Are You Lonesome Tonight?

There was some good rockin' down at Storms River Village this past autumn, when South Africa's first-ever Elvis Festival kicked off in grand style.

Heartbreak Hotel

At a conference centre in Storms River Village, that sleepy hollow in a world of Tsitsikamma wood, 12 love-struck women discuss their favourite man: Elvis Aaron Presley.

What’s up with The King? Allegedly dead these past 33 years, the guy still makes more than R350-million a year peddling his music and his memorabilia to the world and its uncle. Elvis Inc. is worth nearly a billion US dollars. No chump change for a singer who joined the ‘Choirs Invisibule’ back in 1977. Who, ironically, is still regularly sighted wherever cheese, beef and bananas come in a double-stack fried ensemble.

The temporary HQ of the Elvis Presley Fan Club of Africa is in the Tsitsikamma Village Inn, currently the epicentre of South Africa’s first genuine Elvis Festival. The Presley Poppies collection is one of more than 530 fan clubs worldwide who regularly gather and watch, discuss and often drool over his every little facial twitch, sidebar outtake comment, hint of a hip thrust, smouldering glance and smile.

Love Me Tender

I can only hope and pray that Elvis didn’t grab all the sex appeal on offer, leaving us boys with scraps to work with. I can only hope and pray there’s a little bit of Elvis still lurking in each one of us, in whatever package we appear. Please let it be so…

“OK, the theme for today’s discussion is Are You Laughing Tonight?”, one of the ladies announces, and others follow with fond anecdotes about Presley’s sense of humour.

“Elvis would rather laugh than eat,” one of them states.

“Well, that’s doesn’t sound right,” another offers a cautious opinion.

Don’t Be Cruel

There’s the pin-drop passing-wind hint of silence that suddenly chills the air. Real Elvis fans don’t talk about Latter Fatter Elvis, the sweaty, junk food munching pill popper in the oversized jump suit. They prefer Middle Elvis, the slim Jim in the black leather gear who re-took the world by storm in 1968 with his famous comeback performance. How did Jon Landau of Rolling Stone Magazine put it?

“There is something magical about watching a man who has lost himself find his way back home.”

That’s the one they like. Come to think of it, that’s the one we all like…

Milk Cow Blues Boogie

So we, my wife Jules and I, are expecting a bit of a low-tone lark in Storms River this weekend, replete with pudgy Elvis impersonators, koeksusters and kitsch. We have known for years that Storms River would be the first South African settlement to host such a festival. That’s because we met the hotel owner, Jan du Rand, back in 2005 and he took us for a ride in one of his muscle cars. He’d just married his wife Anne in an elaborate Vegas-style ceremony where he pitched with his Elvis rug firmly fixed to his skull, the dominee rode a Harley and the bride looked like she stepped out of an Archie Comics soda shoppe. We called him Cadillac Jack and feasted on shoulder of lamb at his mansion while The King sang to us from a flat screen TV as big as a door. And then last year we saw Jan and he dived into his jumpsuit for us, grabbed a guitar called Poena (“Don’t be silly, man, I don’t play the thing!”) and posed for a picture on his Cadillac Couch.

“I want an Elvis festival in Storms River,” he declared.

The fine details were hazy, however, until Jan found out about the little Australian town of Parkes, and how they shot onto the world map with their Elvis hoe-down. Parkes offers more than 140 events over a five-day party, which includes a “Back to the Altar with Elvis – Renewal of Wedding Vows”, and a “Cars of the Elvis Era Show”.

The Parkes Elvis Festival was launched as a one-night sensation in 1993 and attracted about 200 people. Nowadays, nearly 10 000 souls come to pay homage to The King in Parkes every January.

Blue Suede Shoes

So that’s why Jules and I are gobsmacked to see Storms River Village buzzing with more than 1 200 fans watching a squad of mostly-fit Elvis Tribute Artistes (commonly called ETA’s, and don’t say Elvis Impersonator!) filling the marquee with impassioned versions of hits like Jailhouse Rock, Blue Suede Shoes and Love Me Tender.

For the word-twisters out there, the letters in Elvis can also read Lives, Evils and, hold me back, Vleis. But most of these tribute artistes hustle their jumpsuited butts most nights out there for a hard living, so there’s no time to pork out and play with painkillers.

One of these fellows is going over to Wales for the July 4 World Cup of Elvis, and will be competing against the likes of Gordon Elvis from Malta, Dean Vegas from Lebanon and The Rebel from Spain. Obviously, some kind of Elvis from Parkes as well.

“It will kill me if a Wallaby Elvis wins,” Jules mutters.

Loving You

Hanging out by the Cadillac Ranch outside the hotel entrance are some fan clubbers: Christina Botha, Annemarie Swarts (president) and Jackie van Schalkwyk.

Me, I think I spotted Elvis leaving the Daggaboersnek Padstal  on the PE-Cradock road sometime last winter. He had a bag of Charl Pansegrouw’s mighty meaty pies and some of that potent pineapple juice they brew out there. My Karoo Elvis (a name I gave him) asked me the way to Cookhouse and I pointed down the road.

“Thang yuh. Thang yuh very mush,” he said, and disappeared in a cloud of pie crust. Cookhouse? Why, of course.

Suspicious Minds

I went looking for Elvis on the Internet and found him working as a plumber in Walthamstown, UK; visiting a strip club in Rancho Cordova, California; pulling pumps as a petrol jockey in Southwestern Wyoming; robbing a Chinese restaurant in Jefferson, Ohio; posing as a mute Amish man, once more in Ohio; singing Suspicious Minds to hikers in the Luberon Mountains of southern France. The dude’s all over the place. Hope he enjoyed our pie, though. Wonder what he found in Cookhouse.

“There are some crazies out there (I winced) who believe Elvis is still alive,” Christine Botha informs us. “But we at the Elvis Fan Club don’t think so.”

You don’t know the Karoo, Ma’am. Weirder things happen out here all the time…

I Was The One

Schoeman & Son is a Family Elvis affair. Father Fanie towers above you, he dyes his hair onyx-black, wears Blues Brothers sideburns and yes, he could pass for a young Dan Aykroyd on a moonless night. The thing is, you see, his son Preston is only three years old and is already threatening to grab his Dad’s  limelight.

Preston’s a little rusty on stage at first, but with some encouragement from Papa and a whole lot of rocking from Elvis, he soon gets into that hip-wiggle thing.

Jailhouse Rock

Fanie Schoeman learnt his Tupelo Licks the traditional way: via Jailhouse Rock, played to him by his very own Elvis-loving dad.

“I started to sing along, then I would practice his moves in front of the mirror. Then I started wearing my jacket collar up, even when the kids mocked me.” After winning an Elvis competition in 2004, Fanie Schoeman took his singing seriously and began making some money from his act.

One day at home, while preparing for a show, he noticed young Preston standing next to him, copying all his moves, shaking his legs and swinging his guitar arm.

“Granny!,” Fanie shouted to his mother. “Make the boy an outfit!” And she did. And here’s young Preston on stage, making the Schoeman clan very proud.

Shake, Rattle & Roll

But the real McCoy of ETA’s is James Marais, who later wins the Going to Wales to the World Cup of Elvis prize. James has that Cajun thing down pat, including the Comeback Look, and he, too, learnt about Elvis from his dad. What’s up with Elvis Dads?

James Marais does two shows a week at the Grand West Casino in Cape Town.

“When I was a kid, I sang Elvis songs for my family until they were all sick of it. Then I started singing for other people for money. I know about 200 Elvis songs off by heart. But I didn’t know this little village of Storms River existed…”

You’re a Heartbreaker

The Marilyn Monroe Lookalike competition was a hoot. There was a shortage of dresses and wigs, so the girls had to share, which meant someone was going to stand on stage without a blonde wig at some stage. Tony de King, the hilarious compere-cum-ETA, escorted the girls over a grille on stage (there was a blowing fan underneath it) and their dresses mostly all lifted a little bit. Then he did an Irish jig over the grille and brought the house down. Then a Man-Boy Marilyn came on and kissed him and he blushed and lost his Elvis wig. That’ll teach him for calling Kakemas “Kak-a-Mouse” and Pofadder “Poof Adder”. But it was all great fun.

Shaky Russel and his band and his very own Marilyn took over the show that night and off we all went down the rabbit hole of good old rock ‘n roll. Lost in the fifties, and happy to be so…

Contact: www.elvisfestival.co.za