Orion

The music industry has long been home to peculiar stories of performers whose paths to recognition took bizarre detours, yet few match the peculiar history surrounding vocalist Jimmy Ellis. Known professionally as Orion, he gained attention for a voice whose speaking and singing tones closely mirrored those of Elvis Presley. Born and raised in Orrville, Alabama, Ellis launched his recording efforts in 1964. By 1972 he had joined Sun Records, Elvis Presley’s former label, working under producer Shelby Singleton in Nashville. His earliest releases were versions of two Presley classics, “That’s All Right” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky.”

The story took an unusual turn in January 1979 when novelist Gail Brewer-Giorgio answered a strange predawn telephone call. Two years earlier she had written a book centered on a celebrated musician named Orion who staged his own death to escape fame’s pressures, drawing from events around Presley’s passing. The caller, speaking in a voice nearly identical to Presley’s, identified himself as Orion. The previous year Ellis’s vocals had been layered onto an older Sun track with Jerry Lee Lewis, “Save the Last Dance for Me,” credited simply as “Friend.” That single reached the Top 20 and sparked speculation about the unnamed singer’s identity. After the accompanying album appeared, Good Morning America subjected the voice to electronic analysis and concluded it matched Presley’s. With Giorgio’s novel newly published, Singleton capitalized on the publicity by rebranding Ellis as the enigmatic Orion who had contacted the author. Ellis’s hair and signature sideburns were colored black, and he adopted a flashy, rhinestone-studded polyester jumpsuit along with a mask intended to shield him from overzealous admirers.

Recording as Orion, Ellis cut the 1979 single “Ebony Eyes” for Sun, which appeared on his debut album Reborn. The cover art, showing a spectral figure emerging from a coffin, drew immediate criticism and was eventually pulled. In 1980 he issued the albums Country, Rockabilly, and Glory, plus Trio Plus, which featured his voice overdubbed onto vintage recordings alongside Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Charlie Rich. These projects sold well, yielding three Top 70 singles, among them “Am I That Easy to Forget.” The following year brought four smaller chart entries, including a rockabilly treatment of Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” Ellis continued working under the Orion name through 1983, adding one further modest hit before attempting to exit his Sun contract and establish an independent identity.

While appearing at the Eastern States Exposition he removed the mask and vowed never to wear it again. Despite recording mostly original material rather than Presley songs, the striking vocal resemblance persisted, prompting the release of the single “I’m Trying Not to Sound Like Elvis.” During his Sun tenure Ellis, performing as Orion, completed more than eleven albums and shared bills with the Oak Ridge Boys, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Dionne Warwick. Under his own name, Jim Ellis, he released an album in 1987 and resumed touring across North America, once again donning the mask. On December 12, 1998, Ellis and his former wife were fatally shot during a robbery at his Alabama pawnshop.