Arts NETFLIX HARRY MOUNT ELVIS PRESLEY: THE SEARCHER You might think this Elvis documentary would be biased. It was devised by his ex-wife, Priscilla Presley, and his great friend, Jerry Schilling, cleverest of the Memphis Mafia. Instead, it’s a two-part, 215-minute, objective view of Elvis’s life, as told through his songs. The talking heads are serious: from Priscilla to Ronnie Tutt, Elvis’s drummer in the 1970s; from Bruce Springsteen to the late Tom Petty. Petty’s words stand for the whole film: ‘He was a light for all of us. We should dwell in what was so beautiful and everlasting – the great, great music.’ The title of the film comes from Priscilla Presley’s words to its producer, Jon Landau: she called Elvis ‘the searcher’. That searching tendency produced his rare alchemy, combining rhythm and blues, country and gospel. Listen to the Sun Sessions, recorded at Sun Studios, Memphis, in 1954 and 1955, when he was 19 and 20, just before he became globally famous in 1956. His voice then was higher but still a miracle. Bing Crosby’s voice was said to be the perfect singing-in-the-shower voice.
Elvis in Hawaii, 1973. His belt features the Great Seal of the United States
Elvis’s voice wasn’t just the ideal rock ’n’ roll voice. It was also the perfect voice for ballads like Wooden Heart, Don’t and Can’t Help Falling in Love. Thom Zimny, who co-edited, coproduced and directed the film, takes a convincing approach to the arc of Elvis’s career. It’s more nuanced than John Lennon’s line, ‘Elvis really died the day he joined the army.’ In fact, Elvis hit an artistic high spot on his immediate return from the army in the 1960 album Elvis Is Back!, particularly in the songs Fever and The Girl of My Best Friend. How odd, too, that the most influential rebel of the 20th century should produce two gospel albums, His Hand in Mine (1960) and How Great
Thou Art (1967), in the trendy, epochshattering 1960s. Yes, most of Elvis’s films in the 1960s were rubbish, with the odd inspired song – such as C’mon Everybody in Viva Las Vegas (1964), where Ann-Margret and Elvis pull off a thrilling, erotic, hightempo dance act. Elvis’s dancing was an underrated arrow in his quiver: DJ Fontana, his 1950s drummer, said Presley could signal a sophisticated series of drum beats with the tiniest of body moves. The film acknowledges the bad effect of Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis’s manager, forcing him into those terrible films. But, still, it was the Colonel who made Elvis big in the first place. And Elvis did have the gumption to countermand the Colonel’s schlocky tendencies in his magical, later moments– in the ’68 Comeback Special and the strikingly original 1969 album From Elvis in Memphis. Because this documentary is about Elvis’s music, it barely deals with his tragic death in 1977, at the age of only 42. But the 1970s still produced its high moments. Before he ballooned in weight, his live shows were a unique, vast spectacle. His band was combined with backing vocals by the Sweet Inspirations, the Imperials, the Stamps, Kathy Westmoreland and a 30-piece orchestra. Few other American artists could have afforded the expense. Few other artists could have been quite so spectacularly American, for that matter. Watch him sing An American Trilogy in the 1973 Aloha from Hawaii satellite broadcast to a billion viewers. He’s wearing a white jumpsuit, emblazoned with 6,500 gemstones depicting two American bald eagles, and a belt featuring the Great Seal of the United States (pictured). With any other singer, it would have been embarrassing. With Elvis, it just feels startlingly authentic, as he always was. The Oldie July 2016 63
