Elvis and his remarkable resemblance to Buddy Holly

[bambooneedle]

It is remarkable, I pondered as I watched this video:



I wonder if after he was done with classical stuff and the beard and looked in the mirror he realized, "hey, I look like Buddy Holly!", and whether he might have played on that a bit... watch the video and ask yourself...

Even earlier:



has elvis ever addressed this? It may have held him back in his career.

[bambooneedle]

Elvis Costello (aka Declan Patrick Aloysius Macmanus) looked like Buddy Holly, yet picked the same name as Elvis Presley, The King... and rather unfortunately debuting very close to the time that Elvis Presley passed... I would say that this sort of identity crisis could have plagued his chances of being wildly embraced just when it was critical... but I must say that I didn't live through the time like others so I wouldn't have their insight; did it seem like that at the time? An early example of 'The Curse of Costello'? ... I admit to large gaps in my Costello history, it is not exactly encyclopedic...

[Poor Deportee]

EC said somewhere that, when the photo shoot for the cover of MAIT came in, he and the photographer noticed that the gawkier he looked, the better the camera liked it. Although the glasses were (obviously) an unintentional side-effect of National Health coverage, there can be little doubt that Elvis was fully aware of the Buddy Holly parallel, and indeed his stage name can be seen as intentionally crashing together two iconic referents. The ambition and sheer cheek are amazing - here he was, invoking two of the defining talents in rock and roll. And he had the chops to get away with it, the effect being knowing without the smirking irony that such evocations would acquire in a later, more post-modern age.

I've long been fond of EC's penchant for carving out a highly distinctive self-presentation. It seems to speak to a more do-it-yourself era, as well as to the quaint idea that the point is to stand out and not fit into pre-established "market categories."

As for the "Curse of Costello," this notion seems predicated on the idea that EC was entitled, not merely to have some hits (which he did) but to become some sort of blockbuster superstar. This is the less attractive side of Elvis's outsized ego. He's had a terrific career from any standpoint you care to analyze, including commercially. Plenty of other impressive talents have done considerably worse. The whole idea should be put to rest.

[bambooneedle]

He certainly has taken some unusual twists and turns in his career, perhaps that would not have been possible had he been more fully embraced in the beginning.

I looked up My Aim Is True on wikipedia to see how close it was to Presley's death, and, damn, it's less than a month before! That must have majorly taken the wind out of his sails! But I was also amazed to discover that MAIT's release in the U.S was about 9 months later... does anyone know if the rationale behind this was because Elvis Presley had just died?

[bambooneedle]

Did Jake Riviera talk Elvis into the name against his better nature, i wonder, because in the fickle pop market they aimed for in those days which was full of one-hit wonders bigshot movers and shakers like Jake Riviera invariably wanted a guarranteed first-time hit as I understand it... I do know that Elvis has said that he (at least partly) sees it as a tribute to his grandma Veronica Costello, nevertheless one would have to question the wisdom of the name regardless of the age... to me it would seem like combining, say, Kurt Cobain's and Eddie Vedder's names and coming up with Kurt Vedder or Eddie Cobain... the novelty would wear off quite soon, i would imagine...