Growing up in Queanbeyan, Wiradjuri man Jerikye Williams didn’t see a lot of Aboriginal Elvis tribute artists, and that’s probably because he’s the only one.

Resplendent in a flame-red satin jumpsuit, the 24-year-old proudly incorporates his Indigenous culture with his love of all things Elvis.

His sparkling belt buckle is a studded Indigenous flag and his flared pants are decorated with diamante–encrusted Indigenous dot paintings depicting water holes and meeting places.

“Elvis actually had a Cherokee Indian blood in him, so he had Indigenous in him as well,” Jerikye said, after belting out All Shook Up at a Haig Park Paws Party yesterday, 31 May.

“Growing up in Queanbeyan, I didn’t see a lot of Aboriginal tribute artists do Elvis except [Wiradjuri man] Len Connolly in Tumut – but other than him there’s only me as far as I’m aware.”

A sequined rainbow serpent wraps across the back of Jerikye’s jumpsuit. His high, slicked-back hair-do took hours to style.

Jerikye is not an Elvis impersonator, but rather a tribute artist, who has every detail perfected from his mutton chop sideburns to his white cowboy boots.

My local community are all for what I do,” Jerikye said. “They support it.”

Jerikye has only been an Elvis tribute artist for a couple of years but already he has the crooning, hip swivels and leg shakes down pat. He even performed at the iconic Elvis Festival in Parkes for the first time this year.

“I come from a family of musicians and my auntie, who is one of the main reasons I’m a musician, handed me a guitar when I was three years old and I just grew up with all the ‘50s and ‘60s music,” he said.

“They had a family band in the ‘70s and ‘80s called No Relations so I kind of joined the band when I was a young’un and then went off on my own.”

In addition to his own rock/blues/country band – Jerikye and the Crawdads – Jerikye is also a DJ Elvis for hire.

For his own Elvis costume, Jerikye based the design on Elvis’s famed “Burning Love” jumpsuit (which Elvis wore on his 1972 single cover for Burning Love), but he added his Wiradjuri heritage.

“I have the goanna sewn in gold, two on the front and one on the back, which is the Wiradjuri totem,” he said.

When he’s not channelling Elvis, Jerikye and his band sometimes cover his late uncle’s song, Ngunnawal Warriors, which he sings half in Indigenous Ngunnawal language and half in English.

“It’s about before the settlement happened when they were just roaming the land and living off the land and taking care of it,” he said. “My uncle taught me a lot.”

Music is definitely in the family, as Jerikye is the nephew of Aboriginal country music legends Harry “Buck” Williams and Wilga Munro, who performed as Country Outcasts between the 1960s and 1980s.

Jerikye Williams is on Facebook and Instagram.

Today (1 June) is Reconciliation Day. Visit: act.gov.au/community/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-peoples/reconciliation-day