ANYBODY prepared to take on a madcap journey has to be ready for some madcap situations.

Still, when Charlie Connelly decided to travel the world and explore the Elvis phenomenon, it's unlikely he ever expected it would entail doing a duet live on Uzbekistan television with one of the country's foremost pop stars.

But, thanks to a series of chance developments and being able to string a few chords together, Connelly found himself blasting through a rendition of 'Blue Moon of Kentucky' with ex-boyband star Karen Gafurdjanov (think of an Uzbek Ronan Keating, but with more credibility) in an Elvisthemed café in Tashkent.

"Elvis and rock 'n' roll in general were banned there back in the days of the Soviet Union and I think the night I was on the telly they were probably wishing it still was, " explains Connelly. "I doubt if it was the highlight of Karen's musical career but it was surely the highpoint of mine."

Lots of people adore Elvis, but not many would take off around the world to places as far-flung as Finland, Israel, Hawaii and the old Soviet Union to track down Elvis aficionados.

"I've always been a fan, " admits Connelly, "but never an obsessive one. When I was a kid my dad had a record player and when I used to run into the room I'd shake the floor and make the needle bounce all over the place, so eventually my dad sold all his records. All that was left was the best of Elvis, a Boney M album and James Last Plays the Hits of The Beatles Tijuana Style or something. So I think I picked the right one from that trio.

"But what fascinated me is this year is 30 years since his death and he's as big if not bigger than when he was alive. He is the greatest cultural phenomenon that the western world has ever seen.

Other stars have died young, like James Dean or Marilyn Monroe, but none have had the same cultural impact or legacy that he had."

The King, though, isn't strictly the focus of Connelly's book; he is more of a travelling companion as Connelly immerses himself in the world of Elvis devotees, falling from one mishap to the next in a Brysonesque travelogue.

"Travel writing is a weird thing - I'm not going to be able to go to Madrid and say something about it that hasn't been said before, " says Connelly. "I think you find more interesting things in out-ofthe-way places. And wherever you go there is an interesting story or somebody interesting. So it's not a book about Elvis - there are many people more qualified than me to write biographies and things. I was more intrigued by the legacy he left. For a guy who only left America twice in his life, to have a global following is amazing.

I'm fascinated by those who are obsessed with him, all the people he reached."

He may have reached some of the characters that Connelly meets on his travels a little too well. He encounters a man in Scotland who makes Presley tartan near the town where Elvis's great-greatgreat-great-greatgreat grandparents were married, a Finnish linguistics professor who records Elvis songs in Latin and ancient Greek, a German fan club that stages candlelit marches to Elvis Presley Platz in Friedberg to celebrate his time served there on military duty and housewives who carry around pictures of the shrines they have erected in their houses.

But far from rolling his eyes at this kind of behaviour Connelly seems quite enamoured with the vast majority of the fans he encounters, even going so far as to dedicate the book to one of them, a 70-year-old woman called Anita whom he met at an Elvis Festival in Wales. She was a foundling raised in children's homes and borstal who ran away and put her last sixpence in a jukebox to hear an Elvis song; she credits him with giving her the strength to get through tough times.

"She's amazing. That festival happened to be on her birthday and when Jerry Presley, who is Elvis's second cousin, presented her with a cake and sang 'Happy Birthday' to her I've never seen anyone look so happy. I just found myself invigorated by her devotion."

Oh come on, surely some of these fans are missing one of their suede shoes? "I really liked these people. They're very genuine."

Even Reverend Dorian Baxter, an Elvis impersonator kicked out of his church in Canada because his superiors thought he was preaching that people should worship Elvis?

"A lot of people seem to get a lot out of Elvis when they have had knocks in life. He came home one weekend to find his wife had run away with another man, taken his two daughters and emptied the house. In life you don't get bigger knocks than that. But he came back stronger and had this huge court battle to win his daughters back. And he said Elvis helped him through that. He had this 14-hour motorbike journey at the time to go to see his daughters for an hour once a week and he'd listen to Elvis on his headphones en route. He said that Elvis saved his life. It's just such a bizarre concept that this dead pop star is saving lives.

People take this spirituality from it."

Not that Elvis would have appreciated any of the nigh-on religious fervour that surrounds him. He once commented that "the only king was Jesus Christ" and was embarrassed at being seen as some kind of musical deity.

Nonetheless the church of Elvis seems to recognise none of the usual boundaries in society. Upon hearing that Connelly was planning a trip to an Elvis-themed café in Israel, a middle-aged couple in Germany gave him a poster to take with him for the owners.

"Being an idiot, I didn't realise the significance of it till I got to Israel, " admits Connelly. "It was only as I handed it over to the owner and saw how amazed he was with it that it struck me what a nice moment it was. This middleaged couple in Germany sending a signed poster to a young guy in Israel that they had never met before, and given the history between the two countries. . . on the poster they had written, 'To the Elvis fans of Israel, Elvis united people like the politicians never could. From the Elvis fans in Germany.' And I thought that's exactly it. 'Course I had been carrying it around for a few weeks without grasping that, but I realised then that it was exactly what I was looking for in the journey."

So is he any closer to understanding what is at the root of the Elvis phenomenon?

"In the end, it still just comes down to the music. They're great records - it's like the impact of punk. But you have to multiply it a couple of hundred times. He invented rock 'n' roll and that changed the world. That's the impact of those songs, especially the early recordings at Sun Studio.

They still sound fresh as the day they were recorded and I don't think there's many types of music where that is the case. Are people going to be listening to Britney Spears half a century down the line and going 'wow'?"

'In Search Of Elvis: A Journey To Find The Man Beneath The Jumpsuit' by Charlie Connolly, is published by LittleBrown

Elvis lives!

Elvis Priestly After the Anglican church frowned on the Reverend Dorian Baxter adopting an Elvis persona when preaching, they banned him from every pulpit in Ontario.

Not to worry. Baxter simply set up his own church - the Church of Christ the King, Graceland, an independent Anglican church - and incorporates Elvis songs into his sermons.

Schmelvis Apparently Elvis has Jewish heritage, but Colonel Parker recommended that he keep it to himself. Dan Hartal in Quebec thought it would be a good idea to inject this hidden side into his impersonation act. Known as Schmelvis, he is indisputably (well, probably) the world's leading Jewish Elvis impersonator. No 'Heartbreak Hotel' for him, he prefers to sing of the "Jerusalem Hotel" which is situated "down at the end of Jaffa Street".

Planet Presley When Elvis died in August 1977, there were 185 Elvis impersonators in the world. In 2005, there were 186,000.

Should that rate of growth continue, in roughly 40 years' time one in four people on the planet will be an Elvis impersonator.

Latin Elvis No, not a hipshaking Brazilian, but rather Finnish professor of literature Jukka Ammondt, who has recorded albums of Elvis's music in Latin, which rather brilliantly turns 'It's Now or Never' into 'Nunc hic aut numquam' and 'Can't Help Falling in Love' into 'Non adamere non possum'. His latest CD has seen him move onto Elvis songs in Sumerian.