviewers report they couldn't put down the book. That makes sense, this biography is beautifully written and it reads like a (very good) novel. Due to the fact that the life of Elvis is beyond understanding in many ways, it is hard to imagine that this is a biography and not fiction, enough striking details, insightful and concise. A piece of literary craftsmanship that touches many hearts, and beyond that it offers a good biographical historical analysis.
A thoroughly researched, detailed, well written,
and compelling biography of Elvis!
Connolly treats his topic ‘Elvis’ with respect, sincerity, and historical accuracy. There are no idealized stories here filled with fun facts on peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Although it doesn't have the academic sense of Peter Guralnick's twin biographies that set the Elvis gold standard, Connolly does an outstanding job of describing the Elvis character believably and thoughtfully. I love the small details that make a unique person even more unique, and Elvis a fascinating contradiction. The story makes Elvis seem considerably more accessible and human. I laughed and cried, cheered, and groaned. This made me and other readers appreciate Elvis more. Some fans write they miss Elvis AGAIN, which they never expected would happen after so many years. The way Connolly writes, evokes imagination and the loneliness of the main character, the emotional disaster, it all becomes believable and reminds me that it is not only lonely at the top, but people at the bottom are also just as lonesome or even lonelier. Rich and poor, smart and dumb, elite, or homeless we all have so much to be sorry for. Elvis’s suffering is not unique, it is
a universal theme and a heartbreaking tragic story
– and how lucky we are –
he left us such an astonishing artistic musical legacy!
Kenneth Womack recently said about the focus on private lives and behaviors of celebrity artists:
‘Everybody has things they're embarrassed about or regret, at a certain point nobody stands up to scrutiny.’
Let’s try to forgive, you don’t need to forget. The focus on the bad and the ugly in the privacy of public figures, and how they deal with fame, or worse, the interaction with bad-ass folks around them, helps to create understanding on a human level. Empathy and even compassion with the private person behind the image might happen. If a story is well written like Connolly’s ‘Being Elvis’, it touches, it moves, it makes you happy, and sad, and angry and there is even a sense of connection.
Discussion
This review essay started as a discussion in the Hawelka-Circle, when we discussed the meaning of the online reviews for ‘Being Elvis: A Lonely Life’ written by Ray Connolly. We noticed similarities with how the novels of Ray Connolly resonate with the readers. Connolly’s writing evokes emotions, feelings of connection and in this case, readers feel they are ‘missing Elvis again’. The online reviews incorporated in this article contain many autonomous responses, as any collective rants or worshipping was avoided.
Philosopher Matthew Pye observes:
“Elvis is a really weird mix. Seemingly without strain, he has an almost psychopathic urge to self-annihilation, and at the same time, he has this uncomplicated, natural ability to sing a song with beauty and power. So, whenever you listen to Elvis you can flick between tuning into either side of him.
Connolly makes it all available. He probes but he does not judge like a disappointed parent or fan. He puts all those typical Elvis things out on a plate, the sweet with the bitter, the plain with the exotic. So, you can enjoy Elvis as he was, and connect with him. It doesn’t really matter whether Elvis was bad or good, evil or an angel, the point is that you just have access to Elvis; Elvis Aaron and ELVIS.
What Connolly does in the book is that he makes Elvis accessible and approachable. Connolly has the gift of being able to connect us with people – people like Elvis or Lennon – in a way that is realistic.”
Connolly’s perspective on Elvis is an interesting deviation of many popular pathological life-stories of rock stars. These are known as ‘recovery disability auto/biography studies’, which Lovesey defines as:
“A celebrity career trajectory of conspicuous excess leading to illness, rehab, and often relapse and then dramatic recovery. A story-arch that both valorizes artistic integrity and distracts from the muse. It has become part of the celebrity-cycle.”
These meditations on the pathologies of fame sell like hell, and Keith Richard (‘Life’) and Elton John (‘Me: Elton John’) are their royal survivors. Elvis belongs to what Kurt Cobain’s mother called the “stupid club”. Besides Elvis, other members of the ‘stupid club’ are people like Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Tim Buckley, Brian Jones and Keith Moon. This is a group of rock stars, whose deaths were well-respected career moves, as murder and death form a marketable category of fame.
Most music stars live dangerous lives, as in showbiz almost everyone is surrounded by ‘fabricated people’. In this environment, it is easy to be infected with the incapacity to separate your private self from that which is projected on you by the media, the public, as well as family, friends and foes. Marianne Faithfull recognized this, as she writes that many “celebrities become burlesques of themselves in the end”. Whether that happened with Elvis, Connolly does not show.
Elvis’s life story leaves no other option to Connolly than to end with the down-kill side of it. Elvis has no recovery from addiction or disability to show for himself, like Keith Richard, Elton John, and Marianne Faithfull have. What Connolly does well is evoking compassion and understanding for Elvis, in that we are able to digest both ‘mad sides’ of Elvis. One, being the singer and rocker with a great feel and voice, and, the other, that violent addicted lonely man.
“Covid-19 has caused a complete disconnect in a lot of lives, we hanker for genuinely felt connections and touch. This makes Connolly’s literary qualities sharply relevant.
This is especially true because Covid-19 has hit a time of social media in which the lines between what is real and what is virtual are more blurred than ever. Many of those we are closest to we can only touch through electronic media. In these strange days, we are both oddly intimate and remote from those we love. Which is how it always was for the Elvis fan.
Whilst in this corona-crisis we are seeking a connection, our confined and claustrophobic lives have shrunk the world to a few rooms and we can feel surrounded by our mundane problems and long to escape.
This is exactly the paradox of Elvis. He lived in a twilight zone of the intimate and the remote; the local homey guy from Tupelo, Mississippi, and the mega-star, the superhero. The vulnerable young boy and the maniac rock hero. Thanks to Connolly who makes Elvis approachable, we can connect with both.”
From the online reviews, we learn that when fans read ‘Being Elvis’ they seem to remember the kind of a friend Elvis was for them, and they miss the twentieth century Elvis – the boy, the rocker, the soldier, movie-star and the Las Vegas performer. They miss him as a friend they lost – that feeling of missing wears down, but reading this book causes them to really feel that loss again.
This is a powerful response to a book and a big accolade for Ray Connolly. With Guralnick’s double biography I learned a lot about Elvis; with Connolly’s ‘Being Elvis: A Lonely Life’ I get a sense I understand the Elvis Aaron, feel compassionate and maybe dream of….
Ray Connolly proves with ‘Being Elvis’ he thinks and writes critically, constructively, and with empathy about the past and Elvis Presley. Ray Connolly has experienced Elvis as a young boy being a fan, he is of the same age as John Lennon was. Then Connolly observed Elvis as a journalist, and subsequently outlive Elvis. Connolly is willing and able to offer various points of view and he cites most of the credible evidence required. And you know what, sometimes it is shocking what we read, but Connolly does not make any outlandish claims and he offers a constructive dialogue.
January 7, 2017
Okay, wow... This book is amazing! Having grown up listening to Elvis I will always be a huge fan of his, and this is a must read for anyone that's also an Elvis fan!
August 1, 2017
I knew almost nothing about Elvis prior to starting this book, but I have always wanted to visit Graceland. I'm not necessarily sure why.. I think I just assumed he lived as extravagantly as he dressed (he is the King after all!) and there is nothing I enjoy more than learning about how people live (and snooping around rich people's homes). When I FINALLY convinced my husband to take me to Memphis, I picked up this book to try and get as much background as I could. It was the right call. I see multiple complaints that this book is a repeat of information, but having zero knowledge about Elvis, I was enthralled. I really struggle to think of someone with a more fascinating life than Elvis. Unfortunately, his life was also heartbreakingly tragic. There is no way to really know if anyone really tried to help him get control of his own life, but it seems his entire entourage just eventually turned the other cheek. The author does grill Elvis on his hypocritical ways, but then seems a bit lenient on his womanizing personality... however, it definitely isn't the bright, shiny, happy story that Graceland portrays. I am so glad I read this before our trip. I couldn't recommend Graceland enough. His home is beautiful and intriguing (no, you do not get to see his bedroom or the infamous bathroom), but the dozens and dozens of exhibits there provide almost no meat to his story. If you are planning a trip, this is required reading! Even if you aren't, this book reads almost like a gripping novel. I couldn't put it down!
April 17, 2017
I think I've read every book about Elvis Presley. But this one brings new insight into the life he lived. I became newly incensed of scam artist Tom Parker. He should have gone to jail for the life he lived, although because of his manipulation of Elvis and the people around him he probably covered himself on paper. There are a lot of talented singers in the world, but none that can come close to Elvis. I have always been so saddened by all the wrong turns and poor choices he made. The world lost so much because of them. This book rang true from the first to the last word.
April 10, 2017
Given Elvis's fame and the volume of words already written about him, it is difficult to find a biography that provides new information and insight. That is true of this book. A well written and well researched book, it essentially replays the Elvis story. The author is guilty of foreshadowing which doesn't add much value to the story. Everyone knows the Colonel abused Elvis and that Elvis abused drugs but in 1956 did people know this was going to happen? Probably not.
Even with these caveats and Elvis story so well known, one comes away feeling sad. Elvis is the man-child, possessed of amazing talent, who allows himself to be mismanaged and ultimately done in by drug abuse. A tragically universal theme.
Even with these caveats and Elvis story so well known, one comes away feeling sad. Elvis is the man-child, possessed of amazing talent, who allows himself to be mismanaged and ultimately done in by drug abuse. A tragically universal theme.
May 6, 2017
This is one of the best Elvis books I've ever read (and I've read nearly all). Connolly does an outstanding job of creating the Elvis character believably and thoughtfully. The King's transformation from wide-eyed innocent hillbilly, to cultural phenomenon, to lonely middle-aged addict is carefully constructed and seamless. Although it doesn't have the academic sense of Peter Guralnick's twin biographies that set the Elvis gold standard, it's an easier read that makes Elvis seem considerably more accessible and human. I laughed and cried, cheered and groaned. This made me appreciate and miss Elvis even more, which I didn't think was possible.
April 2, 2017
I am not an Elvis fan, but I do love biographies. The author puts Elvis into the time and place of his life, showing how the society was changing around. Although Connolly never pins down Elvis' unwavering appeal (not even Elvis himself could figure that out), the book moves beyond the well-known sad story of Elvis' decline and death. I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who just loves a good story.
March 3, 2018
Connolly provides a realistic portrait of Elvis-mania and the effect it had on the man behind it all. We tend to think of celebrities as these untouchable people living fantastic, exciting lives, and this book focused throughout on the effects of fame and how lonely it is at the top. A thoroughly depressing book as you follow Elvis' self-destruction and fear of losing it all along his climb to the top, but an intriguing read!
March 28, 2018
Well written and interesting bio of Elvis. So much potential for a meaningful career sabotaged by his greedy manager, Tom Parker. His family and friends who should have helped him only enabled the massive self-indulgence that eventually led to his tragic end. But he was a unique talent and there will never be another Elvis.
December 12, 2018
Really good book with some great insights into Elvis and his life and music.
December 27, 2018
I considered myself an Elvis fan before picking up this book. Now I feel that Johnny Bravo was a bit more accurate than I imagined. I'm still an Elvis fan...but it's different now.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 26, 2017
Als je het boek oppakt zie je meteen over wie het gaat en zie je in zijn ogen iets van een eenzaamheid in de nog jonge Elvis. Ook de foto op de achterkant is ook heel erg mooi. Je ziet dat hij zin in het optreden heeft.
Zoals beschreven in de beschrijving, leest het boek inderdaad als een roman, met als enig verschil dat je de afloop al weet.
Het boek is op een vlotte, aangrijpende manier geschreven. Het verhaal is goed opgebouwd, het is op een chronologische manier geschreven waardoor je niet hoeft te bedenken over welke tijd het dan weer gaat. Elk hoofdstuk heeft een titel die alles zegt over het hoofdstuk.
Je kan merken dat de auteur veel werk aan het boek heeft besteed, dat hij veel heeft opgezocht, de roddels niet heeft meegenomen, waardoor je weet dat het allemaal waargebeurd is. Soms kan je je twijfels hebben zoals bij een verhaal van Elvis en een president, omdat het bijna te ongeloofwaardig klinkt om waar te zijn, maar de foto die daarbij hoort, bewijst dat het wel echt waar moet zijn. Meer zeg ik niet, dat mag je zelf gaan lezen.
Het is fijn dat de auteur niet alleen de mooie kanten van Elvis heeft benoemd, maar ook de mindere, ook al zal niet iedereen dat even leuk vinden. Dat hij Elvis heeft beschreven zoals hij was en hoe zijn leven was. Hoe Elvis dacht over de dingen die hij deed en hoe hij voor anderen was.
Na het lezen van het boek kan je je alleen maar afvragen of Elvis met een andere manager misschien beter af was geweest, of hij dan nog langer, misschien nu nog wel, geleefd zou hebben. Of hij dan wel zijn echte dromen waar gemaakt zou kunnen hebben. Voor de duidelijkheid, ik schuif Parker niet het overlijden van Elvis in de schoenen, hooguit dat hij beter had moeten luisteren naar Elvis en zijn vader en hem meer rust had moeten gunnen.
Wat het boek compleet maakt, naast de foto's, is dat je achteraan in het boek kan lezen hoe het bepaalde mensen die belangrijk waren voor Elvis, is vergaan.
Minpuntje is dat de noten achterin staan in plaats van onderaan de behorende bladzijde.
Kortom, dit is een boek die elke Elvis-fan gelezen zou moeten hebben.
Lees verder op https://surfingann.blogspot.nl/2017/0....
Zoals beschreven in de beschrijving, leest het boek inderdaad als een roman, met als enig verschil dat je de afloop al weet.
Het boek is op een vlotte, aangrijpende manier geschreven. Het verhaal is goed opgebouwd, het is op een chronologische manier geschreven waardoor je niet hoeft te bedenken over welke tijd het dan weer gaat. Elk hoofdstuk heeft een titel die alles zegt over het hoofdstuk.
Je kan merken dat de auteur veel werk aan het boek heeft besteed, dat hij veel heeft opgezocht, de roddels niet heeft meegenomen, waardoor je weet dat het allemaal waargebeurd is. Soms kan je je twijfels hebben zoals bij een verhaal van Elvis en een president, omdat het bijna te ongeloofwaardig klinkt om waar te zijn, maar de foto die daarbij hoort, bewijst dat het wel echt waar moet zijn. Meer zeg ik niet, dat mag je zelf gaan lezen.
Het is fijn dat de auteur niet alleen de mooie kanten van Elvis heeft benoemd, maar ook de mindere, ook al zal niet iedereen dat even leuk vinden. Dat hij Elvis heeft beschreven zoals hij was en hoe zijn leven was. Hoe Elvis dacht over de dingen die hij deed en hoe hij voor anderen was.
Na het lezen van het boek kan je je alleen maar afvragen of Elvis met een andere manager misschien beter af was geweest, of hij dan nog langer, misschien nu nog wel, geleefd zou hebben. Of hij dan wel zijn echte dromen waar gemaakt zou kunnen hebben. Voor de duidelijkheid, ik schuif Parker niet het overlijden van Elvis in de schoenen, hooguit dat hij beter had moeten luisteren naar Elvis en zijn vader en hem meer rust had moeten gunnen.
Wat het boek compleet maakt, naast de foto's, is dat je achteraan in het boek kan lezen hoe het bepaalde mensen die belangrijk waren voor Elvis, is vergaan.
Minpuntje is dat de noten achterin staan in plaats van onderaan de behorende bladzijde.
Kortom, dit is een boek die elke Elvis-fan gelezen zou moeten hebben.
Lees verder op https://surfingann.blogspot.nl/2017/0....
May 9, 2023
4.5 stars - Audiobook
Really really enjoyed listening to this on Audible; it bought the story of Elvis to life more, and the 13.5 hours of this flew by. This is obviously a key book in the most recent Austin Butler biopic - I know it's a true story, but this had the exact same themes and areas focused on.
This book, I felt, gave an honest narrative of Elvis' life, to my knowledge. I love the retellings of how Elvis rose to fame and his early relationships between his family and friends, but like the stories of the second half of his life a little less. The most important relationship to this book was that between Elvis and The Colonel... and rightly so, this book does a brilliant job of showing you how much of a greedy little knob-goblin The Colonel was.
I really liked the "What happened?.." chapter a the very end when it tells you what has happened to everyone in the book after Elvis' death; Lisa-Marie, Priscilla, The Colonel etc...
All in all, I enjoyed listening to this book. A half-star was deducted for the terrible Scouse accent the narrator tried to do when he was quoting The Beatles!
Really really enjoyed listening to this on Audible; it bought the story of Elvis to life more, and the 13.5 hours of this flew by. This is obviously a key book in the most recent Austin Butler biopic - I know it's a true story, but this had the exact same themes and areas focused on.
This book, I felt, gave an honest narrative of Elvis' life, to my knowledge. I love the retellings of how Elvis rose to fame and his early relationships between his family and friends, but like the stories of the second half of his life a little less. The most important relationship to this book was that between Elvis and The Colonel... and rightly so, this book does a brilliant job of showing you how much of a greedy little knob-goblin The Colonel was.
I really liked the "What happened?.." chapter a the very end when it tells you what has happened to everyone in the book after Elvis' death; Lisa-Marie, Priscilla, The Colonel etc...
All in all, I enjoyed listening to this book. A half-star was deducted for the terrible Scouse accent the narrator tried to do when he was quoting The Beatles!
April 24, 2017
A nicely paced account of the life of an American icon. If, at the end, you don't respect Elvis, or you're mad at him, due to his dependence on drugs and his God-like devotion to his self-serving manager "Colonel" Tom Parker, don't blame Connolly. The author does an admirable job of getting out of the way. You can feel Elvis self-destructing page by page, pill by pill, tour by tour, and young woman after another. Freud would have a blast with the King's mother issues, but Connolly leaves that all up to the reader. It's lonely at the top, and who wants to be lonely?
May 11, 2017
This book is essentially a re-hash of already published books put together in such a way as to highlight just how lonely Elvis was (which I think most people already know). it was a good causual holiday read for me as I always enjoy re-visiting Elvis' life. My OCD did pick up on two spelling mistakes but that's me being picky. I wouldn't go out of my way as an Elvis fan to buy this book.
September 28, 2018
It was a very interesting read.
September 28, 2022
For someone who’s been a huge Elvis fan for all of her life, this book really didn’t have anything too new for me to discover.
However it was very engaging in the way that it was written – the pace was great and it kept me interested the entire time. I also felt that the way the story was told allowed the reader to get a more detailed look at some of the intimate details of Elvis‘s life. It also gives a really brutal, and not always flattering look at many of Elvis‘s struggles in life, addictions, and not so favorable traits.
If you’re a brand new Elvis fan, this is a great place to start. The book literally reads like a good friend telling you the story of Elvis‘s life. However if you’re a old Elvis fan like me, this book is engaging but nothing really new to discover.
However it was very engaging in the way that it was written – the pace was great and it kept me interested the entire time. I also felt that the way the story was told allowed the reader to get a more detailed look at some of the intimate details of Elvis‘s life. It also gives a really brutal, and not always flattering look at many of Elvis‘s struggles in life, addictions, and not so favorable traits.
If you’re a brand new Elvis fan, this is a great place to start. The book literally reads like a good friend telling you the story of Elvis‘s life. However if you’re a old Elvis fan like me, this book is engaging but nothing really new to discover.
February 27, 2022
Aku bukan lah peminat Elvis. Tetapi sifat ingin tahu kenapa dia artis paling popular itu membuatkan aku ingin membaca mengenai nya.
Dia dilahirkan di dalam keadaan yang miskin. Tahukah anda bahawa Elvis mempunyaikan kembar. Tetapi kembarnya tidak bernasib baik sepertinya. Oleh sebab itu, ibunya memberikan sepenuh kasih sayang dan perhatian kepada nya. Elvis ini anak mak nya.
Aku begitu teruja dengan perkembangan awal dia di dalam bidang nyanyian. Dia belajar menyanyi dengan mendengar dan cuba untuk menyanyi. Begitu cara nya untuk berjaya di bidang itu.
Tetapi hidupnya terlalu sunyi di sebabkan dengan ramai peminat, pengurusan yang bagi aku seperti setan. Betul kata ibu nya.. aku bersetuju dan penyalahguna dadah membuatkan dia terus hanyut. Sekali kau dapat.. memang susah nak keluar lah.
Dengan buku ini, aku tak mahu hidup seperti Elvis. Terlalu bergantung kepada para wanita untuk tidur bersama. Tidak boleh keluar dari USA kerana pengurusnya itu. Aku sedih dengan kehidupan nya. Kosong betul. Perjalanan hidup hanya di rumah nya. Graceland. Itu juga rumah yang kedua selain White House yang paling di lawati oleh manusia.
Apa pun terima kasih Ray Connolly untuk pengajaran hidup, nila-nila murni dan Evis Presley.
Dia dilahirkan di dalam keadaan yang miskin. Tahukah anda bahawa Elvis mempunyaikan kembar. Tetapi kembarnya tidak bernasib baik sepertinya. Oleh sebab itu, ibunya memberikan sepenuh kasih sayang dan perhatian kepada nya. Elvis ini anak mak nya.
Aku begitu teruja dengan perkembangan awal dia di dalam bidang nyanyian. Dia belajar menyanyi dengan mendengar dan cuba untuk menyanyi. Begitu cara nya untuk berjaya di bidang itu.
Tetapi hidupnya terlalu sunyi di sebabkan dengan ramai peminat, pengurusan yang bagi aku seperti setan. Betul kata ibu nya.. aku bersetuju dan penyalahguna dadah membuatkan dia terus hanyut. Sekali kau dapat.. memang susah nak keluar lah.
Dengan buku ini, aku tak mahu hidup seperti Elvis. Terlalu bergantung kepada para wanita untuk tidur bersama. Tidak boleh keluar dari USA kerana pengurusnya itu. Aku sedih dengan kehidupan nya. Kosong betul. Perjalanan hidup hanya di rumah nya. Graceland. Itu juga rumah yang kedua selain White House yang paling di lawati oleh manusia.
Apa pun terima kasih Ray Connolly untuk pengajaran hidup, nila-nila murni dan Evis Presley.
February 1, 2023
Simply put, Elvis Presley was one of the most significant figures in the history of 20th century music. Elvis has become such an icon that it’s hard to separate his work from the celebrity surrounding him. British writer and journalist Ray Connolly examined Presley’s life in the excellent 2016 biography Being Elvis: A Lonely Life. Connolly’s book doesn’t attempt to be the definitive Elvis biography; rather, it presents us with an examination of Elvis’s personality in a relatively brief 320 pages.
Connolly has clearly done his homework—to write such a tight biography of Presley means that he has a thorough command of his sources and the narrative that he crafts. Like Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 film Elvis, Connolly places much of the blame for Elvis’s decline on his manager, Colonel Tom Parker. Unlike Luhrmann, Connolly fully dissects Elvis Presley’s personality, in an attempt to try to illuminate Elvis’s actions. Elvis is a tricky subject for a biographer—on the one hand, there’s too much information to wade through, as seemingly everyone who ever met Elvis has written a book. Serving Royalty: How I Made a Cheeseburger for Elvis at McDonald’s, by Mark Taylor. (That book doesn’t actually exist.) And yet at the same time, Elvis gave very few interviews after 1960, so there isn’t a ton of material where Elvis describes his own thoughts and feelings.
For someone at his level of fame, Elvis Presley was at times curiously passive about his own career. That’s a bit of an overstatement, as he was often tenacious in the recording studio to achieve the sound he wanted on a record. But if you think of people at Elvis’s level of fame, say, Frank Sinatra or Barbra Streisand, the picture that emerges is of powerful people who might border on control freaks. That wasn’t Elvis Presley. For all his dissatisfaction with the movies he made, Elvis did little to take control of his Hollywood career. I also think that Elvis was often hindered by his enormous fame—it was a burden sometimes. Elvis was so famous, on such a different level than just about anyone else, that he couldn’t blend into a movie: his movies aren’t just movies that Elvis happens to be in, they are ELVIS MOVIES.
I’d argue that Elvis did make some good movies, like Jailhouse Rock and King Creole, but when you compare his movie career to Bobby Darin’s, you see a stark difference. Bobby Darin was a very successful entertainer, but he wasn’t burdened by the same level of fame that Elvis was. When Darin broke into movies, he didn’t have to just play Bobby Darin in every movie he made. Darin’s first movie role was in 1961’s Come September, where he starred alongside Rock Hudson, Gina Lollobrigida, and Sandra Dee. Darin didn’t have to carry the whole movie himself, as Elvis so often had to. Darin also made several movies where he didn’t sing, something Elvis always wanted to do. Darin’s other films include Too Late Blues, directed by John Cassavetes, State Fair with Pat Boone and Ann-Margret, Hell is for Heroes, with Steve McQueen, Pressure Point, with Sidney Poitier, and a supporting role in Captain Newman, M.D., with Gregory Peck, Tony Curtis, and Angie Dickinson. Because Colonel Parker was risk-adverse in the extreme, there was no way that Elvis was going to be in a John Cassavetes movie, or appear with stars like Steve McQueen and Gregory Peck, who might overshadow Elvis.
Reading Being Elvis reminded me of what an instant phenomenon Elvis Presley was. The recording session on July 5, 1954 that produced Elvis’s first record, “That’s All Right,” was the first time that Presley had ever sung or played with other musicians. (p.32) Not bad for a debut. By July 5, 1956, Elvis Presley was the hottest thing in show business.
Connolly unearths tantalizing nuggets, like the Colonel’s negotiations with RCA for a proposed 43-city tour in 1963. RCA balked when Parker demanded a guaranteed advance of $1 million, and so the deal came to nothing. Since his release from the Army in 1960, Elvis had only performed 3 live concerts in 1961—he hadn’t toured since 1957, and I’m sure the demand for tickets would have been huge. Another opportunity lost.
While the 1960’s had been a decade of making movies and not touring, the 1970’s were the opposite, as Elvis appeared in Las Vegas and toured extensively throughout the United States. Connolly hits the reader with the astonishing fact that, besides Elvis’s 2-year stint in the US Army, the longest break of his career was a four-month hiatus in 1975. (p.280) At that point, Elvis was in obvious need of a rest, for his health and to regain his enthusiasm for his career.
Being Elvis, the 2018 documentary Elvis Presley: The Searcher, and Luhrmann’s 2022 movie all make the point that singing in Las Vegas was not good for Elvis’s voice. I’d be interested to hear someone explain more about this. Is singing in Las Vegas generally detrimental to singer’s voices? If so, how did Vegas staples like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin thrive for decades in the desert? Or was there something specific about Elvis’s voice that the dry desert air damaged?
1973 was a key year in Elvis’s career. The year began on a high note, with a huge global audience viewing Presley’s satellite TV special Aloha from Hawaii. It was a huge milestone for Elvis. But by the time Elvis opened his August shows at the Las Vegas Hilton, a Hollywood Reporter critic wrote “It is tragic, disheartening and absolutely depressing to see Elvis in such diminishing stature.” (p.269) 1973 was also when Elvis should have finally broken free from Colonel Parker’s unimaginative management of his career. Elvis fired the Colonel but made no move to contact anyone to replace Parker. Parker correctly gambled that Elvis would eventually come back, and so he did. Instead of touring the world, as he should have done, Elvis performed 180 concerts in 1973, all within the USA.
Elvis needed a break, but his finances were in such poor shape that he would have had to plan ahead, and curb some of his famously generous spending, in order to take some time off. Elvis also needed someone other than his father, Vernon, handling his money. Vernon was honest, often criticized Elvis’s lavish spending, and he did the best job he could, but he was not financially sophisticated. It’s rather shocking that one of the most famous entertainers in the world handed his finances off to his father, who hadn’t even graduated from high school. That might have worked fine in 1955, when Elvis was basically just making money from touring, but by 1975, his finances needed outside help.
Being Elvis is a sympathetic portrait of a gifted artist who was adored by millions of people around the world, and yet his life was a lonely one indeed. The Elvis I like to think of is the one who lives forever inside the music he left us. I love hearing Elvis get lost in a song, the way he did when he was jamming on songs. Listen to the joy in his voice as he tears into songs like “Reconsider Baby,” “Hi-Heel Sneakers,” “Stranger in My Own Home Town,” “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” and “Merry Christmas Baby.” That’s Elvis the way I want to remember him, not the jumpsuited icon, not hidden away inside the gates of Graceland, but singing for the sheer joy of it.
Connolly has clearly done his homework—to write such a tight biography of Presley means that he has a thorough command of his sources and the narrative that he crafts. Like Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 film Elvis, Connolly places much of the blame for Elvis’s decline on his manager, Colonel Tom Parker. Unlike Luhrmann, Connolly fully dissects Elvis Presley’s personality, in an attempt to try to illuminate Elvis’s actions. Elvis is a tricky subject for a biographer—on the one hand, there’s too much information to wade through, as seemingly everyone who ever met Elvis has written a book. Serving Royalty: How I Made a Cheeseburger for Elvis at McDonald’s, by Mark Taylor. (That book doesn’t actually exist.) And yet at the same time, Elvis gave very few interviews after 1960, so there isn’t a ton of material where Elvis describes his own thoughts and feelings.
For someone at his level of fame, Elvis Presley was at times curiously passive about his own career. That’s a bit of an overstatement, as he was often tenacious in the recording studio to achieve the sound he wanted on a record. But if you think of people at Elvis’s level of fame, say, Frank Sinatra or Barbra Streisand, the picture that emerges is of powerful people who might border on control freaks. That wasn’t Elvis Presley. For all his dissatisfaction with the movies he made, Elvis did little to take control of his Hollywood career. I also think that Elvis was often hindered by his enormous fame—it was a burden sometimes. Elvis was so famous, on such a different level than just about anyone else, that he couldn’t blend into a movie: his movies aren’t just movies that Elvis happens to be in, they are ELVIS MOVIES.
I’d argue that Elvis did make some good movies, like Jailhouse Rock and King Creole, but when you compare his movie career to Bobby Darin’s, you see a stark difference. Bobby Darin was a very successful entertainer, but he wasn’t burdened by the same level of fame that Elvis was. When Darin broke into movies, he didn’t have to just play Bobby Darin in every movie he made. Darin’s first movie role was in 1961’s Come September, where he starred alongside Rock Hudson, Gina Lollobrigida, and Sandra Dee. Darin didn’t have to carry the whole movie himself, as Elvis so often had to. Darin also made several movies where he didn’t sing, something Elvis always wanted to do. Darin’s other films include Too Late Blues, directed by John Cassavetes, State Fair with Pat Boone and Ann-Margret, Hell is for Heroes, with Steve McQueen, Pressure Point, with Sidney Poitier, and a supporting role in Captain Newman, M.D., with Gregory Peck, Tony Curtis, and Angie Dickinson. Because Colonel Parker was risk-adverse in the extreme, there was no way that Elvis was going to be in a John Cassavetes movie, or appear with stars like Steve McQueen and Gregory Peck, who might overshadow Elvis.
Reading Being Elvis reminded me of what an instant phenomenon Elvis Presley was. The recording session on July 5, 1954 that produced Elvis’s first record, “That’s All Right,” was the first time that Presley had ever sung or played with other musicians. (p.32) Not bad for a debut. By July 5, 1956, Elvis Presley was the hottest thing in show business.
Connolly unearths tantalizing nuggets, like the Colonel’s negotiations with RCA for a proposed 43-city tour in 1963. RCA balked when Parker demanded a guaranteed advance of $1 million, and so the deal came to nothing. Since his release from the Army in 1960, Elvis had only performed 3 live concerts in 1961—he hadn’t toured since 1957, and I’m sure the demand for tickets would have been huge. Another opportunity lost.
While the 1960’s had been a decade of making movies and not touring, the 1970’s were the opposite, as Elvis appeared in Las Vegas and toured extensively throughout the United States. Connolly hits the reader with the astonishing fact that, besides Elvis’s 2-year stint in the US Army, the longest break of his career was a four-month hiatus in 1975. (p.280) At that point, Elvis was in obvious need of a rest, for his health and to regain his enthusiasm for his career.
Being Elvis, the 2018 documentary Elvis Presley: The Searcher, and Luhrmann’s 2022 movie all make the point that singing in Las Vegas was not good for Elvis’s voice. I’d be interested to hear someone explain more about this. Is singing in Las Vegas generally detrimental to singer’s voices? If so, how did Vegas staples like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin thrive for decades in the desert? Or was there something specific about Elvis’s voice that the dry desert air damaged?
1973 was a key year in Elvis’s career. The year began on a high note, with a huge global audience viewing Presley’s satellite TV special Aloha from Hawaii. It was a huge milestone for Elvis. But by the time Elvis opened his August shows at the Las Vegas Hilton, a Hollywood Reporter critic wrote “It is tragic, disheartening and absolutely depressing to see Elvis in such diminishing stature.” (p.269) 1973 was also when Elvis should have finally broken free from Colonel Parker’s unimaginative management of his career. Elvis fired the Colonel but made no move to contact anyone to replace Parker. Parker correctly gambled that Elvis would eventually come back, and so he did. Instead of touring the world, as he should have done, Elvis performed 180 concerts in 1973, all within the USA.
Elvis needed a break, but his finances were in such poor shape that he would have had to plan ahead, and curb some of his famously generous spending, in order to take some time off. Elvis also needed someone other than his father, Vernon, handling his money. Vernon was honest, often criticized Elvis’s lavish spending, and he did the best job he could, but he was not financially sophisticated. It’s rather shocking that one of the most famous entertainers in the world handed his finances off to his father, who hadn’t even graduated from high school. That might have worked fine in 1955, when Elvis was basically just making money from touring, but by 1975, his finances needed outside help.
Being Elvis is a sympathetic portrait of a gifted artist who was adored by millions of people around the world, and yet his life was a lonely one indeed. The Elvis I like to think of is the one who lives forever inside the music he left us. I love hearing Elvis get lost in a song, the way he did when he was jamming on songs. Listen to the joy in his voice as he tears into songs like “Reconsider Baby,” “Hi-Heel Sneakers,” “Stranger in My Own Home Town,” “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” and “Merry Christmas Baby.” That’s Elvis the way I want to remember him, not the jumpsuited icon, not hidden away inside the gates of Graceland, but singing for the sheer joy of it.
May 20, 2023
This book was so so amazing. I don’t think i’ve ever cried as hard as i did at the end honestly. Its so informative, especially if you know absolutely nothing about elvis. But even if you already did (like me) it’s still really interesting. It almost feels as though you’re delving into elvis’s mind and thoughts and it’s heartbreaking to know all he went though and what he thought about himself. I’ve stained the pages with my tears at the end lol. And the pictures are also so so beautiful it just ties it all together.
June 25, 2019
A disappointing addition to the sea of Presley bios. This book attempts to bring in the highlights of his rise to fame, public life, and death, but does not add anything you haven't heard before. Instead, the author adds a whole bunch of little asides that could be summed up like this: "Sad, huh?" and "What Elvis SHOULD have done is..." So, plenty of opinion here, and not a lot of meat.
I don't see how these paraphrases are helpful:
"Why wasn't Elvis hiring Lennon/McCartney to write songs for him when he had so much pull? Bummer that he didn't. Damn you, Col. Parker."
"Why didn't Elvis make some better movies? He should have stood his ground, and made some awesome movies that we'd still be loving today, just like James Dean. Damn you, Col Parker!"
In this book, you get a bunch of those wrapped around all the same history you're familiar with. It's not helpful, and doesn't add anything to the narrative.
I don't see how these paraphrases are helpful:
"Why wasn't Elvis hiring Lennon/McCartney to write songs for him when he had so much pull? Bummer that he didn't. Damn you, Col. Parker."
"Why didn't Elvis make some better movies? He should have stood his ground, and made some awesome movies that we'd still be loving today, just like James Dean. Damn you, Col Parker!"
In this book, you get a bunch of those wrapped around all the same history you're familiar with. It's not helpful, and doesn't add anything to the narrative.
March 26, 2018
a sad & bizarre life.
August 18, 2022
Just… wow! I’ve learned so much about Elvis and his life. It makes me wonder if he suffered from bipolar and depression.
December 4, 2017
Poorly written with grammatical weirdness and contradictory sections—-the premise of the book is that there was no rock star before Elvis, and that ‘being’ Elvis was an entirely new thing for which he had to bumble through.
I was frustrated by the biography as I only found out towards the end of the book that there was a sort of pseudo-citation of quotes in the back of the book. But otherwise, Connolly doesn’t site sources but just ‘elvis would later say’ etc. It would be nice to know what was said in confidence, and what might have been said to a reporter WITHIN the narrative as opposed to an appendix. Part of getting to know Elvis as a person is to really understand the public and private personas. The book is filled speculation and subjectivity that seems obvious and almost written for some kind of simpleton reader. I think as a reader I can get an idea of the fears that would go through me being the first rock star, I don’t need a bunch of meditation questions on it -which seemed plausible, but also annoying at times.
Similarly, the chapter structure doesn’t make any sense. The book is written chronologically, however the epigraphs don’t relate to the entire chapter, and I didn’t feel like there was ever a cohesive structure to the book-with scenes, stories and quotes being repeated at times.
That said, I learned a lot about The King, and honestly reading about the other books published I almost wish I had read a different one. Not sure how this one added to the already saturated market of Elvis lit.
I was frustrated by the biography as I only found out towards the end of the book that there was a sort of pseudo-citation of quotes in the back of the book. But otherwise, Connolly doesn’t site sources but just ‘elvis would later say’ etc. It would be nice to know what was said in confidence, and what might have been said to a reporter WITHIN the narrative as opposed to an appendix. Part of getting to know Elvis as a person is to really understand the public and private personas. The book is filled speculation and subjectivity that seems obvious and almost written for some kind of simpleton reader. I think as a reader I can get an idea of the fears that would go through me being the first rock star, I don’t need a bunch of meditation questions on it -which seemed plausible, but also annoying at times.
Similarly, the chapter structure doesn’t make any sense. The book is written chronologically, however the epigraphs don’t relate to the entire chapter, and I didn’t feel like there was ever a cohesive structure to the book-with scenes, stories and quotes being repeated at times.
That said, I learned a lot about The King, and honestly reading about the other books published I almost wish I had read a different one. Not sure how this one added to the already saturated market of Elvis lit.
March 17, 2022
Relectura because why not.
Biografías de Elvis hay muchas, pero creo que pocas tan directas al corazón como esta de Ray Connolly -quien llegó a entrevistar al Rey en persona-.
Por momentos emocionante, en otros vertiginosa y finalmente envuelta en un halo de tristeza e impotencia conforme eres testigo de cómo el halo de Elvis se va rompiendo y nadie a su alrededor hace nada para salvarlo de sí mismo. Es estremecedor las ganas que te dan de gritarle al libro, a cualquiera de quienes lo rodeaban en sus últimos años y que seguían viviendo de él sin cortarse un pelo, que lo ayuden, que hagan algo, que el Rey se está apagando para siempre.
A ratos brillante, a ratos tirano, generoso, divertido, buscador incansable de música y por encima de todo, un hombre profundamente solo que ninguno pudo lograr comprender. Quizás nunca lo hagamos.
Larga vida al Rey.
Biografías de Elvis hay muchas, pero creo que pocas tan directas al corazón como esta de Ray Connolly -quien llegó a entrevistar al Rey en persona-.
Por momentos emocionante, en otros vertiginosa y finalmente envuelta en un halo de tristeza e impotencia conforme eres testigo de cómo el halo de Elvis se va rompiendo y nadie a su alrededor hace nada para salvarlo de sí mismo. Es estremecedor las ganas que te dan de gritarle al libro, a cualquiera de quienes lo rodeaban en sus últimos años y que seguían viviendo de él sin cortarse un pelo, que lo ayuden, que hagan algo, que el Rey se está apagando para siempre.
A ratos brillante, a ratos tirano, generoso, divertido, buscador incansable de música y por encima de todo, un hombre profundamente solo que ninguno pudo lograr comprender. Quizás nunca lo hagamos.
Larga vida al Rey.
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