Anyone ever gig with an Elvis impersonator?

[frank sumatra]

Over the weekend, I was playing a gig with the Rock combo, and the host/client had a request: that we let a friend of theirs, a German Elvis impersonator up on the bandstand to do a few songs. Never in all my years of playing had I ever played with an Elvis impersonator. But they are the client...

Sure enough he had the white jumpsuit and the gold aviator sunglasses: the classic late period look, but he was more lean and early period if you know what I mean.

He had the mannerisms and the voice, and his German accent was AWOL during the performance. He enjoyed the experience so much that he wanted to do it again...

Eine Kliene Elvis Musik anyone?

Do any other TDPRIers have Elvis impersonator experiences?

 

[Oskar]

Did it a few months back

and it was a blast. I had some reservations about it, but the guy doing the impersonation did a great job. He covered the really early years and didn't get into the Vegas stuff. It was a blast. I'd do it again with this guy. He does hundreds of shows every year all over the country and is a motivational speaker as well. Here's a photo of us & the King.

image removed

 

[captain gorgeous]

played a NYE gig in london with an established elvis impersonator from vegas a few years ago. i had to learn 18 elvis tracks and a couple of medleys in 2 weeks having had no previous exposure to that music (beyond a couple of really famous tracks like heartbreak hotel, hound dog and suspicious minds). it was actually really good fun learning some great songs and listening to some of those old performances was amazing. anyway after about a week of serious cramming with the pause button and tabbing out every bar of the hour-long backing track we had one rehearsal with elvis and the backing track (we were playing live drums bass and guitar over a backing track of strings, horns, percussion etc) and we hit the gig.

it was total car crash. he insisted that his insane gold-lamé trophy-wife do an opening set of stuff like patsy cline and celene dion that we hadn't rehearsed at all! we tried to dissuade him but he was adamant. i remember sitting in the car with the other guys desperately listening to the changes in stuff like "sweet dreams" by the eurythmics and trying to commit them to memory in the 10 minutes before we had to go on. oh it was awful. why did we say we'd do it?! he might have threatened to cut our fee or something. maybe i was just more compliant back then.

but we did it. turns out she was tone deaf. i mean painfully glass-shatteringly useless. and having neither rehearsed or even heard most of this stuff before i just stood there on stage limp-wristedly miming to the guitar-less backing track like i knew what i was doing and wanting the ground to open up and swallow me. horrible horrible experience.

so then after the interval, it was elvis time. thing is, elvis had the flu. i mean he was *sick*. he was sweating buckets and breaking off everyother line to cough and throw back shots of brandy. it was pretty bad but he pulled it off. that big fat insane tv evangelist elvis put on quite a show and we sailed through the wonder of you, lawdy miss clawdy, it's now or never, in the ghetto and the requisite viva las vegas, suspicious minds and a little less conversation.

it was definitely a night to remember. and i learned a valuable lesson. a few actually. but the most important one being to SAY NO more often!

funny thing is, that i learned the solo from lawdy miss clawdy off the guy's regular backing track (the one he used when he had no musicians) and i really dug it. i often play it when i pick up a guitar all these years later.

it wasn't until some weeks after the gig when i had picked up a copy of the first elvis album, having got interested through this gig, that i realised that i'd carefully and meticulously learned some random session player's solo! it was actually nothing like the original scotty moore version. and to my eternal shame, i still prefer the one i learned (sorry scotty!)

 

[cowboytwang]

Being that I've spent the past 19 years as a full time free lance musician in Vegas, then the answer would be YES!!!

Can't say that I have cared for many of them, and even got thrown out (asked to leave) of an "Elvis" show for saying "Elvis is dead, I smell formaldehyde". They (faux Elvii) don't seam to have a sense of humor about dead Elvis.

I was also an extra in that movie Honeymoon In Vegas. I was in the lounge scene when all the Elvis Impersonators were singing. The shoot was 14 hours a day for two days of 54 impersonator. The worst 28 hours of my life (but I did make 200 bucks, and got three catered meal a day, for it).

I also wrote a few "Elvis Impersonator" songs after all of that. Someday soon I'll have to record one and post it on the twanger central page.


Did you know that "There are now at over 250,000 Elvis’s around the world, compared to only 170 in 1977 when Elvis died. At this rate of growth, experts predict that by 2019 Elvis impersonators will make up a third of the world population and by 2050 the whole world will be all Elvis Impersonators"

 

[Oskar]

Never heard that, very funny!!!

"Elvis is dead, I smell formaldehyde"

 

[Chris S.]

Many years ago in Austin I played a private gig where we backed up several Elvis impersonators for one set. I think it was some sort of corporate thing. IIRC, one "Elvis" was okay, the others were varying degrees of embarassing. :-\ I do remember we (the band members) kept referring to them collectively as "the Elvi." ;-)

However, I have some friends here in DC who have played this annual Baltimore event for the last several years:

http://www.nightof100elvises.com/

I've never attended, so I don't know if I'm missing out or not. ;-) CS

 

[Andy R]

I've had the pleasure with many Elvi as well- my favorite was the guy who claimed to be Elvis' illegitimate son! He brought his mom and a woman who supposedly was E's cook for provenance! Kid couldn't sing a lick! You can imagine the names the band came up with.........

 

[captain gorgeous]

i remember seeing elvis' cook on tv a while back. apparently she worked for him for years, bringing him all those burgers and fried peanut butter sandwiches. she referred to him as "mister evlis"

 

[trag-o-caster]

Yes, and the rhythm guitarist on the gig was Rick Farner, Mark Farner's brother. Very strange gig, but still fun.

 

[TB72]

Been there, done that...sort of.

A couple years back, a drummer I play with had a birthday party at a local blues club. It turned into a big open jam-type thing...lotsa players, lotsa fun.

While I was sitting in (on a borrowed ES-135), this fella gets up to sing. He asks if I know any Elvis. I ask "anything in particular?" (expecting the usual suspects...Suspicious minds, Jailhouse Rock, Hound Dog, etc.). The guy says, "I dunno, Mystery Train, Milk Cow Blues, My Baby Left Me, stuff like that." I'm like, "Giddy Up, Let's Go Mothertrucker!"

It turns out the guy had a Sun-era Elvis tribute gig. (He just wasn't in costume). Needless to say, the guy was absolutely awesome and it made for a very enjoyable set.

It was a refreshing change to see someone cover that era. Because around these parts (eastern Ontario/ western Quebec), there seems to be a lot of Vegas-era Elvi. Some are really good, others not so good. It is kind of funny to see and hear Elvis speaking french between songs though. Merci beaucoup, Mama.

Later...

 

[WickedGTR]

Uh......nevermind. No comment.

 

[Flaco]

Uh......nevermind. No comment.

Now THAT is funny, I don't care who you are..

 

[maestrovert]

Uh......nevermind. No comment.

now, that's funny.....Thanx James !

 

[dr_twangenstein]

Here's weird one.

So my band was playing a Mardi Gras show this year at a bar where our bass player's girlfriend was working.

The bar manager is an Elvis impersonator who does karaoke Elvis nights. His real name is Fred, but his stage name is Brian even though he performs as Elvis. Still with me?

So he books this gig for us on two conditions.
1. We learn an Elvis song and let him sing it with us
2. We stop playing at a certain point in the night because he happens to be appearing on a local karaoke show which aired during our show.

So we agree, and he comes to practice that week. We decided on Little Sister and we quickly learned to rock it out.

The night of the show comes, and he's dressed to the nines in the tight black leather '68 comeback special garb.

We do the song early in the show and it goes over pretty well. Then, when he's on TV an hour or so later, instead of making us stop and turn up the TV, he decides we should do the song again with the TV on in the background but muted.

So there he is on TV singing a different song but wearing the same outfit.

After the show, he contacted us a couple of times about being his full time backing band. I had visions of making enough money at it to buy myself a big Scotty Moore lookin' jazz box, but he balked when we said we wanted 60% of the take for the 5 guys in the band.

Oh well.