MOUNT VERNON — It all started as a joke.
Hundreds of shows and a number of jumpsuits later, Mike Mazza’s portrayal of the late, great American entertainer Elvis Presley has become a major, time-consuming hobby and part-time second career.
Michael J. Mazza’s primary career is as the latest generation to run the longtime Mount Vernon fixture, Mazza’s Restaurant. But one fateful day about 10 years ago, Mazza’s mother, Dana, overheard him singing Presley’s “Suspicious Minds,” and said he sounded good. As a joke, she bought him an Elvis jumpsuit and said he should perform the song for the family’s upcoming Christmas party.
Mazza said he’d do it.
He performed for the party with a karaoke machine for accompaniment. Slowly but surely, word of that show led to requests to perform as Elvis at other parties. Then, six years ago, fate gave the act a boost. Mazza’s father had planned for a typical Valentine’s Day at the restaurant, with live music provided by a keyboard player. Unfortunately, he forgot to book the keyboardist, and found himself with a number of irate diners.
Mike, who was bussing tables that evening, saw this as an opportunity to save the day. He suggested that he don his jumpsuit and perform a handful of songs to entertain the diners. At first, Mazza Sr. — who was no Elvis fan — was resistant. But as complaints continued to funnel in about the lack of music, he decided to give his son a shot.
“I got at least lukewarm applause,” Mazza laughed as he recalled the event.
But it was enough to suggest doing a whole Valentine’s Day show the following year. Again, Mike Sr. was dubious, but he relented when Mike Jr. said he’d reimburse him for the cost of the advertisement in the paper if the show didn’t do well.
The show did do well. In fact, it did very well. Mike Mazza Sr. suddenly became an Elvis fan as he watched his dining room fill up. Subsequent years have seen the Valentine’s Day event expand to several shows, many of which sell out.
Mazza is performing five Valentine’s Day shows this year, and will probably average about 20 additional gigs this year. What started as a joke has become a very busy side career.
The days of cheap jumpsuits are over, too.
“I can remember performing, seeing pieces of the suit flying off into the audience and thinking, ‘Please don’t hit anyone,’” Mazza said.
Now he has moved up to getting his jumpsuits from B&K Enterprises, which duplicates Elvis’ suits using the original, exclusive designs of Bill Belew and Gene Doucette. Mazza’s current custom-made suit is the “Concho” model (Elvis’ own name for it), and costs $1,200. Mazza said he’d love to move up to the famous “Thunderbird” suit, which Elvis wore in his live, satellite broadcast “Aloha from Hawaii,” but that top-of-the-line suit runs almost $3,500 (cape included).
The establishment of the Valentine shows was also the occasion for bringing a full back-up band into play. Now known as The Mount Vernon Mafia Band, the band is tight and runs like a precision-tooled engine, matching Mazza’s every move. Mazza’s longtime friend, John Bobo, who, like Mazza, graduated from East Knox High School, is a guitarist in the band, which he helped Mazza form. Mike Thiedt is lead guitarist, Bryan Ford is drummer, John Newsome plays keys and Pat Gorten lays down the bass. The band members live in Columbus; typically they rehearse once a month throughout the year, but up that to once or twice a week preceding the February concerts.
Mazza likes to throw in a few surprises among the standard hits, which make up the backbone of his stage show.
“We can do approximately 40 songs,” he said, adding that for some recent shows, they have added back-up singers, to the delight of fans.
Mazza said an Elvis fan club from Newark regularly buys out most of the tickets for the final show of the Valentine’s run a year in advance, and then bring its people up by bus for the show. The growing fan base statewide has allowed Mazza and the band to perform all over the state, including a show in front of 1,600 people during the “Elvis-a-thon” in Columbus a few years ago. The group also plays for parties, charity events, weddings, graduations and more.
“Once we even played the grand opening of a gas station,” Mazza said.
Mazza said he loves it and has no plans on stopping any time soon, as long as his back holds out. His high-energy, very physical show requires him to do some conditioning every year to get into shape.
“My friends call it my ‘Elvis training camp’ that I do every year,” Mazza said.
He added that one of the hardest parts of balancing the restaurant and the impersonation is that it’s hard to be around all that Italian food, yet keep slim enough to portray Elvis of the early 1970s.
One year, Mazza confessed, he had to lose 35 pounds to get into shape for the concerts.
“I’m not a big fan of the fat Elvis jokes,” he said, shaking his head in mock despair.
What keeps him coming back to it year after year, show after show, is seeing the reaction on people’s faces. He said children are a delight to watch, and he loves that they enjoy Elvis’ music so much.
“It’s amazing that his legacy is continued, 30 years on,” Mazza said.
