Elvis Presley and Alis Lesley

. . . but Alis prefers horses

When you first see Alis Lesley, in scarlet slack-suit and long ponytail, she looks exactly like your kid sister about to leave for the beach with her schoolgirl cobbers.

Elvis Presley met rockabilly singer Alis Lesley on Tuesday, November 13, 1956 backstage at the Silver Slipper Casino.

BUT when she plucks her 'geetar', wriggles her hips, and generally undulates, she looks like somebody else's sister, and considerably older. Although Alis is billed as the 'Female Elvis Presley', the one thing you couldn't care less about when observing Alis is Elvis. Alis, despite her Presley cowlick and spit curls or sideburns, has an infantile charm and much more intelligence than you'd expect to find wriggling behind a guitar. She has blue-green eyes, fair hair, rather frank teeth, is extremely easy to talk to so long as she's sitting, is only a first-generation American of English and Scottish stock, comes from Phoenix, Arizona, started her professional career at 12, studied music at Phoenix College, and is 19.

When she was four her father gave her an accordion and she beat it to pieces. When she was eight her mother paid for piano lessons and she wouldn't practise. When she was 10 her Scottish granny gave her a dollar a week to buy a guitar and it has been her instrument ever since. In the past few years Alis has appeared all over the States on stage and in nightclubs, first as 'Little Miss Swivel Hips'.

'I'm really a ballad singer who likes rock-‘n'-roll', she told me. 'It's the beat that gets you. It gets all young people these days. 'Rock-'n'-roll is a violent release from the quiet, dull lives most people lead. I love it' 'But where does rock-'n'-roll come from?' She gave me a queer look. 'Why, rock-'n'-roll comes from rhythm and blues and Western music, which is mostly hillbilly and simple music'.

'Of course', I said, but it all sounded like Phoenix, Arizona, to me. Then, with a faraway look in her eyes, she started talking horses - and if there's anything more enervating than a woman.

Talking clothes or operations it's a woman talking horses. In the next half-hour all I had to do was nod occasionally. I learnt that her black mare Tara had the blood of Apache Indian ponies in its veins; that she loved riding in gymkhanas doing something called 'clover leaf barrel bends'; that she could rope a bit and throw. I learnt that she planned to return to Phoenix College when she was 21, take a full course in veterinary science, buy a property of 160 acres she already has her eyes on, set up as a vet, and breed horses. 'I'm not growing old in show business', said Alis, aged 19, her feet firmly in the stirrups. 'I'm thinking of the future now'. When we were galloping across the prairies of Arizona and up along the trails of Montana I managed with some difficulty to ease her down to a trot and divert her back to her adventures as a rock-'n'-roll singer.
'If you think it would be interesting', she said, 'I'll tell you about my most embarrassing moment.

'In a Boston nightclub I slipped on a pearl a magician had dropped during his act. 'As I fell I did the splits and my Capri pants split right across. Fortunately, I had a pair of wild pants underneath - in red, black, and white stripes. I just grabbed my tail with both hands and ran'. Finally, Alis' ideal man. 'Tall, with long dark hair and dark eyes. He must have good manners, and must love the outdoors as much as I do'. But I'm sure, by the far-flung look in her eyes, that she was thinking of a horse.

© Copyright 2024 by www.elvis.com.au & www.elvispresley.com.au

https://www.elvis.com.au/presley/elvis-presley-and-alis-lesley.shtml

No part of any article on this site may be re-printed for public display without permission.