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site updated May 31, 2008
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Elvis (Tribute) Has Left The Building!!! Glenn explains his decision to retire the Elvis Tribute in this exclusive interview with The Van-Dells Fan Club
VDFC. I have a few questions I wanted to ask you. I know you are getting ready to go into the summer tour since the decision was made to take the Elvis tribute from the show, which has prompted questions, as to why he’s gone and when he will ever return. In order to help the fans understand this decision, will you give us a brief history as to how he came to be part of you, and the Van-Dells. Plus, what prompted you to put an end to the Elvis Tribute in the show? Glenn. Wow! That’s a lot to cover, but lets start with how I got started. My Elvis Tribute was an evolution; it wasn’t something I strived to do originally. I was just a fan, and I was also a kid, so I just pretended to do Elvis, just as all children pretend to be somebody. And it was circumstances that it evolved from a child playing to a career. VDFC. How old were you? Glenn. I was around 9 or 10 years old, but it was just a private thing that I did in my room with records and things like that. I saw him perform live for the first time around that same age, and so I started pretending a lot more after that. But it was just a pretend thing. I had never really heard of an Elvis impersonator at that time, that’s why I said it was kind of an evolution for me, because he passed away. If he had not passed away, I would have never done it professionally. There would have been no reason …there would have been nothing to spark it, even though I was doing it privately. The first I had heard of an impersonator was about a month or two before he died, because I was working at Americana Amusement Park, and they had hired a guy who was going to come in and do an Elvis impersonation. They had posters up saying he was going to be there, and I was like “Oh wow!” I had never heard of anybody doing that before. Then I went to see Elvis’ last concert in Cincinnati, on the 25th of June and actually quit my job at Americana that same day. I had asked off for that concert, and they refused to let me off of work. I had even found another person to cover my shift, and they still wouldn’t let me take off. My sister also was working there, and so when the day came, we both quit our jobs in order to go the concert. We worked up until it was time to go to the concert, then turned in our uniforms and left for the show. VDFC. Little did you know that would be the next to his last concert? What an impact! Glenn. Exactly! I never regretted my decision that day, especially considering what it turned out to be. He passed away two months later. Then for my school talent show, that following year, I performed Elvis in the Talent show, just with records. It went over really well. VDFC.Were you nervous? Glenn. Oh yeah, because I had never done anything like that before, and I was very shy. I wasn’t somebody that people noticed, so all of a sudden I got all this attention! It was nice to be recognized for something. Performing helped to bring me out of my severe shyness. But after he passed away, I started seeing impersonators for the first time, they popped up everywhere, and I went to see them just like everybody did. As a fan, I was outraged at what I saw, because the were making a parody of him and most of them couldn’t even carry a tune, let alone do anything like he does. It was a mockery of him, and as a fan, it made me very upset. I was venting about it to my sister, and she said, “Why don’t you do it? You know how it was done. You’ll come home after a show and explain point by point what happened, and show people what happened, and you know what it is you want to see when you go to these shows!” I thought, yeah! Maybe I should do that! So the reason I started it was out of my love, devotion and respect for him and what he represented and to defend his legacy. I didn’t want it to be tarnished by these guys that were making him look like a caricature of himself and making a mockery of him (I thought). So I figured I would do it myself and try to be the guy that I wanted to see when I went to see these other guys. I wanted to be THAT guy. VDFC. What was it that Elvis represented that you wanted to give to the people that you weren’t seeing the other impersonators that you went to see? Glenn. Well, he was the greatest performer that ever walked on stage. He had a dynamic personality and was amazingly charismatic. Before he ever sang a note, people were in awe by just his very presence. But besides that, he was just a great versatile singer, had a repore with the audience, and a love for them that was visible and tangible. And that wasn’t being conveyed by these other performers. They would get up and do “the Elvis that everyone can do”. They would just curl their lip, shake their leg and mug their way through it. They didn’t get into the details. They ended up exaggerating what he did on stage. Pondering the future, I didn’t want that to be what people perceived of him. I wanted it to be the way he truly was. That’s what I set out to do. Whereas, everybody else played on the obvious, I played on the details; on the little things…the obvious things are obvious. So I concentrated on the small things. VDFC. I only knew you from the Van-Dells. I would have loved to see you perform your Elvis show. I do remember looking at one of the films (of Elvis performing live) and that made me realize how precise you were in the little things that he did. You can tell that you really studied the man and wanted to do him justice. Glenn. Right, well, every time I went on stage, I knew I was going under judgmental eyes, because that’s the way I would be when watching others, so I put myself in that position. So, I went out on stage with that mindset everyday. It was important to me to do him justice. Portray him in such a way that if he were sitting in the audience, he would say would be pleased himself. VDFC. Well, I think he would be proud of the work you did. Glenn. Well, I appreciate that…I wanted the way I felt about Elvis to be conveyed through my performance. That was my sole purpose. And really, the reasons that I started doing Elvis are same reasons I am stopping. It is out of my love and devotion, and not to ever make a mockery or do him a disservice.
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VDFC. You don’t think you can do him justice now?
Glenn. I knew that when I started, there was a shelf life to this. I knew that this was something that I couldn’t do forever and never expected to do for as long as I have. The only reason I did it for as long as I did was due to public demand. I actively set out to stop performing my tribute in 1985. When I joined the Van-Dells, I saw it as an opportunity to move on and leave the Elvis portion of my singing career behind. It was just unforeseen circumstance that led me to doing Elvis again with the group. Actually, I almost didn’t get the job with the Van-Dells because that was almost all I had ever done previously. They didn’t want another “Elvis” guy. Moose had done Elvis in the show, and they didn’t want to have another “Elvis” guy. I understood that going in, and that’s not what I wanted to do either. When I came in and auditioned, I think I did one Elvis song, and that was because they requested it. They wanted to hear me sing something that I was comfortable singing. But the other songs I did that day were just songs that they were doing with the show already, and some harmony stuff to see how we blended.
VDFC. How long were you doing the Elvis Tribute before you joined the Van-Dells?
Glenn. About 12 years. I started in 1978. In less than a year after he died, I started doing it professionally. I was 15 years old. But anyway…I have always said, since early in my career, that age 42 was my cut off (if it went that long, which it ultimately did). In getting back to the reasons why we started using my tribute in the show…it was just circumstances; had Duke not went in for his back surgery, Elvis wouldn’t have ever seen the light of day in the Van-Dells show. We needed it to fill time. When I joined, we hadn’t planned to do it, and we hadn’t rehearsed it. But I had to start a week or two sooner than I had expected because Duke’s back got so bad that he had to go in for surgery. So when he went in for surgery, and we had to fill the time, Mark came to me and said, “Bring your Elvis suit, because we need to fill time, and the band knows these Elvis songs”
I think it was “That’s Alright Mama”, “Little Sister”, and “American Trilogy”. They planned to do those songs until Duke came back. So I went out and did it. By the time Duke came back, the Elvis segment had become a staple in the show and they didn’t want to mess with it, and I didn’t want to cause waves, being the new guy, and so I kind of just rolled with it.
But about a year into it, I went to the guys and said, I didn’t join the group to do Elvis, I can do Elvis on my own. I joined this group so I could move on and branch into other things. So when Chumley came back, that opened up some room where I could do something different. So I did the Neil Diamond for a time, but we still did a little Elvis medley in the show, but it was not me doing the full Elvis tribute, it was the Van-Dells doing Elvis songs. It was merely to appease the fan who wanted to see me do some Elvis. When Chumley left, two years later, that left a void in the show, and and we didn’t have a lot of time to get new material, (we only had a two week window) and we had time to fill. With Dave leaving, we needed something that had a lot of energy, so we decided to put the Elvis back into the show, but this time, I wanted to do a medley of Elvis songs instead of a segment like we had done in the past. I felt like it made the Van-Dells show flow better. This gave me an opportunity to cover a lot of songs in a short span of time, and it flowed better. It also gave me an opportunity to do songs that I had not done before in my show, because I stuck strictly with what Elvis did on stage, and I rarely ever veered from that. This gave me the opportunity to do “Return To Sender” and songs that, to my knowledge, he never performed on stage. I did that for much longer than I had intended, and then we changed it up a couple of times, and I kept thinking…I can’t believe I’m still doing this! But it just got bigger, because that’s Elvis! I’ve often said, (pardon the pun) “I can’t shake him!” He casts a big shadow.
VDFC. But that’s the charisma of Elvis, and the fans appreciate someone that does justice to the man.
Glenn. Well, I appreciate that!
VDFC.…and watching you do this interview, your eyes still light up!
Glenn. Oh, well, I’ll always love Elvis, and I think a lot of the fans might be getting the wrong impression that I don’t like him anymore and don’t want to be associated with him anymore, and there is nothing farther from the truth! If there’s one thing I want to get across with this interview, more than anything else… The reason I’m stopping is the reason I started. It’s out of respect. Because I do not want to become like the other Elvis Tribute Artists I have seen. Elvis died at 42. Technically, I’ve been doing him longer than intended personally, but also when you take into account the age I depicted, (I depicted him at 34-35 years old) I’ve already performed passed my portrayal age. So, anyway, I always said 42 would be it. So although this may seem sudden to many of the fans, this has not been a sudden decision on my part.
VDFC. Yes, but then Elvis returned, and there he was, and now he’s gone again. We that know your history understand your decision, and we respect that, we just want other fans to understand it too.
Glenn. Yeah, I want them to understand too…because I don’t have an opportunity when people come up and ask why…I can only tell them so much…I can’t really go into all of the details as to why I am stopping this…. and they’re like…Are you going to do it at the next show? No…he’s gone…I’ve retired him out of respect to him, because I don’t want to become one of these guys that I’ve seen who are in their 50’s or 60’s and still doing it. I don’t want to be what I set out to defend his memory from. My crusade has always been to defend his memory, and I don’t feel I could in good conscious, represent his memory at my age. I would have stopped it a year earlier, but we were unable to rehearse last year. Had we rehearsed last year, it would have been gone a year earlier, so the fans actually got an extra year out of me that I did not intend.
VDFC. And you know truthfully, if you feel that strongly, it probably would have come across in your performance…
Glenn. Well, I didn’t want it to become that way…because when you talk about it creatively, I got creatively everything I wanted out of it by 1985, which is why I tried to stop doing it back then, but because of agents and everybody else, I was never able to transition my career myself. Not until I joined the Van-Dells…which I felt would help me to branch into other things, and it has, but not to the extent that I had intended. I was amazed, and I am still amazed, that the Van-Dell fans accepted me without the black hair and sideburns. I rarely got a comment about that.
VDFC. But you never portrayed yourself as an Elvis impersonator…you always say you do a tribute…to me that’s a huge difference.
Glenn: Right, but most people expect that whole image, “the complete look”. If you are going to wear the suit, and you’re going to do him, you need to do him all the way. And having always been a person who prided myself in being as precise as possible in my portrayal…I wanted to give people the full look but I also still wanted to hold on to my own identity. When I first joined the group, I dyed my hair for a little while, and then I just said…you know what? I’m not going to do that. I wish I could have given people the whole look, but it just wasn’t possible to pull that kind of costume change off in this kind of fast-paced show.
VDFC. You know, you didn’t do the hair, but your presence…the way you carried yourself, your voice alone, that was right there! Dead on!
Glenn: Well, I want to say this to everybody that reads this…this does not mean that, in the future, we may not do some Elvis songs…but as far as putting on the Elvis suit again, and doing the whole nine yards…I’ve retired that. I don’t do that anymore…. and I hope everyone will understand that it is out of respect for Elvis, that I must stop. I don’t want my performance to become a mockery. I would never want to ultimately become the exact kind of performer that I originally set out to defend Elvis’ legacy from. I wanted to do him as precisely as possible all those years that I did it, and I don’t feel (personally) that I can do that at this age. I’ve done Elvis longer than Elvis did Elvis! Certainly much longer than he did the jumpsuit thing. Elvis’ career was around 21 years long, and did Elvis for 28 years! That should be enough. I have great love and respect for him, and I always will. I’m always going to be a number one fan, which is why I started, because I was a fan. I hope this explains why I stopped…I felt the fans deserved an explanation.
VDFC: Well, I’m sure I can speak for thousands of fans; that Elvis will be missed in the show but I appreciate the performance that you gave us, and the memories that you gave us.
Glenn: Well, Thanks! But like I said, in good conscience, I couldn’t just keep going and going…but I’ve always had in my heart and my mind why I originally began doing this. It wasn’t to make money, it wasn’t to have a career in it…I never dreamed that I’d still be in the business, and it’s great that it happened and that’s really due to him. I just wanted to be able to show him for who he was, and to show him at his best. That’s why it’s best to stop now.
VDFC: Thank you for your honesty in sharing why you’ve made this decision. We really appreciate it!
Glenn: Thank you!
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Introducing Dick Buchholz Dick played his first show with the Van-Dells on August 14th at Mc Henry, MD Check out Dick's website @ www.roadmastersband.com
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Join the Van-Dells Yahoo Group. You can post mesages and read posts left from other fans. You can also share photos, and check out the latest show schedule. It's fun, informative, and FREE! Click on the link below and sign up today! launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/thevandells/
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