"Every man and every woman is a star," wrote magician Aleister Crowley in the early 1900s. You are a star, your parents are stars, as are your friends and colleagues. Elvis Presley was a star in both his human and artistic dimensions and so was James Ellis, an enigmatic singer who claimed to be the very king of rock and roll and who acted under the name not of a star but of an entire constellation : Orion.
According to Ellis, the Tupelo artist would not have died in his Graceland bathroom crowded with barbiturates and with arteries clogged from the intake of banana sandwiches and peanut butter. In reality, the King would have taken a vacation on one of those islands where Jesús Gil, the Kennedy brothers and Jim Morrison are also said to be. After a period of rest, Elvis would have returned to the United States to re-record and perform under the name Orion. Does that seem like a strange story to you? Well hold on, this has only just begun.
According to Ellis, Elvis would not have died in his bathroom crowded with barbiturates. In reality, the King would have taken a vacation on one of those islands where it is said that Jesús Gil, the Kennedy brothers and Jim Morrison are also
The life of James Hodges Ellis is an arcane difficult to decipher. In it, events and dates are never clear and, when they seem to be, they contradict each other. Although there isiblity on his date of birth, February 26, 1945, the place of delivery varies. It could have been Pascagoula, in the state of Mississippi; Orrville, in Alabama or Washington DC, in Delaware.
To complicate matters a little more, James Hodges Ellis was not called that either. His real name was James Hughes Bell but he changed it to his foster parents when, at the age of four, he was given up for adoption to a family in Birmingham, a city where he grew up like any other boy from the 50s: classes in high school, prom, going out in the yearbook, singing in the choir and playing sports like football and baseball, to the point of getting a sports scholarship to continue their studies. In addition, in 1962 his good voice earned him first prize in a school contest for young talents endowed with $ 1,000 (about 900 euros) and a performance on local television. The chosen theme? Peace in the Valley , a godspell classic made famous by Elvis Presley.
Since Elvis published That's All Right on the Sun label in 1954 and revolutionized the world of music, thousands of singers decided to make a living by imitating the artist from Tupelo. Impersonators who copied to the millimeter the way of moving, acting and dressing as the King in the different stages of his career. However, James Ellis, who had a voice identical to Elvis', did not want to be one more on that list and set out to go much further. There where no one had dared to go. To Orion.
James Ellis live.
Like two drops of water
In 1964, James Ellis met producer Jimmy Youmans who, after verifying that his tone of voice and inflections were identical to those of Elvis, encouraged him to record a single that was a complete failure precisely because of what had caught the attention of the producer. When the broadcasters of the stations listened to Don't Count Your Chickens , which was the title of the song, they considered that the young man was just a second-rate Elvis and decided not to radio the album.
Faced with such a reality shock, Ellis parked his musical career to dedicate himself to sports and the family business, a horse farm. While caring for the animals, the young man kept dreaming of resuming his musical career and in 1972, he tried again. He recorded a demo and wanted it to fall into the hands of Shelby Singleton, a producer and hustler who had worked for Mercury Records and who, after leaving that company, had bought the entire Sun Records catalog to exploit it. Everything? No, not everything. The RCA company, which had hired Elvis Presley in 1955, had also acquired all the masters that the artist from Tupelo had recorded on Sun so that no one but them could get a return on the musician's work. A decision that was still a nuisance for Singleton, who saw how the benefits he could obtain from his investment were considerably less than he would have liked.
Fans were willing to believe that their idol was not dead; Ellis's voice had been mistaken for Elvis's by the RCA, and his physical complexion was similar to that of the artist. The only thing that made water was that his features did not look too much like those of Elvis, a detail that they solved with a mask
So when Shelby Singleton heard the demo of that young man singing like Elvis, she thought that talent, seasoned with a bit of business savvy, might make up for the King's absence from Sun's catalog. Said and done. The producer hired Ellis, made him record the first two songs that Elvis recorded on Sun Records, That's All Right and Blue Moon of Kentucky , released them in a single and, in the section of the interpreter, put a question mark.
RCA's response was immediate. The company sued Singleton, thinking the producer had released an original shot discarded and found in Sun's files without permission. However, before going to trial, while preparing evidence for litigation, an expert determined that this was not Elvis's voice. In fact, the original instruments had not even been respected. If there was a double bass in the 1954 version, in the 70s an electric bass played. RCA dropped the lawsuit.
Elvis is dead, long live Orion
In the mid-1970s, writer Gail Brewer-Giorgio was looking for a publisher for Orion , her first novel. In it, Orion Eckley Darnell, an obese and decadent singer from the southern United States who had been a young music star thanks to the business sense of his representative, a former military man, faked his death and retired from the entertainment world to enjoy of life with a false identity. As much as Brewer-Giorgio claimed it was a fiction, the plot was too close to Elvis Presley's life trajectory, except for the death part. At least until August 16, 1977.
That day, while the entire country was assimilating the news of Elvis's death, Shelby Singleton, who had read the Brewer-Giorgio manuscript through a mutual friend who was composing songs for her label, took advantage of the occasion and contacted James Ellis again. . Producer and singer decided to bring Orion to life and spread the legend that Elvis was not dead but, as the novel said, had withdrawn from the media spotlight, but occasionally recorded records and performed.
The idea, while far-fetched, had many things going for it: Singleton owned a historic label to which Elvis had been linked in the past; fans, heartbroken from loss, were willing to believe that their idol was not dead; Ellis's voice had been confused with Elvis's by the RCA itself, and his physical complexion was very similar to that of the artist at the time he was performing in Las Vegas. The only thing that made the whole thing go wrong was that Ellis's features did not look too much like Elvis, a detail that Singleton resolved with the same shamelessness with which he had devised the rest of the plan: Orion would always have his face covered with a mask.
In this way, James Ellis appeared with a mask on the cover of Reborn (Reborn), the first Orion album released in 1979. This would be followed by Sunrise –which perhaps ironically included the song You Can't Judge A Book , in reference to the saying "don't judge a book by the covers" - and five other albums. A total of seven solo LPs to which we would have to add several very particular singles . Determined to exploit the fiction he had created, Singleton rescued old songs from the Sun catalog performed by artists such as Jerry Lee Lewis or Johnny Cash and incorporated the voice of Ellis, thus creating supposed duets between those artists and Elvis that, in reality, never they had taken place.
To finish solidifying the story, shortly after the first Orion album appeared, Gail Brewer-Giorgio's novel was published, helping to popularize the legend of the undead Elvis. A picaresque that, on the other hand, was very credible because, it must be said, Ellis had an amazing ability to perfectly recreate not only the classic themes from Elvis's repertoire, but new songs “in the style of”. Proof of this is that, to promote the character, Ellis telephoned music journalists, many of whom, when hanging up, believed they had been talking to Elvis herself.
Gail Brewer-Giorgio's novel helped popularize the legend of the undead Elvis. A picaresque that was very credible because Ellis had an amazing ability to recreate not only the classic themes from Elvis's repertoire, but new songs "in the style of"
Despite the plan working, Ellis was not entirely happy with the role he had been called upon to play. Shelby Singleton forced him to always appear with a mask “even in restaurants” because, according to the producer, the accessory was part of the character, in the same way that “the bandana belonged to Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton's wigs and black clothes Johnny Cash. " In addition to these discomforts, Ellis's own ego also suffered: "I am aware that they do not applaud me, they applaud a ghost", he would go so far as to say of his audience and, to try to get rid of that spectrum, he proposed to Singleton start acting with your real name. The answer was no. Finally, fed up with the character and convinced that he deserved better luck as an artist, Ellis broke up with his partner and embarked on an open-faced career.
'Twinkle, twinkle, little star'
As on previous occasions, Ellis' solo career did not work. If with Orion he had managed to place nine of his songs on the country charts, without the support of a major label and without the scaffolding of the legend of the risen Elvis, it was impossible. Defeated, in 1983 he decided to put on his mask again and recover the character, but it was no longer the same. He barely managed to record some albums that did not receive promotion and perform in small clubs before a stunted audience.
In need of financial income, he had to combine his artistic activity with other jobs, such as opening a gas station, a winery and a pawn shop, in which premises he was murdered on December 12, 1998 by a man who was trying to steal the premises and who was also He killed Ellis's ex-wife, who worked in the business, and wounded one of the employees.
Despite the disagreements they had had in the past, Shelby Singleton did not accept the proposals of dozens of Elvis impersonators who offered to embody the role of Orion and continue to cash in on the story. With Ellis dead, Orion died with him. Or at least that's what the producer believed because, at present, Orion is a cult character among the Elvismaniacs .
In 2015, director Jeanie Finlay released the documentary Orion. The Man Who Would Be King, which includes testimonies from fans who, far from feeling cheated by the story of Ellis and Singleton, have recognized in the dilemma of their idol an artist who deserves to be vindicated. An example of this is Jimmy Ellis. In the Shadow of a King , a hardcover bound volume of more than four hundred pages, which reviews his life through the memories of those who knew him, includes documents, unpublished photographs, a CD with some of his successes and which was edited in 2016 by the Elvis Presley Fan Club in Norway as a tribute to that man who “had the voice of a king”.
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