Wor Elvis

Billy, you've got a great set of sideburns going on there, but you don't look like Elvis and you don't sound like him when you talk. Is that a problem?

"As you can tell, I'm not from Memphis. But I think it's a relief for the audience that I'm not someone who thinks I'm Elvis, coming on stage and curling my lip and doing an American accent.

"Sooner or later with me, the Geordie bit is going to come out, so I'd rather do it this way than have the accent slip out when I'm trying to do an American one."

You are 39, you have loved Elvis since you were 12; you take care of this Elvis business seriously, don't you?

"Jokey impersonations miss the point, but it's a proven thing that an Elvis Presley show can do well if you're taking it seriously and not just trying to impersonate him.

"We have a repertoire of 52 songs for the tour and we've got a good pedigree as a band: we put a full band together, full rhythm section, lead guitar, bass, piano, drums, three-piece brass section, and there are three gospel singers from Birmingham behind me. They're from the show Black Voices, and we rehearse all ten of the cast from that show and use three at any one time."

You wear white on stage, right down to your shoes, but you appear to have jettisoned the Las Vegas jump suit beloved of so many Elvis acts.

"White is what I wear most on stage, but I don't wear those jump suits. I think the big buckled suit became a parody of itself and that's not what the ardent fans want.

"So I've got a guy called Paul Shriek from Gosforth to make me a two-piece to the design of the jump suit, and the beauty of it is that Elvis did wear two-piece suits between 1972 and 1974."

Was it a to risk break away from the lookalike Elvis shows?

"It might have been at the beginning, three years ago, but now it isn't a risk because wherever we go, we're the one getting re-booked. I've got 80 dates for the You Just Can't Help Believing Tour in the diary right now."

Together with musical director Alan Wearmouth, you have put together your Elvis show as a two-hour concert celebration.

"We try to get the authenticity, though not the looks, of an Elvis concert, so we play it as a concert. We don't do the hits in chronological order; we do a show as Elvis would have done it. We've watched his concerts on film and what we want to do is give the feel of what an Elvis show was like.

"We don't do it like other tribute shows, with some guy who thinks he's Elvis and a band playing miles behind him. We go on as a band, like Elvis did, with the musicians playing close to him."

Elvis is the best ever, isn't he?

"There was only one king of rock'n'roll and we are here to play tribute to him in the best way we can."

The Elvis Collection, Grand Opera House, York, March 4, 7.30pm. Tickets: £12, £14 on 0870 606 3595.

Updated: 15:20 Thursday, February 26, 2004