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Elvis Presley cover art

Elvis Presley

Written by: Bobbie Ann Mason
Narrated by: Karen White
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Publisher's Summary

PEN/Hemingway Award-winner Bobbie Ann Mason turns her acumen on one of 20th-century America's most mysterious icons, The King himself. This new biography eschews sensational speculation to paint a thoughtfully researched but wholly felt portrait of the man-child, simultaneously naive and shrewd, who metamorphosed into a hero, one of the most popular and least supported characters in American history.

In 1955, at age 20, Elvis provoked his first near-riot when he sang at a baseball park in Jacksonville. Inspired by black gospel quartets and mentored by producer Sam Phillips, Elvis blended hillbilly music with rhythm and blues in a synthesis that defined a new direction for popular music. Mason's book gets at the consciousness of the icon and of the cultural climate that made him one.

©2003 Bobbie Ann Mason (P)2003 Books on Tape, Inc.

What the critics say

"If you're going to read one book to find out what Elvis was all about, Mason's is a good choice. She brings to the task a novelist's eye and the sensibilities of a Southern girl who came of age in the 1950s." (The San Diego Union-Tribune)

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