--Content
--Elvis: Behind The Image - Volume 2 - The Book







The Book :

The book comes up to the title of the homonymous DVD but that is the only commonness you can find. The producers chose the same title because the book has the same aim as the DVD:

Elvis - Behind The Image
The aim to show the people Elvis like they don't know him.

The life of the artist who can show himself in private moments without being beleaguered by press photographers all the time. Time and place are optional: At home, in Graceland, in one of his houses in California, in the car or in the cinema.

Elvis - 100% private


The Content:
The anyway indigenous concept of the Elvis Behind The Image book series was even refined at this issue. "Elvis: Behind The Image" - The Book Vol. 2 offers the fan more than 520 photos on over 140 pages. Thereby the candids cover all three decades in which the king was in the spotlight and the media was interested in him. The 50s are mainly black/white, the 60s and 70s are documented with color photos. The journals of Sandi Miller enable the reader once again a previously unknown insight into the private world of Elvis. Originally Sandi Miller was an Elvis fan but she became, like in a dream of every Elvis fan, a close friend of Elvis. So she was a guest on many private parties, and she was a lot of times present at Elvis's home and at rehearsals in the RCA studios.


Sandi Miller's journals
Even at that time she kept detailed records in a kind of journal about the many meetings with Elvis so she has a lot of memories, she has saved over the years in her journals, to offer us. So she can report about every detail like it just happened yesterday. Bud Glass was, however, able to enthuse during his researches other contemporary witnesses for the project, thereunder famos names like Jean-Marc Gargiulo or Livio Monari, who describe their memories at those times, their personal moments and meetings with Elvis detailed to the reader. These reports are being in-depth accompanied in the finest "Behind The Image" manner with sensational photos which mirror these incidents impressively.

Why are so many fans only crazy about the young Elvis of the 50s? Is it his look, his charm or his unbiasedness or due to him standing out from the crowd because of being different ? Everybody has to find the answer for himself, but the documented incidents in word and picture ease the search for the right answer. There is the young Elvis who is just having a break and lays down in the backstage area to relax before the concert. There are the members of the "Presleyettes" fan club who come to Elvis to the Beverly Hills Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles and he takes the time to talk to them and to pose for collective photos and doesn't decline their wish for autographs. You surely knew that Nick Adams was a friend of Elvis. But do you know the photos showing the two Hollywood stars together ? In Behind The Image - Welcome To His World are not only these moments documented with photos but also the rare incident where Elvis shows his friend his property Graceland and the very rare photos where you can also see Nick Adams's mother for the first time.

Photos taken from the book "Elvis: Behind The Image" - Volume 2

Elvis caught the attention from most of us by a movie in TV or by a recording in the radio. His ability and his talent came to our home in the best manner. But this media shows however only one side: they show an Elvis who knew exactly that he had to look after every little move and his look, and that he was only allowed to do tiny jokes. The other side is offered you here in Behind The Image. Be "there" when Elvis stops in front of his different gateways with his sumptuary cars to search the closeness to the fans: during a short small talk, during candids with babies or how he is making faces or when he is not in such a good temper but anyway he takes 5 minutes time for the fans giving them a moment they will never forget their whole life.

The photos document not only the loose and easy-going kind of Elvis during his spare time, but they show outstandingly why the youth of that time took Elvis as a role model and followed suit concerning Elvis's look and clothes. His incomparable style should cause him being even alive a trend setter and that the trend he coined is still up to date nowadays. Experience Elvis how he is being surprised with presents by fans in 1968 for Father's Day, how he visits the USS Arizona War Memorial to whose construction he has contributed with his benefit concert in 1961 - an Elvis who is just coming home from the shooting of the 68 TV Special and still wearing the suit from the Gospel sequence...

Never before seen photos from the 50's featured in "BTI 2 - Welcome To His World"
Accompany Elvis backstage during his Comeback engagement in 1969 in Las Vegas, be present during the key commissioning of the first American Stutz, experience more about the meeting between Muhammad Ali and Elvis and how it came to Muhammad Ali standing suddenly in the ring in a jumpsuit design. Behind The Image is showing for the first time the photos which break all speculations off, whether Elvis was present at the Ali-Frazier fight in Memphis.

See Elvis's astonished face when he suddenly meets a double of himself, the sensational photos of the private Elvis who leaves the cinema with some Nunchakus at his belt and a gun he has put easy-going behind his belt at the front. Experience the sport avid Elvis in the karate studio together with Ed Parker and how he poses in the karate studio in a jumpsuit for common fan photos.

The rumor that the late 70's Elvis was only tired and dull is being disproved by this book impressively in reports and pictures: on one side there is an Elvis totally inflamed with rage, who leaves his hotel because the air condition has given up the ghost and runs into the next hotel directly across the street to escape the summerly heat.

Imagine Elvis a few days before his death on his Harley with a flower arrangement on his carrier - without the company of his bodyguards - on his way to Forrest Hill Cemetery where he lays down a bouquet at his mother's grave.

Behind The Image does not only give you the story to this surely unique moment, but provides also the according pictures.

Experience for example how Elvis became "Mr. Lipton" or how he stops at "Taco Bell" and why he leaves again by saying "Awwww f***".

This book will lead you through any human emotions you are able to: You will be amazed, you will laugh, you will cry or you'll just be touched.

The Realization:

With the release of "Behind The Image - Vol.1" and "Born To Rock" every time new standards were defined and set so that the producers have made it their aim to continue with this tradition at the latest production. Quality starts, as you know, outside. Due to your bookshelf looking good, the same dimensions as on BTI 1 were used. As well, like at the homonymous predecessor, a hardcover was chosen. BTI 2 uses the same high quality printing process how it was already used for "Born To Rock". In addition the paper got a special treatment, a surface coating was applied, which will protect the pages from fingerprints remaining.

The more than 520 photos in this book are being supplemented with over 50 different illustrations like memorabilia, ticket stubs, newspaper articles or personal items.
You surely know the phenomenon of the flip-book:

A lot of small detail screens make a complete movie in their entirety. The unique concept Bud Glass has created makes a movie develop in the heads of the readers due to every event being supplemented not only by one picture but if possible by the whole photo series.
So the comparison with a comic ( how BTI 1 was called in a review) is pretty near. The special thing about the "BTI - flip-book" is however that it is not a silent movie, the according reports of the contemporary witnesses give the whole thing life. When you read the book you will think afterwards you would have been present in this stories.

The aim to create a condign predecessor who doesn't have to hide in the shadow of the original was reached by the producers with the thought "evolution instead of revolution": The fan gets on nearly 20 additional pages more than 200 photos compared to the first volume to the same price and the time frame, which covered in BTI - Vol.1 1966-1975 was now expanded to the time frame 1956-1977.
One of the strict burdens, the production team has set themselves before the start of the project was, to create the most high-quality product possible at the lowest price. This led to us being able to offer our hardcover book cheaper than comparable equal concurrence-products, which are being sold for 50-75 Dollars. Our end-consumer price: $39.00 plus individual postage and packing costs (depending on your dwelling place). For orders please use our website.

Translation by Nadine Schwenk

Content
"Elvis: Behind The Image - Welcome To His World" - The Book - Volume 2