Viv Hardwick talks to Gordon Hendricks who has been judged such a good soundalike for Elvis that one of The King's songwriters has given him two precious Presley tunes. The ITV1 Stars In Their Eyes winner is concentrating on a new single and the launch of a stage version of the TV show.

GORDON Hendricks sounds so much like Elvis that the 2005 Stars In Their Eyes ITV1 winner was approached by songwriter Geoff Morrow to record two songs composed for The King himself.

Elvis died before he could make a fifth song penned by Morrow, but now Hendricks has released Where Would I Be just as he takes to the boards in a stage version of Stars In Their Eyes - Live! at Darlington's Civic Theatre.

The 33-year-old barber from Stoke confesses that too much is going on in his life at present to enjoy everything that's happening.

He says: "I think I'm the envy of every Elvis impersonator in the country at the moment especially since he would have recorded my song himself. Geoff's been saying he was waiting for the right singer to come along to finish his work off and then he saw me and I got the contract.

"I'm just waiting for the reaction from radio stations when the singles go out. It's a sad thing really because I won't be able to sit back and see what actually happens because I'll be on the tour and so busy in theatres that I won't know what's going on.

"Geoff, who has written four songs for Elvis, came up to me after The Stars In Their Eyes final on TV and invited me down to his London home. He had three or four songs left over from an Elvis recording session and he gave me two to record. So these are songs that Elvis would have recorded so I'm quite pleased with that."

The other track on the single, which will be featured during the stage show tonight at Darlington and Newcastle's City Hall ((June 9) and York's Grand Opera House (July 3), has the eerily appropriate name of As If I'd Never Been Gone.

However, Hendricks is focusing hard at the moment on turning his six-foot blonde frame into the dark and brooding shape of Elvis. So how are the famous TV 'dry ice' transformations going to take place as Laura Sutton (Celine Dion), Paul Duckworth (Will Young), Justine Riddoch (Anastacia), Karen Virgo (Aretha Franklin) and Tony Scarth (Tom Jones) compete with Hendricks for audience votes?

He says: "The secret behind that I can't really tell you, but what we've got to do is avoid having a live audience sitting around while we get changed. It's done quite cleverly and in order, but the Will Young guy only takes three or four minutes to get ready so he'll come out first and the longest person to come out after getting ready is me.

.

Well, it normally takes me an hour to change into Elvis but we're trying to get it down to around 15 minutes in rehearsals. It's going to be quite a task because I'm blonde and a complete opposite to my character and require make-up, black leather and a wig. It's a complete transformation required."

He admits it is a matter of fingers crossed until last night's opener at Skegness.

"Hopefully this will all work on the tour if not people will be quite angry with me," he jokes.

As a previous grand final winner on TV Hendricks is obviously the favourite at every performance so how is he coping with the pressure?

"The others are heat winners from previous shows. It's put me under a little pressure because they all know I won the final but I'm of the view we're all a team and we just go out and do our best each night." As for his road to becoming the ultimate singing barber, he adds: "I was brought up with a lot of girls in my family and, basically, they brainwashed me into doing Elvis. I was a shy person and didn't do karaoke or anything like that until I was older. Then a guy came up to me in a bar when I was 25 and suggested that I should sing Elvis numbers because I sounded like him. So it just went from there. I didn't start singing as Elvis until about two-and-a-half years ago."

Hendricks is optimistic that he'll become the first Stars In Their Eyes contestant to release a hit single, particularly with the prospect of an album deal if he makes the top 20.

One song that may not make the album is the track Suspicious Minds which helped him to victory this year. Faced with 34 dates of belting out the same song, he jokes: "I think I'll be sick of singing it by the end of the tour."

The second half of the stage show is different because the audience votes for duets between the soundalikes.

Hendricks says: "Potentially I could end up singing with Celine Dion or Cliff or Anastacia believe or not, which is quite frightening, and I'm not looking forward to that at all. One of the songs is YMCA which is making me cringe at the thought of singing it... and we've got a week to learn all the duets."

* Stars In Their Eyes - Live! Plays Darlington's Civic Theatre tonight (01325) 486 555, Newcastle City Hall, 0191-2612606, on June 9 and completes the tour at York's Grand Opera House, 0870 606 3595,

on July 3 .

Published: 26/05/2005