The Colonel and The King, Before Elvis, Richard Manuel and Shakey Photo: Supplied
The Colonel and the King: Tom Parker, Elvis Presley, and the Partnership That Rocked the World, by Peter Guralnick
Peter Guralnick is one of the most respected musical biographers, best known for a definitive two-volume biography of Elvis Presley.
Working on those books led him to a series of encounters with Elvis’s manager, the legendary Colonel Tom Parker, who outlived Elvis by some twenty years, dying at age 87 in 1997.
By most accounts, Parker is depicted as essentially a villain; see Tom Hanks’s portrayal in Baz Luhrman’s Elvis biopic. He is widely held responsible for Elvis’s chequered film career, his uneven song choices – even, by some accounts, his early demise. But Guralnick draws a nuanced portrait of a fascinating, if flawed, figure.
He certainly has roguish characteristics. For one thing, he wasn’t a Colonel, nor was his name Tom Parker. He probably wasn’t even a US citizen. Born in Holland as Andreas Cornelius Van Kuijk, he arrived in America at age sixteen as a stowaway, and proceeded to reinvent himself, working in carnivals and circuses, going on to manage country stars and, ultimately, Elvis. At the time they met, Elvis was still on the southern country circuit, and had made just a handful of singles, only regional hits, for the small Sun label. Colonel negotiated his move to RCA, and oversaw his rise to global superstardom.
The Colonel commanded a substantial cut of Elvis’s earnings; in return, he gave Elvis his loyalty and almost exclusive attention. Guralnick finds only a couple of occasions when the pair fell out, which he details dramatically.
When Elvis returns to the stage with his Vegas seasons, it is initially a triumph for both artist and manager, yet it also proves to be their undoing, as the pair increasingly succumb to their addictions - drugs in Elvis’s case, gambling in the Colonel’s.
Drawing on the Colonel’s personal archives - with particular emphasis on his eccentric and prolific letter-writing – Peter Guralnick has produced a detailed yet entertaining study of two self-invented, larger-than-life American characters, and the various ways in which they enabled each other to become who they were.
Before Elvis: The African American musicians who made the King, by Preston Lauterbach
Virginian music historian Preston Lauterbach has found a new approach to writing about Elvis Presley. His book Before Elvis is a series of profiles of some of Elvis’s major early influences - all African American musicians, most of whom never achieved more than regional fame.
They include blues singer Arthur Crudup, composer of Elvis’s first single ‘That’s Alright Mama’; gospel singer Reverend Herbert Brewster, whose Memphis church Elvis would frequently visit and whose declamatory style he would draw on; and Willie Mae ‘Big Mama’ Thornton, the original singer of ‘Hound Dog’.
It’s a book of two halves. The first half traces the lives and work of these artists before Elvis’s rise to fame. The second half revisits them post-Elvis, and examines both the impact Elvis’s success had on them (if any, and their subsequent careers. Though for the most part these are stories of hard lives with some elements of real tragedy, Lauterbach doesn’t subscribe to the idea that Elvis’s success was a simple case of cultural appropriation. Rather, he explores the complex cultural currents that led to his unique musical creation, and gives credit in some places where it is long overdue.
Richard Manuel: His Life and Music, from the Hawks and Bob Dylan to The Band, by Stephen T. Lewis
Despite possessing the most vocal talent of any of its members, Richard Manuel is often relegated to the role of sideman in histories of The Band, with Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm taking up a lot of the attention.
Stephen Lewis set’s out to right that wrong here producing a meticulously researched and beautifully put together portrait of a talented but troubled man.
Starting with Manuel's childhood in Stratford, Ontario, Lewis charts his career from his early days playing with high school band, The Revols, through to his days with Rock N’ Roll singer Ronnie Hawkins and the development of what would eventually become The Band.
Very soon after The Band achieved success with their debut album ‘Music From Big Pink’, Manuel began to lose control of his drinking and as a result, drifted further away from songwriting. This drastically reduced his input into the work the band produced which further fed his desire to drink.
Lewis’ book is an even-handed approach to an immensely talented and seemingly kind and generous but ultimately flawed man. He keeps his focus solely on Manuel and makes a valiant effort not to turn his book into yet another history of The Band even making a point to brush past later albums that Manuel had little input in.
Richard Manuel: His Life and Music, from the Hawks and Bob Dylan to The Band is a very fitting tribute to one of rock music’s most underrated performers.
Shakey: Neil Young's Biography, by Jimmy McDonough
Originally published in 2002, Shakey has since become a landmark in the genre of Rock Biography.
Granted unprecedented access to the mercurial and evasive Neil Young, Jimmy McDonough spent much of the 1990’s conducting interviews with everyone to Young’s parents to his producers and bandmates.
The result is a funny, honest and highly opinionated portrait of one of the most enduring musicians of the 20th century.
McDonough makes no bones about which parts of Neil Young’s career he likes and which parts he feels did not work (Crosby, Stills and Nash get raked over the coals several times). His back and forth with Young throughout the book also adds some tension as Young repeatedly drops in and out of McDonough’s view.
All of this makes for fascinating reading and 24 years after it’s original publication, it’s still the most illuminating document of Neil Young that we have.
