THE BIG SALE IS ON! TELL ME MORE
Tom Holland received a double first from Cambridge. He has adapted Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides and Virgil for BBC Radio. He was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for RUBICON and won the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History 2004.
If Sinatra wooed the '40's, Presley zapped the '50's. He was the sexy cyclone that changed the shape and sound of massteria and created a cultural revolution. Two decades, umpteen gold records, and 40 leaden movies later, he is a legend that can still break all Vegas house records. Hopkins, editor of Rolling Stone and author of The Rock Scene, has done an admirable job getting into the man, the management and the music that created this phenomenal SucceSS story. It's really Horatio Alger set to Rock, with Elvis perfectly cast as the polite, persistent boy from Tupelo, Mississippi's Poverty Row. If Elvis is an archetypal boy wonder, then his manager, known as the Colonel is Mr. Super Slick, the ultimate promoter. The Colonel is the most fascinating character in the book, a canny huckster with a knack for practical put-ons - When asked if Elvis would do a walk-on on the Joey Bishop Show, the Colonel said yes for $2500, and when the producer asked why so little, the Colonel said it would cost another $47,500 for Elvis to walk back off. Everyone from the original sidemen to the Memphis Mafia (Elvis' entourage) to the adored mother who couldn't cope with success to the matronly Mrs. who has collected over 25,000 pictures of her hero are included in this upbeat, eminently readable profile. It is, in the words of one fan club, Elvisly yours. (Kirkus Reviews)
