Powers's power to play on the surface before probing beneath is what makes Elvis Remembered worth reading, even if you sometimes have to wade through some completely idle chatter to get there. Really, these chapters read more like conversations than interviews, which could have easily been reigned in with sharper editing, but including expendable chatter like "How's the tea?" reveals her process: Powers gets her subjects comfortable with an amiable presence before diving in to get them to open up about Elvis's good qualities (his extreme generosity; his genuine interest in the problems of those less iconic than himself) and his not-so-great ones (his refusal to ever say he was sorry; his extremely asinine behavior with guns; his drug use). She also knows when to back off on topics that are making her subjects uncomfortable, which may not be the preferred technique of the most probing interviewers, but it's certainly the preferred technique of an empathetic human being.
Powers also had the gumption to interview some fairly controversial figures in Elvis-lore, such as bodyguard Sonny West, who alienated some with his tell-all biography of his former friend and boss, and Larry Geller, Elvis's "spiritualist," who apparently claimed the King had occult powers or something. Despite the sketchy reputations of some of these guys, and Powers reveals some reservations about some of them in her talks with others, she remains a respectful conversationalist during her interviews and always manages to get something interesting out of them. Sometimes the revelations are downright bizarre, as when Elvis's Blue Hawaii co-star Darlene Tompkins reveals that "Colonel" Tom Parker tortured chickens in a carnival sideshow before managing Elvis. Yecch.
