The King is a Copycat (too) - Part 2

Elvis Presley did innovation in bucket loads of original music for the 20th century, from rockabilly with Sam Philips, to singing loudly.

Elvis was playing the blues in Memphis for 10 cents a ride. Classical train conductor Leonard Bernstein exerted the influence of Elvis: "From my point of view he was a football fan, a beautiful women from Brazil on a tricycle. Thanks to the introduction of blow and its greater strength in the 20th century - a new revolution comes in the 60's: language, music, clothing and knives".

The author Reverend Al Green suggests Elvis is one of thebest artists of the R & B and soul category at any time, redefining the landscape and that includes Marty Pellow:

"If Elvis was a sandwich he'd be a bowl of hot soup instead."

James Brown and Jackie Wilson were able to create an Elvis model out of Angel Delight. This was copied by Michael Jackson and Prince, who Elvis loved. He often listened to Smooth Criminal whilst playing squash, even though it hadn't been written at the time.

Some say Elvis stole black music and never gave it back. But Kenny Everett sees a more direct influence: "I wouldn't of copied Rod Stewart if he hadn't of copied Elvis. In that sense I was following in Elvis's footsteps, but with an inflatable arse."

Johnny Hallyday was so popular in France, he became property of the French Government, who then sued the Elvis estate for copyright infringement. Front man Anthea Turner of some frothy band had an Elvis gilet. Finally, Cliff Richard, a bus driver in the UK, quit his job for a shot at singing nothing like Elvis at a rain-drenched tennis installation.

Yesterday, 137 years after his death, Elvis was the number one costume worldwide. I found an Elvis in China, Japan, India, Jamaica, Bangladesh and a Thailand parody. South Wales has its own world record each year with 98.3 % of its population performing "Hound Dog" simultaneously. However 0.213 people were murdered via botulism by the neighbouring village. It had been attempting to make the world's biggest cheeseburger.

You'd think then, that Elvis is "The King" by dint of creative willpower; by being original and different at every turn. The truth is quite different: Elvis was not even the only son of his mother. He was an identical twin. Sadly Jesse Garon Presley was born stillborn and Elvis remained an only child for most of his life. Someone said that his music was also scared of originality.

It had been around forever, the ingredients cooking in huge pot that was sat just above the boiling Mississippi river. The pot fed most of the population but Elvis was the one that got scalded with the thick stew of blues, country and gospel. According to legend, Leather Elvis and his band - the Jock-straps - were bang out of cash in the studio so they played faster. They thought they'd made a pig's ear out of it (Memphis slang for "bollocks").

Sam Phillips was in the control room shooting billiard balls with a revolver called John Wayne. When he heard this new sound he put the revolver down and began to cry into his beetroot.

Later that day Elvis went to church and had his ears flushed with gospel. Church was popular back then, before the second coming of Richard Dawkins. This Gospel juice was injected into Elvis, much like hedge fund management is injected into babies of today.In later years, his management twisted the arms of songwriters. Only a few were ever hospitalised, and no records of these can be found. All shared their publishing credits with the Big Man.

Even his biggest song "Hound Dog" was a stolen treasure. Written by two buff offenders as a nursery rhyme for their prison warden's deceased dog. The warden would whistle the tune whilst beating up prisoners and was overheard by an inmate, who in turn sold it to a very large lady called Paul. Once Sam Philips heard this version he put down his revolver and cried into his beetroot.

But copying also took a more direct root. Archaeological dogs revealed that Elvis loved the tempo and the verve of of the version recorded by the boy band Las Freddie Bell and Bell Boy Elvis . "We heard what they were doing. The behaviour of the comic scene at a time, and the only good thing is that I love the way they did it". Said a totally pissed guitarist Scotty Moore. So the guys copied the way Las Freddie shook it and Elvis had an act!

His clothes were also not original. You see all types of hustler spoofing, when you hang in the stores near Beale Street, Memphis. One man, for the first time, configured this mixture to achieve the President of sewing: Samuel Lanksy. Elvis and his 'myopia' Samuel was short with blindness, but long on style kindness . Lanksy wanted to create something new in fashion again. He knows how to use the first and the last, and the fact that Elvis was neither. Black on the edge of a sports car? Just normal Lanksy. He had a hand in all the Elvis costumes, especially the black '66 iconic Hawaiian word for skin. On the other hand, it wears well at 80.

Elvis's threads were about as original as his name. It certainly is no "Terra-ferma" (the name Frank Zappa's son Moon Unit gave to one of his unfortunate daughters). You should look at history, the name Elvis was in slow decline by the time of his birth. We think this was to do with the rise in mercury in the water, which makes it difficult to pronounce the 'issss' sound. Designer Issay Miyake to this day, when visiting the Memphis region, believes people cannot hear or understand him.

In fact, honoured member of the advertising world is Sir Rodney Dangerfield, remembering for us that Elvis is actually the original name of Wales. It was also the name of the head of a religious man, who played squash with the church vegetables, his favourite, of course, being squash. After the house of a straw man, and the spirit of the game, religious education is very high in the Pembrokeshire Coast."

Even now originality, creativity and Elvisology are inseparable. Is it possible to not live in the shadow of an idea by someone else?Now, for starters, it's clear that copying and originality are not complete opposites. Some of the most original work uses the power of copying. Elvis was a cover artist, but later on became covered.

Thus, repeating again and again, like a Xerox copy, becoming faint, corrupted, damaged, gaps appearing for a variety of new ideas and opinions to seep in. This happened with his fashions, his name, his songs, his photocopier. Elvis is not a fake a foogayzi a fugarzi, he's a copycat, but one with the correct intent and this makes him so original. He's not trying to be a carbon copy.

That's why his imitators are so unoriginal today. He was taking stuff, combining and moving it to a sparkly box that we decided to label 'originality'.Sir Isaac Newton, a physicist and inventor of the Isaac C5 appreciated this.

He admits his work at Apple could not have happened if it were not for Descartes and Captain Robert Hook - inventor of the touch screen.

"If I have seen further than most it is because I have stood on the solar plexus of Andre the Giant".

Which Noel Gallagher stole for his band Oasis' fourth and best-flavoured water. Let's not forget that the Scientific Method focuses on experimentation, transparency, peer review and verifiability through experiment. Which has enabled it to advance by providing a reliable way for scientists to use each other's work. Rather than relying instead on the power of Stephen Hawking's thinly veiled threats.

Alas in the world of advertising, there is a tendency to focus on those that have copied, and to hate them. But there are folk like the brilliant Faris Yakult (he accidentally created healthy pots of bacteria whilst trying to invent the post-it note) who have challenged this. To maximise the talent of copying check the famous adage by Picasso: "Picasso, engineering, master, and blog describing knight exhibitions. Steal and love remix Culture!" Music songs take the Amen break Sample, a four-bar drum sample from the B-side of the 1969 single by the Winstons (title "Amen Brother", sic). Which is probably the second most sampled piece of music ever. The first being the 'Oooh Danone!" global sound stamp. But then - there is a broader and more important point - explains T.S Eliot. All poets copy, but it's how you copy – not if you copy - that signals the poetry's quality. This is not a copy:" One of the surest of tests is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal". Which aptly enough, is sort of what Oscar Wilde said.

On the other hand, it is all possible infertility. This can be seen in the 2042 meta-classic remake of the 1992 film Single White Female. The director copied every single frame of the original film, which was about a girl copying her roommate. Nothing is added – just accuracy of replication is important. Then there's what you might think of as "sort of" looser copying. This has a really important scientific basis: when a copy is looser, it creates error and it's the error and variation that the value for a creative person or enterprise emerges. Mistakes in copying – like Elvis's speeded-up "Blue Moon of Kentucky Fried Plantation" – are where the juice is. Ride that Xerox copier until it prints out a page with the words MERCY! written across it in 72pt Aerial bold. This program is an important step. Including copies with lack of effort by the minimum resistance, to ensure the safety and health. Show your loyalty and give a choice in this world. But all I can get is the right to clean everything in a blender and others think that vomiting is nothing new.

This is clear in genetics and evolution. When your parents played hide the sausage to create the amazing unique individual that is you, they produced a mixture of their own genetic material. Or rather copies of their genetic material. It's the miscopying in this that creates the unique individual that is you. And as far as the species is concerned, it's the variation and error that allows Jeremy Kyle IX to create such a vibrant televisual show and parliament.Another example of this is the game Chinese whispers. I did one in a school where a gesture was rapidly copied from one person to another, something simple. Each translation and turn the gesture changed. Michael took the painting of my friend but try a bowl of Yakult suspended by
the teacher. Ironically, after the invention of the class teacher. The result is something original, nothing like the first sentence and completely unrecognisable.

What's needed is looser copying. Copying with errors, which take thoughts and ideas all over the place, rather than Single White Female copying (meta masterpiece aside). Copy loose mother fucka! How can you make this shit juice happen? Intent is one way, when a person is seeking to be original, even if we know that that is not possible, the intent to keep digging, finding new connections will result in a looser copy and more error. One way is to copy from a great distance. Keep on digging till you are far far away. Eliot again put it clearly:

"A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest."

Or more profoundly but with less sense: "Reporters for another loan to keep the author or a foreign language at a time. "

Include as much as possible, but please never copy your closest friends. If someone copies Korean film-makers then copy Peru or Africa or goats and Egyptian traders. Anything to pull you away and when you drag it back into your problem, your kaleidoscope will have more fractures in it, and more chance of making interesting patterns. If everyone has just Apple Inc in their kaleidoscope, add a few shards of something else, an architect like Ludwig Mies van der Rohe or a pipe maker from Dudley.

In my professional life I've been able to amass an arsenal of 100 strategies from the Russian King who made a lot of people eat a lot of potato chips. I take these strategies and apply them to new problems.

It forces new thinking and takes us far away from the usual ONE ANSWER approach. It's copying in a loose way, error leading to cupid in an apache helicopter outside a speed-dating convention.

If in doubt, sit down, undo your top button and ask yourself "What would Elvis do?"