Elvis, Jerry and Jerry

Two Elvis books are awaiting my attention at the moment. The first one is an updated version of the two classic bestselling books Elvis and Elvis The Final Years by Jerry Hopkins, simply called Elvis The Biography. The second is Jerry Schillings story Me And A Guy Named Elvis.

So far I've just skimmed through the two volumes. An interesting piece of information that I didn't know is that it was Jim Morrison who gave Jerry Hopkins the idea of writing about Elvis. This happened when Hopkins was interviewing Morrison for the music magazine Rolling Stone. "I'd like to read a book about Elvis," Jim Morrison said.

Also worth noticing is that Jerry Hopkins first book about Elvis, published back in 1971, still was the only biography in print when Elvis died. Now some 500 books about Elvis have been published, Hopkins writes in his introduction.

One of the newer ones is Jerry Schillings story about his friendship with Elvis. It was published last year and is now available in paperback. As you probably know Jerry is one of the members from the Memphis Mafia that has the support of Elvis Presley Enterprises, Priscilla and Lisa Marie.

The connection is pretty obvious, because every time there's a documentary sanctioned by EPE or the Presley family Jerry is one of the persons speaking about Elvis. Still, his story is part of the complex puzzle that is Elvis Presley and I need all the pieces I can get. So I'll give it a shot.

Finally a kind of funny observation. I ordered the books at the same time but it didn't strike me until I saw them together side by side: The author in both cases is named Jerry and both books have a picture of Elvis obviously taken at the same occasion.