Before I actually listened to this* I had a little ponder to myself as to exactly what 'Elvis Style'
actually meant. It's not a title that promises a 'separated at birth' album of
note perfect imitation is it? Anybody can sing in 'Elvis style' (though it's
usually in parody) and there's enough wriggle room there for any number of get
out of jail free cards to be played in terms of any shortcomings it might have.
In imitating Elvis, there are multiple versions to choose from, but from my
experience it seems most folk tend to gravitate to either the young Elvis in the
sharp suits and quiff (if they've got the youth, hair and waistline to pull it
off), or the later, fat Elvis in the Vegas jumpsuits and rhinestones (where they
don't).
In both cases, and if done properly, those costumes are able to carry
out a lot of the heavy lifting involved in adopting Presley's persona and they
can fill in any holes in the vocal in much the same way that a Napoleon costume
with the hat and hand hiding greatcoat is all you need to convincingly pass
yourself off at a party as the one time Emperor - you don't actually need to
learn to speak fluent French for people to 'get' who you're meant to be and
imagination can do the rest. It's a different matter with a singer and on a
record though - there's no hiding behind fancy dress here and any Elvis
impersonator will stand or fall solely on how much he actually sounds like
him.
So how good is the guy on this (to these ears
anyway it sounds like it's the same person on all the songs)? Well as Elvis
impersonators go, and on his voice alone, I'd score him about six out of ten. In
terms of singing style, if he were on stage then like as not he'd be more 'fat
Elvis' than 'young Elvis' and the song choice largely reflects this by leaning
heavily on the his later output (up until 1973 anyway). He's actually quite
convincing on the high and low notes, which is why the more lungbusting songs
like 'An American Trilogy' and 'The Wonder Of You' work best; there are vocal
tics and mannerisms that act as clear handholds to grip on to. His problem lies
in everything in-between where the clichés are scarce. Songs like 'His Latest
Flame' don't have any obvious 'Presley-isms' to latch on to and so our singer is
forced to fall back on what sounds largely like his own voice, and it's a voice
that doesn't sound a lot like Elvis.
There's no real shame in that I suppose; Presley's
vocal is pretty unique and his talent was that he could sing anything in any
style and always sound like he meant it. Any other vocalist with the same
ability probably wouldn't be found wasting too much of their time recording
cheap filler like this. The band backing him up
do a more than competent job of reproducing the sound of the originals (right
down to a fake 'live' crowd on 'The Wonder Of You'), but as I intimated earlier,
a project like this has to stand or fall on the talent of the man in front. And
in this case he could be better. Again though, I ask myself the question why
anyone would want to listen to a mimic, however good they might be, rather than
the real thing. It really is no substitute, even for those on a tight
budget.
*There was a 'Volume One' in
the box too, but thinking that buying and reviewing two of these things might be
pushing it, I chose 'Volume Two' solely because that girl on the cover reminds
me of someone I used to know.And that's as good as reason as any.
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