Elvis: Soul Saver and Spirit Guide

Irish Author, broadcaster, and journalist, Joe Jackson, who freelances for The Irish Times, was only nine years old when he first read about Sun Records in a comic. A year later, he read his first paperback, The Elvis Presley Story, where he first read the name of its owner Sam Phillips, who also discovered Elvis. Jackson decided, "in the first of a million dreams that were fired by Presley," he says, that one day he would go to Memphis, "to thank Sam for discovering Elvis and for bringing rock 'n' roll to the world at large and into mine." It took Joe Jackson twenty seven years to make that dream come true. This book, which is, in part, a memoir, plus interviews with the likes of Sam Phillips, Jack Clement and Bono, tells that story.
Jackson also tells the tale of how one of rock's most legendary producers, Sam Phillips, "produced," in a sense, the first of three interviews they did and thus made him feel like all his Sun Records heroes, "from Howlin' Wolf, 'Sleepy" John Estes, and B.B. King to Elvis, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis all rock 'n'rolled into one glorious entity." That interview, which revealed for the first time that Phillips had undergone Electro Convulsive Therapy, and featured him describing Elvis Presley as "a belated can shop in the civil war" itself became legendary among rock fans when published in Ireland in 1990. A member of the Memphis Tourist Board later remarked, "Isn't it strange that it should take someone to come all the way from Ireland to explain to us what Sun Records and Sam Phillips really was all about." Sam Phillips also thanked Jackson for the article and gave it his highest praise, saying it presented "a different angle on the story after nearly forty years." That was the moment Joe Jackson was reminded that childhood dreams really can come true. 'If you 'Follow That Dream' he says," citing the title of an Elvis song. This book also tells the story of how Elvis became during the author's adolescence, and beyond, "a soul saver and spirit guide" to the author. "It's my belated thank you to Elvis and Sam and that's why I wanted it published on July 5th 2014, the sixtieth anniversary of the recording of rock's clarion call, That's All Rights, Mama."