My Life as Elvis
Bobby Sypniewski
Copyright © 2020 Bobby Sypniewski
All rights reserved
First Edition
Fulton Books, Inc.
Meadville, PA
Published by Fulton Books 2020
ISBN 978-1-64654-472-1 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-64654-473-8 (digital)
Printed in the United States of America
Table of Contents
Setting Up the Gear and Getting to the Party
Some of My Fellow Entertainers
People I Met, Including the Stalker
Thank You, Thank You Very Much
CHAPTER 1
How It All Began
Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier!
—“The Ballad of Davy Crockett,” George Bruns and Tom Blackburn
It all started when I was a very young boy. I realized I loved music after listening to that song “Davy Crocket,” sung by Fess Parker, who starred in the famous Disney series.
My mother bought me the 45-rpm record, and I wore it out, period. That’s where it all began.
I grew up in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, just outside the big capital of Trenton. My parents were hardworking, middle-income people. My mother, Mary, and my father, Harry, were good and loving parents who taught me the right way to live and gave me a strong religious upbringing. We were a happy family who celebrated all the holidays and birthdays together. My brother, Harry, is about eight years older than I am. It was hard to relate to a brother when the ages are so far apart, and I really did not get to know him until he got out of the Army. Harry also liked to sing around the house but unfortunately never developed the talent that I know he had.
As I got older, I enjoyed watching The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, and my first idol was Ricky Nelson. Every week, my family would sit by the TV and watch all the sitcoms, but that was my favorite show. Sometimes at the end of the show, Ricky would be up on the stage, playing his guitar and singing. I could never figure out why he didn’t do it every week. It was disappointing when he didn’t. I said to myself, “I want to do that someday!”
As time went by, another performer whose talents I admired was Bobby Rydell. I would listen to his albums and lip-synch with him to imitate his style.
Then something started happening!
I would hear a song on the radio and really like it. Then I would hear another one and really like it, and then another one! The realization hit me that all these songs I liked were being sung by a guy named Elvis Presley! It seemed like I was taken over by his voice! When I saw him on TV, it was like a lightning hit me! That’s when I knew there was no stopping me! I was going to be a singer in a band!
I bought all the Elvis records I could, but I was limited because I was a kid and did not have any income. When my parents went out for an evening, I would stay home and sing along with all his songs that I owned on our old “hi-fi.” I would use a hairbrush for a microphone. When I got older, I thought that maybe using that hairbrush was a pretty stupid thing to do. Then I read that Simon & Garfunkel did the same thing. I figured, What the heck, if it was good enough for them, it was good enough for me!
CHAPTER 2
My First Music Lessons
When I was about seven years old, I started telling my parents that I wanted to take guitar lessons. It seemed to me that they kind of ignored my wishes, but now I understand that they probably didn’t just have the money for a guitar, let alone guitar lessons. When I turned fifteen years old, my father brought home a used guitar for me, and I was tickled pink! It was in real good shape, and I loved it! He only payed twenty dollars for it at the time, and that was in 1965! After I got it, I started picking up chord books so I could learn a few chords and entertain myself. In a short while, I was playing the guitar with a buddy named Joe. We’d get together with some cousins and play and sing any song that we could get our hands on. I have a cousin named Ellen who did a lot of typing for me at that time, and she would type out The Beatles songs with the chords above the words so I could play the songs.
When my mother and father saw that I was really interested, they set me up with lessons at a music store ten blocks from home. That made things easy on my parents. I’d just take the guitar, throw it over my shoulder, and walk to the lesson! The place was called Liberty Music Center, I guess because it was on Liberty Street. A guy named Tony owned it. He was a fantastic piano player. I started taking lessons from a great guitar player named Charlie, who happened to be going to my high school. He was a senior and I was a sophomore. So it was convenient when I had a question about a lesson during the week, I could just ask him in school. I started with a couple of beginner’s books, but they quickly got boring.
Realizing