Liverpool crowns a cultural renaissance, with help from the King

In an unlikely symbol of the cultural renaissance of Liverpool, eight Elvis impersonators will kick off the city's first "Festival of Elvis" tomorrow by racing through Salthouse Docks on jet-skis.

The newly crowned European Capital of Culture is to unveil, as its latest attraction, the largest exhibition of Elvis memorabilia outside the United States. Alongside Liverpool's "Three Graces" (the Royal Liver building, the Cunard building and the Port of Liverpool Authority), Europe's Graceland is to become a permanent fixture on the banks of the Mersey.

Starting tomorrow, Liverpool will stage its first annual Festival of Elvis, including a midnight vigil where the singer's devotees can mark the anniversary of his death on Saturday by laying flowers on a wooden replica of his tomb.

When Sir Jeremy Isaacs and his judging panel awarded Liverpool the title of European Capital of Culture in June, Elvis lookalikes were probably not what they had in mind.

But "Fingerprints of Elvis" is a serious attempt to build on the city's musical heritage and gives visitors a greater understanding not just of the sound of Memphis but of Merseyside as well. The words of John Lennon are displayed at the exhibition: "Before there was Elvis, there was nothing."

The exhibition is being curated by the team that put together the successful "Beatles Story", which brings an estimated 200,000 visitors to Liverpool a year. Jerry Goldman, director of Fingerprints of Elvis, said: "Lennon is known to have said that if there had been no Elvis, there would have been no Beatles."

As you might expect, the prize exhibit in the show is a set of the King's fingerprints, taken when he applied for a gun licence. The organisers have also obtained a 20ft golf buggy that used to carry Elvis around his Graceland golf course. The singer's gold Mercedes is another prize exhibit.

The exhibition also contains a collection of Elvis's stage suits and a black Harley-Davidson the singer used to ride around Memphis on.

But perhaps the biggest coup of all is the involvement in the exhibition of David Stanley, the singer's stepbrother, who is flying in from Memphis for the launch of the venture and who has contributed a series of anecdotes to the audio guide. Mr Stanley lived at Graceland, organised Elvis's tours and worked as his bodyguard. He also watched Elvis become dependent on prescription drugs ("He'd take something to wake up; he'd take something to go to sleep") and helped to organise his funeral.

"I walked up and Elvis was in the casket. He had on a white suit and his TCB [Taking Care of Business] diamond ring," Mr Stanley said. "If anybody ever deserves some peace, if anybody ever needed to be reunited with his mother, if anybody needed to just split, it was Elvis."

The exhibition also contains an inscription carved into wood that was mounted on the singer's tomb before it was later replaced by a bronze version.

The project has been two years in the making and is based on the memorabilia of three private collectors, two American and one British. Mr Goldman said the opportunity arose to bring the collection to Britain and it made sense to put the collection in Liverpool. "You can come to the conclusion that Liverpool would not have won the Capital of Culture if it had not been for Elvis ... because the whole regeneration of the city came about through the Merseybeat scene of the Sixties, which gave it the big lift that helped shape its cultural identity," he said.

Culture vultures flock to buy up city's flats

The wave of optimism that greeted Liverpool's successful bid to become the European Capital of Culture for 2008 has spread to its housing market.

House prices are rising sharply as investors try to exploit the increased investment in the city, according to estate agents and analysts.

Property speculators from Ireland and London have led the charge to snap up city-centre properties, sparking one of the few sharp rises in house prices anywhere in the country.

Figures from Hometrack, a property price analyst, said prices shot up after the win, announced in June. "When there is a new development or large investment in a particular area, there's a sharp upturn in levels of activity," said Mark Lane, a company spokesman. "Being Capital of Culture for a year is an ongoing thing so prices will probably continue to rise."

If Liverpool follows the experience of previous cities, the culture tag should create about 15,000 jobs and bring in £220m from tourism during the year-long festival. The surge will feed into house prices, the average of which is £74,000, according to the Land Registry.

Erica Mooney, of the estate agent Andrew Louis, said flats in the city centre had benefited most, with average price rises of £5,000 to £10,000 since the start of June.

"There's a lot of development in the city and hopefully this will give us the money to build more. The market's been buoyant in recent years but since this, it's been busier than ever," she said.

By Paul Peachey