Elvis impersonator puts on blue suede shoes and clocks up 50 hours

He knew it was now or never. So he put on his blue suede shoes. And after 50 hours he felt all shook up.

Okay, enough of the really bed references to Elvis Presley hit songs. What you really need to know is that on Saturday an Elvis impersonator from Norway smashed the world record for the number of hours of non-stop singing of Elvis songs.

Previous record smashed by seven hours

Kjell Elvis, whose real name is Kjell Henning Bjornestad, belted out tunes from the King of Rock n Roll for a staggering 50 hours, 50 minutes and 50 seconds at a bar in the Norwegian capital of Oslo.

In doing so, he smashed the previous world record by a mammoth seven hours. The previous holder of the exalted title was a German by the name of Thomas ‘Curtis’ Gaethje, who held the title for more than 16 years.

Impersonator had no time to be lonesome tonight

Kjell Elvis began his marathon effort at 8am on Thursday morning, local time – which just happens to be the same as SA time.

He rocked and rolled and shimmied and shook for two days and two nights. In the early hours of Saturday morning he passed the previous record, but decided to keep on rockin’ until he couldn’t grind those Elvis-impersonating hips any longer.

To the cheers of locals and a confetti shower at The Scotsman bar, he wrapped up his marathon effort at 10.50am on Saturday with the Presley favourite Glory Glory Hallelujah.

Rockin’ on energy snacks, fruit and smoothies

His manager told news agency AFP that Kjell had been told to go easy on the coffee, and to rely instead on smoothies, fruit and energy snacks to keep his voice in shape.

Nevertheless, towards the end he did sound increasingly hoarse.

“I will never do this again,” an exhausted Kjell told Norwegian TV immediately afterwards.

 Apparently he was tired and felt like he just wanted someone to be his teddy bear.