Elvis In Print home
Return to previous page
Essential Elvis
Author: Peter Silverton
Published in hardback by Chameleon Books
ISBN 0 23399245 6
Don't confuse "Essential Elvis" with another fairly recent book, "The Essential Elvis" -- it's a small difference in title but, even though the books have a similar basis, they are very different in content.
In fact, "Essential Elvis" was published before its longer-titled counterpart, but it only recently came to my attention when it was offered to Elvis fans as a "Rare Elvis book" at a special price. I was intrigued and investigated further, only to find that the book was freely available at on-line based book shops, so could hardly merit the moniker "rare". On contacting the American distributors, who offered the book as rare, they agreed that the use of the term was incorrect and "difficult to find" would be more appropriate. Well, yes, but of course most Elvis books fall into this category as far as their availability in normal book shops is concerned, so it still seemed like a bit of whitewashing to me.
Anyway, I got hold of a copy of "Essential Elvis" and have to admit that I am not at all displeased with it. To start with, it is very nicely bound and printed, with a dust-jacket that Elvis's female fans will probably swoon over.
The book examines fifty recordings made by Elvis throughout his career, which the author regards as containing "something special," even if they are not necessarily all "great". Perhaps not surprisingly, the tracks seem to belong largely to a number of significant points: the Sun recordings, the Elvis Is Back recordings, the TV Special, the Memphis sessions, with a few others from intervening sessions.
Each track is listed chronologically with its writers, recording date and first release information, followed by a commentary on the recording. Some numbers are accompanied by excellent commentary, including often fascinating information about their origins and the often unnoticed interrelationship of black and white influences in their development. I like this sort of thing very much, so the almost throwaway commentary afforded other numbers -- just seven lines for Burning Love, for example -- comes as a big disappointment, though these are, thankfully, in the minority. An illustration also accompanies each number; the illustrations are mostly in black and white and are excellently reproduced. There seems to have been an attempt, certainly with the earlier tracks, to match a contemporary picture to the number being discussed. Unfortunately, things go a little haywire after the discussion of the Elvis's Farewell To His Fans track from the EP "Elvis Sails," which is accompanied by a photo showing Elvis's welcome home press conference!
In addition to presenting these fifty "essential" tracks, the book also includes an "Elvis Alphabet", a very brief look at some fairly kitchy Elvis memorabilia, a list of "the best Elvis books" and a list of the ten "essential" Elvis LPs.
Not a bad table of contents, is it? Unfortunately, the care which seems to have been taken in the final printing of the book is not always evident in the preparation of the text. As I have said before, the importance is in the detail, and "Essential Elvis" loses out somewhat by apparently having ignored some very basic research and by not having proofread the text, which contains numerous misprints. The latter is perhaps more excusable than the former: a quick listen to "Swing Down Sweet Chariot" will demonstrate that it is most definitely not the same song as "Swing Low Sweet Chariot"; the brief extracts of the texts of "Teddy Bear," "One Night" and "US Male" are incorrect; "Such A Night" was not held back by RCA for four years; Elvis never recorded a number called "The Shrimp Song". And if you think that these errors are basic, what about spelling both Minnie Mae Presley's and Ann-Margret's names incorrectly? This sort of sloppiness unfortunately detracts from an otherwise very good and enjoyable book.
The normal USA price for "Essential Elvis" is $21.50, but its American distributors, Trans-Atlantic Publications Inc., are offering a special price to Elvis fans: Ron Smolin, a Trans-Atlantic executive, sends this message:
"Just tell everyone to ask for the special Elvis discount for a charge of $10.00 plus shipping. Our order department knows about this."
To order the book with these conditions, visit the music section of the Trans-Atlantic web site at URL
http://www.transatlanticpub.com/cat/music/
David Neale
Copyright March 2000