A coveted pair of blue suede shoes worn by Elvis Presley were recently sold for the eye-watering fee of £120,000 by auctioneers Henry Aldridge & Son in Devizes on June 28th. The footwear was expected to fetch between £100,000 and £120,000.
The king of rock ‘n’ roll originally acquired the shoes following his performance of ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ by Carl Perkins on his self-titled debut album. Prsley famously wore the signature footwear during appearances and interviews throughout the 1950s.
They made a notable appearance on the Steve Allen television show in the US, where he performed ‘Hound Dog’. After being drafted into the US Army, Presley gifted the shoes to a friend. The shoes were sold at a price of £95,000 with fees and VAT adding up to £120,000.
The auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said the “iconic” shoes” are what “you think of immediately when you talk about Elvis Presley” and “transcend popular culture” because they “are an exceptional piece of show business, music, and popular culture memorabilia.”
He continued: “When Elvis joined up for the American army, he had a get-together at Graceland. Elvis called some of these people upstairs and was giving away some of the clothes he didn’t think he’d need or want when he came back from the army. The gentleman concerned was Alan Fortas, Elvis’s branch manager and a friend of his.”
Prior to now, the shoes had been on display at various museums, with Aldridge explaining that they had not broken their direct ownership lineage from Presley himself. He also said that their authenticity had been verified by one of the singer’s close friends Jimmy Velvet.
‘Blue Suede Shoes‘ was originally written by Perkins in 1955, and was inspired by an incident involving Johnny Cash. Cash told Perkins about a fellow airman in the military who had referred to his regulation shoes as “blue suede shoes.” The phrase stuck with Perkins, and he developed the song’s concept around it. A mink coat previously owned by Presley was sold at the auction last year for £128,000.
Meanwhile, the singer’s Graceland property was set to be auctioned in May, but a Tennessee judge agreed to grant a temporary injunction to prevent this from happening following the lawsuit the singer’s granddaughter Riley Keough filed claiming the auction was “fraudulent”.
Presley purchased Graceland in 1957 while at the height of his fame and lived there until his passing in 1977. Following his death, it turned into a museum in 1982, honouring the legacy of ‘The King’ and has grown into one of the most notable tourism hubs in America with 600,000 fans making the journey to Graceland on an annual basis.
