LISSA ALEXANDER
reporter@pqbnews.com
The first song that moved Darren Lee was Elvis’ Hound Dog, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last time he’d dance to The King.
Lee has made a career as an Elvis tribute artist, winning the World Elvis Competition in Memphis, Tennessee in 1997 and the next year, the Tri-Cities Entertainer of the Year. After 11 consecutive years playing Elvis in Las Vegas (A world record up until recently) he moved back to Canada in 2011, and had twin girls. This year he was awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for excellence in his field.
He’ll be performing at the Parksville Legion Saturday, August 3 for a dinner and show beginning at 6:30 p.m.
Lee said when he first listened to Hound Dog as a three-year-old in Edmonton, it was the best thing he had ever heard, and he recalls rocking out with a tennis racket to the song. When he was 10 his teacher, a Catholic nun, taught him to play the guitar and he began to learn Elvis Presley tunes, and other rock favourites of that time.
By 1988 he won second place in an Elvis contest and snagged a role in a Canadian touring Elvis show. By 1994 he had won another Elvis contest which had him performing around Australia for eight months.
Lee took his third crack at the World Elvis Competition in the United States in 1997 (at which he had placed in years past) and succeeded in taking the title among 397 other competitors.
And in 1998, he was handed the Tri-Cities Entertainer of the Year award.
“People thought it was a big deal, you know this guy from Canada going to the States and winning this big Elvis thing,” Lee said.
In 2000, he made his way to Las Vegas to begin the American Superstar’s show at the Stratosphere Hotel & Casino, a place he would call home for the next 11 years.
There he performed six nights a week and said it was quite the “grind.” Another Elvis tribute artist called Big Pete has now surpassed his consecutive record, but Lee’s not bothered.
“That’s fine, he can have the record,” he said. “No, Vegas was not the highlight of my life.”
Lee and his wife moved back to the Lower Mainland in 2011, and Lee has been putting on shows throughout the area while having fun with his two-year-old daughters.
But his career is about to take another turn toward something Lee’s been envisioning for six years. He and his wife took a trip to Maui in 2007 and caught a luau, a Hawaiian celebration with entertainment and food.
“The ocean was the backdrop and I was like, ‘you know what, this is where we need to be, this is just the best place on earth’,” he said.
Lee has now secured a deal where he’ll be running his own show beginning December 20, and he hopes to spend the rest of his life there with his wife and children.
In the meantime he’s hoping to do some more shows on the Island, and is thrilled to be performing his first show in Parksville Aug 3.
He has performed many times in Courtenay, Campbell River and Port Alberni to enthusiastic crowds, and recently he had a great show in Nanaimo, he said.
Lee said he’s not sure why he’s seen such great success as an Elvis tribute artist, but it may be because he doesn’t try to be Elvis, he said.
“It’s being myself and then having the character come out, and you go ‘Wow he’s a great Elvis’, and the whole time I wasn’t even doing Elvis.”
Tickets for the show in Parksville are $40, including a Hawaiian-themed meal. Doors open at 6 p.m., dinner is at 6:30 and the show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are available from the Legion, located at 146 W Hirst Ave. For more information call the Legion at 250-248-6842.
