No matter what network you watch the news on, you probably saw a feature two weeks ago about the newly revealed identity of the girl in “The Kiss,” Alfred Wertheimer’s iconic Elvis photo. She is Charleston, SC resident Barbara (Bobbi) Gray, who is now 75. “The Kiss” was photographed in 1956, so it took 55 years for her identity to be revealed.   more »

This is the front cover of the latest book of Elvis photographs by Alfred Wertheimer. His iconic 1956 photos of Elvis have appeared in several other books, DVDs, calendars, and more products than you can count. I had the good fortune to be selected by Al Wertheimer to write the forward for Elvis: The Early Years.   more »

Alfred Wertheimer is sometimes called the godfather of rock & roll photography, and he well deserves the title. As a struggling twenty-six year old free-lance photojournalist in New York City, Wertheimer’s good fortune gained him access to Elvis Presley during that first, heady flush of fame in 1956.   more »

If you folks read Elvisblog hoping to find some new things about Elvis, this week you’ll get a really good one. I will bet you don’t know anything about the South African self-described doctor who threatened to blackmail Elvis and who had his plans thwarted by the FBI.   more »

Famous Elvis photographer Al Wertheimer seems to show up in my writings several times every year. Just last week, I wrote about him twice while working on an edition of Elvis…The Magazine celebrating the 20th anniversary of its publishing. My contribution for this special issue will be “20 Years – 20 Favorites.” I got to choose my favorite article for each year and to write a couple of paragraphs about each one.   more »

This will be the third Elvisblog article about Al Wertheimer in the past six weeks. Normally, I try to mix up the subjects for good variety, but the impression this man made on me was so strong that it pushed other story ideas farther down the list.   more »

When Elvis was drafted into the Army in 1958, the press reported he would be treated just like any other GI. Perhaps he was during basic training in Texas, but when it was time for him and 6,000 other soldiers to board a troop ship in New York Harbor, strange things happened. Col. Parker made sure Elvis’ send-off was a big event.   more »

To my surprise and relief, it has not been hard to come up with a new article for this Elvis blog every week. There are frequent items about Elvis in the news, and I bump into lots of good things while exploring Elvis links on the internet. However, Friday night I had a wonderful Elvis experience – on the telephone. It was a 3-1/2 hour interview with Al Wertheimer.    more »