Customer Reviews

The Printed Elvis: The Complete Guide to Books about the King (Music Reference Collection)

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When was the last time that you could say that you had fun reading a reference book?Well,i had fun reading "The Printed Elvis"and i'm willing to bet that you will too.From the stunning cover photos to the exhaustive material coverage and the intelligent layout,this book aims high and,i think,succeeds admirably.

This volume is both descriptive and prescriptive.If only the former,it would be useful but dull.Instead,in addition to presenting extensive bibliographic information,Steven Opdyke is intelligently comparing and reviewing hundreds of books that anyone with an interest in Elvis Presley will either consider buying,collecting or at a minimum,consulting.Will you disagree with some of his judgements?I certainly hope so.That is a large part of the fun here.

I have been introduced,within the pages of this volume, to books i didn't know existed and i have been challenged to reassess a few that i was considering seeking out.These processes are extremely valuable to me.

I don't have the feeling that Mr. Opdyke is a slavish worshipper or an academic snob(to use an admitted cliche,but one with some truth attached) who is looking down on his subject.I just sense,on just about every page, that i am reading an intelligently written guide on a subject that interests me greatly as an admirer of a most fascinating cultural icon,master entertainer and tragic human being.I am also a collector of his music and the printed words that will not stop flowing.

I have owned this book for a couple of months and i still refer to it every few days.I am not a scholar,a reviewer(this is my first attempt at that practice in any medium)or a critic but i believe that i am fairly representative of the general reading public.If you have an intelligent interest in Elvis Presley and/or you are a collector,there is much that you will enjoy and find useful.There is even a section specifically addressing the collector(or would be collector)of books directly relating to Elvis.There is some advise there that could definitely save you both time and money.

This book is unique: it is a comprehensive guide to the books on Elvis. Not only are there more than 400 books on Elvis presented, there are another several hundred reviewed that are critical to Elvis research but not solely about the King. These other books included books either by or about Priscilla, Elvis backup singers, band members and many, many more. This Greenwood publication is huge and the reviews are highly informative and descriptive; some are more than a page long. There is also much information for collectors (i.e. how much some of the more rare items are worth - a feature that can't be found elsewhere, not even in Elvis memorabilia guides). For scholars, this is the comprehensive guide to every work worth studying to gain a perspective on Elvis. Beyond the reviews, there are three comprehensive discussions: Elvis and the Music of Black Americans, Elvis and the Colonel, as well as Elvis and his success. Each discussion is provocative and includes a great deal on what others thought of each subject area, for example what Gary Giddins quoted Otis Blackwell as saying about Elvis. The cover of the book is a beautifully embossed facial shot of Elvis with a smaller inset. Inside are some great pictures including some Michael Ochs archive photos. There are four indices that really point the reader to any facet about Elvis. I don't know how a book could be more helpful in pointing someone to scholarly research on Elvis as a way to get that person a well-rounded thoughtful picture of the provocative entertainer.

The "Dishonest Title?-Caveat Emptor" reviewer claims that "several Elvis bibliophiles" state in their "works" that the "true figure" concerning the total number of books published on Elvis is "closer to 1100" rather than the 400 or so covered by Opdyke in his "complete guide."

A search in the catalog of the Library of Congress and in an electronic catalog of 6,000 libraries--OCLC's WorldCat, containing 45 million or so records--reveals no publications by so-called Elvis "bibliophiles" Maria Columbus, Mary Hinds and Nigel Stevens. Nor are there any articles authored by them to be found in several databases which cover upwards of about 15,000 magazines, newspapers, journals, etc. In fact, there is little to be found anywhere about these alleged experts.

On the other hand, besides the present work, author Steven Opdyke has written a definitive book-length study of Willie Nelson and even wrote his M.A. thesis on the subject of rock music. The "Elvis bibliophiles" have no such pedigree to substantiate the reviewer's claims about the existence of their authoritative 1,100-item lists.

Although Columbus has long headed the "Elvis Special Photo Association" and Hinds the "Elvis! On Capitol Hill" fan club, there is thus no evidence that they have compiled and published any lists of book-length works about "The King." On the other hand, Greenwood Press consistently produces high-quality bibliographic studies that are the foundation of many an academic library's subject-specific bibliography collections. The present work is no exception.

And if we can trust the Library of Congress and their catalog, in it they presently list about 400 books on Elvis covered under about 75 subject headings. While there may be other books on Elvis that are not covered in the Opdyke work and that are presently unknown to the Library of Congress, Opdyke's book is, for the time being, "the real thing" and certainly worth the price.

Greenwood Press advertises this as "more than 400 books published" on Elvis Presley. The true figure is closer to 1100, according to the works of several Elvis bibliophiles (Maria Columbus, Mary Hinds, and Nigel Stevens). If the author only covers 400 books, in NO way is this a "complete guide to the books about the king." Save your money for the real thing.