Bob Dylan Defended Elvis’ Manager, Colonel Tom Parker
Elvis Presley‘s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, is not a beloved figure among the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll‘s fans. However, Bob Dylan put up a decent defense of Parker. Here’s a look at what the folk singer had to say about one of the most controversial figures in the music business and how Priscilla Presley seemed to agree with him.
Bob Dylan said fans compared Elvis Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, to Judas Iscariot
In his 2022 book The Philosophy of Modern Song, Dylan discussed Parker’s place in rock ‘n’ roll history. “Among a certain cadre of fans, Colonel Tom Parker is equally reviled for squandering Elvis’ talents in increasingly substandard movies and holding him in stasis in Las Vegas by allowing the Hilton a sweetheart deal to help offset the manager’s staggering gambling debt,” he wrote.
“In the Elvis myth, it’s easy to paint the Colonel as Judas tossing silver into the one-armed bandits thirty pieces at a time, but it’s important to remember that there would have been no King to be brought low without the Colonel’s hard work and unwavering faith from the beginning,” Dylan added. Dylan’s reference to Judas Iscariot is likely an allusion to Elvis having a bit of a Christlike image in popular culture. After all, Elvis was “the King,” he came from a poor background and he died tragically young. There’s even a book called Elvissey that’s about a fictional religion centering on the “Can’t Help Falling in Love”” singer.
Bob Dylan said Elvis Presley became ‘a tourist attraction’
Dylan defended Parker even more. “And even in the darkest hours, the Colonel was loyal and true, worshiping no pretenders to the throne, no false gods, no other clients,” he said. “Even after Elvis’s death, the Colonel stayed at the Hilton to make sure that all tributes were kept respectful, though cynics often pointed out that the Colonel allowed himself to become a tourist attraction to continue paying off his own steadily increasing gambling markers.”
Dylan ended his essay on a cynical note. He said that Elvis, Parker, and Elvis’ regular songwriter, Doc Pomus, are all gone. However, the Hilton Hotels & Resorts is still a successful chain. “The House always wins,” Dylan added.
What Priscilla Presley thought about Colonel Tom Parker
Parker’s mixed legacy lives on to this day. Baz Luhrmann’s biopic Elvis paints Parker as the villain of the story. Tom Hanks plays the famous showman using a fake accent that sounds less like the real Parker and more like Bela Lugosi’s Count Dracula. Parker even references his Svenagli-esque image in the film’s opening monologue. However, this attitude toward the famous music manager is not universal.
During a 2020 interview on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Hanks said he was surprised that Elvis’ only wife, Priscilla Presley, was thankful to Parker. She felt that her husband would not have had the same career without him. The world will never know if Elvis’ career would have been better with a different manager. Elvis might never have become a superstar with different management.
Hollywood painted Parer as a bad guy but Dylan had a more nuanced view of him.
