Meeting Elvis in Morrisons

Elvis was doing his shopping in Morrisons Guiseley store on Saturday.

I have to say that the years have not been kind on the King of Rock n' Roll, he now looks all of his 72 years, seems to have lost all of his teeth and not bothered replacing them, and I'm sorry to say that at 11am in the morning he was sozzled, a lush, obviously fond of the drink is our Elvis, he was staggering, confused and chewing on his gums - and he stank of beer

He was however very nicely attired in one of his Vegas stage suits, in fact it was one identical to the joke Elvis in the photo, but the real Guiseley Elvis wore a gold spangly cape too as he staggered down the aisles with his shopping trolley and dog on a string.

I'd loved to have stopped and chatted to him, asked him how he was finding life in Guiseley, if he resided here for anonimity's sake, perhaps avoiding punitive tax regimes in the deep south of America, asked him if he still sang, maybe in pubs of a Friday night, and of course remind him that our lives have crossed paths once before...

...way back in 1974 it was, February of 1974, when the 17 year old me found myself on a family holiday in Las Vegas at a time when most folk in the UK thought that a fortnight in Cornwall was the absolute limit of navigation capability for your average Briton.

We were there by a fluke, coincidence, chance and being in the right place at the right time, ten days in Las Vegas for £7 each, staying at the Flamingo motel (a slightly down market Bates Motel stylee building in the car park of the famous Flamingo) where Mama Cass was heading the bill just a few short months before she would hockle herself to death on a sandwich in London.

Diana Ross was over the road at Caesers Palace and Elvis was performing daily at The Hilton.

All of these once famous acts of the 1960's had one thing in common - in 1974 no-one wanted to know them, their chart careers were washed up (although Diana Ross made a comeback in 76) and Vegas offered a wage and another opportunity to bask in the spotlight that had now moved on to glam rock.

The most suprising thing about every act at every hotel in Vegas was that they were by and large ignored by the punters, entry to the auditoriums was free, provided that you walked through the casinos first, and people would drift in and out whilst the "turns" were performing - gambling was the big attraction, has-been singers were a definite second choice for entertainment value.

So it was that my dad and uncle Ralph found themselves in the Hilton one night and had a free ticket to see Elvis in the main auditorium thrust into their hands, with nothing better to do they wandered in, watched Elvis for a couple of songs and wandered out again, my dad remarking that "he wasn't bad but I've seen better at Harehills Working Mens Club" - the most important event of the evening was not seeing Elvis in the flesh but Ralph finding a $50 bill outside the hotel on the taxi rank and being quicker to pick it up than the taxi rank marshall who wasn't to realise that he was dealing with a true Yorkshireman in my Uncle Ralph, no-one would have got to that curency faster than Ralph, no-one.

I wanted to remind our Morrisons Elvis about his Vegas years but he was having trouble hearing what the lady on the cooked meats counter was saying to him, he's deaf now as well as drunk, toothless, unshaven and smelly.

Such a shame, but his stage outfit was spotless.

Spoiled by the Poundstretcher trainers, but still

Elvis in supermarionation...

First off - I'm an Elvis fan ok - don't bite my head off.

Poor old Elvis was mis-managed and swimming way out of his depth for most of his career from the early 60's onwards and his "Comeback Concert" of 1968 was achance for him to get back to doing what he loved - singing rock and roll to a live audience, and indeed most of the televised gig is just that, and very good it is too - I have a dvd boxed set of it, its only a boxed set because they put the whole bloody thing across several dvd's so that you get the excellent 50 minute tv concert and then five hours of retakes and mistakes, rehearsals and lighting gaffs.

And then you get the closing number.

Removed from his live, in-the-round audience the producer obviously thought it would be great to close the show with a big gospel number and let Elvis let rip on it - well as the dvd shows it took many, many takes and retakes to create this, the most Gerry Anderson puppet inspired performance seen on tv - you can almost see the double sided sticky tape on the bottom of Elvis's shoes so that he doesn't stray off the stage marks and if you look hard enough you can see the strings tugging on his sleeve from above to make his arms swing back and forth like they do at the end.

Still, Colonel Parker must have thought it would suit his idea of an Elvis audience.