The Colonel and the King
On sale
23rd April 2026
Price: £16.99
INCLUDED IN TIME‘S 100 MUST READ BOOKS OF 2025
‘Guralnick knows the intricacies of this story more than anyone, except perhaps the Colonel and Presley themselves’
GUARDIAN
The concluding volume of Peter Guralnick’s critically acclaimed Elvis Presley biographies
In early 1955, Colonel Tom Parker discovered a teenage Elvis Presley and declared him destined for greatness. What followed was one of the most extraordinary partnerships in music history and the creation of a bond built on loyalty, ambition and an unshakeable belief in each other.
From the meteoric rise that reshaped popular culture to the struggles that shadowed their final years, this concluding volume of Peter Guralnick’s acclaimed trilogy reveals the full complexity of their relationship.
Drawing on previously unpublished letters and telegrams from Parker’s own archives, it offers an intimate, unflinching portrait of two American originals: the visionary manager who invented the modern superstar and the artist who became one. Brilliant, flawed and inseparable, Elvis and the Colonel changed the music world forever.
‘Guralnick’s view of Parker is both clear-eyed and sympathetic, but best of all, it’s persuasive’
TIME
‘A riveting and revelatory read’
SUNDAY INDEPENDENT
‘Guralnick knows the intricacies of this story more than anyone, except perhaps the Colonel and Presley themselves’
GUARDIAN
The concluding volume of Peter Guralnick’s critically acclaimed Elvis Presley biographies
In early 1955, Colonel Tom Parker discovered a teenage Elvis Presley and declared him destined for greatness. What followed was one of the most extraordinary partnerships in music history and the creation of a bond built on loyalty, ambition and an unshakeable belief in each other.
From the meteoric rise that reshaped popular culture to the struggles that shadowed their final years, this concluding volume of Peter Guralnick’s acclaimed trilogy reveals the full complexity of their relationship.
Drawing on previously unpublished letters and telegrams from Parker’s own archives, it offers an intimate, unflinching portrait of two American originals: the visionary manager who invented the modern superstar and the artist who became one. Brilliant, flawed and inseparable, Elvis and the Colonel changed the music world forever.
‘Guralnick’s view of Parker is both clear-eyed and sympathetic, but best of all, it’s persuasive’
TIME
‘A riveting and revelatory read’
SUNDAY INDEPENDENT
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Reviews
An intriguing perspective on the music business when rock was first making its mark, and a special treat for Presley fans. A fascinating look at a truly unique personality and his direction of Elvis's career
A seasoned chronicler of all things Elvis (his Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love are seminal works), Guralnick here probes the relationship between Presley and his overbearing Svengali. There is no better writer about early rock 'n' roll and roots music
With unique access to an incredible stash of correspondence, Guralnick reveals Parker's charm, humor, genius and audacity, depicting a genuine person, not the sinister Svengali of other accounts
Guralnick's book, written with full access to Parker's unpublished, witty, clever letters, gives a more nuanced, sympathetic picture. The author is no biased sensationalist
Dramatically humanizes Parker from the one-dimensional Svengali depicted for decades
Meticulous
Veteran pop-music scholar Peter Guralnick, Elvis's most ardent and compassionate biographer, makes the case that Parker was hardly the monster he's commonly been made out to be . . . Guralnick's view of Parker is both clear-eyed and sympathetic, but best of all, it's persuasive. You come away thinking differently about a person you thought you'd already nailed down. And isn't that what a biographer is for?
A riveting and revelatory read
The enigmatic Svengali Colonel Tom Parker left behind countless mysteries and unanswered questions after his death in 1997. If there's one writer uniquely poised to unpack those mysteries and questions, it's Grammy-winning music writer Peter Guralnick, whose biographies of Presley are universally regarded as the definitive biographies of the King
Guralnick's two-volume biography of Presley is an indispensable modern classic. The focus in the new book is on Parker's side of the relationship, a story that has rarely been told
Guralnick knows the intricacies of this story more than anyone, except perhaps the Colonel and Presley themselves . . . Parker died in 1997 and took some of his secrets with him to the grave, but Guralnick's book offers the most rounded, complex and myth-dispelling understanding of him we are ever likely to get
A grandmaster of American letters
A surprisingly human portrait of the man behind the brash showman's façade . . . Guralnick has delivered a beautifully written and broadly sympathetic portrait of a complex, secretive individual whose loyalty to his sole charge was absolute
In music circles, a new entry in Guralnick's Presley chronicles is practically the equivalent of an update to Robert Caro's series on Lyndon Johnson. Guralnick's exhaustively researched two-volume biography of Presley in the 1990s revolutionised Presley scholarship and remain vital documents
Guralnick's brisk prose, assiduous attention to detail and generous insights make this both an engrossing study of the complex interpersonal dynamics between two outsize personalities and a revealing peek into the making one of rock 'n' roll's biggest acts. Presley fans won't be able to put this down
Guralnick [is] an excellent Elvis historian