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Long live the King

by Jo-Anne Hui | 20 Mar 2015

He may have passed away almost 40 years ago, but the burning love and ardent passion for the King is still very much alive and kicking, even in the small NSW town of Parkes.

Earlier this year, I attended the famous annual Parkes Elvis Festival, which has been running for 22 years. It was a huge five-day bonanza of events dedicated to Elvis and included a feast of activities, from Elvis and Priscilla Presley look-a-like competitions, vintage car competitions, a street parade, superb concerts from Elvis tribute artists, Elvis bingo and even marriage vow renewals.

Parkes is not a big town - there are only 12,000 residents - but each year, it draws tens of thousands of Elvis lovers from all around Australia. This year, it hit record numbers of 20,000 attendees. Not bad for a little country town.

This year, one of the biggest highlights of the festival was tribute artist Justin Shandor, who had travelled all the way to Parkes from the US. Shandor was named as the Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist in 2010 by Elvis Presley Enterprises, which is run by Priscilla herself and performed all over the world and on television, including David Letterman.

So as you can imagine, there was a lot of excitement surrounding Shandor’s arrival at the festival. During the five days, Justin performed at several sell-out shows, each dedicated to a different era of Elvis’ career. I went to one and it was mind-blowing. To be honest, I went to the festival with a curious interest in Elvis’ music, but after Shandor’s show, I was up out of my seat and dancing like I had blue suede shoes on.

After the festival, I had a chat with Justin, who has been performing as Elvis since he was 16.

“It’s amazing how all across the world, Elvis is still well-known and loved over here in Parkes and he’s never even visited before. He’s been gone for over 35 years, but his music still keeps getting stronger. It was great to see so many kids and people of all ages being part of the festival and loving the music. That love will go on forever, hopefully the festival goes on another 25 to 100 years.”

Justin first discovered Elvis when he was nine years old and growing up in Detroit. His father was a jazz pianist, so Justin grew up listening to musicians like Bill Evans and Monty Alexander.

“Elvis’ music was very different to anything else I grew up with,” Justin recalls. “When I first heard Elvis, it woke me up. The energy of his music and his voice really stuck out for me.”

Despite dedicating much of his life to the music of Elvis, Justin still listens to other artists like Steie Wonder, Frank Sinatra, The Beatles and Mario Lanza, all of which influence his work on stage as a tribute artist.

And even though it’s been over 20 years since he discovered Elvis, Justin is still discovering new songs from the King.

“I have a favourite new Elvis song every week. He recorded 739 songs, so sometimes I’ll go onto Youtube and look through different songs and find something I still haven’t heard before.  There are a lot of songs I still haven’t heard yet,” he said.

Love a rock legend? Music historian Glen A. Baker will be hosting the Legends of Rock Night during the Probus Christmas in July trip to Norfolk Island.