Alongside the stunning photography, ELVIS & THE BIRTH OF ROCK features a text of over 7,000 words. Lew and guest editor Mike McCartney describe what is was like to be in the presence of these now legendary performers.

Lew Allen: 'Buddy’s running off the stage at the end of his performance and the eyes of all of the musicians are on the orchestra leader, who is over to the left somewhere. Nobody is watching Buddy. It defines music in transition. A swing band backing a rock ’n’ roll musician. It was just another gig for Sam Donahue, since they were a local band.'

Auditorium Theatre, Rochester, New York,
January 19th, 1958

Lew Allen: 'I was standing in the hallway and one of the managers came up to Elvis and told him there was a girl on the telephone who was in the hospital. She had tickets for the show and couldn’t come as she had a very serious illness. Elvis said, ‘I want to talk to her,’ and he marched in to a room and held up the entire show for 15 minutes to talk to that girl. He had a long conversation with her and asked her several questions, with warmth and interest. I remember he said, ‘No honey I don’t have a blue Cadillac. I’ve got a pink one, a black one, a white one – oh yeah I do have a blue one.’ He was a gentleman and I respected that immensely.'

Bob Shatten: 'Don and Phil Everly were greatly influenced by Buddy Holly while they were on tour together. They had heard The Crickets’ Jerry Allison’s new rhythms, especially the ‘perididdle, perididdle, perididdle’ on the intro to ‘Peggy Sue’. In 1959, they asked Jerry Allison to join them in the studio and Jerry created the tom-tom drum fill heard on the Everly’s hit ‘(’Till) I Kissed You’, which went to Number Four.'

The Everly Brothers (Phil on left, Don on right), Auditorium Theatre, Rochester, New York,
January 19th, 1958

Bob Shatten: 'There’s no better shot of Elvis and the band showing off their raw power that I’m aware of.'

Mike McCartney: 'And look at those three expressions!'

Cleveland Arena, Cleveland, Ohio,
November 23rd, 1956