Michael Bartle was, to paraphrase his alter ego, all shook up.
Something was off with his voice. And when you’re been a perfectionist when it came to delivering the perfect Elvis Presley presentation for 36 years, you know you can no longer do it your way.
After 35 years of looking and sounding like The King, Michael Bartle & Blue Suede was over.
That was 2017, Sonoma County Fair, Santa Rosa.
“I was having severe trouble with my voice and couldn’t figure what was going on. There were a lot of doctor visits,” Bartle said.
Diagnosis: spasmodic dysphonia. Basically a weakening of his left vocal fold. Translation: Every so often, Bartle would sing and a word would not come out or part of it would.
“It just made doing the Elvis or Roy Orbison show nearly impossible,” said Bartle, a Novato resident who has played everywhere in Solano County.
“I couldn’t give Elvis or Roy the quality I would want to give. I said ‘That’s it. I’m done.’”
Though disappointed his Elvis impersonation career abruptly ended, Bartle put it in perspective.
“I’m 59 years old. Elvis was 42 when he died … so I was becoming long in the tooth for an Elvis act, anyway,” he said.
The memories were too many to count spanning thousands of shows, mostly in Northern California and Lake Tahoe. Theaters, clubs, service organizations, weddings. Bartle did ’em all.
From 1989 to 1994, he rarely had a weekend without the legendary black pompadour.
“I did a lot of shows,” Bartle said by phone Tuesday morning.
Bartle was the only Elvis impersonator to play the same former Del Webb’s High Sierra room that Presley did in the 1979s.
“That was fun and weird at the same time,” Bartle said, remaining awed by the eternal interest in all that is Elvis.
“I’ve been to Graceland several times and amazed at the amount of people and where they all come from,” Bartle said.
There has been a weeding out of many Elvis impersonators, he said, recalling the famed “Flying Elvi” that would parachute onto the Vegas strip. Bartle was offered the gig, but his wife put the hammer to that.
“When they called she said, ‘I’ll stop you now. He won’t do that,’” Bartle said with a chuckle.
Because there was an Elvis impersonator on every corner “nobody was getting rich from it,” Bartle said. “We were inundated with impersonators.”
Only about 30 percent of the impersonators did it full-time beyond doing kids’ parties or showing up at a pig roast, Bartle said.
“I took it seriously and did the best show I could,” he said. “And I always tried to have a quality band.”
Granted, “there are still a lot of Elvis acts today and a lot of really talented young people,” Bartle said. “They have a bit of an easier time putting it all together. When I started, there wasn’t the internet. The only video you could find was ‘Elvis, the Hawaii Concert.’”
When it came to Presley’s iconic costumes, “when we were making my outfits, we were grasping at finding pictures of those same outfits,” Bartle said.
One of Presley’s costumers now has a company that has a template for Elvis’ exact wardrobe, Bartle said.
“The exact patterns of the embroidered suits are by a guy who embroidered Elvis’ suits. When I was younger, we didn’t have that,” Bartle said.
Presley’s popularity should get a bump with now-being-filmed major yet-named motion picture starring Tom Hanks as Col. Tom Parker.
Though wary of “another film about Elvis,” Bartle said Hanks “has a habit of becoming every role he’s hired to do. It has potential if Tom Hanks is there.”
And Elvis as a wedding officiant? Bartle did only one.
“It feels out of place when I do it. I did have fun doing it for a couple that were Elvis fans. But I didn’t want to make a career of doing weddings,” Bartle said. “I’ve officiated other weddings, but not as Elvis.”
Bartle just never felt comfortable doing his Elvis off stage. A microphone, a band, the songs … that was his comfort zone.
“I was really terrible at doing an off-stage Elvis,” he said. “I hated it.”
Though Bartle came to grips with ending his time as Presley and Orbison — “I could do the songs in another key, but I didn’t want to change the key they did the songs in” — he found he could do his own material.
There was a precedent. It was about 20 years ago and Bartle recorded his own CD of his tunes and some songs written by a friend.
“I did it and forgot about it,” he said. “I sold enough to make my money back. I still have a box of the damn things in the garage.”
After scrapping the Presley show, Bartle figured he would return to just being himself, recording 15 tunes and releasing “Michael Bartle: Hey Blues” earlier this year.
“I don’t think my voice sounds like Elvis, but I don’t mind if someone hears Elvis in there,” he said. “That makes me feel good. But then, when I did Elvis, I didn’t hear Elvis in my voice.”
While his days as Presley and Orbison may be done, Bartle said there’s still talent to be squeezed.
“I’ve toyed with the idea of a Johnny Cash tribute,” he said.
For more, visit michaelbartle.com.
