MUS050000 Archives - Duckworth Books

The King departed this world during the month of punk Rock’s apotheosis. Punk had set out to destroy Elvis, or at least everything he came to represent, but never got the chance. Elvis destroyed himself before anyone else could.

Nearly forty years after his death, Rock’s ultimate legend and prototype just won’t go away and his influence and legacy are to be found not just in music today, but the world over. Elvis Presley has permeated the modern world in ways that are bizarre and inexplicable: a pop icon while he was alive, he has become almost a religious icon in death, a modern-day martyr crucified on the wheel of drugs, celebrity culture, junk food and sex.

In Elvis Has Left the Building, Dylan Jones takes us back to those heady days around the time of his death and the rise of punk. He evokes the hysteria and devotion of The King’s numerous disciples and imitators, offering a uniquely insightful commentary on Elvis’s life, times and outrageous demise. This is a fresh account, written with the authors customary panache, recounting how Elvis single-handedly changed the course of popular music and culture, and what his death meant and still means to us today.

‘Darryl Bullock’s timely biography – delightfully cheering’ Alexander McCall Smith, Guardian

Madame Jenkins couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket: despite that, in 1944 at the age of 76, she played Carnegie Hall to a capacity audience and had celebrity fans by the score. Her infamous 1940s recordings are still highly-prized today. In his well-researched and thoroughly entertaining biography, Darryl W. Bullock tells of Florence Foster Jenkins meteoric rise to success and the man who stood beside her, through every sharp note.

Florence was ridiculed for her poor control of timing, pitch, and tone, and terrible pronunciation of foreign lyrics, but the sheer entertainment value of her caterwauling packed out theatres around the United States, with the ‘singer’ firmly convinced of her own talent, partly thanks to the devoted attention from her husband and manager St Clair Bayfield. Her story is one of triumph in the face of adversity, of courage, conviction and of the belief that with dedication and commitment a true artist can achieve anything.

With a major Hollywood movie about her life out now (starring Meryl Streep, Hugh Grant and Simon Helberg), the genius of Florence Foster Jenkins is about to be discovered by a whole new audience.

‘The first full biography of Foster Jenkins’ Clemency Burton-Hill, BBC

‘Listening to her pathetic bleating is something like eavesdropping on a padded cell inmate’ Billboard magazine

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