Capturing the essence of Elvis on stage - Hastings date

But it is the 1970s that he loves best, the era, he believes, when Elvis was actually at his finest.

“I go right from the start, and in the first half I try to fit in as much as I can, and I do a few songs from each bit, and I love the 50s stuff but I just can't wait to get to the 70s. I think that by that time music had progressed and the songs were a lot better and the music was just so much more powerful. In the 50s a lot of singers were putting on a voice in a way and I think they were trying to find their own voice, including Elvis. He was trying to find his own style but then he matured and I think in the 70s he was the best he ever was.”

Sadly, of course, it was in the 1970s that the world lost him: “It was addiction and it was a vicious cycle. He was doing non-stop shows and it needed to change but that is easier said than done. He was surrounded by people who laughed at all his jokes. He was surrounded by yes men and that didn’t help. He was just in that vicious circle.”

Dates coming up for Ben include November 5 at 7.30pm at The White Rock Theatre, Hastings.

Ben recalls: “I first started listening to Elvis in the car with my dad. It's my dad’s generation. He is 80 now and they had the best music. It was after the war. You had skiffle and then you had Frank Sinatra and then it was rock ‘n’ roll and I think that rock ‘n’ roll is the best music. But actually it was songs like Unchained Melody that really got me into it and I remember just thinking that this guy's voice was operatic. I started listening more. My dad had a tape of Elvis and my dad had a guitar as well. He tried to learn it but didn't really get on with it. It just sat in the corner and I started picking it up.

“But music-wise it was not Blue Suede Shoes and the rock ‘n’ roll songs that first got me. It was more the powerful songs like Unchained Melody and American Trilogy. But then when I learned more about him, you realise that Elvis came from rags to riches from this little place in Mississippi to worldwide stardom and that he revolutionised music.

“But then by the 60s he was getting left behind. But then he woke up to it and you had the 1968 comeback special. The movies he was making, he was one day a racing car driver and then the next day he was a helicopter pilot. I loved Elvis but I thought that the movies were awful and it was so good that he realised he was getting left behind and that he needed to get back to music.”