Outback Elvis

by John Connell

  Pete Preston from Kyneton, Victoria was busking in 2009 at the age of 53. He had been an Elvis fan all his life but only found out about the festival in 2008, his first visit. ‘I had such a fantastic time that I came back early this year to join in the spirit’. He was entering the busking and sound-alike competitions. ‘I’ve been playing Elvis’s music for about 30 years – it’s a big hobby and I get plenty of work around Victoria these days. But really that’s all it is, a lifetime pleasure’. Although Pete had been a chef and a printer, he was increasingly living off his Elvis ‘hobby’. A year later he had briefly graduated to the stage of the Leagues Club.

  Getting started was challenge enough for some. One busker, who was registered for the 2016 Festival but never appeared, told us:

  I’d like to be a busker. There’s this ‘entertainer’ in me but I’m too scared to let it out. I love ’50s rock ’n’ roll, and never get bored with Elvis. I doubt if I could make a living from busking but would love to try, but stop myself from lack of confidence, I guess … Maybe I might try again next year?

  Facing a mirror in a quiet bedroom is no real practice for even an appreciative Parkes street corner. Loving Elvis and the music and style of the ’50s was not quite enough.

  Busking could prove an escape from the humdrum of daily life, a few moments of individualism and escapism, a few minutes near fame and not too far from centre stage. For some it was an even greater escape. Paul came to Parkes to busk and enter the competitions:

  I was a formwork chippy on high rise, but a workplace accident in 2008, when I was 43, left me on a walking stick for four years. One day my daughter said … ‘You need to do something with your life’, so I turned to Elvis and his lyrics. I reinvented myself. As a kid I always loved Elvis and later watched his movies. For years prior to my accident people would tell me I needed to do Elvis, so I guess it’s all about timing … It was great to be part of it. I loved performing to the audience and [seeing] them get lost in the moment. It makes me happy and I love to see them happy. I’m 51 now but I feel like I’m in my forties – just like Elvis.

  Music and Elvis could be therapy. After a long career in the RAAF, Mike began singing at the age of 62 and was in Parkes in 2016 for the fourth time

  Apart from a few appearances at karaoke I took up singing in 2012 … I especially like early Elvis music – the skinny Elvis style that was influenced by the rockabilly style of the ’50s … Busking at the festival is a real rush for me and really toughens you up for singing generally. If you can handle singing for two or three days in a row for four hours at a time, you can sing anywhere.

  While Mike made some money from singing, he said, ‘I sing for the love of it and not financial gain’. Belatedly acquiring busking skills helped keep him alive. Other buskers sought to keep other people alive. Stan Kingham, perhaps the oldest busker at 80 in 2015, and the only one from Parkes, had graduated from karaoke and, performing in full Elvis regalia, was there entirely to make money to support Sophie Delezio, a Sydney girl who had endured appalling injuries from two car accidents.

  A relatively rare female busker, Susie J., was there for the first time in 2015, after a decade busking at various markets and festivals around Wollongong.

  Parkes was always on my bucket list as a diehard Elvis fan. I was only young when he got married; I was devastated, tore all his posters off my wall and broke down in tears. I was hooked by Parkes from the start. The streets were alive with music, the shop fronts decorated, the park full of stalls, plus the huge stage with a dance floor in front. I couldn’t get over the friendliness of the locals and visitors. The whole town was on a high with excitement … I came back in 2016 and to my astonishment saw so many people I knew; it was like a huge reunion.

  Like so many other buskers, Susie J. was not there for the money but for the enormous sense of fun, the recognition, and to provide thrills and memories for others. Steve, too, was there for the pleasure and personal satisfaction:

  I started singing two years ago at an open mike night and only started busking in this year’s Elvis competition, as a 60-year-old, and absolutely loved it. I was a correctional officer but this really seemed my thing. I came as Kiwi Elvis and sang mostly Elvis songs but threw in some Maori songs that have the Hawaiian flavour … I hoped I could make people happy and was overwhelmed by the responses. [One of my] best highlights [was] when a group of mentally impaired children sang and danced with me and had cuddles. It was the expression of delight on their faces – priceless.

  If the image of a busker is sometimes that of a near down-and-out with a grubby guitar case, earnestly pleading for spare change, 65-year-old Alan Gordon utterly defied that by piloting his own Piper Arrow aircraft from Scone to Parkes and playing a vintage Fender Stratocaster, bought in the 1960s and now worth upwards of $20 000. Wearing a ‘Grumpy Old Man’ T-shirt, he performed what he described as ‘grandpa rock’. ‘I’m not the best player,’ he told us, but after tonsil cancer he was glad to be singing at all, and donating anything he earned to charity. Combining his two loves – music and flying – had enabled him to busk from Birdsville to the Sunshine Coast: enjoyable escapes from an otherwise demanding job as a CEO.

  Unlike most other parts of the festival, busking offered direct participation and interaction, usually good humoured. Passers-by who preferred other buskers, or were just shopping, simply walked on. Buskers loved the acclaim, even from tiny clusters of fans: ‘I have my own small audience. Some I even recognise from last year’. Fans could make requests – usually the ‘standards’ that rarely challenged the buskers – creating immediate rapport. Buskers could be much more individualistic than tribute artists; they did whatever their own thing was, merging into country music, concentrating entirely on gospel songs or even just instrumentals. Some had their backing tracks recorded; others played their own instruments. Some had CDs for sale, and the requisite hats and guitar cases out for donations, though it might not have resulted in a large income: ‘Oh, this lady, she put in about 50 cents. Yeah, and … a chewing gum packet, one chewie left in it’. Festival-goers found their own favourites, sometimes remembered to vote for them in the busking competition and purchased their CDs.

  Placing in competitions, and simply being visible on the street, offered a leg up on the circuit. ShElvis emerged from the streets. The transition could be rapid. Steve Kelleher came in 2010: ‘I bought a jumpsuit from the States, a sound system and I set up at 10 am on the Wednesday morning. By 10.45 am I had an offer to do shows at the Parkes Leagues Club’. Not much later he moved from Brisbane to Parkes.

  Buskers were some of the very few people who came to the festival alone. Their partners had probably had enough. Some others had had enough too; inside one store, a busker firmly in place outside, the shopkeeper was concerned about how often his baby had left him: ‘It’s amazing to think they’re so fanatical about someone who’s been dead for ages’. In Parkes fanaticism was invariably forgiven.

  Unchained Melody: the wannabes

  Parkes is full of impersonators. For most, dressing up is silly and great fun, granting liberation and release, and the anonymity of stepping outside oneself. They were not always encouraged: ‘My nephew has got kids and they sort of, you know, go “Dressing up as Elvis at your age!” … they get embarrassed for you. But I come up here and I said, “No, I’m not embarrassed. There’s blokes older than me doin’ it.”’

  For a few it was one step closer to the dream of becoming a ‘real’ tribute artist, which some had sought for a long time. For a plumber who was having trouble getting work, Elvis offered a possible way out: ‘Well, I do what plumbing I can, but it’s hard … When they see the number on your licence they go, “Shit, you’re seventy-one. You can’t work.” So sometimes I’ve gone out and made a quid doing Elvis every now and then; a bit of pocket money’. Some pitched their desire to succeed as a service to the community, an unusual form of altruism. In the words of one local: ‘I want to get really involved and give a bit back because the town
’s been good over the years and I just love seeing what it does and how it affects people’.

  Most had casually absorbed Elvis at some point and gradually recognised it was what they wanted to do, and dressing up was undeniably part of the fun, sometimes as much as the singing. A warehouse worker wannabe from Kingaroy in Queensland had become hooked, starting with the physical transformation, where attention to detail was important: ‘So this is the suit that he wore in the ’68 Comeback Special. I’ve got a couple of high-collared shirts. There’s one red one, one red satin one, one black satin one, which I’ll probably wear tomorrow, so I’ll try and go out with a big bang. I bought a proper Elvis belt, from overseas, and I made one up’. He had the clothes, he had the enthusiasm but he had no concert venue. Impersonation offered the opportunity to step out from ordinary life and, for just a few brief moments, feel like star.

  For some, Elvis alone was not enough. Said one wannabe: ‘I do a bit of Chad Morgan and I’m actually going to try doing Chad Morgan doing Elvis. He’s got buck teeth and a funny hat … I’ve never seen anyone do that, but it’s sort of something different and really it’s to make people laugh’. It was not going to take out the Ultimate Tribute Artist award. Optimism and enthusiasm could only take wannabes so far. They had no web pages, no agents and no sense of networking. Beyond their own words and dreams, many were not actually any good, but they certainly added to the atmosphere.

  For the wannabes, the buskers and all those who sought to be Elvis impersonators the festival is the event of the year: an invitation to let one’s hair down, apply the Brylcreem to it and receive the recognition absent from daily life. Most are conscious that they will only ever be bit part players but the festival needs as many bit part players as possible. As one aspiring (and perspiring) tribute artist from Tasmania observed in 2007:

  I’ve been to Graceland. It was great. Parkes and Graceland are pretty similar with the heat. Wearing costumes and impersonating Elvis you can act out a bit more, you get to meet more people, they come up to you … If you were casually dressed they wouldn’t give you a second glance. It gives you a hit of adrenaline, you know … you feel a bit like the King probably would have felt.

  Actually winning competitions requires attention to detail, in looks, costume, vocal and dance style, and a lot of practice. The 43-year-old Edwin Posa, who finally won the look-alike competition in 2010 after three previous attempts, was an Elvis fan from childhood, with a tailor-made suit and rhinestones ordered from America. It cost substantially more than the $500 prize, but it embellished his whole Elvis experience. The 23-year-old paint shop worker was only beginning. So far he had done four shows. ‘I’ve only been doing it for two months. I’ve had the time of my life … it’s so much fun dressing up – you get to wear a jumpsuit and wear make-up. It’s a good excuse to wear make-up and not get picked on’.

  Playing Parkes was the wannabes’ mark of success and, if nothing else, self-anointed fame. Many who came to watch returned to try their hand.

  Thinking about You: aspiring to Elvis

  Some performers never expected to win anything, and actually surprised themselves by being there, having fun, selling a few CDs, receiving a well-earned ‘Thank Yer Very Much’ now and again, and perhaps not being gently booted out of town by irate Elvis fanatics. For some wannabes there was good news; it was just possible that Elvis tribute artists were not necessarily born, but could be made. For those with ETA aspirations, and US$39.95, there was always hope and a DVD:

  Welcome to Elvis University. ‘Sing Like The King’ is jam-packed with proven vocal training exercises, secret techniques, and inside tips guaranteed to bring your Elvis act to a whole new level. Whether you’re a professional Elvis tribute artist, or just want to be king for a night at the karaoke bar, this one-of-a-kind ‘how-to’ video is for you. Your Elvis Instructor is the one and only Doug Church, who earned the moniker ‘The Voice of Elvis’ for his uncanny ability to mimic Elvis Presley’s singing style. Includes lessons on: Mastering the Elvis accent, Warm-up and posture, Breath control, Vocal range, Vibrato, Pronunciation, Ear for music, Moves & gestures, Hair, make-up & costumes.

  Failing that, there is Rick Marino’s best-seller Be Elvis: A Guide to Impersonating the King (2000). It is equally necessary to look the part; there is a hierarchy of credibility in costume as there is in sound. Pro Elvis Jumpsuits offer 18 different kinds of Elvis suits (‘important additions to your professional wardrobe’) from US$1000 substantially upwards. If the Aloha suit is beyond reach, then ‘the Nailhead suit provides the Elvis Tribute Artist maximum glamour in a lower priced suit’ but ‘Each suit is constructed from durable, stain resistant gabardine and all details such as satin covered buttons and hand-picked hem are painstakingly produced for you. At ProElvis Jumpsuits we know that your stage wardrobe is crucial to your success’. ProElvis suits are common in Parkes but very cheap imitations are much more common. Much rarer, and only to be found on the very best ETAs, are bespoke tailored suits from B & K in America, made under licence from the original patterns of Elvis’s own jumpsuits: the top of the hierarchy. They come in at up to US$4500.

  The professional ETAs spangle through the parade, fill the pages of the programs and the seats in the clubs, but every tribute artist, impersonator and busker, from the brilliant to the deplorable, and everyone who simply adds to the colour by dressing up, generates the real atmosphere and the many reasons why the festival pulls in the crowds.

  A home-hosting volunteer awaits visitors at the Parkes train station, 2015

  Brandon Sherman

  Eldest Presley, street parade, 2007

  Robbie Begg

  Launching the departure of the Elvis Express, 2010

  John Connell

  ‘I find the whole Parkes Festival to be distasteful to Elvis’s name. There were too many drunken Elvis look-alikes and B-grade impersonators. These festivals should be a positive reflection on Elvis and not parade a bunch of buffoons and people out for a good time.’ ‘We love Parkes. It’s a great feeling for us, because … there’s, like, an Elvis fraternity … and we meet so many people that we only see once a year … we’re all as one here, you know. It’s a beautiful thing.’

  6

  THE FANS AND THE FANATICS

  Joan had come from the New South Wales Central Coast. She described herself as a housewife and was what the French rather elegantly call ‘of a certain age’. It was her first time in Parkes:

  I love Elvis’s early music and the way he moves … I was a teenager when he was hot and I loved his early stuff … you know the ‘Jailhouse Rock’ and ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ and all that, but didn’t like his later stuff. But as I’ve gotten older … I’ve appreciated that … he was much, much better than I realised at the time. I’ve never come to Parkes and I’ve always wanted to come, so it was just like … hey, why don’t we do it this year?

  At the core of the festival are hundreds of people like Joan, reliving the past, their adolescence and memorable times. The Festival thrives on memory and nostalgia but is much more than that: performers and patrons come in every shape, size and age, and a multitude of reasons bring people there. Just two common factors exist: Elvis and a determination to enjoy themselves, often as exuberantly as possible.

  Some come over and over again and still find it difficult to explain exactly what it is that first brought them and lures them back. Others are surprised to find themselves there at all. Each year brings self-proclaimed ‘Elvis virgins’ and new waves of visitors, some later proving to be ‘Elvis ambassadors’, spreading the word in their own home towns and workplaces.

  As the festival grew, the number of buskers, impersonators, tribute artists and look-alikes also grew. Elvii flooded the streets. Colour, life, vibrancy and a wealth of diverse performances, metres of bunting and inflatable Elvises transformed the main street, roped off for the weekend and rechristened the Festival Boulevard, in which to see and hopefully be seen. The public toilets are relabelled Elvises and Priscillas, and t
he Parkes High School Auditorium becomes The King Dome. Vintage cars and caravans park along the boulevard, accompanied by proud owners only too happy to be photographed alongside their gleaming machines. Cafés and restaurants put tables and chairs outside – it’s no culinary revolution, but colourful. Beer flows in copious quantities; clubs and pubs are full. Nostalgia for adolescence is palpable. So too is licentiousness: the carnival is on – there’s scope for dressing up and transgressing, for daily routines to be turned upside down.

  By the mid-2000s Parkes had become a ‘bucket list’ destination, and a permanent highlight on the evolving grey nomad circuit, often between the Summernats in Canberra (an annual celebration of ‘inspiring street machines’, hotted up cars and ‘Australia’s hottest bands’ in the usually cerebral, sterile capital city), and the Tamworth Country Music Festival, held on the weeks before and after the Elvis Festival. ‘Yeah, it was on Kel’s bucket list so we thought why the hell not? You’re a long time dead’. Nick and his wife Wendy, who we met at the 2014 festival, travel in their motor home for six months of the year, and were at the festival en route between Queensland and Melbourne, where they were catching up with family and friends. Sadly, the poodle travelling with them made it more difficult to catch late shows.

  Some visitors are Festival fans, interspersing Parkes with other events. For many nomads and baby boomers, the Wintersun Festival, a nostalgic celebration of rock ’n’ roll held in Coolangatta until 2010, was another essential annual pilgrimage. Elvis fans might also take in the annual Kurri Kurri Nostalgia Festival, outside Newcastle (‘all about Rock n Roll, Classic Cars, Hot rods, Fashion, Music, Dancing and everything good about the 50’s and 60’s’), or Cooly Rocks, at Coolangatta in Queensland, focused more on classic cars (and the ‘best dressed rock and roll dog’), which describes itself as ‘Australia’s biggest ’50s and 60s nostalgia festival’.