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Until Peter Guralnick came out with Last Train to Memphis in 1994, most biographies of Elvis Presley--especially those written by people with varying degrees of access to his "inner circle"--were filled with starstruck adulation, and those that weren't in awe of their subject invariably went out of their way to take potshots at the rock & roll pioneer (with Albert Goldman's 1981 Elvis reaching now-legendary levels of bile and condescension). Guralnick's exploration of Elvis's childhood and rise to fame was notable for its factual rigorousness and its intimate appreciation of Presley's musical agenda.
Picking up where the first volume left off, Guralnick sees Elvis through his tour of duty with the U.S. Army in Germany, where he first met--and was captivated by--a 14-year-old girl named Priscilla Beaulieu. We may think we know the story from this point: the return to America, the near-decade of B-movies, eventual marriage to Priscilla, a brief flash of glory with the '68 comeback, and the surrealism of "fat Elvis" decked out in bejeweled white jumpsuits, culminating in a bathroom death scene. And while that summary isn't exactly false, Guralnick's account shows how little perspective we've had on Elvis's life until now, how a gross caricature of the final years has come to stand for the life itself. He treats every aspect of Presley's life--including forays into spiritual mysticism and the growing dependency on prescription drugs--with dignity and critical distance. More importantly, Careless Love continues to show that Guralnick "gets" what Presley was trying to do as an artist: "I see him in the same way that I think he saw himself from the start," the introduction states, "as someone whose ambition it was to encompass every strand of the American musical tradition." From rock to blues to country to gospel, Guralnick discusses how, at his finest moments, Elvis was able to fulfill that dream. --Ron Hogan
From Publishers Weekly
Opening with the 25-year-old Presley's nervous return to the United States in March 1960, this second volume of Guralnick's definitive and scrupulous biography then circles back to describe the singer's military service in Germany, where he encountered two elements destined to define his post-Army life: prescription drugs and 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu. His manager, Colonel Tom Parker, was by now a major factor in Elvis's career, and Guralnick is the first to explain successfully how the Colonel, a one-time carnival huckster, maintained an enduring hold on a man whose genius was beyond his grasp. Presley believed that they were "an unbeatable team," and the Colonel's success in keeping Elvis's popularity alive during the Army stint seemed to prove it. The subsequent results of the Colonel's go-for-the-quick-buck mentality?crummy movies made on the cheap, mediocre soundtracks rather than studio albums?shook Elvis's faith in his manager, but he remained loyal through the inevitable artistic and commercial decline. Guralnick's meticulously documented narrative (which draws on interviews with virtually everyone significant) shows the insecure, fatally undisciplined Elvis to be his own worst enemy, closely seconded by the Colonel and the entourage of hangers-on who feared change and disparaged Presley's tentative efforts to grow, especially his spiritual apprenticeships to his hairstylist, Larry, and to Sri Daya Mata. When Elvis roused himself?for his 1968 television comeback, for the legendary Chips Moman-produced sessions of 1969, for the early Las Vegas shows?he was still the most charismatic performer in popular music, with a voice that easily encompassed his rock-and-roll roots and his desire to reach beyond them. But as the '70s wore on, Guralnick shows, he became imprisoned by laziness and passivity, numbing his contempt for himself and those around him with the drugs that finally killed him in 1977. As in volume one, Last Train to Memphis, Guralnick makes his points here through the selection and accretion of detail, arguing in an author's note that "retrospective moral judgments [have] no place in describing a life." While some readers may wish he had occasionally stepped back to tell us what it all means, the integrity of this approach is admirable. Many writers have made Presley the vehicle for their own ideas; Guralnick gives us a fallible human being destroyed by forces within as well as without. It's an epic American tragedy, captured here in all its complexity. Major ad/promo; author tour. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Acclaimed by the critics, Guralnick's Last Train to Memphis (Audio Reviews, LJ 6/15/95) chronicled Elvis's early life, his music, and his phenomenal rise to fame. This second volume covers the period from his army service in 1958 to his death in 1977, describing his slow artistic and physical decline, accompanied by ever-increasing prescription drug use. Guralnick manages to avoid the sensationalism so prevalent in earlier biographies as he writes of nearly a decade of "B" movies, the endless tours playing at increasingly more remote cities, and the pathetic spectacle of an overweight Elvis performing outdated music in a skintight white jumpsuit. He even treats Elvis's bathroom death scene with dignity and critical distance, telling the sad facts of the prescription drug overdose with a reporter's thoroughness. This book will appeal to all who want a factual yet sympathetic account of the last years of Elvis's life. J. Charles reads clearly, sounding believable as Elvis and those around him. The tape quality is excellent. Highly recommended for all public libraries.ANancy R. Ives, SUNY at GeneseoCopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The New York Times Book Review, Gerald Marzorati
Peter Guralnick's two-volume life of Elvis Aron Presley, of which Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley is the second installment, is not simply the finest rock-and-roll biography ever written. It must be ranked among the most ambitious and crucial biographical undertakings yet devoted to a major American figure of the second half of the 20th century.
Entertainment Weekly, Ken Tucker
...Careless Love documents the life of a sheltered bore who turned his miracle into a tragedy as well as a joke. Guralnick tells that joke with eloquent sorrow and muted poignance.
The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani
...Mr. Guralnick manages to recount ... events without indulging in the faintest bit of voyeurism or sensationalism. There are no cheap attempts to psychoanalyze Elvis in this volume, no moralistic judgments or forays into pathography.
The Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, Sarah Vowell
To anyone who cares about Elvis--what he meant, what he continues to mean--reading Guralnick's painfully honest book is painful going but titillating at the same time.
From AudioFile
This second volume of Guralnick's exhaustive biography begins when Elvis is 22 years old and has nowhere to go but down. He's artistically boxed into safe, dull films and soundtrack recordings; he's already dependent on pharmaceuticals. He thirsts for spiritual enlightenment and true love but seems to find neither. J. Charles's performance is clear and intelligent. It's delightful that he can suggest Elvis's unforgettable voice in the direct quotations. If only the story itself were more like one of Elvis's blues songs--glorious, a triumph over tragedy. Instead, it just plods dutifully on, piling on the sad details, downhill all the way. S.P. Guralnick's Last Train to Memphis read by J. Charles is available from Brilliance and in another unabridged version from Books on Tape. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
From Booklist
Watching the humble, well-mannered Elvis of Last Train to Memphis (1994) become the bombastic, bloated Elvis of Careless Love is indeed heartbreaking. It didn't have to end that way. A tragic figure of epic proportions, Elvis is the poster boy for the sorrows of superstardom. It's an old and now-familiar story: unprepared for the realities of international fame and fortune, Elvis, immensely talented, charming beyond belief, and massively charismatic, found himself adrift in a sea of sycophantic hangers-on, adoring and ecstatic fans, and seemingly endless financial resources--a dream come true or a gilded cage? As his sincere desire to please others was replaced by an obsessive neediness and self-absorption, Elvis' humility gave way to a sense of entitlement. A million adoring fans can't be wrong, can they? Picking up where he left off in volume 1 (after the death of Gladys Presley and Elvis' induction into the army), Guralnick captures it all: Elvis' introduction to 14-year-old Priscilla, the return to the States, the Colonel, the motion pictures, the Memphis Mafia, the studio sessions, Las Vegas, karate, the tours, and, of course, the girls, the guns, and the drugs. Many of the stories told here have been told previously, and Guralnick cites some of the books that came before this one, but, along with Last Train, this is clearly the definitive account of Elvis Presley, no more lurid than it has to be. The author's thoroughness is matched by his balance. It is obvious Guralnick has a deep admiration for Elvis' contributions as an artist, but he does not overlook or excuse the star's many flaws. An indispensable account. Benjamin Segedin
From Kirkus Reviews
Guralnick concludes his majestic two-volume biography of Elvis Presley with copious evidence of Elviss creative and personal plunge. Last Train to Memphis (1994) brilliantly illuminated the mystery of Elviss geniuswhat it consisted of and where it came from. The unanswered mystery here is how someone who reshaped American culture between 1954 and 1958 could have so completely insulated himself from that culture for most of the rest of his life. After Elvis came out of the army in 1960, he increasingly became a clock-puncher. The times left him behind as he gamely acted in inanely trashy movies and sang inanely trashy songs in order to fulfill contractual commitments. Guralnick meticulously documents manager Colonel Tom Parkers cutthroat dealings with RCA Records and the movie studios, which resulted in staggering paychecks for both Presley and Parker (by the mid-'70s, Parker was splitting his sole clients earnings 5050). While his celebrated 1968 TV special rejuvenated Elvis professionally, the overstuffed-jumpsuit years that followed had few aesthetic or personal high points. Hangers-on tirelessly served the Kings whims, including multiple simultaneous affairs and the incredibly debilitating pharmaceutical habits that eventually did him in. Unconditionally loved by his audiences no matter how bloated, doped up, and incompetent he became, Elvis indulged obsessions with guns and karate and even took a stoned trip to the Oval Office, where he persuaded a bemused President Nixon to make him a federal narcotics agent. As his sometime spiritual advisor and hairdresser Larry Geller puts it, The outside world was a distant place he ventured out into but never really lived in. Careless Love is about claustrophobia, insularity, and disintegration: exactly the opposite of the previous volumes subjects. We miss the cultural context of the 1960s and '70s, but then, so did Elvis. The diffuseness of this life is reflected in Guralnicks narrative. Nevertheless, this sequel to his exhilarating first volume is the most meticulously researched and sympathetic, honest portrait of Elvis we are likely to see. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Book Description
"Here at last is the full, true, and mesmerizing story of Elvis Presley's last two decades, in the long-awaited second volume of Peter Guralnick's masterful two-part biography. Last Train to Memphis, the first part of Guralnick's two-volume life of Elvis Presley, was acclaimed by the New York Times as "a triumph of biographical art." This concluding volume recounts the second half of Elvis' life in rich and previously unimagined detail, and confirms Guralnick's status as one of the great biographers of our time. Beginning with Presley's army service in Germany in 1958 and ending with his death in Memphis in 1977, Careless Love chronicles the unraveling of the dream that once shone so brightly, homing in on the complex playing-out of Elvis' relationship with his Machiavellian manager, Colonel Tom Parker. It's a breathtaking, revelatory drama that for the first time places the events of a too-often mistold tale in a fresh, believable, and understandable context. Elvis' changes during these years form a tragic mystery that Careless Love unlocks for the first time. This is the quint essential American story, encompassing elements of race, class, wealth, sex, music, religion, and personal transformation. Written with grace, sensitivity, and passion, Careless Love is a unique contribution to our understanding of American popular culture and the nature of success, giving us true insight at last into one of the most misunderstood public figures of our times. "
About the Author
"Peter Guralnick is widely regarded as the nation's preeminent writer on twentieth-century American popular music. His books include Feel Like Going Home, Lost Highway, Sweet Soul Music, Searching for Robert Johnson, the novel Nighthawk Blues, and a highly acclaimed two-volume biography of Elvis Presley, Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love."
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