Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0345420896 ISBN 13: 9780345420893

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1999

From Elvis' foremost biographer, Peter Guralnick, author of the bestselling two-volume biography, Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love, and Ernst Jorgensen, the premier archivist and reissue producer of Elvis' recorded work, comes a unique chronicle of Elvis Presley's life and music. Granted unprecedented access to hundreds of thousands of photos, documents, letters, artifacts, and memorabilia by Elvis Presley Enterprises, Guralnick and Jorgensen present the King as you've never seen him before. Elvis Day by Day is a complete account of public, private, rare, forgotten, and renowned moments, captured with such detail and immediacy they read like diary entries in a life--from first steps to the first time the young "hillbilly cat" stepped on stage; from the creation of a revolutionary new sound to the last days of a universally known, tragically misunderstood music legend.

Lavishly illustrated with more than three hundred color and black-and-white photographs, this one-of-a-kind volume features such hitherto unknown details of Elvis' childhood in Tupelo as a father's touching postcards from prison and the family's backbreaking struggle to make ends meet. It includes Elvis' first work application at eighteen in which he describes his leisure-time activities as "sing[ing], playing ball, working on car, going to movies." At last, the complete story of how Elvis met his legendary manager, Colonel Tom Parker, is revealed in detail, and long-debated mysteries like Elvis's famous lost tryout for the Arthur Godfrey show are finally put to rest. In addition, the reader will find an invaluable and reliable reference guide to every recording session, record release, song hit, movie, and live performance (including a number of shows not previously documented)--clearing up in the process many misconceptions and misunderstandings about Elvis' life.

All the facts are here--from Elvis's unlikely visit with President Nixon in 1970 to his spontaneous articulation of patriotism and pride in a 1957 telegram to a marine private (coincidentally named Nixon). Within these facts are a story: funny, sad, sometimes uplifting, occasionally disturbing--but always fascinating for the disarmingly unbuttoned, behind-the-scenes view of a celebrated life.

From private moments to public milestones, this is the first complete and accurate chronology of Elvis' life, in a form that offers instant accessibility to Elvis expert and casual reader alike. Elvis Day by Day is an extraordinary piece of American musical history, bringing the life and times of Elvis Presley into dazzling focus for the record--and for the ages.

Review:

On the heels of Peter Guralnick's acclaimed two-volume study of the rise and fall of Elvis Presley (Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love) comes a book that chronicles the same epic tale in a manner that's far less weighty than the preceding tomes, but almost as telling. For this quick-hit chronology of the Elvis story, Guralnick and his collaborator, archivist/record producer Ernst Jorgensen, were given access to 35 tons of Presley flotsam that included everything from his first income tax return to a mother lode of unpublished candids. Freed from a narrative structure, the authors chronicle the cultural icon through snippets that capture the mundane (Elvis gets his first Tupelo Public Library card, February 13, 1948) and remarkable (Elvis enlists in the battle against drugs when meeting President Nixon in the White House, December 21, 1970). Little by little, the fragments fit together to form the picture of a man hurtling toward the precipice (March 24, 1977: "Elvis's stage wardrobe is limited to two jumpsuits that he can fit into"). In this sense, Day by Day's scrapbook appearance is deceiving; this is serious business, indeed. --Steven Stolder

About the Author:

A leading authority on Elvis Presley, Peter Guralnick has written extensively about American music and musicians. His books include the two-volume, prize-winning Elvis Presley biography, Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love; an acclaimed trilogy on American roots music, Sweet Soul Music, Lost Highway, and Feel Like Going Home; the biographical inquiry Searching for Robert Johnson; and the novel Nighthawk Blues.

Producer and catalog expert Ernst Jorgensen has been instrumental in the revival of Elvis Presley's body of recordings for nearly a decade; the box sets he coproduced for RCA, including The King of Rock 'n' Roll, From Nashville to Memphis, Walk a Mile in My Shoes, and Platinum: A Life in Music, have been nominated for the Grammy Award and have sold well over a million copies. He is also author of the definitive account of Elvis' recording sessions, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music.