Rick Marino Elvis Tribute Artist Spotlight

To start with, as far back as I can recall, I remember going with my Dad to all his rehearsals. He was a crooner like Frank, Dean, Bing, Tony Bennett, Jerry Vale and the rest of that bunch. He was very good. Today, sometimes when he is in the audience, I ask him to come up and sing a song. I never tell him when I am going to do this, which lends to the magic of it. He always gets the show's best response. He is a far superior vocalist to me, where I am more the performer. Anyway, I guess I will start with my roots. My family is from Sicily [father] and Naples [mother]. My Dad is a first generation immigrant. Dad's mother's uncle was a very famous opera singer named Enrico Caruso which, I suppose, might explain my father's and my own vocal skills. I always wanted to be a performer like my Dad. I thought it was so wonderful the way everybody loved my Dad and knew him. I grew up in Tampa and I can remember we could not go anywhere with out people stopping my Dad. He was always nice giving them his time. I remember him telling me that I should always be kind to people and they will always be there for you.... [good advice]. Before I move on, my Dad had a gimmick when he did his nightclub act. He was a body builder. As a matter of fact, he was the first "Mr. Tampa" and also was Mr. Florida, Jr. America and eventually Mr. America! So what he would do is bill himself as: The boy with the Golden Voice... with his bar-bells on the stage with him. [See photo]

As for me, the first time I sang was in 4th grade. It was in school. A friend of mine played guitar and he and another friend of mine decided to perform for our class. We did 2 songs, one we did as a duet... It was an old Beatles song; "Listen, Do You Want to Know a Secret." It went over very well, much to our surprise. We then decided to to do another song, kind of on the spot. We did "Johnny B. Goode," [which I still do almost every time I sing]. A couple of years later, when the 3 of us were in 6th grade, we got together with a couple of other guys and decided to form a band. None of us could play anything, so we decided what we each wanted to learn to play. I picked the drums. It was so much fun, learning together. As time passed, we eventually got better, at which time we decided we needed a cool name for our band. The Beatles were big at the time [1965]. They wore these black velvet boots known as "Beatle Boots," and we all had gone out and bought ourselves a pair. So with that in mind we decided to call ourselves... "The Suede's" We got to play some Junior High School Dances... which was a lot of fun, plus we were earning some money. We changed our name a couple of times and even got to do a couple of shows with some famous bands of the time.. "The Tropics, The Outsiders, and The Count Five". My parents got a divorce and we moved from Tampa to Pennsylvania where my mother's family lived. This caused the band to break up.

Eventually I hooked up with the No. 1 nostalgia band in America where I fine tuned the art of doing Elvis that I had begun doing in 1973 after seeing the "Aloha from Hawaii" Satellite special on NBC-TV. It was great developing the Elvis show. I had to use my imagination, as there was no Cable TV, no videos, no Elvis fan clubs like today, no soundtracks. All you had to go on were records and your imagination. I created what I perceived Elvis to be in my mind, eventually developing a character [When I later explained this to Harvey Keitel during an early meeting with him on the 1997 film "Finding Graceland". He said what I was doing is called "Method Acting" he went on to tell me how much he liked my approach to doing Elvis asking me to be the Technical Advisor and consultant for him].

In 1975 I paid $1650 for a Sony-Betamax Video Tape Machine. The tapes were $35 each and you could only tape for one hour! It, at the time, was really amazing and very expensive, but worth it. When an Elvis movie came on TV we would video it. This is where we first had a visual to fine tune getting your Elvis mannerisms down.... the little things. You could also go to his concerts live which was amazing [I explain this in my book "Be Elvis!" on page 64 "One For The Money, Two for the Show!"]. It was great to go see him. He really was the best of the best and I've seen them all. Also it was fun waiting in line all night, getting to know all the fans. I learned a lot from that as well.

They were very expensive even by today's standards -- $2,000 - $3,000 dollars. It was so cool. Every time I was having something made, I saw someone famous... "Singers, Movie Stars... I mean legends of show business" I would just sit there while waiting to be fitted and talk to them. It was so cool. Tony Alamo unfortunately closed shop. It's really a shame. His clothes were of such quality that today I still wear some of them and you would never guess that they are around 30 years old. [see photo] Today, the location where Tony Alamo's was is The HardRockCafe

In 1977, when Elvis died, it was from my point of view wrong to continue with the Elvis shows... That's when it all started. You would not believe how bad these guys were... making a fortune. I mean it was crazy, I was offered hundreds of thousands of dollars but declined. I cut my performing down and went more to producing. I, along with a group, formed a production company called "Southwind." We produced and published George Strait's first big hits and LP.... "Amarillo by Morning and Marina Del Rey." He went on to become Country Music's biggest star. I don't talk much about the 4 years in Nashville, but it was exciting. It was then I learned more about Elvis than any other time. I had a beard and wore a cowboy hat all the time. [see photo on left]

I met all these people who knew Elvis from day one and their memories were fresh. It was really cool. Nashville was still Nashville of old, not commercialized as it is today. I loved it!

It wasn't till 1983 that I performed as Elvis again. I did it as a favor for a friend who owned a night club here in Jacksonville, Florida where I have lived for the last 22 years. It is here where my real journey as an Elvis Impersonator begins. I became a full time performer doing primarily Elvis Shows! During the 80's I did a 3 month tour of Europe [ Switzerland, Austria, France, Italy, Germany, Holland, Spain, Denmark, Sweden]. Then we did the first Elvis, Elvis, Elvis, Show! which basically was a showcase of '56, '68, and '73 featuring 3 different Elvis impersonators in the same show [I did the '68 leather]. This show was put together for a long Tour of Asia [Japan and South Korea mostly].

The World's Fair in South America, been cast in feature films like Honeymoon in Vegas, earning me my SAG Card! I was an integral part of Florida's promotion for the American Cancer Society's Jail and Bail Program. I produced and did the commercial for them that ran on every radio station in Florida for 6 months, ending with a $500 dollar a plate dinner that was attended by 5,000 folks raising a whole lot of money!!!
In the show, I was released from a Jail Cell and did a big concert for them. It was a great promotion raising millions of dollars for a worthy cause benifiting us all. I became a published author which led to me attending and being featured at The World's largest book fair at The McCormick Center in Chicago where Gary Sinese and I signed books for my publisher all day... [see photo] I could go on. It has been just amazing.

It was at that event that the networking and marketing of the business of being Elvis began. There were no computers or cell phones and 95% of the guys had home made costumes. There was no B&K as you know it today. The EPIIA opened the doors to a lot of things, the most important was that the decision that was made (at my suggestion) to make it an exhibition instead of a competition. All the guys had fun and it was great. The event even led a talented Hollywood Screenwriter and Director [Andrew Bergman] to write and make one of the most successful movies on the subject of Elvis. "Honeymoon in Vegas!" [See photos]

This eventually led us to move the EPIIA convention to Las Vegas! I reluctantly became the first President and only president of the EPIIA...a non-profit organization that raised a lot of money for many causes, while providing the opportunity for a lot of networking.

In 1991 I was hired by JC Penney to be the National Spokesperson for the Elvis Cologne. I did a 41/2 minute commercial that ran on The JC Penney Shopping Network. They used the catch phrase "There have been 39 Presidents but only one King!" with this really neat poster of Elvis and all 39 Presidents. [see photo]

I brought DJ Fontana down to play. DJ really liked them making several trips to Argentina from the venture. We also used Jerry Lee Lewis who also went to Argentina after. We did some of the tracks at Sun Studio with Stan Kessler [Elvis's original engineer] who did the same for us. The CD was all in Spanish and original songs, with the 2 bonus songs "Don't Be Cruel and Ooby Dooby" recorded at Sun also in Spanish! I did "That's Alright Mama" at Sun with the band for fun. The recording is a real keepsake for me. While we were all here in Jacksonville we did a few shows together at some local night clubs which was lots of fun... [See Photo]

Wrote my book "Be Elvis!' 1997-1999. Did a book tour 2000-2001 and over 400 radio interviews. During this time, sadly I was divorced, and was on the game show "To Tell the Truth!" which was amazing for my ego. [see story LLM]. You have no idea how cool that was. At that time in my life it was a good thing. Had a PBS - TV special made of my career. I am a spoke person for several businesses here in Jacksonville, and often called in as a consultant in matters involving Elvis! To date I have done over 5,000 Elvis shows....

Thankya, Thankyou very much...ha! ha! ha!

I have truly been blessed in my life! I have performed in 15 countries, met countless numbers of very famous people, had dinner with leaders of countries, been on national TV, got to be a father to a wonderful son and a son to wonderful parents. Life has been good. I belong to the largest Church in Florida... 30,000 members. Have great people that work with me and have been with me for over 20 years. I have the best of both worlds. When I want to be famous, I put the Elvis persona on and when I've had enough I shut it down. But most of all I can't tell you how many lives I've touched over the years. You never know what a difference you are making in others lives and Being Elvis gives me the opportunity to reach a lot of folks I otherwise would not have. God Bless You All. I hope that I haven't seemed too boisterous for it has not been my intent. I have really enjoyed everybody's spotlight so very much. It's great to read people's stories. It's also great that the folks at Lady Luck Music provide us with a forum to present ourselves.

While in Pennsylvania, I was introduced to collecting Baseball Cards.. It was a really big deal up there, much more so than in Florida! What made it fun is that there was only Topps Cards... unlike today, where you have so many different companies putting product out. It's just not the same. I collected for 2 years in a row the entire set [1966 and 67] of cards. I still have them today, and they are worth 4 or 5 thousand each. I have a few single cards that are worth over a thousand each. My point of sharing this is to explain how my interest in collecting began which is a big part of being an Elvis Fan. I learned very young how obsessive it can become and expensive. You have to be selective. Set goals and that's it.! We later moved back to Florida where I met my mentor and life long friend, Tom Carlile, who in 1967 was on "The Mike Douglas Show". He had a great show!

Tom is where I learned the craft of performing, and holding an audience's attention. He taught me how to run lights, master a follow spot, run sound. He also turned me on to "Elvis!" Tom used to do this Elvis thing in his show where he did the Tribute to the 50's. It was very good. I still have audio tapes after all these years. We used to talk about Elvis. Tom loved him. I can remember seeing Elvis' December 1968 Singer Christmas TV Special on NBC-TV. After that, Tom and I got together and produced an entire segment of an Elvis Skit for his show. We traveled all over the country. I was always in trouble for missing school [today I find it amazing with my schedule that I graduated from high school and college]. We even went to Las Vegas! Even though I was just a kid, I had a false ID and would wear a Sharkskin Suit like Bobby Darin to make me look old enough to be in the Supper Clubs. It was almost like going to school, "Showbiz-101". They took good care of me, it was not like today. Through the years Tom and I have crossed career paths, in the late 70's to early 80's when we both happened to be in Nashville embarking on careers in country music. Eventually, in 2002, Tom called me and asked me to come to headline this Big Revue he was doing in Orlando where he currently lives. It was so cool. I was on stage and Tom's band was backing me up. Midway through my performance, Tom came on stage and started playing his guitar and backing me vocally. It was one of the most special moments for me ever, on stage. I have a DVD of it. I only wish my mother had lived to see it. She did get to see us do some songs together when I got to Tom's shows.