Author, poet and music aficianado Bill Shute has been writing about music for over 50 years, for magazines like Ugly Things, North American and European music blogs and various magazines, his own Kendra Steiner Editions, and the Elvis Day By Day yearbooks. Throughout the years Elvis Presley has been a regular subject of his writing, and in 2026, Shute decided to compile the book ‘Come What May, Selected Writings on Elvis Presley’. Time to meet the man.
Kees: Hi Bill, Elvis Presley brought us together once again. I still find it fascinating how our musical hero keeps connecting people from different sides of the globe so many years after his death.
We go back a few years, but not all visitors of this blog may know you. So, before we dive into your Elvis writings, can you introduce yourself?
I’ve kept championing music I feel deserves a wider audience since then. I joined Ugly Things magazine in 1985 (where I’ve been for 41 years now!), and when I have the chance to discuss Elvis or Bill Haley or Blues music or Rockabilly or Jump Blues, Rhythm and blues or 60s Garage Rock, I try to inform people about great rockin' music they might not be aware of, both obscure artists, and lesser-known material from well-known artists, and the latter is what my Elvis writing is about, letting people who are passionate about rockin' music but not really into the world of Elvis archival releases or bootlegs or FTD releases know what’s out there and why it’s worth their attention.
Kees: What is your personal favorite original RCA album?
Bill: Probably either 'Elvis' Gold Records Volume 4' or 'For LP Fans Only'.
Kees: Now we know the man, what is your Elvis story? How did you discover him, and do you have any favorites?
I next connected with him through the movies. In the book, I tell the story of a neighborhood theater in the mid-to-late 60s that would have double and triple features of older films with the same star (or in the same genre) on weekends, and I saw probably 15 or 18 Elvis films that way, though long after they came out and also in random order. Those made a big impact on me, and I also saw them on TV, where they were staples. 'Paradise Hawaiian Style' seemed to be on once a month. They were also popular at drive-ins, and I went with my family or a friend’s family to see them there. That’s where I saw 'Charro!'.
Kees: Were you buying Elvis records then, in the late 60s and early 70s?
Bill: Not the full-priced new releases. I would pick up used soundtracks and the Camden LP’s and cassettes during this period. I have an article in the book about the significance of the Camdens. However, the album that hooked me was 'The Sun Sessions', which came out in 1976. I found that as fresh and exciting as the new punk records that were coming out then, and though that Sun material had been around on existing albums, which I’d heard at friends’ houses, having all that in one place was a life-changing experience for me.
Then of course came the 'Elvis Aron Presley' box, the 'Golden Celebration' box, the quality bootlegs with alternate takes, the box sets such as 'Platinum' and 'Collectors Gold', everything that led up to FTD’s creation in 1999. Getting all this prime Elvis material on the archival sets and bootlegs in the 70s and 80s is what made me a committed lifelong fan, and I discuss that period of discovery in the book.
Kees: You are a few years older than me, so you were around when Elvis was still alive and kicking, touring the country. Do you have memories from those days?
Bill: I always followed his activities in the news, and I saw the two concert films when they came out, and I saw the Hawaii show on TV. I also remember crying during parts of the 'Elvis In Concert' TV special, when I saw it at the time. I had not seen footage of him so obviously ill and overworked, and you can’t help but feel for someone you care about when they are in a weakened state, yet he was a trouper and loved performing, so at the same time I was inspired because he kept on working and making people happy right up to the end. I almost saw the 1976 Denver concert, and I tell the story of why I didn’t in the book. I’ll save that story for there.
Kees: Can you give us a short insight in your work, what kind of publications will people find when they Google your name after reading this interview?
Bill: I have many poetry books and chapbooks, including a new one in 2026, 'Trifecta', from the prestigious German alternative press Moloko Print. There are hundreds of my articles on music of all kinds online. I’ve also done writings on film that can be found online, and I did the introduction to a book published by Bear Manor Media of filmmaker Edward D. Wood’s non-fiction prose writings from the early 70s. I also worked in academia for many years, and I’ve published articles on the novels of William Faulkner and was co-editor of a popular developmental English college textbook.
Kees: How did Elvis become a returning subject in your writing?
Bill: The first genre of music that I really got into was Blues, then also Rockabilly and Western Swing and Country Boogie. A lot of the music that inspired Elvis is the music I love and write about, so it’s inevitable that I’d also champion the man who took those influences to the next level. And even though everyone knows his name, Elvis is still under-rated in that his full body of work is still unfamiliar to a lot of people who’d love it if they heard it.
Kees: On the back of the book you placed a photograph of you at Graceland Too, what does this say about you and your work?
I remember seeing TV inserts from local newspapers, flyers of all sorts, not to mention movie lobby cards. There were also piles of obscure kitschy Elvis-themed toys and objects of all kinds. Elvis McLeod would just open a manila folder or a notebook and wade through paper ephemera I’d never seen before.
He was also knowledgeable about bootlegs, though I don’t remember seeing any of those displayed, and we talked at length about those. He also knew a lot of information about the 'Pied Piper Of Cleveland' film, information that at that time I’d never heard…and don’t remember ever hearing again. Of course, Graceland Too came to a tragic end, but I’m glad we had a chance to visit. It was just a two-story home in a residential area, although because of the valuable collection inside, they probably never opened the windows, so it had a vaguely funky smell like a workshirt that someone has worn for three days.
Kees: I know you’re a collector of Elvis concerts, with a vast collection, what are your favorites, bootlegs or official releases, and why?
I then did the same with CDR’s, and there were a lot of CDR-only live shows (such as the 'Concert Years 'series) released. Once Stein Erik Skar’s seminal book 'Elvis: The Concert Years' was published, I could organize my cassette and CDR shows by each Vegas residency and each tour. That really helped my appreciation of the shows a lot, and my collection is still organized that way.
There are different advantages to both audience recordings and soundboards, and I can enjoy both kinds of recordings. With well over 200 soundboards having come out through FTD, we are able to hear the performance and especially Elvis’ vocals and on-stage patter clearer than ever. And every soundboard has a different sound picture…some you can hardly hear the Joe Guercio Orchestra, on others certain instruments are dominant in the sound picture. Some have a lot of bass, some have a lot of James Burton, while others have a lot of Charlie Hodge! Each one is a fascinating and valuable document.
Audience recordings are an even more diverse lot. Being out in the audience brings you the excitement in the room that a soundboard cannot capture. The ecstatic crowd response when Elvis does a second version of 'Hurt' fills me as listener with excitement, as much as you can get without being there. On the other hand, some of the old CDR-only audience recordings are "a recording of a room where an Elvis show is taking place."
Then there are oddities such as hearing on the recording the Vegas security people warning the taper to put away the machine. Or on the recent 'Tempe Fever' boot, the couple taping the show must have the tape recorder in a bag or a purse, and to get a jump on the crowd leaving, they take off at the beginning of the closing song, 'Can’t Help Falling In Love', and you hear them leaving, going down stairs, opening doors, talking to each other about where they parked, etcetera, while the music gradually fades into the background. For me, that’s a priceless artifact of actual people at an actual Elvis show.
And on one of the old SR-label long-box CD releases of a show unavailable elsewhere but in mediocre sound, whoever recorded it must have been sitting in front of John Wilkinson’s amp, because he is the dominant thing you hear, which is really interesting to experience because he’s kind of taken for granted (and, of course, Elvis calls him "Wilkerson" a lot of the time) but he is truly the glue that holds everything together in the group. It’s great to experience a show through Wilkinson’s performance, and of course, you never know what off-the-wall humorous comment Elvis will make in any show until you hear it. I never tire of new audience recordings.
Kees: You have been writing on the Follow That Dream collector’s label, what is your perspective on the state of the Elvis (bootleg) world. You’ve written that we’re in the golden age of quality Elvis research about his body of work, while others state that we’ve gone through the bottom of the proverbial barrel scraping so hard to find something new.
And now that FTD has moved into the complete sessions series of sets, where every take and false start is documented in order, that’s something I couldn’t have imagined 25 years ago. On the other hand, the bottom of the barrel has been scraped because the "unreleased" material on most of the recent FTD sessions sets have mostly been false starts or instrumental backing tracks.
And the bootleg labels have just been coming up with curated combinations of alternates or movie versions already available elsewhere. Often a pleasant listen, but nothing new. The recent trend among boot labels is to do vinyl versions of mediocre quality audience recordings, and they seem to sell out, so I guess there is an audience for those, but not me.
Kees: Are there any recent FTD or bootleg releases that you’ve really enjoyed and would like to recommend?
Bill: Despite the glitches with the sound on a few tracks and the mistakes in the track listing, I loved the recent FTD 4-CD live set 'Summer Nights', covering the June 1974 tour, with Elvis in good spirits and the band on fire. FTD’s approach of giving us multiple shows from the same tour or the same Vegas residency allows us to really appreciate what’s unique and distinctive about each group of shows. I read accounts of each and look at pictures before listening, and it’s a very rich and satisfying experience, particularly on headphones.
Kees: You recently released your book, 'Come What May, Selected Writings on Elvis Presley'. What made you decide to compile these writings now?
Bill: I was thinking about my next book project and wondered what I could offer about Elvis’ music and films, and then I realized, I’d already written about many of the different phases of his career, and about the experience of being an Elvis fan. All those articles got excellent response from readers when they originally appeared, so the thing to do was to collect them, put them in chronological order in terms of the music being discussed, do a light edit for book form. And that would be (I hoped) a strong collection and an interesting read.
And most importantly, it would bring more people who were casual fans into the Elvis world in a serious way.
Bill: If my book is about Elvis deep cuts and rarities, what better item to have on my cover than the 8-track tape version of the 'Elvis Aron Presley' box set! That’s certainly a rarity and it also has Elvis’ signature on it.
Also, I wanted to keep the price as low as possible on both versions of the book, so I didn’t want the expense of licensing a photo. I also hope the mysterious quality of that image will pull people in.
Kees: What can readers expect to find in the book?
Bill: Fifteen years of articles about Elvis’ music, and especially my experiencing of the music, with coverage from the Sun era to the final concert. There are a number of anecdotes about my own history with Elvis music. Also, Kees, I’m honored and thankful that you’ve chosen some of the pieces in the book to have appeared in your previous 'Elvis Day By Day' volumes.
Kees: Reading the book I can only conclude you covered Elvis' entire career, from 'A Boy From Tupelo' to 'The Last Concert'. What did you have in mind compiling the storyline of this book?
I remember clearly buying the Camdens in the early 70s and the 'A Dog’s Life' bootleg around 1980, and I discuss how those albums affected me at the time.
Kees: I loved your review of the 'Sun-Sational' bootleg, it is a release I skipped, but reading your review where you connect The SUN era to Elvis' career, I may have to track a copy down. Getting back to one of the last releases you reviewed, 'The Last Concert' (2026), do you still recognize some of the 'Boy from Tupelo'?
Bill: Lou Reed had an album called 'Growing Up In Public', and in a sense that’s what Elvis did from 1954 to 1977. He started off as a small-label artist with a regional following, got signed to a major label and became a superstar who could call his own shots in terms of his music.
He had a career disruption with the Army, then re-invented himself as a more subtle, mannered singer and got into the Hollywood assembly line, then re-invented himself again with the 1968 TV-Special, and the American Studios Memphis sessions and the new focus on live performance, and then matured in many ways, and he kept on performing until the end.
But the gleam in his eye, the self-deprecating swagger, the humor, the ability to both use the studio as his instrument and to work a crowd, and the rich voice were always there.
Kees: You were positive in your review of the 'Spliced Takes - Blue Moon' CD, a release that is discarded by many (experts) as "crap made on a home PC by a musical Frankenstein". What attracts you to these types of releases?
Bill: I think of those 'Spliced Takes' CD’s, and I’ve only purchased four or five of them as they can be found easily online, as like the "fan edits" that film fanatics do with favorite films. They can be illuminating and entertaining and can get you to experience something you know in a new way, but of course they are not a real creation of the artist and thus they are never of as much value as even a throwaway false start from the real Elvis. I do enjoy listening to them on occasion, though, especially when I’m hearing them for free online.
Kees: And taking it to 2026, what is your opinion on the 'EPiC' soundtrack, also creating new versions, and even a complete song from the 'Oh Happy Day' rehearsal. Or the Mono to Stereo mixes of his studio and live material?
Baz Luhrmann’s earlier 'ELVIS' film I also enjoyed despite its inaccuracies. It's kind of like the 70s film 'The Buddy Holly Story', it changed a lot of the details and deleted important characters and wasn’t accurate, but its heart was in the right place, it captured Holly’s exciting qualities, and it brought a lot of people into the Holly camp. And I’m all for that, with Buddy or with Elvis. I certainly would not buy the 'EPiC' soundtrack, though.
I think of the Mono To Stereo mixes kind of like colorization of Black and White films. As a purist, I’ll always think of those as an alternate, but the originals do still exist, and I must say hearing the instrument separation on the Sun material or the early RCA material is really enlightening.
Kees: What didn’t make the book?
Bill: Everything in the book has been published somewhere, in print or online. I have a number of half-completed pieces on Elvis that I didn’t feel were working or which were going in a direction I didn’t feel was of value, but those will stay in my draft box or on a flash drive.
Kees: You decided to do two variations of the book, a pocket-sized paperback, 4 x 6 inch and a larger hardcover version. Why the two versions, and what’s the difference?
Bill: I did the small paperback so people could carry it around in a shirt pocket or purse. I’m someone who usually carries around physical reading material if I’m waiting somewhere or on the road. I also wanted to have a very inexpensive version. The hardcover has the same content, just formatted a bit differently, and is meant to be a more permanent form of the book, although I kept the price as low as possible on that one also.
Kees: I’m sure you’re not done with Elvis yet, what can we expect in the future?
Bill: There are a lot of aspects of Elvis’ body of work, both studio and live, that I’d love to discuss in future writings, and of course, there will be future FTD releases to excite me, which I’ll review.
Also, I am primarily a poet, and I’ve never worked Elvis into my poetry. I’ve written poems about musical figures, Chet Baker, Tommy Dorsey, Chico Hamilton, Fletcher Henderson, Paul Horn and others, so an Elvis poem might be in the future, but I’d want to be very careful to do it right and do it in an accurate and respectful manner. I may well create a character who is heavily into Elvis and view things through that person’s eyes.
Kees: Where can readers find more information on your work, and where can people buy it?
Kees: Bill, we covered a lot of ground, is there anything else you would like to say to our readers?
Bill: Thanks for the opportunity, Kees. I am an almost-daily reader of your website, so I really appreciate all you do for Elvis fans. I also appreciate the work being done by the EAP Society, David Ward and his Elvis Presley in Japan podcast, the discographical works of Paul Alner and of John Townson and Gordon Minto, and most importantly, the decades of work on behalf of Elvis as a serious artist by Ernst Mikael Jorgensen and Roger Semon. Who knows where we’d be today without Ernst and Roger.
Kees: Thank you very much for sharing your views on Elvis, you got me thinking about Elvis and revisiting a few albums.
If you're interested in the book, keep an eye on Bill Shute's website >>> Kendra Steiner Editions website. A link to Amazon will be added shortly.
