Every year in June, thousands of people flock to Tupelo, Mississippi, to celebrate Elvis in his hometown through the Tupelo Elvis Festival.
The multi-day event honors the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s formative years in the northeast Mississippi city before his family moved to Memphis, and is best known for its Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist Competition.
But the competition is not just for adults. This year, around 20 children ages 7-17 got to be the King for a day, too.
The youth competition happens every year, and the day starts with kids and teenagers touring the Elvis Birthplace: the church in Tupelo where Elvis started singing, the chapel built in his memory and the tiny home where the star was born.
After the morning tour, they get into wigs, jumpsuits and makeup before heading onstage at the Elvis Birthplace Museum’s auditorium to sing and dance to a song they’ve picked.
14-year-old RJ Hursey is one of those young performers. He and his Dad made the trek from Bloomington, Illinois —an 8-hour, multi-state drive.
Hursey’s been performing as a young Elvis tribute artist for about four years.
“I practice nearly every day… just learning about the guy because he’s the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” he said.
Like a lot of the guys also preparing to transform into the rock icon, Hursey got into Elvis because his parents and grandparents were fans, but also after the 2022 film by Baz Luhrmann put the King back on the silver screen.
“At this point, I've seen [the film] maybe 500 times,” said Hursey. “He's just a really cool guy with that cool swagger, and he has that kind of aura that's just way different from everybody else.”
As the kids prepare for their performances, there’s an air of anticipation and a little anxiety in the room. Performing like the King is a pretty daunting task.
That’s why Nick Perkins is here to help.
Perkins is the 2018 champ of the Tupelo Elvis Festival adult competition. Along with being the emcee for this year’s show, he helps coach the youth competitors, running through vocal exercises with them and showing them how to do their makeup to bring out their features to look more like Elvis.
“Everybody's face is different. It's all a different structure,” said Perkins. “You really have to look at what you have and what you don't have and then compare that to Elvis.”
Perkins makes the 5-hour drive from Hammond, Louisiana, to the Tupelo Elvis Fest every year. He’s been an Elvis Tribute Artist since he was 14, and the youth competition really stands out to him.
“We have 7- to 17-year-old children coming out here to pay tribute to Elvis and have a good time,” said Perkins. “I think that that's where the true magic happens because the legacy lives.”
As the kids help each other — tying the macrame belts on for their friends, checking the outfits and their hair — Perkins explains that the competition is about performing in the most authentic and true-to-Elvis way, not just putting on a flashy show.
That means picking a song and dressing and performing accurately for the era of Elvis it came from. A performer wouldn’t, for example, don the iconic 70s-era jumpsuit during a performance of “Hound Dog.”
“If I went out there and sang ‘Suspicious Minds’ wearing a gold jacket, no matter how great I sang it, I'm not going to make it out of the first round,” Perkins said. “It's unauthentic.”
A misconception that people have about the tribute artist world, Perkins said, is that it’s the same as being an impersonator.
“You're paying a tribute, but you're doing it in the most authentic way that you possibly can without coming off that you want to be that caricature,” he said. “We want to recreate the show, but once the show's over, that's where the magic ends.”
Like many of the kids, it was Perkins’s parents who inspired his love for the King.
“It is the legacy that he left, the music,” Perkins said. “He was a rebel in his era, and he didn't care.”
As the kids finish final preparations for the show, RJ’s dad, Jeff Hursey, is waiting outside. He said the family has encouraged RJ to keep pursuing his love for Elvis, but he hasn’t exactly needed it.
RJ and his friends — some of them his fellow competitors — talk on the phone for hours about Elvis, and do prep work together for competitions.
“They pour themselves into watching video after video to get his moves down,” Jeff Hursey said. “They'll watch and mimic his very motions. It's really to honor him: they really, truly honor him.”
And when the kids aren’t competing, many of them still find ways to keep performing.
“Many of them perform in nursing homes or retirement homes,” Jeff Hursey said. “They do it for the same reason Elvis did it: he loves the people, they love the people…these kids just have big hearts like Elvis.”
Once the kids are all ready, their families make their way into the auditorium at the Elvis Birthplace Museum. One by one, they make their way onstage, singing and dancing to the applause of their parents in the audience.
RJ comes on, decked out in a bright white jumpsuit glittering with gold rhinestones. He performs “Unchained Melody”, a moving ballad.
It earned him first place, his friends yelling and celebrating with him onstage.
He was still a little shocked afterward.
“I'm feeling really good, very honored, very blessed,” he said. “I'm overwhelmed at this point. It's like there's so much going on, but it feels great.”
This story was produced by the Gulf States Newsroom, a collaboration between Mississippi Public Broadcasting, WBHM in Alabama, WWNO and WRKF in Louisiana and NPR.
