Sunday, June 29, 2008

Elvis At 21 : Unseen Till Now

There are a vast number of pictures of Elvis from his early days, but
none as intimate and revealing as the Black-and-White ones taken by
Alfred Wertheimer as part of an assignment for RCA Records. Seems
they wanted to create a buzz around their new 21-year-old singer but
since Elvis was still a financial risk he didn't merit Color footage. Color
film and processing was very expensive in those days hence the orders
to Wertheimer to shoot in B/W.

The Daily Mail UK ran a bit about that period in Elvis' life, accompanied
by a few choice Wertheimer captures and some great captions to boot.
Here's one of my favorite pics (click to enlarge) from the article :


The accompanying text goes 'All shook up: On his way to a concert in
Richmond, Virginia, Elvis pretends to throttle his date for the night.
Even in these early days he never liked to be alone - an early
Memphis Mafia minder rides in the car with the couple
'

A great piece by Ray Connolly, worth a look.

Link to the Daily Mail article
Google Search results for Elvis and Wertheimer

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