Elvis Presley’s short life (just 42 years) was so long in events and left such a strong musical legacy that it took two volumes for Peter Guralnick to complete his definitive biography of the rock king: Elvis: The Last Train to Memphis and Elvis: I Loved Kill (Kultrum Books). A monumental work that traces a complex figure in the public and private sphere, a legend that has gone from being an undeniable star to a dizzying decline. Described as the best biography ever published about a rock star, no one who reads it would dare question him.
Guralnick not only clears Elvis to remove clichés, misunderstandings, lies, and confusion, but also manages to present a portrait full of nuances and boundaries that give access to the artist’s lights and shadows with a view free of prejudices and blurs: it’s impossible not to see, and Elvis from now on. Listen from another perspective. The author offers a fluid and abundant flow of information and appropriate reflections on what the singer meant in the history of music. Guralnick does not write for mythomaniacs or morbidities. Doesn’t get too close or too far: critical and insightful, explores without daggers or blindfolds. In a society that applauds his rise and watches his fall with anticipation, this is the only way to better understand a man who has finally come under the yoke of life.
Both volumes are sold at a very reasonable price in a single box, almost 1,500 pages of which, with a prudent devotion to the musician and tirelessly – much less judging or punishing – fills the enormous gaps and “fine-tunes” the last Baz Luhrmann film – in his actions and omissions. And he presents portraits of people who treat him (good or bad, good or bad) away from the almost caricature of Tom Hanks as Colonel Parker.
Beyond the hero himself in this new example of American tragedy, Elvis is a comprehensive x-ray of fame. And the demons and redemptions it brings with it. Retrospective moral judgments are not accepted here. judging before understanding and in the absence of understanding. Because when it comes to going deep into a lifetime, it is necessary to reject the superficiality of evaluations.
The author points out that Elvis is perhaps the “most written person” of our time. It is also, in many ways, the most misunderstood, both because of our propensity to judge and precisely because it seems so well known. Among all our assumptions, among all the false affinities that stem from fame, it became nearly impossible to imagine Elvis.
When we see Elvis’ last performances again, with his deteriorating and sad look, his immeasurable weight and shabby look, let’s realize that “he knitted a shell to shelter his loneliness, and that shell hardened behind him.” Although the biographer did not write a diary or memoir, only a few letters and a few interviews, it is a very sad story that the author tells using copious amounts of documents. There are many recordings of his words. Guralnick fed his work with news of the time, fan magazines, reviews, journalistic analysis, anecdotes, and testimonies from friends and witnesses. All this is then filtered by the journalistic instinct to separate the dust and the chaff, as it is all about “drawing a portrait and not creating a web page”.
Aim? Telling the world why this music is “so vital, exciting and culturally important, part of the same traditional stream of American music that gave birth to Robert Johnson, Hank Williams, Sam Cooke, The Statesmen, Jimmie Rodgers and the Golden Gate” Quartet. Not less. At the heart of the work is that effort at the edge of the abyss, but the author sharpened his gaze and expanded his conclusions as he descended into Elvis’ most secret folds. “I certainly once saw Elvis as a blues singer (that was my prejudice); Today, I see him as someone who from the very beginning wanted to encompass every vein of the American musical tradition.” And “while awakening to the beauty of many of the ballads I had previously despised, it also rekindled my admiration for the gospel quartet tradition that Elvis knew so well.”
Hundreds of interviews dozens of times. An avalanche of sounds to enter the maze and not get lost. Or getting lost to find the necessary clue, the footprint hidden by many previous footprints. Hence the rigor of the narrative: the important thing is always not in the big scenes but in the secondary speech: “You want the reader to hear the carefree exuberance of Elvis’s laughter.” Mild signs of intimacy. Hundreds of versions, hundreds of own truths, hundreds of looks from others. It’s all right, they all have something enriching to expand the context while limiting their boundaries.
Elvis wasn’t going to trash his character: he had created it and enjoyed it. Over the past few years, “a sad trend was something that served as bait” for the cartoons, and his music “became a battleground for bitter ethnic disputes.” Maybe he lost his way, but “even in his darkest moments he retained some of the innocent transparency. Despite all his doubts, disappointments, self-loathing, disappointment and fear he often felt, he continued to live in the ideal of a democratic redemptive transformation, continuing to seek a connection with the public. He loved her for who he wanted to be, not for who he was.
Amine.