WPLN News Archive; 07 Peter Guralnick (Rebecca) 1 21 99; News Archive 1/8/99-2/5/99

there are a few figures in american popular culture who have had more written about them then elvis presley and fortunately the vast majority of those books and articles have chosen to focus on the sensational aspects of presley's character and his lifestyle until now that is peterborough mahnke has turned eleven years of research and over eleven hundred pages of text into two books which form the definitive biography of the man who was the king garon and has written about american music for more than three decades but his reasons for choosing this particular subject go way way back what brought me to elvis was the blows and what astonished me when i was about fifteen or sixteen years old when alice was in the army was hearing the sun sides on a date with elvis or lp fans only going up and bust it has just had never heard before and i had to stop these are great blows the what astonished me was of the originality of the conception and i think anybody who listens to those early sides as opposed to looking at that from an ideological point of you can hear the difference between elvis's that's alright massacred

upsets our it for whatever you want you could say the bulls greater you know you can make whatever judgments you want but it's not a question of clapping that name of elvis impersonator well on his glory days should only read the first of the world likes to poke biography last train to memphis it is with elvis's departure for germany in nineteen fifty eight to serve in the army and frankly it is the happy part of the king story careless love which hit bookstores this month is a much darker book carefully charting the decline and this amazing man what i was trying to do was to show someone who in many ways was last increased in lost in his last few years and described a world in which was possible to understand how he became lost and i think there are a couple of actions in which you can say

these actions are indefensible on his birthday did hurt somebody else and i felt obligated to include them to have a true and honest and rounded picture but for the most part that is what you say what you see is someone who in the end is hurting himself and whose face both in his mission and in a sense in his gift is terribly shaken and beyond which doesn't mean there aren't happy times and careless love because there are many including the triumph of his return to live performing in nineteen sixty eight and a television special he did with director steven vander finally bender and their bones howe hit upon the idea of having his improv session and brought him scotty moore and dj fontana with the idea of making elves feel at home and bringing him back to music that at first moved in but right up till mobley went on stage and at the last minute elvis says just as you don't go on let's call the whole thing off and steve benner says know you've gotta go on houses were by another the sand and then he says well listen to the

show to show in history in order to go home but i think that sense of anxiety and help a spine is real and i think you can see it come out the performance and yet you can also see what it was made over so great a performer because yuri is returning to live performing for the first time essentially eleven years he had done a couple performs and sixty one but does really max has returned to live performance has been to more songs were unloading oh there are many reasons for wanting to write about elvis is like not least of which was his tragic deaths from drugs it was not a question of his finding one doctor if one doctor would supply him there were twelve mortar would ante up our story of courses who was going to challenge elvis everybody who was close to him wait for him including his father and every time but he was challenged he said there's the door my finger pointing would be a system i guess and i would point it at that same system today an

extension that is a former celebrity worship that you see where celebrities simply a nod tonight in our culture has somehow put up on a different level we should recognize in my ears as talent and gets that they can be penalized for them till by virtue of a society which simply can't say no to them peter go wrong like author of the definitive to book a biography of elvis presley rock joins me for the second of two interviews about his biography this week on the fine print saturday at noon and sunday morning at nine for national public radio i'm david greene do you