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Book
Reviews
When The Beatles Met
Elvis, Audio Book (Chris Hutchens)
Reviewed by Elvis News
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How
to review this audio book by Chris Hutchins, a former journalist and
tour manager who was there when it happened. It is published as a
book, but comes as a 3 CD set.
Design
The 3 CD set comes in a cardboard sleeve with three slim line
CD-cases. The cover contains pictures of both Elvis and the Beatles,
but none of the famous meeting.
Content
The first disc is a real negative one. Chris Hutchens claims that
Elvis, high on drugs, considered Lennon to be the Anti-Christ and
should be kept out of the country or be killed. Further he claims
that Elvis was spying on behalf of the FBI (Edgar Hoover) on
subversive entertainers like the Beatles. Tom Jones being his "boy
wonder" talking about this in Las Vegas.
Both Elvis and John Lennon were described as emotional crippled,
both hanging to their mothers. The strange thing is that both men
who had a kind of the same (poor) background and both made it from
rags to riches could have been the best of friends but were to
become the worst of enemies due to (personal) circumstances
(friends, career, drugs etcetera). Besides these remarks we hear
several negative claims like Elvis' mother dying of alcohol abuse
and so on. We skipped the remainder of the disk, it simply wasn't a
pleasant CD.
The second disc is slightly better, it tells the story of the
Beatles' conquest of America and the links with Elvis. The story,
again told from the Beatles point of view does put down Elvis
between the lines and in favour of the Beatles.
The third disk starts with Elvis listening to "Sgt. Peppers" trying
to find anti American propaganda and encoded messages on drugs ...
the last tabloid kind of story we decided to listen to, so we put on
an Elvis disc.
Conclusion
The author can be described a story teller. Both for the
presentation of the book on a CD, but more for the tabloid like
storytelling of the relation between Elvis and the Beatles. For
those Beatle fans who enjoy the Elvis - Beatles duel, this can be a
nice book, everyone on Elvis' hand better skip this tabloid. Too bad
that a person who was present at the historic meeting between these
musical greats had to go so low ...
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