Long live the King.

Apart from pulling my balls out at work, fixing friends computers and giving advice and comfort to vulnerable women who have reached a watershed in their relationships, I manage Eric Summers. Eric is an Elvis impersonator and tribute artist.

He is good too, actually he is very good, far better I have to say than many of the Elvis tribute artists around these days. Most think that all they have to do to become the king is to don a white jump suit, grow their sideburns and snarl sentences like “Aha, Than yu vary much and whoa moma”. Eric on the other hand has closely studied hours of video and film, listened to hundreds of the Kings recordings and spent more time in front of a mirror than Paris Hilton.

One of the sad things about most Elvis impersonators is that they actually think they are Elvis. It’s not so much an impersonation as a way of life, which is fine if that’s what you want but embarrassing for everybody else. Once at an Elvis convention/competition in Blackpool I was stood with a group of Elvis’s (Very bizarre) and they were trying to outdo each other, good fine healthy competition you might think, but some of these guys were talking in real life like Elvis. It didn’t stop when the competition was over, they spoke to everyone like that, competition organiser, hotel staff, taxi drivers, I even saw one mini king try to chat a girl up at the bar saying “Hi baby, I’m the King ya wanna be my queen”. Her reply? “F**k off tosser”.

Sometimes when people phone me to ask about Eric’s availability they ask, “Is that Elvis” I used to answer “No I’m afraid Elvis is dead, may I help you”. I stopped that though, inevitably they would be incensed that I had mentioned Elvis and death in the same sentence and waffle on for hours about how the king was not dead and never would be whilst he still had millions of enduring fans. Some even believed that he was still alive and resting somewhere free from the bustle of the entertainment industry. They didn’t hesitate to let me know either, but we have all heard of that before, many sightings of him are testament to that fact.

I sort of get it in a way, he was a one off and very unique which is one reason I suppose for his continued popularity, and if you cant have the real thing then why not the next best, an Elvis impersonator. Or as most prefer to be called Tribute artist. The latter gives it an air of authenticity that the former could never have. But at the end of the day whatever you call it, the King is dead and if he lives it’s in the hearts of his many fans world-wide who recognise what a great man he was.