Ray Connolly

Elvis Presley es una figura de talla mundial de la cultura popular, un artista cuyo talento y fama sólo fueron igualados por sus excesos y su trágico final. Con su deslumbrante voz, este ícono del si

Elvis Presley es una figura de tallamundial de la cultura popular, un artista cuyo talento y fama sólo fueron igualados por sus excesos y su trágico final. Con su deslumbrante voz, este ícono del siglo XX incorporo influencias del rhythm and blues y del folk de raices americanaspara crear un tipo de musica completamente nuevo y una nueva manera de expresarla sensibilidad masculina.En Ser Elvis. Una vida solitaria, el veterano periodista de rock Ray Connolly ofrece una revision de la carrera del cantante mas famosode la musica popular, ubicandolo no solo bajo las chillonas luces de neon de Las Vegas, donde concluyo su carrera, sino tambien en el contexto del sur de Estados Unidos, en los barrios pobres donde Elvis se crecio y formomusicalmente asintiendo a conciertos clandestinos de blues, frecuentando iglesiasdonde escuchaba gospel y aprendiendo a tocar la guitarra entre melodias de country y hillbilly.A traves de entrevistas a musicos que lo conocieron personalmente, como John Lennon, Bob Dylan, B. B. King, Sam Phillips y Roy Orbison, entre muchos otros, Ray Connolly logra uno de los retratos mas matizados y maduros escritos hasta el presente del fenomeno cultural que fue Elvis Presley.

The perfect companion to Baz Luhrmanns forthcoming biopic Elvis, a major motion picture starring Tom Hanks and Austin Butler.What was it like to be Elvis Presley? What did it feel like when impossible fame made him its prisoner? As the worlds first rock star there was no one to tell him what to expect, no one with whom he could share the burden of being himself - of being Elvis.On the outside he was all charm, sex appeal, outrageously confident on stage and stunningly gifted in the recording studio. To his fans he seemed to have it all. He was Elvis. With his voice and style influencing succeeding generations of musicians, he should have been free to sing any song he liked, to star in any film he was offered, and to tour in any country he chose. But he wasnt free. The circumstances of his poor beginnings in the American South, which, as he blended gospel music with black rhythm and blues and white country songs, helped him create rock and roll, had left him with a lifelong vulnerability. Made rich and famous beyond his wildest imaginings when he mortgaged his talent to the machinations of his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, there would be an inevitable price to pay. Though he daydreamed of becoming a serious film actor, instead he grew to despise his own movies and many of the songs he had to sing in them. He could have rebelled. But he didnt. Why? In the Seventies, as the hits rolled in again, and millions of fans saw him in a second career as he sang his way across America, he talked of wanting to tour the world. But he never did. What was stopping him?BEING ELVIS takes a clear-eyed look at the most-loved entertainer ever, and finds an unusual boy with a dazzling talent who grew up to change popular culture; a man who sold a billion records and had more hits than any other singer, but who became trapped by his own frailties in the loneliness of fame.

John Lennon was a rock star, a school clown, a writer, a wit, an iconoclast, a sometime peace activist and finally an eccentric millionaire. He was also a Beatle - his plain-speaking and impudent rejection of authority catching, and eloquently articulating, the groups moment in history.Chronicling a famously troubled life, Being John Lennon analyses the contradictions in the singer-songwriters creative and destructive personality. Drawing on many interviews and conversations with Lennon, his first wife Cynthia and second Yoko Ono, as well as his girlfriend May Pang and song-writing partner Paul McCartney, Ray Connolly unsparingly reassesses the chameleon nature of the perpetually dissatisfied star who just couldnt stop reinventing himself.