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an exclusive extract of Sanjeev Bhaskar's TCM Elvis documentary
I have never sought out any kind of connection between the boy from Memphis,
Tennessee, and the boy from Hounslow, Middlesex. But they appeared anyway. I
first encountered Elvis Presley when I was about 5 years old. Jailhouse Rock
and Teddy Bear came calling to me from our family’s small solid-state
transistor radio and I was transfixed. When I was about 10 I tried to tape
the songs on an old piano-key mono tape recorder but had to live with the
recordings being blighted by my mother telling me to “turn the radio down,
your father’s trying to sleep” in the background.
I was 12 when I saw my first Elvis movie, Flaming Star, a western directed by
Don Siegel (of Dirty Harry fame) with no musical numbers and no happy
ending. Elvis plays Pacer, a half-breed who’s not accepted by Native
Americans or the white man. I was enthralled. “So that’s what Elvis looks
like,” I thought. “A dark-skinned boy with jet-black hair, who isn’t
understood by Indians or English people – just like me.” Spooky.
And just a year later, after I had bought my first Elvis LP, Moody Blue, in
the middle of the summer holidays, he died, with no warning and no apology
for wrecking the rest of my summer. The radio stations on the day of August
17, 1977 were playing wall-to-wall Elvis and the joy and wonderment I felt
at hearing so much of his back catalogue for the first time was tinged with
the thought that we would not be hearing anything new from this man again.
I realised early on that my weekly staple of the Bollywood films I saw as a
child were effectively Elvis movies with a bit of James Bond thrown in. The
clean-cut, handsome hero – a loveable rebel – woos the girls, beats up the
bad guys, enjoys a couple of “humorous” escapades along the way and bursts
into song without notice or anyone else batting an eyelid. And, let’s face
it, Elvis loved bling, a passion for kitsch that I have only ever found
among my Indian relatives. They would look at any of his spangled suits,
knuckleduster rings and gold belts and think, “Now that is style.”
As an adult I discovered that Elvis had a passion for Monty Python.
Furthermore he was a huge fan of Peter Sellers and particularly loved The
Party, a movie I first watched when I was about 12 and thought I’d die
laughing from. Sellers played an Indian character in it. This was now
encroaching on my territory. He seemed to live in a big extended family with
aunts, cousins and grandmother all living at Graceland, just like Indian
families live. Elvis loved Reece’s peanut butter cups and banoffee pie.
Ditto my friends.
Every fan of every icon projects a connection with their idol, looking for
signs to justify their affections and to make that vicarious relationship
special. A truly successful celebrity makes their fan feel like they are the
only one that they are communicating with. Which rules out most of the
so-called celebrities today, does it not?
Elvis did it on a scale that was unprecedented. For an artist that never
toured outside America and without the benefit of the internet and
downloads, he remains the most successful recording artist on record, with
fan clubs and appreciation societies spanning the globe. I read with
particular fascination the Indian registered fan-club website, full of
mentions of “grandfathers” who write in every week to English language radio
programmes, requesting Elvis songs and such titbits as “and Mr Mahesh
Punwani from Colaba, who was lucky enough to see Elvis live in concert in
the early 1970s. Yes it is true, Mr Punwani confirms, that at the end of an
Elvis concert, everyone would break down and cry”.
So what about my obsession? Well, I have some limits. I have umpteen CDs,
almost all the movies from the best ( King Creole, Jailhouse Rock, Elvis:
That’s The Way It Is) to the worst (it’s a toss-up between about ten truly
awful ones, but nonElvis fans might want to avoid Clambake and Harem Scarem,
even if Elvis does wear a turban in it).
I’ve dressed up as Elvis three times for work ( Goodness Gracious Me, a film
called Jumpand the Comic Relief single Spirit in the Sky). I’ve never been
to a convention, never got to Graceland and own no Elvis memorabilia. I
avoid Elvis impersonators because, well, they scare me. I recently had the
utmost delight to meet Jerry Schilling, one of the “Memphis Mafia”, a
consistent member of the inner circlewho has kept the memory of the King
alive with honour and dignity. Jerry is an amazing guy in his own right,
having made a name for himself as an editor and band manager outside of his
Presley connections.
Through him, I got the biggest personal revelation of all. Elvis had a guru.
An Indian guru. Before the Beatles and before flower power, Elvis’s interest
in spirituality and attempting to self-realise led him to becoming a
voracious reader. He read the Bible of course, but also the Koran, Hindu
teachings and his favourite book, The Prophet by Khalil Gibran, a book of
poems popular with the counter-culture in America in the 1960s.
Jerry believes that creative disappointment is what ultimately killed Elvis,
at least spiritually and emotionally if not physically. Elvis wanted to do
more, be more, but was hamstrung by management deals that kept him shackled
to a treadmill that just did not let up. Now that’s sad.
So, am I aware of his darker, confused side? Absolutely, but what has drawn me
back consistently over the years has been the voice. In his early
recordings, you can clearly hear a life force unleashed, birth, freedom,
evolution and revolution combined. In his later songs the searching tones of
melancholy, a voice seemingly aware of its destiny.
Elvis’s greatest desire was to sing and bring people together, just as he had
fused black and white musical styles in the late 1950s. Thirty years after
his passing, one just has to glance at the fan clubs around the world to
realise that he did just that.
Finally, my perfect Elvis moment. Some years back I was privileged to meet
Scotty Moore and D. J. Fontana, Elvis’s guitarist and drummer from his early
fame days. My sister had managed to get me on an invitation list for a
private gig they were performing in London.
It was exciting for me, naturally, but turned into a religious moment when one
of the organisers asked if I would like to get up on stage and sing a number
with them. Me? Singing an Elvis song backed by his original band? I turned
it down. I’d rather have a perfect memory of being asked to be him than a
memory of trying to be him and failing. Of course, looking back I should
have sung Don’t Be Cruel in an Indian accent. I have a feeling the King
might have approved.
— Jerry Schilling on Elvis at 8.30pm, interviewed by Sanjeev Baskhar.
Sanjeev Bhaskar on Elvis at 10.50pm, both Aug 16, on TCM
