Elvis lives

click photo to enlarge

“He was the firstest with the mostest.” said of Elvis Presley by Roy Orbison (1936-1988) U.S. singer and songwriter

There are many who would agree with Roy Orbison's words. For musicians, the music business and teenagers in the 1950s and early 1960s Elvis Presley was the biggest name and the game changer in popular music. He was the creator of a new sound, a new image and a new status for the popular singer. With hindsight it's clear that Elvis was part of a continuum of musical change and absorption that fused aspects of country music with facets of rhythm and blues. But if you were a teenager growing up with the radio and the jukebox as your source of new music Elvis was simply the artiste who swept away the old and heralded the new.

From my perspective, as a teenager in the second half of the 1960s, Elvis was a clear, important and strong influence on the music that I liked. Perhaps that accounts for my feeling that his best music dates from his 1954 versions of "That's Alright" and "Blue Moon of Kentucky" through to 1963's "Devil in Disguise". Thereafter, for me, the songs were much weaker; more mainstream ballads than rock and roll, and sometimes downright awful. His ventures into films, though commercially very successful, left me unmoved. In fact, his career path through the second half of the 1960s to the time of his death in 1977 followed that of many pop singers - general decline with the occasional peak, and a future in live performance rather than sales of hit records - but with the exception that his audiences remained massive and his records continued to sell better than most.

And that brings me to the enigma of Elvis: why he continued to receive such adulation, not only in the latter part of his career, but even after his death. Everything connected with Elvis has sold for decades, and continues to do so. His house became something of a shrine. People refused to believe he was dead. There were numerous reports of "sightings" after he had died. And people still display their allegiance to this long departed singer even now in 2012, thirty five years after his death. His followers are greater in numbers and more adoring of his achievements than those of any other long gone popular musician. It's hard to think of another who has received devotion anything like that accorded to Elvis. Today's photograph shows a fan declaring his allegiance at the recent Boston Classic Car Club Show in Kirton, Lincolnshire.

One of the non-musical characteristics of Elvis that I liked was his self-deprecation. In an interview he said, with only a touch of overstatement: "I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to." What's not to like about a major star who can be so ingenuous!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 65mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Old Jags as automotive sculpture

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My interest in cars is strictly limited so I feel left out of most conversations about them. I see cars as a relatively inefficient form of transport that is very destructive of our environment: I much prefer my bicycle. For many years I tried to live without a car, using public transport, a cycle and a tandem. However, Margaret Thatcher's assault on the former and a growing family forced my hand and I got a car.

Today I choose my cars on the grounds of utility and economy. I have a small Japanese hatchback that has the virtue of almost total anonymity and the reputation of being one of the most reliable cars on the road. I bought it on the premise that it does everything I need and that a car that doesn't work is nothing more than a useless tin box. Its size (compact), speed (0 mph to well above the legal limit), acceleration (0-60 eventually), ride (whatever that means), its status, what it says about the owner to others, all these are of little consequence to me. Hence the fact that I tend to get marginalised in discussions about cars. Actually that's not strictly true: I am known to offer my views even if they're not sought. At times I see myself as something of a missionary bringing truth and light to such conversations, throwing in what are seen as contrarian views like hand grenades. On other occasions I resort to ridicule. Neither approach is one that wins friends and influences people. The trouble is that at these times I can't help myself because, of all modern conversations, those surrounding the car are one of the most in need of a strong dose of reality.

There is, however, one aspect of cars that I find interesting, which I can debate with car lovers, and that is as objects of design and styling. But here again my tastes are often conflicting because in the main I am more interested in the design of small cars and utilitarian vehicles than luxury vehicles and sports cars. I say "in the main" due to an idiosyncratic liking for some of the 1960s Jaguar designs - the 2.4, 3.8 etc. These are vehicles that I remember from my youth, often characterised then as "getaway cars" (in the bank robber rather than holiday sense) though also used, I recall, by the British police. The front ends of this range of cars have a quality that few other marques can match. Smooth, flowing, tactile, sensuous, they could be detached from the vehicle and displayed in an art gallery simply for their sculptural qualities. I photographed today's example on a visit to the recent Boston Classic Car Club annual show (that's Boston, Lincolnshire, the original Boston, not Boston, Massachusetts). An urge to photograph something bright and shiny overcame me and so I indulged myself at this festival of all things automotive. More to come over the next few days.

I suppose you may be wondering if I fancy one of these sought after old cars. Not on your life! Noisy, unreliable and uneconomic is what they are. That handsome form masks a load of trouble and expense.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 70mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On