Last Train To Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley - 'The richest portrait of Presley we have ever had' Sunday Telegraph

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It is over seven hundred pages long and since I haven’t read it I don’t know how much of that is text, but I do know it is another doorstop book. Overall, a great read that clued me in on what now seems like a gaping hole in my musical education and understanding of American culture. Seeing the process of how Elvis was meticulously turned from a shy teenager into a larger than life sensation was incredible. In the same way it would have felt to have been among the screaming masses at an Elvis concert as he created the rock n' roll scene with a shake of his leg. When I first picked up this biography I had high expectations because the cover is beautiful and there are some great reviews about it.

Careless Love merely confirms these feelings, with Elvis paralleling Hamlet's manic depression, surrounded by wheelers and dealers. Still, Elvis repeatedly expressed his fears that he would ``go out like a light, just like I came on. Guralnick takes us by the hand and describes in words all the events that lead to the rise of the musical phenomenon that became Elvis back in the 50s.

It's never clear whether he actually just stays up late talking and then goes to sleep or participates in more physical activities. The title of volume two is Careless Love and unfortunately, but truthfully, the subtitle is The Unmaking of Elvis Presley. It shows us the loneliness, the trustfulness, the voracious appetite for experience, and above all the unshakable, almost mystical faith that Elvis had in himself and his music.

It's worth keeping YouTube open while reading this for footage and videos of the early songs and recording sessions which form a natural soundtrack to this book. unless I want to believe that he is off on some island somewhere with JFK (as all the rumors used to say in the 70s/80s.The book pulls no punches, however, and honestly relates the decline, both personally and professionally, which occurred in the seventies, without resorting to smut or innuendo. The author meticulously lists every live concert date, every record and every film made, but that is not all the book is about. As much as I dislike the Svengali like Colonel Parker, his ability to turn Elvis into the most successful commodity in the history of entertainment is nothing short of genius. The predatory ex-Carnie barker "Colonel" Tom Parker moved in to guide this boy along and in his manipulatory and conniving ways made Elvis a national phenomenon. I was well into adulthood before I realized how thrilling and revolutionary Elvis Presley's music had been.

The way this book was put together is extremely impressive: by no means is it your "standard" biography. Peter Guralnick's books include the prize-winning two-volume biography of Elvis Presley, Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love.

The afternoon show footage is wonderful and electrifying : Here is Elvis in his prime rocking and rolling in front of 11. In the second volume "Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley", the abuse of that gift destroys Presley, but in "Last Train To Memphis" there is the delicacy of watching a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis mixed with the rude exhilaration of a musical revolution. I noticed that many times people said Elvis wasn't a prodigy on guitar, in fact they say he wasn't very good.

Dust Jackets are not guaranteed and when still present, they will have various degrees of tear and damage. But in the end, I think it was necessary to know how Elvis was able to make his first recording before he started on his path to stardom. He specializes in the history of early rock'n'roll and has written on Elvis Presley, Sam Phillips, and Sam Cooke.Guralnik is a bit reticent about Elvis' relationships with women which is fair enough in avoiding a kind of intrusive prurience, but slightly frustrating at the same time. In this latter respect, the recording sessions are dealt with to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the author's appreciation of them (the ' Elvis Is Back' and ' How Great Thou Art Sessions' in some detail, for example, but ' Something For Everybody' and film soundtracks are skipped over or ignored); similarly the space and descriptive effort allocated to the making of the sixties films diminishes noticeably as the book progresses; on the other hand, the almost analytical nature of the chapter devoted to the TV Special is about as good a description as you'll get of the event -- it's exciting to read and makes you reach yet again for the video. A complicated mix of guilessness and sweet innocence, with something more ambitious and single-minded, entangled with a charisma and natural blazing talent underpinned by a genuine spirituality. This first volume covers his dirt poor roots in Tupelo, Elvis’s first guitar and love of country and gospel, and the family’s move to Memphis when Elvis was 12 in hopes that Vernon could find more work.