Leo Days was a Top Finalist in the 2008 Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist Contest presented by Elvis Presley Enterprises.
He’s performed in France, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and Holland.
He’s headlined in casinos, theaters, corporate events, festivals and on major cruise lines.
He- is Elvis Tribute Artist Leo Days.
Q – Leo, you started singing Elvis songs when you were only 3! Who was playing that music? Your parents?
A – I would sing along to the videos and VHS tapes that my parents had and records.
There were Elvis records on the record player sometime when I was a little kid.
I remember watching, it was April of 1983 the 10th anniversary if the airing of the Aloha From Hawaii Special. It was a special on VH-1 called ‘Detroit Remembers Elvis’. I remember watching that. I think we probably recorded it and watched it over and over through the years.
That was basically my introduction to Elvis watching the Aloha From Elvis Special.
I had cassette tapes of Elvis records around the house when I was a kid. My family had those as well. So, it was really just singing along with a VHS tape or a cassette tape.
Then when I was at a family reunion I would kind of sing the songs from those records or cassette tapes in the same order.
I would basically memorize VHS tapes and then perform them at family functions. (laughs).Strange.
Q – That leads perfectly into my next question. By the age of 15 you were really hooked on Elvis.
Did anybody comment on this passionate interest of yours in Elvis?
A – I mean nobody knew. I didn’t tell anybody in school about it. I was kind of a loner. So, I didn’t really have anyone to tell. But, nobody really knew it until I was a Senior in high school that I even did that.
I started when I was 15 playing basically bowling alleys and every once in awhile someone would say, ‘ Hey, my Mom or Grandma saw you this weekend. What does that mean?’I’d just say, ‘I don’t know.’
It was just something I did on weekends. It wasn’t really part of my life. Nobody knew about it until a couple of months before I graduated high school.
They had a talent contest at the high school and the people in charge of the contest found out that I had been performing.
At that point I had already opened for the Drifters, the Contours and a handful of other 50’s and 60’s groups.
I had been working professionally for over 2 years. They had found that out and they had to create a separate category for me at the talent contest.
I did my Elvis performance and it was the first time anybody had seen it or really knew about it.
There was prize money but they said that wouldn’t be fair for you.
So, they created a professional category and basically paid me. I don’t even remember what the amount was to do my one song.
Q – And what was that one song?
A – I did ‘Heartbreak Hotel.’
Q – The audience must have gone wild.
A – Yeah. It was difficult to hear the tracks a lot of times unless you come in and plug in a band at a high school talent contest.
So, it was all tracks.
I walked out and I had the Gold Lame suit thing on and I had my hair all done up.
I was surprised at the reaction. It was like they’re either going to applaud or laugh but they loved it.
People were saying things to me when I was walking in the hallway after that.
Everybody knew at that point.
Q – What were they saying to you? ‘Hey Elvis?’
A – Yeah, they would say things like that or they would stop and talk to me about their experience with Elvis.
A lot of times it was , ‘My Mom loves Elvis. My grandma loves Elvis’.
I had more conversations in those last couple weeks of school than I probably had in the entire three and a half years prior to that.
Q – I take it you never did get to see Elvis perform in concert.
A – No. He died 3 years before I was born.
I will say that in the period I was born in or maybe it was just the family I was born into, the feeling and weight of his overall death was still very palpable in American culture from as early as I can remember which is probably around 1983.
So, I will say the overall weight of his death on American culture was still very heavy in the early 80’s.
Q – When did you have this idea that maybe you could make a living doing an Elvis tribute?
A – I would do karaoke. My parents bought a karaoke machine. I was 14 at the time.
So, inquiries were made at local nightclubs to see if I could get in to do karaoke.
They said he has to be out by 9 P.M. and he has to be accompanied by someone who is 21 or older and he will be fine.
So, I would do karaoke at different places and after I would sing a song people would come up to me and say, ‘I’d like you to perform or do shows.’
I didn’t really know what that meant. I had to figure out pretty quickly what a show was.
It wasn’t long before the clubs were hiring me.
The way it worked out was I doing the 6 P.M. to 8 P.M. on a Saturday night.
Elvis appealed to an older crowd anyway and I’d be out of the bar by 9 0’clock.
The bars would make money at a time when they normally don’t make money . So, I wound up getting booked quite a bit.
The very first professional gig I ever did was I entered a talent contest at a county fair where I’m from and I won it.
They approached me afterwards and said, ‘We have 2 hours for the next few days in the Beer tent from 6 P.M. to 8 P.M. Can you do that?
I said, ‘Yeah’.
So, I went home that night and I had to get tracks together.
So, in the next 2 days I did 2 shows and that led me to getting booked at another show and another one and another one. I was booked all around the state.
Then the high school got in touch with people in California and I started doing State Fairs and one thing led to another and I started doing Legends in Concert.
They started in 1983 I guess but I started working for them in 2008. They hired me for the first time then and I left them and worked for Cirque du Soleil for a little while.
Right after that I went back to Legends in Concert. I was working for them in Myrtle Beach for about 7 years.
Q – I always thought that Legends in Concert started at the MGM in Las Vegas.
A – I’m not sure where it started. For awhile it was at the Flamingo and Harrah’s but the show has been running in one theatre or another on the Strip since 1983, up until about 6 years ago(2020) when they lost their residency in Vegas.
Q – You’ve performed in Europe. What do Elvis fans think of your act?
A – I hope they enjoy it. It’s difficult in Europe. Sometimes we’re over there and we don’t see the fans. There’s a language barrier when you’re overseas. I mean the people seem to enjoy it. Obviously they come out in droves to see the show. Elvis is a Big Thing over there as well.
Q – As if performing Elvis isn’t enough you also do a Michael Jackson tribute. Why Michael Jackson?
A – I was probably 2 when ‘Thriller’ came out.
I remember him winning all the awards. Michael Jackson was the biggest star when I was growing up.
I did chores and the first thing I bought with my own money was the ‘Bad’ album in 1987.
Q – Is the demand bigger for an Elvis tribute or a Michael Jackson tribute?
A – It’s definitely bigger for Elvis. The Elvis tribute thing is a whole underworld in and of itself that exists.
There’s not really that for the Michael Jackson tribute.
Tribute artists are working but there aren’t a ton of ‘em whereas with the Elvis thing there’s probably thousands of Elvis tribute people and a lot of ‘em are working.
I would say that the opportunity and demand for Elvis is still much, much larger but, also the pool of Elvis’s is much, much larger.
There’s not really a lot of guys that do Michael Jackson singing and dancing at the same time.
There’s a lot of guys that dance but lip- sync to the tracks and there’s guys lip-synching to their own tracks.
But, there’s probably only 2 or 3 ‘live’ Michael Jackson shows in the world.
Q – When you’re performing, are you primarily using tracks or do you have a band that travels with you?
A – Primarily I hire bands regionally to keep costs down. Like I will send charts and reference tracks to a band.
If I’m working in Boston I’ll send charts to the band I have in that region or if I’m in the Mid-west I have a band or two in that area or on the West Coast I have a different band that I use. I have several bands that I use regionally just because of the budget of the particular venue I’m playing.
©Gary James
