OCEAN CITY (Maryland): The Elvis on stage right now is a pretty good Elvis.

He’s rocking out with a full band to ‘See See Rider’ as a Jumpsuit Elvis, aka 1970s Elvis, the most popular kind of Elvis at this or any Elvis Festival. He moves well, and he stays in character between songs. “Hello, my name is, uhhh, Engelbert Humperdinck,” he jokes huskily. He leans down to give a little sugar to a lady in the front row. “Close your mouth next time,” he teases.

Tim Hendry respects the Elvis he’s watching — a long-time friend and sometimes competitor from the North American Elvis impersonator circuit. Hendry is at the far back of the hotel ballroom where all the off-duty Elvises hang out, incognito in jeans, a dark shirt, Clark Kent glasses. Only his mane of black hair and spectacular mutton chops give him away.

“He’s got a really good voice,” Hendry says. “On key. Strong. That’s a huge part of it.”

Anything lacking? Well, the look isn’t perfect, Hendry says. “He’s a little shorter than Elvis. And his hair. He needs to work on his hair.”

And maybe he’s, uh, a little too thin? At this point Hendry bristles slightly — in defence of his friend, in defence of their hero.

“People always make that mistake with Elvis,” he chides. It was only in the final months of his life, Hendry maintains, that the King piled on the excess weight that made him a cruel punch line after his death in 1977 at the age of 42. “He was really slim in ‘72, ‘73, ‘74. He looked great in that suit.”

That suit. That hair. Those hips. That voice. The jiggling knee, the sleepy smile, the whirling arms. The growl, the croon, the bedroom whisper, the haunting sob. Of course, Elvis Presley, who would have turned 80 in January, was so much more than the sum of his parts — a perfect storm of killer talent and towering charisma that collided with a voracious new youth culture, remade pop music and then died too soon.

But for Hendry and the others who try channel him, getting those parts right is both art and science — maybe even an act of devotion.

Forget everything you think you know about Elvis impersonators — those sideburned dudes working as airport greeters in Nevada and the kitschy karaoke hosts. The men working the surprisingly intense — and potentially lucrative — competition circuit aren’t in on that joke. Millions of fans, old and young, still crave some taste of the live Elvis experience they probably never enjoyed for real, and these guys are dead serious about delivering it.

So don’t call them impersonators. They’re Elvis Tribute Artists now, thankyuhveramuch.

Full-time Elvis

He performs as Tim “E” Hendry. You know what the “E” is for. He’s got the height of Elvis, about 6-foot-1. He has the hair of Elvis — not a wig like some guys, although, yes, he dyes it, but hey, so did Elvis. He’s been told he has the Elvis cry in his voice.

“Sometimes they say, ‘I thought it was Elvis up there,’ “ Hendry says. “There’s no higher compliment.”

Hendry, 47, has travelled here from his home in London, Ontario, on a mission: to win the Ocean City Elvis Festival, one of several regional qualifying competitions that can earn a tribute artist a berth in the annual Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist contest in Memphis, where the grand prize is $20,000. He’s competed at that national level for the past five years — first, as the champion of the 2010 Collingwood Elvis Festival and later as the emissary of Elvis fests in Toronto, Philadelphia, and Portage, Indiana, where he’s won twice.

He’s already making a living as a nearly full-time Elvis, an income supplemented by drumming in other people’s bands. The Ultimate trophy might boost his career, but that’s not the point. “I’m stubborn,” he says. “Yeah, I’m disappointed I haven’t won already. I love the fans. And I just love Elvis so much.”

He used to avoid the competitions: “They can be political,” he says. But titles have lately become an increasingly essential part of a working Elvis’s résumé.

For years, Elvis Presley Enterprises kept its distance from the impersonator community. That changed not long after the King’s daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, sold a majority interest in 2005. Open to new revenue streams and eager to protect the brand, the new EPE management brought tribute artists into the fold, hosting the first Ultimate contest in 2007. Now an annual event, it’s one of only two contests that now carry EPE’s blessing.

The first winner, Shawn Klush, now does 130 shows a year, including arenas in South America and reality TV in England. Other winners have played Presley in touring companies of the Broadway musical ‘Million Dollar Quartet’. Promoters estimate there are as many as 3,000 Elvis tribute artists in the world, but fewer than a dozen making a big salary from it. Most of those have won one of the top prizes.

Hendry hasn’t won yet, but last year he claimed a national non-EPE-sanctioned title, King of the World. And after sizing up the other talent for several years, he feels good about his place in the hierarchy. His voice is strong; his moves may be even better.

“Elvis had incredible rhythm,” he says. “I think I’m lucky to be a drummer.”

Churchgoers

On a bright fall Saturday morning, 20 men are taking their turn on stage in the dark ballroom of the Clarion Resort Fontainebleau for the second round of preliminaries. Here you can see the basic building blocks of an Elvis tribute.

Matt Cage has the timbre of Elvis. The voice is practically a prerequisite, of course, and Cage, a 30-ish Elvis doing ‘Danny Boy’ in a jumpsuit, is raising goosebumps with those rich, butterscotch tones. The goosebumps subside when he drops character between songs to joke about his excess of black hair dye.

Joe Ramsey has the lungs of Elvis. A tribute artist from Saratoga Springs, New York, his ‘Burning Love’ doesn’t rock like Elvis’, but he shrewdly moves into a deeper cut, ‘Rags to Riches’, and when his tenor vibrates on those big Pavarotti notes, the audience leaps to its feet.

Bruce Stewart has the yelp of Elvis. In an Early Years pompadour and red jacket, he deploys that hiccuping sob in the upper register of the acrobatic ‘50s songs: “Aaaanywayyyy you wa-ah, ah-ah, ahnt me!” And when Stewart talks as Elvis — bingo, there’s his extra-credit point:

“Well, we heard shum rockabilly. How about shum real rock ‘n’ roll?”

Stewart presses just the gentlest slur onto those s-words, and it works.

None of this may matter, though, judging by the polite commotion going on outside in the lobby outside the performance hall at this very moment ...

Ladies and gentlemen, Doug Church has not left the building.

A veteran Elvis who’s highly favoured in this competition, Church arrived here aglow from a victory two weeks earlier in Portage, his ticket to the Memphis championship already secured. Church sang first this morning, but he’s lingering in the lobby to pose for photos with the long-time fans who followed him to Maryland.

They call themselves the Churchgoers.

“He’s what we call the true voice of Elvis,” says Helen Miller, a fan from Philadelphia.

Patty Villanueva of Trenton was a Tom Jones fan for 30 years, no interest in Elvis whatsoever — until 2005, when a friend dragged her to see Church. So now she’s an Elvis fan? “I’m a Doug Church fan,” she says. In fact, she’s his fan club president.

Of all the men here, the 50-something performer from Mishiwaka, Indiana, may be the best-equipped to articulate the mechanics of an Elvis tribute. A full-time impersonator since 1990, Church also markets his own ‘Sing Like the King’ instructional DVDs with tips on vibrato and pronunciation. This year marked his return to the circuit after a lengthy break. “My wife put me through Elvis boot camp,” he says of his preparation. What he learned:

• Elvis’ stance was always erect yet relaxed.

• His movements were angular, those fierce diagonal arm swings in front of the body.

• He liked to switch the microphone from one hand to the other; if looking to the left, he was holding the mike in his right.

• And he smiled, a lot.

Church flashes an easy smile, gleaming, white and even. Yep — the teeth of Elvis, all right.

Doug Church wins first place and the $2,000 prize, but since he’s already Memphis-bound, the Ultimate berth goes to David Lee, the barrel-chested Birmingham, Alabama, native who comes in second.

Tim Hendry comes in third.

He’s disappointed. Was it song choice? In the finals, he led off with ‘Johnny B. Goode’, where he didn’t sound much like Elvis. Then again, Elvis didn’t sound much like Elvis whenever he sang the Chuck Berry hit, a song based more on yelling than crooning. Arguably, Hendry got it right on technical merit. Regardless: the challenge isn’t just competing with all the Elvises in the room, but with the Elvis in everyone’s head.

By arrangement with The Washington Post

Published in Dawn, November 15th , 2014