By Tom Burton
A few months after the A&Gallery story on Peter Alden published, I wrote a backstory for a blog called Behind the Viewfinder at digitalstoryteller.com. This is a version of that story ~ TWBurton
Photo by Tom Burton
The man who would be King
First, there was the music. Peter Alden was in high school in Gainesville, Florida. He had his own band that played retro swing music and Rockabilly songs.
Then one show he sang ''Teddy Bear'' and he sang it like Elvis Presley. The girls went wild. Alden knew he was on to something.
More than 10 years later — and 20 years after the death of Elvis Presley — his attraction continues. Walking by a tavern on Orange Avenue in downtown Orlando, Alden hears an Elvis song playing on the outside speaker. Wearing a pink sport coat, a black open collar shirt and that signature Presley hairstyle and sideburns, Alden walks inside.
Instantly he is recognized by happy-hour patrons as the King. Young women hug him and pose for pictures. A suspender-clad businessman is envious.
''I've got to start dressing like that,'' says the guy with a regular job.
Alden's job is portraying Elvis. Four to five shows a day, he sings and gyrates on stage at the Cypress Gardens theme park. He has also performed Elvis shows at casinos in Mississippi and at other events around Central Florida.
Alden performs four different eras of Presley's career. His own favorite is '50s Elvis, but he also portrays the Army years, the 1968 black leather Elvis and the '70s Las Vegas Elvis.
The different incarnations of Elvis Presley help make the King popular with a wide range of audiences today. People can latch on to whichever Elvis they like.
Alden has worked long and hard on sounding like Elvis and on perfecting his stage show. He will compete against other Elvis performers in an international competition this week in Memphis which ranks the top five Elvis performers.
''I think there are guys out there who look more like him than I do,'' admits Alden, but when he puts on the outfit, sings and moves around, ''I'm the closest thing to Elvis out there.''
The music is still why Alden portrays Elvis (let's not use that ''impersonator'' word). He says his dream job would be doing voice-over vocals for Elvis movies.
And Alden still has a swing band, the Peter Alden Orchestra, which is not an Elvis act. Stopping outside the Sapphire Supper Club in downtown Orlando, Alden looks over their calendar and notices other bands that play his kind of music. He is hoping to get his band more bookings.
A version of this story was published in the Orlando Sentinel, August 10, 1997
When I first met Peter Alden, he didn’t look like what I thought he would. That put me into a low-level panic state.
Alden is a singer who performs an Elvis act at Cypress Gardens, an old-time tourist attraction in Winter Haven, Fla. He was to be the subject for A&E Gallery, a weekly feature I had just started writing in The Orlando Sentinel. The column featured people and events in the arts and entertainment community. I write the short copy block, but the main element is a four-column black-and-white photo.
I met Alden in downtown Orlando just before dusk to make a portrait. He had started singing Elvis songs when he was in high school when he figured out that the girls loved it when he sang “Teddy Bear.” He was still doing the Elvis act because he loved the music, not because he was fascinated with the Elvis cult. He also knew that while he could sound like Elvis, his resemblance was not so clear.
“I think there are guys out there who look more like him than I do,” he said. Alden’s showmanship made up the difference wehn he put on a classic Elvis outfit, started moving and began to sing. Then, he said: “I’m the closest thing to Elvis out there.”
For our interview, Alden and I walked around the clubs and shops downtown, talking while I made pictures. A spot near the railroad tracks worked for a photo, but I was still hoping for something with more “pop.” Although he was a great subject for a written story, Alden just wasn’t looking enough like Elvis to make a great picture.
We stopped for a moment as I changed film in one of my cameras. I was kneeling next to my bag when I glanced up at Alden. He was contemplating a building across the street. I grabbed a second camera with fresh film and made one quick frame. He looked down at me, but I told him to turn back to where he had been looking. I shot two more frames and we moved on.
At that moment, in that lighting, with that angle and background, Peter Alden looked just like a young Elvis— nothing but hopes and dreams were ahead of him.
The week after the story ran, Alden traveled to Memphis to compete in an international Elvis impersonators contest he had never entered before. He was eager to see how he’d do against hundreds of other singers. Alden placed fifth overall; an honor for a first-timer.
It was meeting people like Peter Alden who made journalism a worthwhile career for me. In doing the story, I learned from him that “it’s about the music” can also be “it’s about the moment.”