Val’s Elvis Shrine made me think of another means of escape. Sometimes the problem isn’t so much where we are, but who we are.

And what better way to escape the confines of our own personalities than by donning the personae – and style – of another?

In January 2006, Chicago Public Radio’s former arts reporter Jenny Lawton spoke with photographer Patty Carroll, whose book Living the Life: The World of Elvis Tribute Artists, documents people finding a way out through Elvis.