Is the Elvis impersonator contest as we know it doomed?
A
story this week in The New
York Times by Julie Bosman
reported that Robert Sillerman, the billionaire who plans to overhaul Graceland,
“believes that Elvis Presley Enterprises has not used Elvis to his full
potential, by a long shot.”
Sure, and NASCAR has underutilized
corporate logos.
In 2005, Sillerman, chairman and CEO
of CKX, Inc., a publicly traded entertainment company, bought 85 percent of
Elvis Presley Enterprises. When you see the words “billionaire,” “Elvis,” “full
potential,” and “publicly traded” in the same story, you can bet that revenue
enhancement is on the way. And that could mean an end to one of the sweetest
vestiges of the annual Elvis Week celebration in August, the Images of Elvis
contest.
The Times story says “the
fate of the impersonators was still undecided.”
I have no illusions about the purity
of the Elvis legacy. But the annual Elvis contest in Memphis, the Super Bowl of
such things, was a nice event — thanks to co-founder Ed Franklin, the earnest
and highly respectful contestants, and the indulgence of Memphis-based Elvis
Presley Enterprises. The guardians of the Elvis legacy are vigilant, but the
contest was good marketing and contestants were given free rein to have their
fun, entertain, and make a modest or even a comfortable living. The airport
Holiday Inn ballroom was an unpretentious venue, the admission ticket and drinks
were reasonably priced, and spectators got to mix and mingle with the faux Elvi
before and after the competition.
The ETA, or Elvis tribute act, is an art form. As with any art form, there are
bad practitioners, hacks, and grand masters. In 2000, the winner of the Images
of Elvis contest was first-time entrant Ryan Pelton, who bears such an uncanny
resemblance to the young Elvis that he has effectively put all other ETAs in the
position of competing for second place. It is like trying to be taller than Yao
Ming. Pelton has parlayed his act into a nice career, with appearances all over
the country and a spot on The
Weakest Link television program,
which, according to his Web site (RyanPelton.com) earned him $137,500.
He was fun to watch and pleasant to
talk to as he explained how he had sidetracked a career as a graphic designer
for his singular calling and given up trying not to look like
Elvis.
“When I went into the Marine Corps
after high school, they shaved my head and people said I looked like a bald
Elvis,” he said. “When I grew my hair long, they said I looked like a
long-haired Elvis.”
Pelton tours with Elvis chums D.J.
Fontana and the Jordanaires. Beneath him are several strata of less talented
Elvis impersonators with fan clubs, photos, and regular paid gigs. It is not
hard to see how all this could get seriously weird, with batallions of lawyers
and agents for Sillerman’s company taking on the first-chop imitators or
“authorized Elvis entertainers” with lawsuits and injunctions and orders to
comply or cease and desist in their hands.
I hope it doesn’t happen, but it’s hard to imagine that it
won’t. Sillerman paid more than $100 million for his stake in Elvis Presley
Enterprises, and public companies are all about wringing every dollar of revenue
from every possible source. If he follows through on his plans, Whitehaven and
Graceland will get a nice bump in investment. But somewhere a lad dreams of
letting his sideburns grow out, donning a jumpsuit, and belting out Jailhouse Rock in
front of a bunch of screaming women in an airport hotel ballroom on a Saturday
night in Memphis — or in a lounge somewhere else in the American heartland.
Please keep the dream alive, Mr. Sillerman.
