How to play Elvis (by ‘Elvis’)

Newcomer Austin Butler has been cast as Elvis in a new biopic. We asked Elvis impersonator JD King for his advice

THE VOICE

“To me, the key to Elvis is the voice. And that’s the thing that Austin’s gonna have to work on the most. My worry with him is that he might not have a deep enough range. Elvis had quite a baritone singing voice. It’s mastering the Memphis accent as well. And the metre is very deliberate — it speeds up and then kind of hangs there. He needs to get the mouth in the right place — it’s quite far forward.”

THE MOVES

“A lot of Elvis’s moves are derived from classic 1950s jiving and bopping. But he was also a black belt in karate. He integrated a lot of karate kicks and swishes into his movements. He’d do a lot with his hips, of course, riding from side to side, but if you’re a historian of Elvis, you know that he dances very differently in the 1950s to how he did in the 1970s. Little details like that are important, if you want to impress the Elvis nerds like me.”

THE HAIR

“The quiff was a signature for Elvis pretty much throughout his whole life, but in the ’70s it became more of a big mop. And of course, the sideburns got bigger and bigger, until they took up about half his face. I have to use quite a lot of hairspray, because I have very fine hair. If Austin’s lucky, and he’s got nice thick locks, it’ll be easier to get it standing up straight. It’s always a struggle for me, deciding what length my sideburns should be — I usually just go for something in the middle. If things don’t work out with Austin, I’m on standby!”

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT JD KING AT WWW.JDKINGELVIS.CO.UK