It’s a mystery as to how the Scarlet Showroom at the Friar Tuck Resort in Catskill got its name. Tucked away in the basement of the complex’s main building, next to the disused gym and the chlorine-wafting, family-packed swimming pool, the immense split-level ballroom features nary a trace of red. More off white-turning-pale yellow, the room’s faux-adobe stucco ceiling and walls, offset by segments of dark paneling, say ’70s steakhouse, not supper-club show palace. And red, of course, is a color often reserved for royalty, a caste not normally found among the bussed-in tourists who come to enjoy the resort’s many amenities and lush Hudson Valley surroundings. Tonight, however, for one hour such plebian trappings will be transcended. Tonight, the 60 or so guests who sip Coke and draft beer from plastic cups at the space’s cafeteria-style tables will be in the presence of the one they call the King.
In the middle of the room’s back wall is a stage. Veiled in sheer, glittery curtains it features a low, handrailed staircase front and center. There’s a commotion, something is afoot behind the drapes. The house lights go dim. Whoops and howls arise from the audience. Strauss’s “Also sprach Zarathustra” (aka the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey) issues from the PA columns, flooding the room with its dramatic wall of massed brass and pounding kettledrums. Then, amid flashing strobe lights, the curtains part and the prerecorded music changes to a driving, drumroll-propelled “C.C. Rider.” Onto the bandless stage bounds a lone, gyrating figure, the sparkling of his jewel-encrusted, powder-blue jumpsuit and the sheen of his glossy black pompadour and sideburns glisten under the spotlight that follows his every hip-swiveling, karate-chopping move. Ladies and gentlemen, will you please welcome the one, the only…Elvis Presley!
Okay, not really. It’s been 31 years since Presley’s passing. But in the Catskills on a Saturday night it’s safe to say that this is about as close as one is likely to get to the man many still call Entertainer of the Century. This is Elvis impersonator Joseph John Eigo doing what he does best—playing the role he’s held for nearly as many years as Presley has been gone. During the performance, he eggs on a solo by an invisible Ronnie Tutt (Presley’s explosive Las Vegas drummer) and sings as he walks through the audience to shake the hands of the men, kiss the cheeks of the ladies, and drape scarves around the willing necks of both. As he belts out “Teddy Bear” from the stage he tosses, you guessed it, plush toy bears to the eager kids down front. But one thing Eigo never does, however, is lapse into the expected po-faced Elvis-speak between songs. Yes, he does do Presley’s music and even his moves, but, unlike other Elvis impersonators, he knows he’s not fooling anyone.
“What I do is pay tribute to Elvis; I’m not trying to be him,” Eigo maintains, somewhat emotionally. “My act is about celebrating his music and his talent, not the other parts of his life. I see other guys doing an Elvis show and they do the accent, the ‘Thangyaverahmush,’ all of that, try to act like him—even when they’re not on stage—which really bothers me. They’re making a joke out of it. The man was the greatest, and he deserves better than that.”
He certainly does. The irony-laced, tail-swallowing, perpetually churning kitsch mill of popular culture has shamefully recast Elvis Presley as a clownish caricature; his staggering talent as both a vocalist and a dramatic interpreter and distiller of musics ranging from gut-bucket rhythm and blues to rollicking bluegrass, jubilant gospel to honky-tonk country and even operatic arias has been all but eclipsed by his tabloid-ready personal life and sad demise. Additionally, he is often maligned for “ripping off black music” when nothing could be farther from the truth: Presley loved black music and wanted the whole world to hear it, and, largely thanks to him, much of it did—including the legions of young Britons who would become the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, and Led Zeppelin. And more subconsciously, deep beneath his larger-than-life abilities and influence, lie unspoken subtexts that further fuel the public’s undying fascination with the Presley myth. His messiah-like ascendence from abject Deep South poverty to worldwide adoration and his eventual fall via the self-inflicted crucifiction spurred on by his uncaring handlers is almost biblical in resonance. And this same life can be seen as a metaphor mirroring that of America itself: a rise from bootstrapping, renegade frontier beginnings to inspirational young democracy—followed by a slow descent to a deplorable state of bloated, decadent gluttony and tragically squandered innocence.
But likely none of this is on the minds of the dedicated lady fans who fill the table directly in front of the stage at the Friar Tuck. And certainly none of them feels cheated by Eigo’s lack of method acting. “We started going to see Joe three years ago, when he was playing at a Mexican restaurant in Coxsackie,” says Kathy Polach. “Actually, now I enjoy listening to him even more than Elvis.” “We even have our own VIP passes,” says Peggy Paterniti, Polach’s Climax neighbor, as she flashes a homemade laminate.
Born and raised in Kingston, Eigo is actually one of the the longest-running such impersonators in the world and at 51 has outlived his idol by almost 10 years. A still-praciticing church organist and a choir director with a bachelor’s degree in sacred music, Eigo got into the game in 1977 by accident. “I was doing a gig as a piano player at the Governor Clinton Hotel in Kingston. And even back then I used to dress really flashy, like Liberace, you know?” Eigo recalls. “Elvis had just died that week, and this lady came up and begged me to play ‘Love Me Tender’ in honor of him. I didn’t sing then, so I told her I’d play it for her but I didn’t sing. But she just wouldn’t let it go, so I ended up singing the song—and it got it a much bigger response than anything else I’d played, ever. I really didn’t know that much about Elvis at that point, I’d never seen him perform. But the way people were so excited about him drew me to his music, and I ended up getting every record and bootleg video I could get my hands on. It just went on from there.”
By January of ’78 Eigo was fronting a 16-piece band that would tour the country for the next decade. “Back then, there was maybe six or seven big-time Elvis shows in the country, not thousands like there are today,” says Eigo. “Besides me, you had guys like Johnny Harra and Doug Church. Rick Saucedo was probably the biggest, he’s a legend today.” Like most of his peers, Eigo chooses to focus on the performer’s later Las Vegas period, rather than the raw rockabilly of his Sun Records days. “That stuff is great, it’s what got him in the door, so to speak,” Eigo says. “But to me, it was when he made it to Vegas that he was able to really show everyone what incredibly great pipes he had. His versions of ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water,’ ‘If I Can Dream,’ ‘You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling,’ those are just amazing. People just can’t believe it when they hear them, even today.”
One longtime member of Eigo’s crew is his fellow Round Top resident Joel Lahey, who has run lights for him since 1986 and for a time worked as his drummer. “Joe is a real perfectionist when it comes to his show,” says Lahey. “He wants it to feel like a real concert. He prides himself on having a thunderous, very big sound.”
But while the sound has always been big, over time the band has downsized considerably. “About 15 years ago, a DJ said to me, ‘In the future there won’t be any bands, singers will just use CDs,’” recalls Eigo. “I thought he was nuts. But about 10 years ago I found out about these CDs of Elvis’s music. Some of them even have guys like [guitarist] James Burton and other musicians who really played with Elvis doing the tracks.” Soon after, Eigo ditched the band, sold his tour bus (which had once belonged to Willie Nelson), and went all-digital. The result is a show that, thanks to its karaoke-like presentation, is predictably much more surreal than the mere concept of Eigo’s channeling of Presley. “It’s worked out really well, not only is there less people to have to pay, but the sound is perfect every time. I don’t have to worry about someone being too stoned to play or not showing up.” These days the singer has also left the road behind, preferring to work mainly local gigs such as the regular Saturday residency at the Friar Tuck he’s held since early 2008.
And though his take doesn’t allow him to give away Cadillacs to casual acquaintances, his generosity mirrors that of the King in other ways. “I like to do charity shows whenever I can,” says Eigo. “I’ve done benefits for the Heart Association, some fundraising things with [Kingston radio station] WKNY. I just did a show for a senior citizens group on a Tuesday night.” In addition to the Sunday service church engagements he’s been doing on and off since he was 16, by day Eigo manages the photo department at Wal-Mart in Catskill. “[Wal-Mart’s management] are really great to me about the whole Elvis thing,” he says. “They even had me play at the grand opening, right in front of the produce section. They got me a limo, and the town gave us a police motorcycle escort, with sirens and everything. It was incredible. Little kids and people who’ve seen me play come in the store all the time and ask for my autograph, and everyone I work with is really cool about it. They think it’s neat.”
But while his future at Wal-Mart is assured, how much longer does Eigo think he can go on paying homage to the Tupelo Flash? “I don’t know,” he says, seemingly puzzled by the very idea. “I never thought about it. I mean, I did stop for a few years when I had a jealous girlfriend who didn’t like me getting so much attention. But I’d always run into people who kept asking me to come back [to performing]. I couldn’t stay away, the pull was too strong. Plus it really makes people happy.”
And tonight, after Eigo wraps things up with a suitably histrionic version of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and the curtains close, there are indeed many smiling faces in the room. Over the PA comes the announcement that, yes, “Elvis has left the building.”
But just `til next week.
Joseph John Eigo presents “Elvis the Tribute” on Saturdays at 9pm at the Friar Tuck Resort in Catskill. (518) 678-2271; www.friartuck.com.
This article appears in September 2008.
