Careless Love

Peter Guralnick · first published 1998 · ISBN 9780316332972

The second volume of the Elvis biography picks up in 1958 after Elvis was drafted and follows him through his decline and death in 1977. Guralnick details the colonel's manipulation, the rise of RCA's star-making machinery, the decline in musical quality, and Elvis's own passivity in the face of mediocre material. The book is not a redemption story but a tragedy of talent squandered by forces outside his control and his own inability to resist them.