It's really a super biography of the guy. The behind the scenes history of his family and what caused him to become one of the strangest, most beloved, charismatic and tragic characters of our age. It's fascinating and full of info I had never heard, even after his death so long ago. A couple of outstanding points it made is, Elvis toddled up to the choir at his church when he was two years old and started acting like he belonged at the Pentacostal podium. Everybody thought it was cute he was acting like he belonged there, so every Sunday he'd do the same thing FOR YEARS.
Also, he was one of those dorky kids in school who everybody got tired of listening to, because he teased girls to death, sang at every school function, and dressed strangely. He took his guitar with him to school, sang and played out under the trees before he could play and sing. He wore out "Old Shep" which he'd honed to a fine point to have something to fall back on at the drop of a hat. He sang it for five years before he moved on to something else. When his family moved to Memphis, he was so intimidated by the music he heard coming from the honky tonks and porches of the sad part of town that he turned off the lights and practiced in a whisper inside his own house.
His mental age was 14 and he never outgrew it, which is one of the reasons all the girls he loved were 14. It's also one of the reasons he was so loveable. I'd thought he was a bit of a pedophile until now. One more thing: All of the girls he "loved" looked just like his mother would have looked at 14.
If you're like me and curious about the way famous people have fought their way to the top, it's a really good read.
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ReplyDeleteAnd I always suspected Elvis had a mother fixation.
It was more than a fixation. He actually thought that he, his mother and his twin (who died at birth) were the same person.
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