The Colonel and the King

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What to expect

In early 1955, Colonel Tom Parker (the manager of the number-one country music star of the day) heard that an unknown teenager from Memphis had just drawn a crowd of more than 800 people to a Texas schoolhouse and headed south to investigate. Within a matter of days, Parker was sending out telegrams and letters to promoters and booking agents: 'We have a new boy that is absolutely going to be one of the biggest things in the business in a very short time. His name is ELVIS PRESLEY.'

The close personal bond between Elvis and the Colonel is something that has never been fully portrayed before. It was a relationship founded on mutual admiration and support. From the outset, the Colonel defended Elvis fiercely and indefatigably against RCA executives, Elvis' own booking agents and movie moguls. But in their final years together, the story grew darker, as the Colonel found himself unable to protect Elvis from himself - or to control growing problems of his own.

Featuring troves of previously unpublished correspondence from the Colonel's own archives, revelatory for both their insights and their emotional depth, The Colonel and the King provides a groundbreaking dual portrait of the relationship between the iconic artist and his legendary manager and a unique perspective on not one but two American originals. A tale of the birth of the modern-day superstar (an invention almost entirely of Parker's making) by the most acclaimed music writer of his generation, it presents these two misunderstood icons as they've never been seen before: with all of their brilliance, humour and flaws on full display.

Critics Review

In music circles, a new entry in Guralnick's Presley chronicles is practically the equivalent of an update to Robert Caro's series on Lyndon Johnson. Guralnick's exhaustively researched two-volume biography of Presley in the 1990s revolutionised Presley scholarship and remain vital documents
NEW YORK TIMES
A grandmaster of American letters
IRISH TIMES
Guralnick knows the intricacies of this story more than anyone, except perhaps the Colonel and Presley themselves . . . Parker died in 1997 and took some of his secrets with him to the grave, but Guralnick's book offers the most rounded, complex and myth-dispelling understanding of him we are ever likely to get
GUARDIAN
A seasoned chronicler of all things Elvis (his Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love are seminal works), Guralnick here probes the relationship between Presley and his overbearing Svengali. There is no better writer about early rock 'n' roll and roots music
BOSTON GLOBE, Summer Reading Picks
Guralnick's brisk prose, assiduous attention to detail and generous insights make this both an engrossing study of the complex interpersonal dynamics between two outsize personalities and a revealing peek into the making one of rock 'n' roll's biggest acts. Presley fans won't be able to put this down
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With unique access to an incredible stash of correspondence, Guralnick reveals Parker's charm, humor, genius and audacity, depicting a genuine person, not the sinister Svengali of other accounts
BOOKLIST
The enigmatic Svengali Colonel Tom Parker left behind countless mysteries and unanswered questions after his death in 1997. If there's one writer uniquely poised to unpack those mysteries and questions, it's Grammy-winning music writer Peter Guralnick, whose biographies of Presley are universally regarded as the definitive biographies of the King
VARIETY
An intriguing perspective on the music business when rock was first making its mark, and a special treat for Presley fans. A fascinating look at a truly unique personality and his direction of Elvis's career
KIRKUS
A surprisingly human portrait of the man behind the brash showman's façade . . . Guralnick has delivered a beautifully written and broadly sympathetic portrait of a complex, secretive individual whose loyalty to his sole charge was absolute
MOJO
Guralnick [is] an excellent Elvis historian
DAILY MAIL, Book of the Week
Meticulous
OBSERVER
Veteran pop-music scholar Peter Guralnick, Elvis's most ardent and compassionate biographer, makes the case that Parker was hardly the monster he's commonly been made out to be . . . Guralnick's view of Parker is both clear-eyed and sympathetic, but best of all, it's persuasive. You come away thinking differently about a person you thought you'd already nailed down. And isn't that what a biographer is for?
TIME
Dramatically humanizes Parker from the one-dimensional Svengali depicted for decades
VARIETY
Guralnick's two-volume biography of Presley is an indispensable modern classic. The focus in the new book is on Parker's side of the relationship, a story that has rarely been told
WASHINGTON POST
Guralnick's book, written with full access to Parker's unpublished, witty, clever letters, gives a more nuanced, sympathetic picture. The author is no biased sensationalist
SPECTATOR
A riveting and revelatory read
SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

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