Madam, - I consider Fintan O'Toole to be the best journalist of his generation. His dissection of the beef tribunal, in particular, was a master class in investigative journalism.
However, his half-baked go at Elvis Presley was unworthy of him
("Would Elvis please leave the building?", Weekend, August 11th).
He got it wrong on any number of counts. Here are a few of them:
1. Colonel Tom Parker was never Elvis's "Svengali". He may
have been his nemesis though. And no one can deny his culpability
for the tragic trajectory of Elvis's career.
2. It's unfair to say that the real Elvis "ceased to exist" after 1955 when he left Sun records. Has Mr O'Toole heard of his Memphis album, recorded in 1969, containing such classics as Suspicious Minds and In the Ghetto?
3. The idea that Elvis in some way stymied the careers of black artists such as Chuck Berry is nonsense. The success of Elvis, singing songs like Big Mama Thornton's Hound Dog, opened the way for a more general acceptance of black music.
4. Citing Chuck Berry as some kind of wronged paragon is particularly unfortunate. Aside from his under-age bother and tax problems, Berry was more recently prosecuted for spying on female visitors to his restaurant's bathroom. Also, his creative period was even shorter than Elvis's. The creator of Nadine and The Promised Land ended up offering us My Ting a Ling.
Finally, those who want to discover the real Elvis should check out Peter Guralnick's Last Train to Memphis rather than the tortuous abstractions of Greil Marcus. - Yours, etc,
JOHN O'SULLIVAN,
Saval Park Crescent,
Dalkey,
Co Dublin.
Madam, - I must take issue with Fintan O'Toole's article about Elvis Presley. Contrary what Mr O'Toole suggests, when Elvis made the now legendary Sun recordings he was unheard of outside Memphis and the deep south. The real "big bang" was first single and No. 1 with the "bland pop label RCA" (whatever that means) - Heartbreak Hotel.
Mr O'Toole says that if Chuck Berry had been white Elvis wouldn't be the king of rock roll. Great as he was, Chuck Berry regurgitated endless, threechord, 12-bar boogies while Elvis went from the prototype rockabilly of Blue Moon of Kentucky and Mystery Train to In Ghetto, Suspicious Minds, If I can Dream and Always on my Mind. Elvis sang everything: country, blues, gospel, R&B, rock, and even opera.
Elvis's movies had nothing do with his music. No one hated them more than Elvis himself. -Yours, etc,
DERMOT SWEENEY,
Ushers Island,
Dublin 8.