Full Service, Love!

I am indebted to a regular reader of The World’s Worst Records, who has asked to remain anonymous, for pointing me in the direction of today’s performer – Amy Beth Parravano – and her album Full Service Love.

 

Although Full Service Love is an album of Amy Beth’s originals she’s better known as one of the world’s very few female Elvis impersonators: she cheekily markets herself as Elvis’ Lil’ Sister although, to the best of my knowledge, Elvis’ beloved mother Gladys didn’t have an affair with anyone called Parravano. In character she's performed worldwide at Elvis fan festivals and, judging by the cover of this album, makes a pretty mean Ms Elvis.

 

Her biography reads like a who’s who of Nashville: she’s worked with Kris Kristofferson, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Rodriquez and Joey Welz (of Bill Haley and his Comets); she has performed all across the United States and internationally, has recorded ten albums and produces and hosts her own television show "Amy Beth Presents". A fan of 50s music, especially Elvis, in the 80's she started her own record label, Peridot Records, and began releasing her original material. She claims to have had had a national chart record with her song North Hampton Line (although nothing appears on the Billboard charts), which resulted in her signing to Caprice Records where she ‘had a string of chart records on the US and overseas’ – which again I can find no evidence for. Her official biography also claims that Amy Bath was ‘inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame’: the official list of the 380 or so inductees so far fails to include her name. It appears that Amy Beth (or AmyBeth as she is credited when not doing her Elvis schtick) likes to be a bit fast and loose when it comes to the truth, or at least her Elvis’ Lil’ Sister persona does.

 

In her ‘real’ life AmyBeth is a married woman of 60 with two fully grown children and is currently a pianist at the Roger Williams Park Carousel in Providence, Rhode Island. You can catch her there every Saturday, from 2pm to 4pm, where she plays ragtime piano, nickelodeon style, dressed in a sequined waistcoat and top hat. She’s appeared as an extra in a number of movies, including Underdog, 27 Dresses and Hachiko, and even has her own local access cable TV show, the aforementioned “AmyBeth Presents”. She’s written a horror film, Broom Ride to Salem, which was screened as part of the Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival, and has auditioned for American’s Got Talent, dressed as one of her other characters Amy the Mime and singing the Mamas and the Papas song Dream a Little Dream of Me, although quite how a mime is supposed to sing I don't rightly know. Still, she’s certainly a busy lady and, by all accounts, quite a character.

 

Anyway, for your enjoyment here’s the painful Hero For the 90s, from Amy Beth’s 2008 album Full Service Love.