Elvis & The Birth Of Rock: The Photographs Of Lew Allen
by Lew Allen & Mike McCartney

Rock’s innocence captured

Managers scrawling their artists’ name on a hotel door is a far cry from putting TVs through windows. Elvis & The Birth Of Rock brings that youthful mid-50s to light, with early, and largely unpublished photos of the likes of Elvis live in 1956, and Buddy Holly and The Everly Brothers on the road in ’58. A solitary Holly on a tour bus, or Presley on the phone to a hospitalised fan who couldn’t make the show (Lew Allen’s memory is that he delayed the start for 15 minutes to talk to her about the colours of Cadillac that he owned – a better excuse for a late start than any RC has ever heard) show a remarkably youthful set of stars, unaware of what they were doing, and what they would become. There’s an unselfconscious honesty to many of the photos that, contrasted with even late era-Presley shots, seem almost intrusive. Mike McCartney’s textual input, however, is negligible (‘Buddy Holly, or “Bloody Holly”, as my children would call him’; ‘I love the old phone and the CCM hockey stick on the left’), despite the fact that he ‘found’ the photos. At least Allen’s memories are warm and full of youthful exuberance. True to Genesis form, this is limited to 1750 signed and numbered copies. Early birds can get a 350-only deluxe edition, which comes with three limited, signed prints of Presley, The Everly Brothers and Bobby Darin. www.genesis-publications.com +44 (0) 1483 540 970

ISBN 1905662009

Reviewed by Jason Draper
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