A common type of modern clown is the Elvis Presley impersonator, a chubby guy with sideburns and Elvis-type hair (or wig) who wears a spangly jumpsuit and does a stylized Elvis impersonation. There’s like a million of them. They all impersonate Elvis circa 1974.
And then you have people who try to imitate Elvis at other points of his life; you’ll usually see these in movies or professional shows in vegas and whatnot.
Here’s the thing: I’ve never seen a convincing imitation of Elvis. Ever. Not a fat Elvis, not a thin Elvis. The fat Elvises always look like buffoons who couldn’t do an Elvis if their lives depending on it, and the young Elvises always look like they’re sincerely trying their best but are hopelessly inadequate to the task.
Once in VegasI went to an impersonation show. Tthey had some frigging fantastic mimics there; I mean, you knew it wasn’t Cher, Tina Turner et al., but some of them were pretty damned close and all of them were at least very good. But when the Elvis came out… I mean, he wasn’t anything like Elvis. I’m not even an Elvis fan but he was sadly far from the real McCoy. Or the real Presley.
Has there ever been a good Elvis impersonator? Why is Elvis Presley so hard to do?
Well, I can only give a personal anecdote here, but there was a pretty decent Elvis impersonator near where my parents live in east Texas. He played the part 24 / 7 and actually had a good mimicry going on. His voice was close and his moves were pretty rehearsed to the point that, to an untrained non-fan, they would pass for double. Other than that, I’m sure it’s hard to portray him convincingly because he was so highly stylized. Even if you’re not into him at all, you know what he was like.
The guy who plays Elvis at the American Superstars show a the Stratosphere in Las Vegas right now is surprisingly good. I mean, he sounds EXACTLY like Elvis to the point that I at first thought he was miming (he wasn’t). He also had the moves down pretty pat. In fact, my understanding is he won the world Elvis impersonator contest at Graceland a few years ago.
One of the best Elvises I’ve ever seen was Tortelvis, the lead singer of Dread Zeppelin. They do Led Zeppelin covers reggae-style with an Elvis-impersonator lead singer. You don’t notice it as much on the albums, but live he almost didn’t need a microphone. He had one of those Tom Jones-esque voices that boom (but sounding like Elvis, of course). It was damn near opera.
Mike Albert is reputed to be one of the better Elvises. He has the voice and persona right. What killed him for me was the felt sideburns. One interesting thing he does is an anachronistic show with Elvis covering current hits.
You want to hear a good Elvis impersonator? Then the guy you want to hear is named Doug Church.
He has a bunch of videos on YouTube. He sounds so much like the real Elvis it’s almost unnatural - especially his version Candle in the Wind / England’s Rose. Listen:
My first summer out of high school, I got a job working for the Secretary of the State of IL in the vehicle title processing division. A guy working in that office was a parapalegic Elvis impersonator. Looked absolutely nothing like him, especially because of the mustache. His voice was pretty well right on, though. Then I caught him smoking pot in a restroom. I would think that if you wanted to be more like The King, you’d stick to Quaaludes and the like.
ElvisWade is pretty darn Good, he does the 70’s Elvis shtick pretty spot on, a bit of a natural resemblence, but he has an incredible voice that’s pretty darn close to Elvis (4 octave range)…He has the natural Tennessee accent as well. He has also done an album with the original members of Elvis’s band - The Jordanaires.
