Being Elvis: A Lonely Life

Biography & Memoir, Entertainment & Performing Arts
Cover of the book Being Elvis: A Lonely Life by Ray Connolly, Liveright
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Ray Connolly ISBN: 9781631492815
Publisher: Liveright Publication: March 21, 2017
Imprint: Liveright Language: English
Author: Ray Connolly
ISBN: 9781631492815
Publisher: Liveright
Publication: March 21, 2017
Imprint: Liveright
Language: English

A “sympathetic and exceptionally well-written account” (USA Today), Ray Connolly’s biography of the King soars with “spontaneity and electricity” (Preston Lauterbach).

Elvis Presley is a giant figure in American popular culture, a man whose talent and fame were matched only by his later excesses and tragic end. A godlike entity in the history of rock and roll, this twentieth-century icon with a dazzling voice blended gospel and traditionally black rhythm and blues with country to create a completely new kind of music and new way of expressing male sexuality, which simply blew the doors off a staid and repressed 1950s America.

In Being Elvis veteran rock journalist Ray Connolly takes a fresh look at the career of the world’s most loved singer, placing him, forty years after his death, not exhaustively in the garish neon lights of Las Vegas but back in his mid-twentieth-century, distinctly southern world. For new and seasoned fans alike, Connolly, who interviewed Elvis in 1969, re-creates a man who sprang from poverty in Tupelo, Mississippi, to unprecedented overnight fame, eclipsing Frank Sinatra and then inspiring the Beatles along the way.

Juxtaposing the music, the songs, and the incendiary live concerts with a personal life that would later careen wildly out of control, Connolly demonstrates that Elvis’s amphetamine use began as early as his touring days of hysteria in the late 1950s, and that the financial needs that drove him in the beginning would return to plague him at the very end. With a narrative informed by interviews over many years with John Lennon, Bob Dylan, B. B. King, Sam Phillips, and Roy Orbison, among many others, Connolly creates one of the most nuanced and mature portraits of this cultural phenomenon to date.

What distinguishes Being Elvis beyond the narrative itself is Connolly’s more subtle examinations of white poverty, class aspirations, and the prison that is extreme fame. As we reach the end of this poignant account, Elvis’s death at forty-two takes on the hue of a profoundly American tragedy. The creator of an American sound that resonates today, Elvis remains frozen in time, an enduring American icon who could “seamlessly soar into a falsetto of pleading and yearning” and capture an inner emotion, perhaps of eternal yearning, to which all of us can still relate.

Intimate and unsparing, Being Elvis explores the extravagance and irrationality inherent in the Elvis mythology, ultimately offering a thoughtful celebration of an immortal life.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

A “sympathetic and exceptionally well-written account” (USA Today), Ray Connolly’s biography of the King soars with “spontaneity and electricity” (Preston Lauterbach).

Elvis Presley is a giant figure in American popular culture, a man whose talent and fame were matched only by his later excesses and tragic end. A godlike entity in the history of rock and roll, this twentieth-century icon with a dazzling voice blended gospel and traditionally black rhythm and blues with country to create a completely new kind of music and new way of expressing male sexuality, which simply blew the doors off a staid and repressed 1950s America.

In Being Elvis veteran rock journalist Ray Connolly takes a fresh look at the career of the world’s most loved singer, placing him, forty years after his death, not exhaustively in the garish neon lights of Las Vegas but back in his mid-twentieth-century, distinctly southern world. For new and seasoned fans alike, Connolly, who interviewed Elvis in 1969, re-creates a man who sprang from poverty in Tupelo, Mississippi, to unprecedented overnight fame, eclipsing Frank Sinatra and then inspiring the Beatles along the way.

Juxtaposing the music, the songs, and the incendiary live concerts with a personal life that would later careen wildly out of control, Connolly demonstrates that Elvis’s amphetamine use began as early as his touring days of hysteria in the late 1950s, and that the financial needs that drove him in the beginning would return to plague him at the very end. With a narrative informed by interviews over many years with John Lennon, Bob Dylan, B. B. King, Sam Phillips, and Roy Orbison, among many others, Connolly creates one of the most nuanced and mature portraits of this cultural phenomenon to date.

What distinguishes Being Elvis beyond the narrative itself is Connolly’s more subtle examinations of white poverty, class aspirations, and the prison that is extreme fame. As we reach the end of this poignant account, Elvis’s death at forty-two takes on the hue of a profoundly American tragedy. The creator of an American sound that resonates today, Elvis remains frozen in time, an enduring American icon who could “seamlessly soar into a falsetto of pleading and yearning” and capture an inner emotion, perhaps of eternal yearning, to which all of us can still relate.

Intimate and unsparing, Being Elvis explores the extravagance and irrationality inherent in the Elvis mythology, ultimately offering a thoughtful celebration of an immortal life.

More books from Liveright

Cover of the book How Do We Look: The Body, the Divine, and the Question of Civilization by Ray Connolly
Cover of the book The Stone Reader: Modern Philosophy in 133 Arguments by Ray Connolly
Cover of the book The Mad Feast: An Ecstatic Tour through America's Food by Ray Connolly
Cover of the book Crime and Punishment: A New Translation by Ray Connolly
Cover of the book Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality by Ray Connolly
Cover of the book Wagstaff: Before and After Mapplethorpe: A Biography by Ray Connolly
Cover of the book Cabot Wright Begins: A Novel by Ray Connolly
Cover of the book On Augustine: The Two Cities (Liveright Classics) by Ray Connolly
Cover of the book The World Between Two Covers: Reading the Globe by Ray Connolly
Cover of the book A Field Philosopher's Guide to Fracking: How One Texas Town Stood Up to Big Oil and Gas by Ray Connolly
Cover of the book Running Wild by Ray Connolly
Cover of the book The Red Car: A Novel by Ray Connolly
Cover of the book The Origins of Creativity by Ray Connolly
Cover of the book Sweetland: A Novel by Ray Connolly
Cover of the book Modern Ethics in 77 Arguments: A Stone Reader by Ray Connolly
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy