Customer Reviews

Elvis: Rock 'n' Roll Legend

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I bought a copy of ELVIS: ROCK 'N' ROLL LEGEND by Susan Doll when it was published in 1994, so when I came across it on Amazon I was surprised that NO ONE had done a review of it here since it's quite a good book. Among my favorite biographies of Elvis are Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley with its sequel Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick (totalling about 1300 pages) as well as Me and a Guy Named Elvis: My Lifelong Friendship with Elvis Presley by his good friend Jerry Schilling, but this one by Doll is the one I've actually looked at the most since it's not only good for information, but also has LOTS of great photos that are fun to look at over and over. Almost every page has one or more photos, both color and black & white, some of which are full-page in size, and which are well selected and usually good quality reproductions. Thus, at about 240 pages and with lots of photos within that, this book does not go into exhaustive detail about Elvis's life like the 2-volume Guralnick set does.

Although Doll's book seems quite accurate I do occasionally disagree or wonder about some of her assessments and statements. As, Doll says that Elvis's manager, "Colonel" Parker, received 25% of Elvis's income, yet my understanding from other sources is that Parker got 50%. In my opinion Doll generally is too easy on Parker. For instance, she relates the events in the late 60s where Elvis became absorbed by the spiritual and religious influence of his friend Larry Geller, to the point that "everyone around him (Elvis) became concerned, until Colonel Parker finally stepped in and persuaded Elvis that Larry Geller was an unhealthy influence. Elvis accepted Parker's advice; he dropped Geller from his group of friends and tempered his interest in spiritual topics." (page 190) However, most accounts of that, including Jerry Schilling's in his biography that I cited above (and whose account is first-hand), paint a much darker picture with Parker showing up at Graceland one day and telling a silent Elvis who his friends could be and how he was to live his life, and Elvis complied without argument. To describe Parker's relationship to Elvis, Doll often uses language like "Parker persuaded Elvis that..." or "Parker and Elvis agreed that..." despite the fact that Parker is described by most people as bossing Elvis around. However, she does relate a few negative incidents and facts about Parker. To be fair, when this book was published in 1994, the bios by Guralnick and Schilling had not yet been published.

Aside from her being too gentle with "Colonel" Parker, I usually agree with Doll's assessments about Elvis's career, and I especially like the objective and sympathetic treatment she gives to his movie career, which in my opinion has been unfairly maligned by many people. She is judicious in deciding which of his films are good and which are not so good, and moderately concludes that "though Elvis Presley failed to become a serious actor, he was an extremely successful movie star." (page 93) amd says that within the "beach movie" genre that Elvis got cought up in by the mid-60s, Elvis's films were actually better quality that most of those. Doll appropriately focuses on Elvis's career, telling much less about his private life, although I wish she had given more attention to his recordings. The book is divided into topics such as "Leading Man" (about his movies), "Live Onstage," and so on, and Doll usually adheres to those topics rather than discussing most of the recordings he made within each period of time. As, she discusses Elvis's first album after returning from the Army, "Elvis is Back," but then she shifts to a lengthy discussion of his movies in the 1960s and does not mention other non-movie albums he recorded on his own in the 1960s until the Memphis sessions of 1969, which gives the false impression that he was ONLY making movies in those years. Thus, a helpful companion book to Doll's is the essential Elvis Presley: A Life in Music--The Complete Recording Sessions by Ernst Jorgensen, which goes into great detail about Elvis's recordings. Doll's book concludes with an insightful chapter about Elvis's continued popularity after his death in 1977.

It's too bad that the book does not have an index, nor does it have any kind of footnotes or bibliography to tell us what Doll's sources were. It would be helpful too if there were some lists of Elvis's best this-and-that, such as best CDs and best movies, especially since in the text Doll sometimes does not give us a direct assessment of these things. Also, I could note that Susan Doll has written several books about Elvis, including The films of Elvis Presley (which I have also enjoyed a lot) and the more recent Elvis for Dummies. Doll holds a Ph.D. in Radio, Television, and Film from Northwestern University, so apparently she herself is no dummy!

Despite some reservations that I have about ELVIS: ROCK 'N' ROLL LEGEND as noted above, I'd have to say that it is one of my more useful books about the King, especially because of all its great photos.