Often much younger women.' Peter: 'He was, but he was looking for younger women to take care of him. But Elvis cast himself in a passive role with women, all of his life.' Eleanor: 'Although, curiously, he was always interested in younger women. 'Women often said, and particularly in later years, that they graduated from the role of girlfriend very quickly into the role of nurse and mother. That was, I think, how it affected him the most. He was shaken by what the death of his mother could portend and the meaning of that success. It was so swift and so much according to what he had genuinely imagined that it might be, that I think he was devastated.

'But the way in which success came to him was so extraordinary. I don't mean to say that he had so simplistic a faith that he thought everything would come out well for him and, you know, he was the only chosen person in the world. I mean, I've never come up with a good phrase for that but I honestly think that it challenged his faith. What long-term impact do you think the loss of his mother had on him? It seemed to haunt him his whole life and affect his relationships with women and everything that happened to him after that.' Peter Guralnick: 'I think that, most of all, it haunted his idea of what his mission on Earth was meant to be - about the justice of the universe. Eleanor Wachtel: 'Peter Guralnick, in the first volume of your biography of Elvis, Last Train to Memphis, closed with a haunting portrait of Elvis in 1958, utterly devastated by the death of his mother. Guralnick talked to the host of The Arts Today, Eleanor Wachtel, about Elvis' vulnerability with the women in his life. The book follows Elvis from the height of his fame in the late '50s, to his early death in 1977.

Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley. In his introduction to Last Train to Memphis Peter Guralnick wrote that his goal as a biographer was no less than to 'rescue Elvis Presley from the dreary bondage of myth, from the oppressive aftershock of cultural significance.' It's a mission that Peter Guralnick continues in the second, darker installment of his Elvis biography.

Last Train to Memphis was a meticulously researched portrait of the young Elvis Presley. In 1994, he published the first of a two-volume biography of Elvis Presley. Peter Guralnick is an author and music critic. E.I.N.'s media monitor coms up with this interview which dates from 04-15-1999, so over a year ago, but it is a nice insight in Elvis' character, so we decided to put it online.

Peter guralnick elvis books