Elvis: By Those Who Knew Him Best
by Rose Clayton and Dick Heard
Virgin £18.99, pp405

Elvis: A Celebration
by Mike Evans
Dorling Kindersley £25, pp608

The word iconic occurs twice in the first paragraph of the press release for Elvis: By Those Who Knew Him Best. The even larger Elvis: A Celebration unequivocally declares him a twentieth-century icon. From both volumes, that sulky, sensual face pouts out at us looking, as one fan described it, like a beautiful hunk of forbidden fruit.

Does Elvis justify this iconic status? Given the changed meaning from a small religious picture worshipped by the Eastern Church to a star whose moment in the limelight long outlives Warhol's promised 15 minutes of fame, yes, but surely it is about time the word itself was given a rest.

Perhaps the first thing to decide is if his reputation is in any way justified as an artiste. My view is yes or, at any rate, in relation to his early recordings: 'Heartbreak Hotel', 'That's All Right', 'Hound Dog', 'Don't Be Cruel' etc are as relevant and alive as the day they were first pressed. What is equally astonishing was the effect he had on teenage girls. Much later, an English promoter said of one of our own young rockers: 'There wasn't a dry seat in the house.' The early Elvis appearances induced mass orgasms.

What had he got going for him? Voice apart and that, in itself, was remarkable, was the fact he sounded black. I can remember the first time I heard him on record, at a Hampstead party in the middle Fifties. I took it for granted he was a black blues singer, and was amazed when I discovered he wasn't.

Combined, as we learnt later, with his pelvic thrusts, it was lucky he wasn't run out of the South at that time. I suppose the rednecks thought that if their daughters had to scream at male erotic gyrations, it was better that at least their perpetrator was white. Pure speculation this, but at any rate on early national TV programmes, Elvis was never shown from the waist down, but then, like Satan's rendezvous with Jesus, Colonel Parker led him up to the heights and offered him the whole world. The difference is (and who can blame him?) that Elvis accepted the offer and it was, alas, honoured.

Of these two books, it rather depends on what you want. Elvis: A Celebration, text by Mike Evans late of the Melody Maker, offers more than 600 photographs ranging from the skinny kid from Tupelo, Mississippi to the bloated, moribund 42-year-old megalomaniac at Graceland. Indeed, the images are drawn from the archives of that institution and beautifully printed and arranged. It is, however, perhaps this collaboration which accounts for the slightly less critical approach of the text and its mildly defensive tone.

Elvis: By Those Who Knew Him Best (almost 150 of them) is more objective and offers the reader a much better sense of his life and progress. Indeed, given this cloud of witnesses, it is at times hard to remember who is talking. It helps though that the authors and editors, Rose Clayton and Dick Heard, have divided it into sections, each topped by a precis of their contents.

The child in Tupelo, only survivor of a pair of twins, could have been the invention of one of the Southern novelists of the Thirties. The family, despite some denial in the text, seem to me to have been dirt-poor and poor white. His father was both stingy and idle, but his mother Gladys was an heroic figure. Somehow there was always food on the table and, perhaps in part to recompense her for the loss of his still-born brother, she protected Elvis like a tigress her cub. He grew up and remained very polite but also extremely shy. He adored her and her death in 1959 almost destroyed him. It was her liver; apparently, she drank a lot and popped pills, too. This is very little mentioned in either book.

The other odd thing about Elvis, even when young, is how he liked fancy clothes. He was ever the dude, a peacock among drab redneck ducks. Here, too, as in his music, he displayed a rather black flair. As to the music itself, there were so many different genres to hand: gospel, country, bluegrass, and all of them influenced him, but the across-the-tracks, black R&B, most.

There is great stress in both books on 'fun', throwing stones at windows and so on. Later, he enjoyed practical jokes. He liked very simple food, especially peanut butter, jelly and banana sandwiches washed down with milk - no gourmet, the king of rock'n'roll.

When he had become a regional hero, his then friend and manager Bob Neal understood Elvis was getting too big for him to handle and called in 'Colonel' Parker, first as consultant, later as manager and agent. Nobody in either book warms to the Colonel and Elvis's mother positively disliked and mistrusted him. He was completely ruthless in business, a bully and a shark.

He had originally (or so I was told, for nobody mentions it) travelled with a carnival act called Colonel Parker's Dancing Chickens. Tethered to a steel platform masked by hay, and to the tune of 'Turkey on the Straw', the wretched hens squawked and lifted their feet as the Colonel pressed a button to release a mild and rhythmic electric shock. It was more or less how he treated Elvis, but then he never missed a trick. Before Presley was called up, the Colonel stockpiled recordings to release during his two-year service. He realised that enlistment would help turn his boy from a rebellious kid into a solid, all-American citizen.

After demobilisation, instead of returning to the road, Elvis went to Hollywood and made a long series of mostly forgettable movies featuring him, lots of girls in bathing suits, glamorous locations and (after the event) a release of the songs on the soundtrack. One or two films suggested Elvis might have made an actor but he was never offered the chance. All the movies, particularly those he hated, did especially well.

In 1967, Colonel Parker, that unscrupulous Cupid, decided it would be a good career move if Elvis married his childhood sweetheart, Priscilla Beaulieu. They had a baby girl, Lisa Marie, whom he adored, but the liaison soon soured. Elvis, according to one girlfriend, the witty Barbara Pitman, 'had a libido that would make Jerry Lee Lewis look like a monk', and his wife could not take it, especially as he himself was possessively jealous.

Priscilla left but returned after the death of Elvis's father who had named, very reluctantly, his hard-nosed daughter-in-law as executor of the estate. She was and is much disliked by Elvis and her old companions. One of the witnesses, Lamar Pike, a lifelong friend, said: 'When you're a bitch, everyone knows you're a bitch. Not a lot of warmth in Priscilla. She's got more plastic than a Corvette.'

And after he had finished with the movies, Elvis, blowing up like an overdressed balloon, became the toast of blue-rinsed Las Vegas and everywhere else. Wearing superhero clothes to disguise his Falstaffian bulk (part junk food, part a cocktail of prescribed drugs), he died, probably of a heart attack, at only 42. The grief at his end was comparable in intensity to that for Princess Diana.

He was simple yet complex. He loved fairground rides and giving away expensive presents. Unlike his grotesquely mean father, he handed out limos, the watches off his wrist, valuable jewellery. At times indeed, towards his end, he was nearly bankrupt, a position in no way cushioned by having left his father in charge of his personal money. The old man might complain about buying too many guitar frets but, like many of our own rock'n'roll father-managers, was hopeless at investment. Of course, post diem, the reissues sell in millions.

It is a sad and salutary tale; the beautiful prince, kissed by Fate, who turned into a toad. Of the two books, I prefer Elvis: By Those Who Knew Him Best. It avoids hagiography. Perhaps the most moving passage is the last paragraph of the book. Linda Thompson, actress, girlfriend, and warm and loving realist, says: 'I can only reiterate the positive, and that would be that he was an incredibly generous human being, very loyal friend, very loving man, very funny, he loved to laugh, loved living, loved people - and there was a downside too. There was the self-destructive side, the bad temper, self-absorbed, and all the things that come with an ego of that magnitude, but there were so many wonderful things about Elvis that life with him was never dull.'

He was, perhaps, after all, an icon.