What Do You Think Of Elvis Impersonators?

[Jumpsuit Junkie]

[B] if you would like to hear me sing "Mine"]

Very nice, a touch of the Elvis sound in there. You have a very nice voice, I wish I could sing 10% as good as you

Matt

[buttonhead]

Nice voice there AKing

thanks for attaching the song ...and thank you for sharing your talent on this MB...

[AKing]

Thanks both for the compliments...appreciated!
A King

[elvisdownunder]

how can i guys, i have a file of me singing Danny boy on radio, but i need to convert it from nero on to something that will play on here. PLEASE someone help me

by the way Aking, very good. i do hear a touch of the king in you, i'd like to see how you perform him too

[AKing]

Hi Scott,
I don't perform anymore, not since 1998.
If you want the file coverting send it to me via email - PM me and i'll give you the address, I'll see if I can transfer it to a downloadable format for you.
A King

[elvisdownunder]

i'm gonna try and post a quicktime video file of me moving round during moody blue (no sound)

[quinn53]

Johnny Carson said it best. If the world was fair Elvis would still be alive and the impersonators would be dead.

[elvisdownunder]

do you mean all Elvis singers?

now that'd mean me. how many impersonators make people cry singing Danny boy (if they made em cry, it'd probably be cos they're that bad) my point is that some Elvis singers like me, don't wanna make a fool of themselves, but are simply trying to pay tribute, tho some are VERY bad

[michu]

I simply hate them!!!The only thing they do right is making Elvis image bad in the eyes of non-fans!!!Pathetic.

[Lildarling]

I will better not say what do I think of them...unless the continuance would be X-rated...

[elvisdownunder]

wheres Paultoronto? listen to his version of hurt and you'll find that he is not an Elvis impersonator, and he does a fine job!

[Geert]

I only like the ones that take it serious. No fat guys with a bad wig and overdone Elvis-like voices who only do it to get attraction or try make a lot of money with it. And please if you really do it with respect and to "spread the word" don't economize on your outfit. And when you only sing 50s songs as they were done in the 50s (so not the 70s live versions) please don't wear any jumpsuits (and otherwise).

By the way, has anyone heard songs from "Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis". I don't mean any "golden quartet" recordings from the 50s, but the impersonators. They've put an very overdone 70s Elvis like voice together with a Jerry impersonator. They don't sing Elvis or Jerry classics but songs like Save The Last Dance For Me. I don't get it. What does these three things have to do with each other. It sounds not very respectful to Elvis (Jerry doesn't sound like the real one either). It's better not meant serious

[1100ccRider]

Never understood the extreme antipathy that some Elvis fans seem to harbor towards impersonators, ETAs, or whatever you want to call them. Yeah, Johnny Carson was right on with that quote and so was whoever stated that most impersonators resemble each other in voice and manner more than they do Elvis. In fact, the public's come to expect a stereotyped voice that is actually, at best, an exaggerated interpretation of the way that Elvis spoke at certain times.

I certainly have no time for the freaks and weirdos who wander around in jumpsuits -- you know, the ones who always end up on TV whenever there's an Elvis-related event or at Graceland -- and would gladly either beat the hell out of such disgraces or refer them to psychiatric counselling. Yep, an awful lot of middle-aged, overweight (goes without saying, really, given that if you're an adult American these days you're statistically more likely to be overweight than not), white men seem to have identity crises made all the more sadder by their inflicting a caricature of Elvis upon the rest of us.

But then there are some talented performers who really do pay meaningful tribute to Elvis. They give people a thrill...spread the gospel, if you will. I doubt any of the really good ones actually believe they're Elvis -- this kind is all about creating an illusion (perhaps suspension of disbelief if the sound or look is not quite close enough) for the benefit of their audiences and for Elvis' memory. Nobody's EVER going to combine the whole package, and look AND sound just like Elvis, but that doesn't make the efforts of many less than worthwhile. Giving people who never saw Elvis a chance to glimpse even a fraction of the man's presence and musicality...giving those who DID see Elvis a touchstone back to memories of concerts 30 years or more in the past...that's a special thing. To my mind, anyone who dismisses such performers is just a blue meanie, consumed by jealousy and whatever other negative attributes the terminal killjoy counts as his or hers.

My perspective on this has not changed since I, myself, became an Elvis. AN Elvis, I say, not THE Elvis. Yeah, baby. I'm not your typical ETA, though, being paid by a Vegas Strip casino to play Elvis...this is a job that I walked into, whereas most well-meaning ETAs start out as free agents playing wherever they can. My role is pretty much that of an actor paid to interpret my character. I doubt I'd have ever donned the jumpsuit otherwise, though not through aversion to performing as an ETA and working my way up to the kind of employment that I now enjoy.

And I love my job. It's hard work, but I've worked harder for less reward...and by reward I mean more the interaction with people than anything else. This gig is showing me just how much people, when it comes down to it, love Elvis. Elvis the musician, Elvis the man, Elvis the pop icon...whichever, his appeal is so universal that it even astounds me at times. Some of the most eager to have interacted with me have been persons of African descent, a fact I find particularly gratifying given the (artificial, based on spurious 'fact') racial rift supposedly surrounding Elvis and his legacy. Walk a mile in MY shoes on any given day and you'll start to believe that EVERYONE loves Elvis. Whatever, what I do seems to make people happy. What's wrong with that?

Sure, this is a town where everybody famous has an impersonator -- seems that way -- but Elvis always stands head and shoulders above all others when it comes to being a draw. In my daily routine, I interact with impersonators of a dizzying array of pop icons...none of them has mistaken himself or herself as the real thing and all are just trying to do the best impersonation/tribute that they can. I assume that this is so for most of the working ETAs out there, the ones who actually work at it and don't just buy a jumpsuit andc paste on sideburns as a symptom of middle-age crisis or more deeply-seated mental woes.

If an impersonator can turn a single person on to Elvis, or teach them something that changes their mind for the better, regarding Elvis, then they've earned their place. They've also quite possibly -- quite probably -- in one fell swoop done more for Elvis' memory than have or will any of the bitter little people who profess to harbor blanket hatred or contempt for fake Elvises...

[1100ccRider]

In the poll above, I chose the "mixed feelings" option, because the universe of Elvises includes wackos who are worthy of pity and/or violent corrective action as well as actual tribute-payers who are worthy of respect. Kind of wonder whether the 50-plus percent who claim to hate impersonators just hate the freaky kind or if they'd also direct their ire toward some of the more talented ETAs out there (more of them than you'd guess, as I'm finding out here in Vegas) as well as people like Ronnie McDowell, the exceptional El Vez, and the likes of Kurt Russell and even, yep, Andy Kaufman. The pool of Elvis impersonators is a large and diverse one that encompasses the good, the bad, and the (very) ugly, and a claim to hate them all is as bigoted as any other unreasoning, blanket hatred.

Here's one for you, haters and more open-minded alike...Big Elvis. He's a fixture at the Barbary Coast casino at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo (and, before anyone gets cute here, no, I'm not him). The dude is something else. I'm not quite sure what.

I'd never heard of him but, by coincidence (on my way back from a job interview at the Mandalay Bay hotel), I stopped at the Barbary Coast in (futile) search of a slot machine that'd take my $2 or so worth of nickels and maybe, if I was lucky, pay me back enough that I could have dinner that night. I soon enough hear a very familar voice, doing songs like "Make The World Go Away," "I Really Don't Want To Know," "Don't Cry, Daddy," and "Kentucky Rain." Wow...that sounds so much like Elvis in the '70s. So I follow the sound and end up in the lounge and there he is....Big Elvis.

'Big' is an understatement. He must weigh around 500 lbs. Maybe more by now. And he's a relatively young man, sadly not destined to get much older unless he loses some weight, I'm afraid. I have only seen him that one time, but he apparently starts the show on his feet and then sits down for the rest of it, because he just can't stand or move, he's so morbidly obese. That voice, though...rich and so much like Elvis' in many ways, though at times his breath control made concessions to his terrible physical condition.

It'd seem to me that I'd have little positive feeling about such a huge man playing Elvis -- not because I am prejudiced against "people of size" (far from it), but because the whole topic of Elvis and weight is a sensitive one played up by the media for three decades now and we don't really need some grossly overweight ***** dressing up as Elvis to legitimize that perception. Come to think of it, if he didn't have the voice, I'd probably be wishing him off the stage because there are enough bad parodies of Elvis out there already. To make it worse, he claims to be an illegitimate son of Elvis. Hey, you never know -- Elvis did have a fair bit of fun in Vegas (all right...turns out he's from Seattle, but Elvis probably had fun up there, too) -- but, really, for me this falls into "yeah, right" territory. So, yes, there is a fruitcake component in play here and it's another HUGE strike against him.

But you can't deny the quality of his voice and he really does have a quiet kind of charisma about him that kind of sucks you in...I was standing right outside the seating area, for not very long at all, but I felt good being there. The key is that the audience seemed to adore him, genuinely and without any weird stuff like pity or condescension. In other words, outwardly Big Elvis has all the elements of a disastrous impersonator but, somehow, it doesn't seem to play that way.

Not long after I saw a newspaper item that recounted how Elton John had begun crossing the Strip, fromCaesars, to see Big Elvis, who'd become his favorite act in Vegas. It's a free show, too, a lounge act. I know Big Elvis has me confused, to an extent, but I daresay he'd cause meltdown in the minds of those who say they hate all pseudo-Elvises.

I'm not a fan of Big Elvis -- haven't been back yet, even though I work in the vicinity, and I'm just now wondering if it's because I'm afraid he'll just up and die on the stage -- but he did impress me almost as much as did the rapt attention of his audience. Like they said of Elvis, you could feel the love in the room. It was, indeed, almost a Twilight Zone-worthy experience. And I think he's doing something good there, no matter how much the opposite it may seem when you add up the bare facts. He makes people happy...he even sings them songs they may not have known from Elvis' catalog. Against the odds, I think it's an overall positive thing he's doing.

[nabelt24]

[Quote from AKing]

You can sing in the same style and do your best to relay a message of how good he was to an audience, but only ELVIS was ELVIS.... The best tribute artist might have 10% of Elvis' talent, which is a good standard! He was just so far above anybody past, present or future....

I agree completely with this comment, AKing!!! I'm a singer/songwriter that's been in the business for about 12yrs now professionaly. I, also, was a songwriter for Acuff-Rose Publishing in Nashville, TN for several years, etc.... Basically, I'm coming from the same place you are. I've performed alot of 50's music during this time, just for the love of it, and that includes performing Elvis music.

I think that when you perform Elvis music, you need to realize that there was already an Elvis and no one will ever compare to the real thing. Don't go at it trying your hardest to sound identicle to him... just go with what you have naturally and focus on your phrasing and pitch.

A lot of Elvis tribute artist go at it thinking that they are Elvis. That's where they make their BIGGEST mistake.

[elvisdownunder]

could'nt have said it better my self

[keelerphoto]

www.dougchurchusa.com/Pages/Gallery/Videos.htm

heres one thats better than some out there,,,,,

[Geert]

Quite nice, he seems just to have an Elvis-like voice, and if not than he's not over acting as some other impersonators do. I think he watched/studied every Elvis footage thats on the market learned Elvis' moves and sentences (bit to much?). Very nice outfits. He's indeed one of the better impersonators I think. This one is nice to watch. Still I'm not a great fan of impersonators.

Btw watch the Wonder Of You (duet) clip on Doughs site, there you see an other impersonator. Only that one didn't studied on the lyrics moves etc. as Dough did, and has got an awful wig.

[waymore44]

I think Doug Church is about as close as it gets. Jamie Aron Kelly is good too. If you listen to his clips from his "what if" Elvis album they are really enjoyable. Jesse Aron is pretty good sometimes but doesn't look like him. His website is really terrible. Ryan Pelton looked like him quite a bit but can't sing. His nitch was early Elvis but now he wears jumpsuits and sings "In The Ghetto" Really sucks. Eddie Miles was awesome back in the day. Back in the mid '90's it was like watching Elvis '70-'72. Ronnie McDowell way over does the vibrato and falsetto.

Some of my favorite Elvis tributes come from guys that are not impersonators or do a strictly Elvis show. Dwight Yoakam pays homage to the king on every album and does Elvis songs in his shows. JD Myers does an Elvis song or to in his shows. He like Dwight twangs 'em up and does them his way. Gary Allen has gotta be a big Elvis fan, as well as Chris Isaac. To me, I would rather be reminded of Elvis through an artist's own music than hear a caricature.

[Geert]

Some of my favorite Elvis tributes come from guys that are not impersonators or do a strictly Elvis show. Dwight Yoakam pays homage to the king on every album and does Elvis songs in his shows. JD Myers does an Elvis song or to in his shows. He like Dwight twangs 'em up and does them his way. Gary Allen has gotta be a big Elvis fan, as well as Chris Isaac. To me, I would rather be reminded of Elvis through an artist's own music than hear a caricature.

I totaly agree with waymore44