I’ve been an Elvis fan ever since I was a little boy, four and five years old. That’s pretty much all I ever wanted to listen to. My sister and my mother used to tell stories about how when Elvis came on the radio I’d jump up on the coffee table and start dancin’ and singin’.

I grew up not well-off. I came from a troubled background, so just gettin’ through every day was pretty much a life, you know? I really didn’t have much of a hope of a future so I looked more short-term. I mean, I left my mother’s house when I was 13 years old and I basically took care of myself and worked my way through my teenage years. I worked at flea markets and then, from working in a flea market, to working in many flea markets — I built businesses.

I started out selling women’s fashions on the weekends at the Englishtown, N.J., flea market for a guy, and then over the years that I was doing that I grew a bond with him and we expanded it into retail stores, then we went into wholesale, and then we took it on the road and went to Florida. I learned the hard way how to make things happen. And pretty much that’s what I do everyday, is make things happen.

My current fiancee, when I started dating her — I don’t wait for things to happen. I make them happen because if you wait for something to happen, it’s never gonna happen. And she didn’t believe me, but everything I said would happen, happened.

The Elvis thing all started in karaoke, back in like 1989. I would go to karaoke bars and sing, and that’s what I sang: Elvis. One thing led to another and I wound up buying a jumpsuit for a Halloween party — a costume contest — and I won first place. Over the years I just kept gettin’ more outfits and repertoire and just polishing it all. I’ve won awards, I’ve won contests, I’ve performed all over the country, in the Caribbean, on cruise ships. It turned out that I have had a very blessed life.

It always brings me joy, any time I get to perform. The more fun they have, the more fun I get to have. Here I am, I’m paying tribute to the largest icon ever, in history.

I do all my own vocals — and I have fun. I’ve done it over 20 years already. My dreams really are just to continue doing it as long as I can. I just have to keep focused on it and, you know, stay with it, because there’s not much more that I want to do.

I’ve seen a lot of things over the years, I’ve been a lot of places, so now it’s kind of, “All right, I just wanna coast along and enjoy the life” — because life is too short.

It’s pretty much just keep my head up and keep going forward with what I’m doin’ and bringin’ joy to somebody. That’s all I can hope for.

Press [CMD left arrow - Mac] or [CTRL left arrow - Windows] to return to image