Elvis - alive and well and living in North Moravia
Last week I came face to face with the King. The man who invented rock'n'roll. The man before whom - as one of the Beatles once said (I think it was John, but I'm not sure) - there was nothing. I'm speaking, of course, of Elvis Aaron Presley.
Last week I came face to face with the King. The man who invented rock'n'roll. The man before whom - as one of the Beatles once said (I think it was John, but I'm not sure) - there was nothing. I'm speaking, of course, of Elvis Aaron Presley.
Now some of you might be labouring under the misapprehension that Elvis is dead. Not so. I can reliably report that Elvis is, in fact, alive and well and living in North Moravia. I say this because last Friday night, in a tiny bar in the town of Novy Jicin, I met him in person.
The evening, it has to be said, did not get off to an auspicious start. Novy Jicin - as far as I could tell at least - has little to recommend it, and Novy Jicin in the middle of winter, in minus ten, at night, has even less. The venue for the concert was a small bar advertising 173 different brands of whisky. Twenty people were squeezed around a table which could comfortably seat 10, leaving a space of exactly three square metres between us and the band. And when the band appeared, my spirits sunk even further - four middle-aged men in bad haircuts and shiny blue shirts. The bass player had a pot belly and a shaggy beard. The guitar player looked old enough to remember Elvis as a young boy. Why have I dragged myself hundreds of miles to a godforsaken bar in deepest Moravia, for this?
And then I received the answer. The lights dimmed. The band struck up a furious rendition of You Ain't Nothin' But A Hound Dog. And suddenly, there he was, in person. Elvis Presley. The King.
For the next four hours, Elvis - the Vegas Elvis of the early 70's, clad in a white all-in-one body suit - treated us to a note-perfect medley of his greatest hits. We rocked to That's All Right Little Mama. We rolled to Baby Tryin' To Get To You. The men pounded the tables to Blue Suede Shoes. The ladies swooned to Are You Lonesome Tonight? He crooned White Christmas. We clamoured for Blue Christmas, so he sang that as well. With the beginning of each song he muttered "Ladies and Gentlementhis next song.", before lapsing effortlessly into Czech, a skill I must confess I never knew Elvis had. Finally, when we were almost spent with exhaustion, he made one final encore. I shouted out the only big hit he'd so far neglected - Jailhouse Rock. The band struck up the first two chords. He belted out the first line. The crowd went wild.
After Elvis had left the stage for the last time, I beckoned the waitress over. "Two beers," I said. "One for me, and one for Mr Presley. And ask him if I can stop by." A few minutes later she reappeared, and pointed to a back room. And there he was, still wearing the Vegas suit, sipping the beer I'd just bought him. "Hi," he said, extending his hand. "I'm Elvis Presley."
The only thing I recall about the conversation that followed was that he was from a small town near Ostrava, and his real name - I think - was Martin. I do know I gave him my business card, and asked him to stop by the Czech Radio studios the next time he was in Prague. And so now I'm waiting for a phone call from the King. Long-distance, from Ostrava, north Moravia (not Memphis, Tennessee).
