As I may have mentioned, the nightlife here in Reading can be pretty strange. I encountered this group, assembling for a night on the town, yesterday evening and couldn’t resist taking their picture. If you can’t tell, except for the fellow all in white, they’re all wearing plastic Elvis hair, sideburns, and sunglasses.
It’s not too surprising, I guess. I’ve seen advertisements for several "Elvis Impersonator" shows that are touring Great Britain. More proof that some American “traditions” can be found clogging up many other cultures.
This reminds me of my days in Los Angles, many years ago, when I worked on a show called Elvis Forever featuring a fellow who claimed to be the "top Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas". It amazed me that middle-aged women in the audience would shriek like 10-year old girls and go nuts over this shortish guy onstage who really didn’t look at all like Elvis. But he could sing, and that show ran for months to packed houses.
During that project I, sadly, had to become intimately familiar with the entire Elvis oeuvre, watching all the movies and listening to the songs day after day to prepare and then hearing them again rehearsal after rehearsal for weeks. It took years to get all of those songs out of my head.
But I guess, compared to some of the brutal and demeaning genres of music popular today, such as gangsta rap, Elvis is sheer genius and as gentlemanly as it gets.
The Occasionally-Examined Life 