Meet Britain’s youngest Elvis Presley impersonator who is wowing crowds – aged nine.
Talented Cooper Worthington has perfected the sounds and moves of the King of Rock’n’Roll and has begun shaking up audiences on stage despite his tender years. The baby-faced rocker said his dream was now to take his show to Las Vegas and that it was always on his mind to become a star.
His performing career started with a Freddie Mercury act where he began busking at the age of six-pulling in £100 a session. But after hearing of the Queen frontman’s love of Elvis, Cooper discovered him on YouTube-and has spent every moment since working on mimicking the Memphis solo sensation.
Mom Kelly Worthington, of Paignton, England, said they hadn’t pushed him into performing at all-but couldn’t stop him if they tried. She added: “From the moment he wakes up to the time he goes to bed all he is thinking of is singing and dancing.
“There is no one quite like him – certainly at his age. No one is doing Elvis like he is and he started when he was just seven. We haven’t pushed him at all, we couldn’t have stopped him-he just loves it so much and is his passion.
“He knows all of Elvis’ songs now and has perfected the dance moves. He’s also grown his hair long enough to quiff it himself naturally. He has even found an old American hair gel that Elvis used to use. He now just wants to be famous. His eyes light up when he is on stage.”
A recent performance of Jailhouse Rock on stage at a local festival has been attracting a lot of attention on social media – and Cooper says he hopes to perform in front of bigger and bigger crowds. After winning his school talent competition, he also auditioned for The Voice Kids and despite being one of the youngest to enter, made it through several rounds of auditions.
Kelly said he developed a love of old singing legends when he was just four years old. She added: “As a family, we all love music but not the people he is necessarily into. He just found them on YouTube and fell in love with them.
“He does Freddie Mercury really well. He found them himself and just learned to copy them. He pleaded with me to take him busking when he was six or seven and was on the street performing to everyone-just loving life.
“Then he started getting into the competition stage. When he’s found them on TV the first thing he’ll do is try and dress like them. It started with Freddie – and he was asking for the leather jacket and asked me to buy him all the Freddie gear.
“He was constantly watching them on TV, learning all the words and the dance moves and said he wanted to do a show for us. These started at home when people would come round for a bbq and he would perform for them – but it’s just gone on from there.
“He said ‘mom I want to perform for other people’ so we started looking online for competitions. He entered a couple of local ones and he then saw a busker on the street and asked if he could do that.
“I wasn’t sure so I rang the council. He was just six or seven so I didn’t know what permissions we needed to get. They said because he was so young, don’t worry and just let him do that as long as it was in a safe place and he was not disturbing anyone.
“He went out once a week and was making hundreds. At the time all he wanted to do was buy Freddie Mercury gear and a new microphone so he put all the money back into it.”
Kelly said shortly after he found Elvis and hasn’t looked back since. She added: “He asked me if he could have an Elvis outfit. He was making all his own money and would always ask for bits for Christmas and his birthday.
“He saw a video of Freddie talking about his love of Elvis as a youngster and his interest grew from there. He has not gone busking yet as Elvis but he keeps asking me to do it again. He loved it and was very popular but we did stop after he got some awful comments from people saying we shouldn’t be letting him do it.
“But there were so many more lovely comments that really made your day.”
Kelly said his act has proved popular every time he’s performed – and she couldn’t be prouder. She added: “He entered a school talent competition and won the whole show. A couple of weeks ago he was asked to perform as Elvis as part of our local festival week and keeps getting invited to perform.
“He wants to go on Britain’s Got Talent. We haven’t pushed him at all, we couldn’t have stopped him – he just loves it so much and is his passion.
“He’s had a few singing lessons and guitar lessons and did audition for the Voice Kids. He got to the last 90 children after going through five different auditions when he was just seven. He was one of the youngest there but when they got to the last 90 they cut it in half and he was in the 45 that went home. But it was an amazing experience.”
Cooper said: “I love Elvis’ singing the best. I want to be so famous I don’t have to go to school-I just want to perform forever. My favorite song is Jailhouse Rock and my dream is to perform in Las Vegas and have my own show.
“I got into performing by watching performers on telly and YouTube and live shows and wanted to do it myself. I didn’t find it hard to learn the moves at all-and managed to do it straight away. My dad wants me to be a rugby player like him, but I love performing like my mom.”
Produced in association with SWNS.
