This volume contains a true treasure trove of spontaneous and completely unrehearsed photographs of The King of Rock n Roll. Elvis both famous pictures and some that have never before been published. In 1956, a twenty-one-year-old Elvis Presley was at the beginning of his remarkable and unparalleled career and photographer Alfred Wertheimer was asked by Presley’s new label, RCA Victor, to photograph the rising star. With unimpeded access to the young performer, Wertheimer was able to capture the unguarded and everyday moments in Elvis' life during that crucial year. This was a year that took Presley from Tupelo, Mississippi to the silver screen, and to the verge of international stardom and to his coronation as "The King of Rock 'n' Roll.” As Alfred Wertheimer photographed Elvis during 1956, and again in 1958, he created classic images that are spontaneous, unrehearsed and completely without artifice. Wertheimer’s photographs of Elvis are extraordinary and he appears almost ethereal, whether reading a newspaper while waiting for a cab, or washing his hands during one of his many train trips. After 1958 and Elvis’ induction into the army, the world seemingly forgot about Wertheimer’s magical photographs - for nineteen years - until Aug 16, 1977, the day Elvis died and Time Magazine called. “The phone hasn’t really stopped ringing in the last thirty years,” observes Wertheimer. Many of the photographs in this visual treasury are previously unpublished and some have become almost as famous as the man himself.
Authors
Peter Guralnick is an American music critic, writer on music, and historian of US American popular music, who is also active as an author and screenwriter. He has been married for over 45 years to Alexandra. He has a son and daughter, Jacob and Nina. Guralnick's first two books, Almost Grown (1964) and Mister Downchild (1967), were short story collections published by Larry Stark, whose small press in Cambridge, Larry Stark Press, was devoted to stories and poems. Mona Dickson, writing in MIT's The Tech (May 13, 1964) gave Almost Grown a favorable review. After Guralnick graduated from Boston University in 1971 with a master's degree in creative writing, he began writing books chronicling the history of blues, country, rock and roll and soul. His two-volume biography of Elvis Presley, Last Train to Memphis in 1994, followed by Careless Love in 1999, placed the story of Presley's career into a rise and fall arc. Encompassing more than 1,300 pages (including 1,150 pages of text), the work countered earlier biographies such as Albert Goldman's Elvis from 1981 with an in-depth, scholarly examination of Presley's life and music. Guralnick had previously written on Presley in the The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll, starting with the first edition in 1976, said article having been reprinted for each subsequent edition. Larry Stark Press published Peter Guralnick's second book in 1967. A first edition is currently valued at $200. In contrast to contemporaries such as Lester Bangs, Ian Penman and Nick Tosches, whose music writings are marked by idiosyncratic, self-referential and highly personal styles, Guralnick's writing is characterized by a colloquial approach that is clean and understated by comparison. In his best passages, he has an ability to simultaneously empathize and remain objective. Writing as a music fan, his enthusiasm powers his writing but doesn't overpower it. Guralnick wrote the script for A&E's documentary, Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock 'n' Roll, narrated by Billy Bob Thornton, and he also scripted Sam Cooke - Legend, narrated by Jeffrey Wright.
