Attempts to update Elvis usually fall into one of two bags. Either they’re so stupid they’re brilliant (Dread Zeppelin fans read no further); or else they fall flat on their over-burgered behinds. Or, because there’s a third bag that nobody told you about, they are by The King.
The King is a 31-year-old Belfast mailman; his real name is James Brown. So, full marks for not taking the most obvious route, and even fuller ones for actually making Presley fans think about things before they condemn — things like, what would have happened if Colonel Tom had predeceased his caged-up star, and Elvis had taken his rock revival seriously?
Well, he probably still wouldn’t have covered Nirvana, AC/DC or Jimi Hendrix, as The King does here, but a tribute to rock’s other fallen heroes? Why not? Otis Redding’s “Dock Of The Bay” and Marvin Gaye’s “Grapevine” are no-brainer successes, simply because Elvis should have sung them himself. A Sun-Sessions-meets-the-Sex-Pistols take on Eddie Cochran’s “Something Else” has an uncanny realism all its own.
The real revelation, though, is “Sweet Home Alabama”, which is so much a second cousin of “Burning Love” that it’s a miracle nobody ever noticed it before. Drop this one into any collection of Presley’s ’70s outtakes, and watch rock ‘n’ roll history rewrite itself fast.
Or not, because nobody takes this kinda stuff seriously anymore, and even if they did, Elvis certainly wouldn’t. After all, he’s making almost $7 an hour driving delivery vans for some firm downtown. Why would he throw all that away, for a business so fickle as rock ‘n’ roll singing?
