Last Train To Memphis

From the moment that he first shook up the world in the mid 1950s, Elvis Presley has been one of the most vivid and enduring myths of American culture. Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley is the first biography to go past that myth and present an Elvis beyond the legend. Based on hundreds of interviews and nearly a decade of research, it traces the evolution not just of the man but of the music and of the culture he left utterly transformed, creating a completely fresh portrait of Elvis and his world. This volume tracks the first twenty-four years of Elvis' life, covering his childhood, the stunning first recordings at Sun Records ("That's All Right", "Mystery Train"), and the early RCA hits ("Heartbreak Hotel", "Hound Dog", "Don't Be Cruel"). These were the years of his improbable self-invention and unprecedented triumphs, when it seemed that everything that Elvis tried succeeded wildly. There was scarcely a cloud in sight through this period until, in 1958, he was drafted into the army and his mother died shortly thereafter. The book closes on that somber and poignant note. Last Train to Memphis takes us deep inside Elvis' life, exploring his lifelong passion for music of every sort (from blues and gospel to Bing Crosby and Mario Lanza), his compelling affection for his family, and his intimate relationships with girlfriends, mentors, band members, professional associates, and friends. It shows us the loneliness, the trustfulness, the voracious appetite for experience, and above all the unshakable, almost mystical faith that Elvis had in himself and his music. Drawing frequently on Elvis' own words and on the recollections of those closest to him, the book offers anemotional, complex portrait of young Elvis Presley with a depth and dimension that for the first time allow his extraordinary accomplishments to ring true.

Unrivalled... Elvis steps from the pages. You can feel him breathe. This book cancels out all others
A wonderful book... Guralnick gives us an Elvis of real flesh and blood... the richest and most detailed portrait of Presley we have ever had
Wonderful... Guralnick deserves to live in Graceland
The adjective 'definitive' seems almost inadequate
A triumph of biographical art... profound and moving... Even the minor revelations are positively spellbinding... Guralnick's narrative is rendered with an intimate, restrained intensity eerily reminiscent of the plaintive tone of Presley's ballads, that tremulous yearning of America itself
Soars above all other books-for-bucks accounts of Elvis... Excellent
The writer's decades of research leap off the page. A classic
The first definitive work on Presley's life
Altogether splendid... It is the particular and spectacular achievement of Last Train to Memphis that it holds both the making of the history and the beginning of the myth in firm, simple and compassionate focus... Guralnick paints this world with perspective, respect and great decency; it is one of the book's triumphs
Guralnick takes a sensible and sensitive approach, tracing the roots of an American dream... Guralnick perfectly captures Elvis's mixture of naivety and shrewdness... A serious, musically literate and historically attuned biography. An American epic that belongs on every bookshelf
It's hard to reclaim Elvis from the weight of history and slander, but Guralnick does it beautifully... [He] tells this 20th century myth with a fine regard for his subject's humanity
Unrivalled...Elvis steps out of these pages, you can feel him breathe, this book cancels out all others - BOB DYLAN