Renelvis

Here's a story I wrote for Flip Magazine, the best Filipino magazine to come in the 21st century (so far). One of the most unintendedly weird people I met and I ahd a fun tiem writing this. If you want more Renelvis stories, just ask me. And I have all his CDs


Renato Escarcha is the man least likely to be your Elvis Presley
impersonator. He is on the heavy side to start with, wears glasses
and has unruly kinky hair.

Onstage he reminds you of Roy Orbison and a Larry (of the Three Stooges) haircut. Sure, he joined some combos back in the early 1970s but when he migrated to the United States, his only claim to fame was being the high school teacher of Gabby
Concepcion and Efren Reyes Jr. at Aquinas High School in Quezon City.

But don't be cruel to a heart that's cool. In October 1993, the Charlotte Observer called Escarcha or Renelvis, "The world's greatest Philippine-born Charlotte-based Elvis." Not much competition there and perhaps the Observer was being sarcastic but Renelvis took that "TWGPBCBE" tag in all his concert promotions.

In 1994, Creative Loafing, another Charlotte magazine, described him as one of the best reasons to move to Charlotte. Also in that year, Creative Loafing called him "the public figure with the snappiest clothes."

By 2000, Renelvis was inducted in the Elvi* Hall of Fame, up there with El Vez (the Spanish Elvis who brought you "Ain't Nothin' But A Chihuahua), Cybelvis (the only Elvi who can also impersonate Marilyn Monroe at the same time) and Ray Kaminski, the Elvi who appears in the MTV spots. By that time, Renelvis started calling himself "The greatest Philippine-born Elvis impersonator."

Renelvis has appeared in about 100 concerts from LA to New York, and has about 50,000 members of his fan's club. He was described as the spiritual heir of Elvis , that is if the King is already dead.

Even Escarcha was surprised at his transformation as an Elvi. He studied to become a priest and as a seminarian playing in a bands covering Pat Boone and the Lettermen. Two years to becoming a priest, he decided to become a musician. He formed a band called the "Eyeglasses" (can't afford contacts) together with cousin Buddy Castillo, who was then a rising radio star. When they disbanded, Escarcha decided to become a high school teacher and the ex-priest married an ex-nun, Ranzie Quitoriano.

After teaching Gabby Concepcion at Aquinas, Escarcha decided to migrate to the US in 1978 asking, "do you want fries with that?" at McDonalds. In 1985, Mary Josephine Escarcha was born. She has Down's Syndrome.

"She brought me all my luck," Escarcha said. It was luck indeed that in 1992 after a few months serenading the dim sum crowd in a Chinese restaurant with the 200 Elvis songs in his repertoire, the Elvis stamp was introduced by the United States Postal Service. While the Elvis fans were made to choose between the two Elvis portraits to be used, the local media decided to feature Renelvis.

"That's when I started to become known nationwide," Escarcha recalled. "I did some big shows in Los Angeles, Texas and West Virginia."

His biggest show was the first Lollapalooza held at the Blockbuster Pavilion in Charlotte in 1993.

"The crowd was like over 10,000 on the side stage and just before I performed came this heavy metal band called "Shark Attack." The seven members were playing heavy rock and the people enjoyed them. The band was using hammer jacks, junk metals. I was at the backstage and I started having this headache as I asked myself, How will the people react when I come up on stage by myself and karaoke pa," Escarcha said.

He was surprised that they warmed up to him and didn't want him to stop. "I was given only 30 minutes to perform so I stopped because I still have to go to my regular job where I just sneaked out, my excuse being that I have to go to the doctor," he said**

There was no stopping Renelvis since then. He has played for almost anybody -- from a gathering of Filipino doctors in Missouri to the post-punk bars in Charlotte. He remembered playing in a Charlotte club called "Milestone" frequented by tattooed skinheads. The house band was known as "Antiseen" and since Renelvis was alone, he decided to be accompanied by the band.

"The band was out of tune and out of synch but I just did my part singing "Suspicious Minds" and to my surprise, people still enjoyed the act and they told me I was great," he said

In the crowd at that time was the legendary underground movie director Dorne Pentes who decided to include Renelvis in his classic, "The Closest Thing to Heaven." The US magazine Film Threat named the movie among the "Top Ten Movies in the 1990s You Never Saw." But Pentes was criticized by Charlotte residents for cutting Renelvis's
cameo.

"I cut his sequence out of utter stupidity," Pente admitted in Film Threat and said the later version brought back Renelvis.

Probably the biggest tribute was his best student, Gabby Concepcion, coming to the States and starting a life as a lounge singer. How do you explain this Renelvis phenomenon?

Escarcha said that he may not look like Elvis but he can definitely sing like The King. "When I perform and go up the stage for the first time, people usually laugh at me. But then I start singing my first song and I could see their eyes amazed and unbelieving that I was the one singing. Then they wait for the second song to see if I am really singing. When they knew that it was live, they began to enjoy the
song and would start laughing until the end," he said.

Renelvis has done four tribute albums. His favorite song is "Lisa, I Wanna Be With
You" which he first recorded in 1988 in Studio East, the studio where James Brown recorded his "Papa Got a Brand New Bag."***

His second CD is a collaboration with Buddy Castillo, who has since retired from showbiz in 1973 and is now an executive for Trianon International, a pharmaceutical company in Makati. One of the songs is "Elvis Still Number One," the lyrics are titles of Elvis movies.****

His third album can only be found in the Internet (mp3.com/Renelvis). His 4th, which came out last year, and is the eeriest. Imagine Elvis ruminating about the September 11: (I wonder if Elvis was here today, what he would do/ But I can assure you that he would do something, from "Elvis on Terrorism")

Part of what Elvis would do, at least this incarnation, is to return to the Philippines to spread the gospel against the War on Terrorism.

He will launch his album, E-Cousins, with his cousin and long-time collaborator Buddy Castillo in the Philippines this December.

It will be his first time to perform as Renelvis in the Philippines. "I have conquered the U.S. but I don't know how my countrymen will accept me."

Well, Paul Simon sang it once and we will sing it again, I have reason to believe we all will be received in Gracepark.

*Elvis impersonators are called Elvi. In 1990, T-Bone Burnett once said, "In 1997, when Elvis died, there were 3,500 Elvis impersonators in the United States. Today, there are 35,000. If present trends continue, by the year 2015, one in three people.
**He was working as a night watchman in the Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte. He was in the shuttle bus in 1991 when the father of "Moody Brothers" rode on the bus. Escarcha gave Dwight Moody his demo tape of ten songs including "Don't Drink and Drive." Moody was not impressed and asked for more. Escarcha gave him Elvis Can't Help Falling In Love and Moody's mood changed. You can make money out of this. His fellow watchmen at the hospital coined Renelvis. He still didn't know where Ren came from.
***"Lisa" is about Elvis meeting his daughter in Heaven and is the only Elvis tribute song recorded in eight languages. "I used to teach to foreign students and I challenged my students to translate Lisa in their language so it came out in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Greek, Japanese, Chinese, Filipino and English."
****There were 33 Elvis movies, here cramped in one song: "If you Love Me Tender, I'll be loving you. I'm gonna do the Jailhouse Rock for I'm a King Creole, I've been a G.I. Blues watching that Flaming Star. I'm so Wild in the Country, blue as Blue Hawaii, and I will always Follow That Dream. I'm Kid Galahad and I like a lot of Girls,Girls, Girls. Well, it happened at the World's Fair one time, then I had some Fun In Acapulco, we're Kissin' Cousins, like Frankie and Johnny, having a Paradise Hawaiian Style. I used to Spin Out and just Easy Come Easy Go, then I had some Double Trouble cooking Clambake so then I was Stay Away Joe. Viva Las Vegas, I'm just a Roustabout, and I'm a Girl Happy while you Tickle Me, Harum Scarum. Speedway, you Live a Little Love a Little Charro. The Trouble With Girls is that they Change of Habits, so That's The Way It Is, Now Elvis On Tour, and then after each show, Elvis Has Left The Building." Whew!

Renelvis has also came out with his own line of Elvis inspired jumpsuit kits with names like Peacock, Tiger, Old Indian, Dragon, and American Eagle. Rhinestones but no metallic stars. These mess with the perspiring, he said.