Elvis Presley and Colonel Tom Parker land in Phoenix for the King’s first 1970s tour. Photo courtesy of the Graceland Archives

Books

The Man Behind the King

Best-selling author and alum Peter Guralnick’s new book explores the relationship between Elvis Presley and his manager

One of America’s foremost chroniclers of popular music, Peter Guralnick (CAS’67, GRS’68) has published two biographies of Elvis—Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley (Little, Brown and Company, 1995) and Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley (Little, Brown and Company, 2000). His new book, The Colonel and the King: Tom Parker, Elvis Presley, and the Partnership That Rocked the World (Little, Brown and Company, 2025), examines the relationship between Presley and his enigmatic manager, Colonel Tom Parker. Long considered to be partially responsible for his most famous client’s downfall, Parker is portrayed here in a new—even redemptive—light. The following is an excerpt from Guralnick’s book.

Much of Colonel’s job for the first two years of their association consisted of defending Elvis against the fears, insecurities, importunities, and demands coming at him from all sides, and in particular from every element of the business that was threatened by a talent so startling, so revolutionary, so original and new. Starting with the record company, RCA, but including the booking agency, William Morris, that was so vital to all of their plans, the television industry, and, of course, the Hollywood hierarchy.

Even before the first RCA session, in Nashville at the beginning of January 1956, it was clear that his producer, Steve Sholes, had no idea how to even address Elvis, let alone suggest suitable songs for him to record. He adopted an avuncular, almost patronizing approach, which Elvis responded to with the kind of smoldering resentment you might expect from a just-twenty-one-year-old artist with deep-seated insecurities, to be sure. But if that was what Sholes was thinking, he was missing the whole point, for Elvis Presley was a young artist with an almost untrammeled belief in himself as well.

Colonel had always liked Sholes, at forty-five his near contemporary. He was just the kind of jovial, easygoing-on-the-outside a&r man that Parker’s two previous clients, Eddy Arnold and Hank Snow, both top RCA stars, had needed. Now, with Elvis looking askance at every song suggestion he made (“Shiver and Shake” and “Wham! Bam! Hot Ziggety Zam” were among the more egregious), Colonel assessed the situation and since he had no plans to be at the session himself (he had long ago determined that this did not lie within his sphere of operations), he told Sholes there wasn’t much he could do to help. Steve was just going to have to figure it out for himself.

Upon the completion of the session Sholes complained bitterly to his old friend Tom Parker that he had gotten nothing from it that sounded like a hit single. But he got no help from Parker, who was adamant in his refusal to become involved in discussions about the manner or content of Elvis’ music in any way. That was his artist’s business, Colonel reiterated, and he had full confidence that his artist knew his business.

Meanwhile Sholes’ boss, Bill Bullock, alarmed at the turn things were taking, wrote to Colonel on March 7, pointing out all the shortcomings of what he viewed as Colonel’s small-market approach to business and strongly suggesting that it was time for a change. Even though “Heartbreak Hotel,” the song that Elvis had selected as his first single, had at this point sold three hundred thousand copies, it still had not registered
on the national charts, and the way Parker was going about things, Bullock wrote, bore little resemblance to the strategy he thought they had both agreed upon: to create as many sales in the pop market as in the country-and-western. “You must remember,” he reminded the young man’s manager, “that we too have a big stake in this artist”—and they couldn’t simply sit around and wait till summer to try to break him in the “big selling popular record markets.”

Colonel’s reply was the soul of deflection, as he thanked Bullock for all his good advice (“I agree with you 100%”) and ticked off everything he was doing at this very moment, all the dates he had set up (none of which, as it happened, were in the markets that Bullock was talking about), all the obligations he was under, and all the work he was continuing to do for Hank Snow and Eddy Arnold.

At the same time, he couldn’t emphasize too much, “We have to be very careful the kind of package we build around Elvis,” who was, the barely less-than-explicit argument underscored, a unique artist who had to be treated as such—and he couldn’t do anything further about personal appearances anyway until Elvis had his screen test at the end of the month. In a P.S. he inquired innocently whether Bullock had ever received the Tennessee country sausage that Colonel had sent him, after Bullock let him know how much he had enjoyed it at another RCA executive’s housewarming.

Excerpted from the book The Colonel and the King by Peter Guralnick. Copyright © 2025 by Peter Guralnick. Reprinted with permission of Little, Brown and Company. All rights reserved.