Thursday, July 14, 2011

Alan presents the Elvis Presley Story


Alan Meyer of Philadelphia and soon southern California lived and breathed Elvis, singing along to the albums as a kid and - according to the jacket's flip-side - ran away from home to see the Presley flick "Loving You". Sounds like the only theater playing it was very far away, but you get the point.
Around '73 or '74 Alan (as he would plainly be billing himself) took his tribute act on the road and quickly garnered much attention for not only pulling off the look and physical embodiments of the still-alive "King" (E.P. wouldn't pass to another realm til '77), but sounding nearly identical to his mentor - all without any embellishments or exaggerations that later impersonators would use as crutches to hide their lack of vocal talent or merely for comedic impact.

This got the support of Dick Clark as promoter and country-wide tours of the States and up into Canada followed, culminating in lengthy stays in Las Vegas where big crowds were being drawn, all the while the real, actual Elvis was playing across town or down the strip. The difference between your basic impersonator and Alan, is Meyer gives a time-line commentary in between performances of Presley's repertoire: he wasn't pretending to BE Elvis, but rather, as the show said, a tribute. Which of course gained even more consideration after the death.  
However, Alan called it quits almost immediately afterwards due to respect and the sudden influx of 'Elvis Tribute Artists' flooding the scene almost before the body was put in the ground, and went to work in Silicon Valley, breaking out the gyrations once more in 2000, and even as late as '08, apparently at a party thrown for his co-workers at Philips Semiconductors.

Personally, I became over-saturated with the King's output very early on due to my dad being a fan (he was in attendance for Elvis' first performance in Vancouver in August of 1957 at Empire Stadium, unfortunately not hearing much of anything other than females screaming), but what the hell - it's worth it for the banter and the non-Elvisness of the Elvisness, if ya know what I mean. 

14 tracks, from the obvious to the 'what's that?'.

Download here:
Alan

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