Storyville: Orion - The Man Who Would Be King, BBC Four
The strange story of the Elvis follow-up, who just wanted to be himself
The story of Orion, aka Jimmy Ellis, really was a case of truth being weirder than fiction. “He couldn’t have failed, if Elvis had never lived,” we heard from Shelby Singleton, boss of Nashville’s Sun Records, which launched his career – meaning that Ellis was born with a voice so close to the King’s that he couldn’t escape becoming something of a stand-in. There was no other direction for his talent, despite efforts to clear matters up by recording a song, “I’m Not Trying To Be Like Elvis”.
Georgie Fame: The Whole World’s Shaking – The Complete Recordings 1963–1966