Tag Archives: Elvis Presley

Beatles, Elvis, Dylan & Johnny Cash ► A Mega Monday Musical Appreciation.

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When it’s Monday Musical Appreciation time, I consult several Day in Musical History sites, choose a topic, and write the post — all before most of my readers are awake.

I take pride in choosing a topic that morning, researching it, choosing tunes and pics that best illustrate that research, and then writing it up. It makes me feel like I’m back in the Citytv Newsroom and given an assignment to write. I like the pressure of it.

All of that is preface to say: I couldn’t choose a single event, person, or band today. Any one of the following could sustain its own stand-alone post. Additionally, the more I researched the date, the more I began to see points of synchronicity. That’s when I decided to wrap it all up in one big bow.

The following all occurred on May 1st:

Johnny Cash

On this day in 1956 Johnny Cash released “I Walk The Line”, his most recognizable tune. Thirteen years later — when he was a big star with his own tee vee show — he hosted Bob Dylan who sang 2 tunes and then a duet with Johnny Cash on “Girl From the North Country”, a song originally on the LP The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. The duet became the lead off track of Dylan’s Nashville Skyline LP.

On a personal note: This televised performance happened on my birthday and was my entry into Country music. If Dylan could cozy up to Johnny Cash, maybe there is something I was missing. I went out and bought the relatively recent Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison, which I fell in love with. I’ve been a Johnny Cash fan ever since.

BONUS DYLAN:

Elvis Presley

Elvis was already an up-and-comer when, on this date in 1957, he appeared on the cover of the first issue of 16 Magazine. Many magazine covers would follow.

Ten years later, to the day, he wed 21-year old Priscilla Beaulieu — who he had met while in the Army almost 8 years earlier — in his suite at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas. He was 11 years her senior.

The next year, on the same day, Elvis would release “Speedway”, the soundtrack album his latest boring movie of the same name, despite the appearance of Nancy Sinatra. The LP never went any higher than #82 on the Billboard LP charts.

Elvis would only make 4 more movies, none any better.

The Beatles

On this date in 1962, The Beatles began a month long stand at The Star Club, Hamburg, Germany. The Beatles have always pointed to the pressure of having to MAK SHOW under the relentless pressure of playing set after set, night after night, as when they solidified as a band. Listen to how tight they were before Beatlemania struck.

After they hit it big, The Beatles were offered money for licensing rights to everything from Beatles’ Wigs to lunchboxes. On this day in 1964, manager Brian Epstein accepted $140,000 from a bubble gum company to have their pictures inserted into the packages sold in ‘Merka.

Two years later, on this date in 1966, The Beatles gave their last last British at Empire Pool in Wembley, appearing as New Musical Express poll winners. Their performance consisted of  “I Feel Fine”, “Nowhere Man”, “Day Tripper”, “If I Needed Someone”, and “I’m Down”.

Who else appeared on this bill? If you were lucky enough to have gotten a ticket, you would have seen The Spencer Davis Group, The Fortunes, Herman’s Hermits, Roy Orbison, The Rolling Stones, The Seekers, The Small Faces, Dusty Springfield, The Walker Brothers, The Who and The Yardbirds.

1968 Paul McCartney and John Lennon watch Bill Haley play Royal Albert Hall in London.

Other items I would have included had I wanted to turn this post into an epic:

In 1930: Little Walter was born.

In 1955 Chuck Berry was signed to Chess Records.

In 1965 Spike Jones dies.

In 1967, Carl Wilson, of The Beach Boys’ is arrested by the F.B.I. for draft evasion.

In 1969, Jimi Hendrix was arrested at Toronto International Airport for drugs and was released on $10,000 bail.

May 1st was an epic day in music.

1st Rock and Roll Hall of Famers ► Monday Musical Appreciation

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The Not Now Silly Newsroom is still waiting for the musical movers and shakers to correct a grievous oversight and FINALLY induct Harry Nilsson for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Regardless, let’s take a look back at the first field of RnRHoF inductees, announced on this date in 1986.

As everyone knows, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was built in Cleveland, Ohio — aka the mistake on the lake — because … well … err … Alan Freed! However, the decision to drop it there may have had more to do with money than because Cleveland was the location of what’s generally accepted as the first Rock and Roll concert ever: the Moondog Coronation Ball. As always, the WikiWackyWoo tells all:

Cleveland may also have been chosen as the organization’s site because the city offered the best financial package. As The Plain Dealer music critic Michael Norman noted, “It was $65 million… Cleveland wanted it here and put up the money.” Co-founder Jann Wenner later said, “One of the small sad things is we didn’t do it in New York in the first place,” but then added, “I am absolutely delighted that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is in Cleveland.”

The Rock Hall didn’t open until 1995, but the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation started inducting Rockers and Rollers in 1986, soon after it incorporated. Mike Greenblatt at Goldmine tells us:

New York, New York. By all accounts, it was a night to remember. Despite nobody yet knowing where the museum would be constructed, and Bill Graham on hand to argue long and loud that it deserved to be built in San Francisco, the First Annual Rock ’n’ roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony took place in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. More than 1,000 music bizzers and invited guests dined on smoked river trout and fruit sorbet, drank California wine and witnessed a glittering array of rock stars dressed up and getting down with the kind of all-star jam one could only dream about. (The Harlem Blues & Jazz Band performed during pre-show cocktails and hors d’oeuvres.)

[…] Then came the jam.

Paul Shaffer led the house band which featured saxophonist David Sanborn, guitarist Sid McGinnis, bassist Will Lee and drummer Steve Jordan. Their rousing ceremony-starting overture featured the signature tunes of all 10 inductees. At one point, towards the end of the night, Chuck Berry, Keith Richards and Hank Williams Jr. stood side-by-side wielding guitars while Billy Joel, Fats Domino and Jerry Lee Lewis shared two pianos for a balls-to-the-wall ragged-but-right jam on Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven.” “Johnny Be Goode” had Berry with John Fogerty, Neil Young, Ron Wood and Richards playing guitar. Berry took over for “Little Queenie” and even sang a duet with Julian Lennon. Joel and Steve Winwood shared a piano, Winwood switching to organ in blasting out “Gimme Some Lovin’,” the song he recorded as a teenager with The Spencer Davis Group. Berry did some blues. Chubby Checker materialized to sing and dance “The Twist.” Fogerty let loose with “Proud Mary” to close the night, the first time he played the song in public in 14 years.

The first class of inductees set the mark for the years to come:

Chuck Berry

James Brown

Ray Charles

Sam Cooke

Fats Domino

The Everly Brothers

Buddy Holly

Jerry Lee Lewis

Little Richard

Elvis Presley

Here are some of the performances and acceptance speeches from that first induction ceremony:

Rock and Roll is here to stay!!!

Hank Snow ► Monday Musical Appreciation

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Happy Birthday to Canadian Country singer Hank Snow, the man who discovered Elvis Presley. He would be blowing out 102 candles had he not died in 1999 at the age of 85.

Clarence Eugene Snow was born “in the sleepy fishing village of Brooklyn,

Queens County, on Nova Scotia’s

beautiful South Shore, just down the tracks from Liverpool“, according to his official web site, which continues:

As a boy, Hank faced many difficulties and shortcomings. He had to face

the trauma of his parents’ divorce at just eight years old and he was

forced to stay with his grandparents. He then had to deal with an abusive

grandmother who forbid him to see his mother. He regularly sneaked out

at night and walked the railroad tracks to Liverpool where his mother

was living. Not willing to return to his grandmother, who would often

beat him for visiting his mom, he would sometimes seek shelter in Liverpool’s

railway station, now home of the Hank Snow Country Music Centre.

He learned guitar from his mother. Running away from home at 12, he worked as a cabin boy on fishing schooners out of Lunenburg and bought his first guitar with his first wages: A T. Eaton Special which set him back $5.95. While onboard the ship he listened to the radio, later imitating the Country singers he heard, especially his hero Jimmie Rodgers.

Once he was back on land Snow continued to practice and improve. The WikiWackyWoo picks up the story:

Soon, Snow was invited to perform in a minstrel show in Bridgewater
to help raise money for charity. “Someone blackened my face with black
polish and put white rings around my eyes and lips,” Snow recalls. When
his turn came in the show, he played a song called “I Went to See My Gal
Last Night.” “My debut was a big success,” Snow writes. “I even got a
standing ovation.”[2]

In March 1933, Snow wrote to Halifax radio station CHNS
asking for an audition. The rejection letter he received only made him
more determined and later that year he visited the station, was given an
audition and hired to do a Saturday evening show that was advertised as
“Clarence Snow and his Guitar.” After a few months, he adopted the name
“The Cowboy Blue Yodeler” in homage to his idol Jimmie Rodgers known as
“America’s Blue Yodeler.” Since Snow’s Saturday show had no sponsor, he
wasn’t paid for his performances, but he did manage to earn money
playing halls and clubs in towns where people had heard him on the
radio. He also played in Halifax theatres before the movies started and
performed, for $10 a week, on a CHNS musical show sponsored by a company
that manufactured a popular laxative. At the urging of the station’s
chief engineer and announcer, he adopted the name Hank because it went
well with cowboy songs and once again, influenced by Jimmie Rodgers, he
became “Hank, The Yodeling Ranger.” Snow also appeared occasionally on
the CBC’s regional network.[2]

Signed to RCA Records Canada in 1936, the radio hook-up brought him greater fame and he started touring across Canada. Eventually radio stations south of the border started playing his records and Snow moved to Nashville, where he had a growing audience. In 1950 Ernest Tubbs invited Snow to perform at the Grand Old Opry. He didn’t go over so big until he wrote his first hit song, I’m Moving On:

Even had he not discovered Elvis, Hank Snow would still be remembered today for his music. However, as the Wiki tells us:

A regular at the Grand Ole Opry, in 1954 Snow persuaded the directors to allow a young Elvis Presley to appear on stage. Snow used Presley as his opening act and introduced him to Colonel Tom Parker.
In August 1955, Snow and Parker formed the management team, Hank Snow
Attractions. This partnership signed a management contract with Presley
but before long, Snow was out and Parker had full control over the rock
singer’s career. Forty years after leaving Parker, Snow stated, “I have
worked with several managers over the years and have had respect for
them all except one. Tom Parker (he refuses to recognise the title
Colonel) was the most egotistical, obnoxious human being I’ve ever had
dealings with.”

One of my favourite jokes:

If Hank Snow married June Carter, there would be 6 inches of Snow in June.

But I digress. According to his website:

Hank
Snow sold over 70 million records in his career that spanned 78’s, 45’s,
extended 45’s, LP’s, 8-tracks, cassettes and compact discs.

Throughout his life he recorded over 100 LPs, including everything from hit
parade material to gospel, train songs, instrumentals (alone and with Chet
Atkins), tributes to Jimmie Rodgers and the Sons of the Pioneers, and
recitations of Robert Service poems. He has always kept a warm spot in his
heart for Nova Scotia, and he paid homage with his album “My Nova Scotia
Home”. He also recorded “Squid Jiggin’ Ground” in honor of the fishermen he
sailed with out of Lunenburg in his early youth.
Every August Liverpool, Nova Scotia, holds a multi-day Hank Snow Tribute. This year’s shindig will happen August 18-21 and tickets are already available. However, as Not Now Silly likes to say: It’s all in the grooves. This is why people still sing and play Hank Snow tunes:









Was Elvis’ Manager A Murderer? ► Monday Musical Appreciation

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It’s always been a curious thing. During the entirety of Elvis’ career, he only played overseas once and only performed in Canada only 3 times. Despite the proximity Colonel Tom Parker, his manager, didn’t accompany his star client.

I’ve long heard rumblings that The Colonel was a wanted man, which is why he never traveled outside the country, but had never bothered to research the back story. A random Facebook post this morning took me to a page about The Colonel at the Smithsonian Institute published 4 years ago. What I learned was stunning. Colonel Tom Parker may have been a murderer hiding in plain sight. This article gets right down to the Colonel’s skulduggery:

So far as the wider world knew, the
Colonel was Thomas Andrew Parker, born in Huntingdon, West Virginia,
some time shortly after 1900. He had toured with carnivals, worked with
elephants and managed a palm-reading booth before finding his feet in
the early 1950s as a music promoter. Had anyone taken the trouble to
inquire, however, they would have discovered that there was no record of
the birth of any Thomas Parker in Huntingdon. They might also have
discovered that Tom Parker had never held a U.S. passport—and that while
he had served in the U.S. Army, he had done so as a private. Indeed,
Parker’s brief military career had ended in ignominy. In 1932, he had
gone absent without leave and served several months in military prison
for desertion. He was released only after he had suffered what his
biographer Alanna Nash terms a “psychotic breakdown.” Diagnosed as a
psychopath, he was discharged from the Army. A few years later, when the
draft was introduced during the World War II, Parker ate until he
weighed more than 300 pounds in a successful bid to have himself
declared unfit for further service.

WHOA! But it doesn’t stop there. I continued my research, jumping onto the WikiWackyWoo:

Presley fans have speculated that the reason Presley only once
performed abroad, which would probably have been a highly lucrative
proposition, may have been that Parker was worried that he would not
have been able to acquire a U.S. passport and might even have been
deported upon filing his application. In addition, applying for the
citizenship required for a US passport would probably have exposed his
carefully concealed foreign birth. Although Parker was a US Army veteran
and spouse of an American citizen, one of the basic tenets of U.S.
immigration law is that absent some sort of amnesty program, there is no
path to citizenship or even legal residency for those who entered the
country illegally.[50]
As Parker had not availed himself of the 1940 Alien Registration Act,
and there was no amnesty program available to him afterwards, he was not
eligible for US citizenship through any means.

Foreign birth? Undocumented immigrant? What else was The Colonel hiding? According to The Inside Story of Elvis and the Colonel, a chapter from the (self-serving) book Leaves of Elvis’ Garden:

Colonel Tom Parker was a master deal-maker who made
Elvis the highest-paid actor in Hollywood.   While other actors may
have commanded per-picture fees in excess of the $1 million Elvis got,
he often made double that again because he received an unprecedented 50
percent of all profits. It didn’t matter to the Colonel that the films
were, for the most part, artistically vapid. Colonel Parker proved his
worth, moneywise.
The Colonel, as he liked people to refer to him,
displayed a ruthless devotion to Elvis’ interests, and he took far more
than the traditional 10 percent of his earnings (reaching up to 50
percent by the end of Presley’s life).  Under his brilliant, skillful
and cunning guidance his one and only client, Elvis, reached
unimaginable heights.  Elvis considered him a genius.
But Elvis grew restless, feeling the Colonel had
limited his Hollywood career, even while acknowledging they had been
successful financially.  He felt trapped. 

John Lennon, famously, had several things to say about Elvis. Here are two:
“Before Elvis there was nothing.”

“Up until Elvis joined the army, I thought it was beautiful music and Elvis was for me and my generation what the Beatles were to the ’60s. But after he went into the army, I think they cut “les bollocks” off. They not only shaved his hair off but I think they shaved between his legs, too. He played some good stuff after the army, but it was never quite the same, It was like something happened to him psychologically. Elvis really died the day he joined the army. That’s when they killed him, and the rest was a living death.”

But I digress.
As Smithsonian Magazine continues the story: Back in 1960, soon after Elvis was discharged from the army, Parker’s family back in the Netherlands recognized him in a photo as Andreas van Kuijk, a long-lost brother who had disappeared into thin air. Sure he was older, and fatter, but there was no mistaking it. A brother was sent to the States. He met with Dries — as the family called him — who revealed very little about his personal life.
Even stranger is when he went back to Breda, the brother kept Parker’s secret which didn’t leak for another few years, but only in a small Dutch fan magazine called It’s Elvis Time. Then it was picked up in the ’70s by Albert Goldman in his Elvis biography. However, there were deeper secrets to unveil.
Journalist Dirk Vellenga, who also lived in Breda, got a tip that the Colonel was originally from there, which led to a 30-year investigation:
Vellenga had been filing occasional
updates on the Parker story—the Colonel was by far the most famous son
of Breda—and found that he was building a detailed picture of what was
by any standard a hasty departure. Parker, he learned, had vanished in
May 1929 without telling any of his family or friends where he was
heading, without taking his identity papers, and without money or even
the expensive clothing he had spent most of his wages on. “This means,” notes Nash,
that “he set out in a foreign country literally penniless.” In the
late 1970s, Vellenga ended one of his newspaper features by posing what
seemed to him a reasonable question: “Did something serious happen
before Parker left that summer in 1929, or maybe in the 1930s when he
broke all contact with his family?”

At least one of his readers thought
that question deserved an answer, and a short while later an anonymous
letter was delivered to Vellenga’s paper. “Gentlemen,” it began.

At last, I want to say what was told to me 19
years ago about this Colonel Parker. My mother-in-law said to me, if
anything comes to light about this Parker, tell them that his name is
Van Kuijk and that he murdered the wife of a greengrocer on the
Bochstraat….
This murder has never been solved. But look it up and you will
discover that he, on that very night, left for America and adopted a
different name. And that is why it is so mysterious. That’s why he does
not want to be known.

Turning hastily to his newspaper’s files, Vellenga found to his
amazement that there had indeed been an unsolved killing in Breda in May
1929. Anna van den Enden, a 23-year-old newlywed, had been battered to
death in the living quarters behind her store—a greengrocer’s on the
Bochstraat. The premises had then been ransacked, apparently
fruitlessly, in a search for money. After that, the killer had scattered
a thin layer of pepper around the body before fleeing, apparently in
the hope of preventing police dogs from picking up his scent.

The discovery left Vellenga perplexed. The 19 years of silence
that his mysterious correspondent mentioned took the story as far back
as 1961—exactly the year that the Van Kuijk family had made contract
with Parker, and Ad van Kuijk had returned from his visit to the Colonel
so remarkably tight-lipped. And the spot where the murder had occurred
was only a few yards away from what had been, in 1929, Parker’s family
home. Members of the Colonel’s family even recalled that he had been
paid to make deliveries for a greengrocer in the area, though they could
no longer remember which one.

Of course, all the evidence is circumstantial. There is no proof, even in the original police files, that Parker, or van Kuijk, was ever a suspect in the murder. This will always remain an unsolved mystery, but several of Elvis’ biographers truly believe that the biggest secret the Colonel was hiding was the fact that he was a murderer who had fled to ‘Merka to avoid suspicion.

Zappa, Elvis & Nixon ► Monday Musical Appreciation(s)

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Frank Zappa before the mustache

There are two big events in today’s music history and I couldn’t decide between them. On this day in 1940 Frank Zappa was born. In unrelated news, 30 years later Elvis Presley bluffs his way into Nixon’s White House and is presented with a law enforcement badge so the drug-addled King of Rock and Roll can help fight the War on Drugs. No, really!

I can still remember the day I bought Zappa’s first LP, Freak Out. It was in the Kresge’s record department and the band was one of the ugliest I had ever seen. I was 14 years old and had never heard of The Mothers of Invention before, but there was something about the cover that made me buy it. The back cover has what purported to be a letter from what purported to be a Suzy Creamcheese:

These Mothers is crazy. You can tell by their clothes. One guy wears beads and they all smell bad. We were gonna get them for a dance after the basketball game but my best pal warned me you can never tell how many will show up…sometimes the guy in the fur coat doesn’t show up and sometimes he does show up only he brings a big bunch of crazy people with him and they dance all over the place. None of the kids at my school like these Mothers… specially since my teacher told us what the words to their songs meant. Sincerely forever, Suzy Creamcheese, Salt Lake City, Utah.

All of that added up to GOTTA HAVE IT!

I distinctly remember taking it home and being surprised by that it was a 2 LP set (apparently only the 2nd double album of the Rock era, following Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde by mere weeks). I also remember how utterly confused I was after I listened to the entire 4 sides. The first 2 sides consisted of what could only be described as Demented Doo Wop. It was hard to tell if Zappa was satirizing the genre or lovingly recreating it, especially after listening to the final 2 sides. I didn’t have the language then for what it was, but I was immediately hooked. I have been a life-long Frank Zappa fan ever since.

However, as I keep saying, it’s all about the music. Here’s Frank Zappa’s first official LP of a career that produced more records than anybody else in the Rock era:

The unanswered question is why my unformed, teenager mind so readily glommed onto Zappa, way ahead of the curve.

Animation created by author from public domain White House photos

The Elvis Presley incident is a bizarre footnote to the entire Watergate presidency of Richard Nixon and provided a strange capper to the long career of Elvis Presley.

To make a long story short: Nixon went on the lam from Graceland and the Memphis Mafia after an argument with his wife Priscilla and his father Vernon over the cost of Christmas gifts.

First he flew to Washington, but then took off to Los Angeles. There he concocted an incredible plan to meet President Nixon. According to the Smithsonian Institute, of all places:

Elvis was traveling with some guns and his collection of police badges, and he decided that what he really wanted was a badge from the federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs back in Washington. “The narc badge represented some kind of ultimate power to him,” Priscilla Presley would write in her memoir, Elvis and Me. “With the federal narcotics badge, he [believed he] could legally enter any country both wearing guns and carrying any drugs he wished.”

After just one day in Los Angeles, Elvis asked [Jerry] Schilling to fly with him back to the capital. “He didn’t say why,” Schilling recalls, “but I thought the badge might be part of the reason.”

On the red-eye to Washington, Elvis scribbled a letter to President Nixon. “Sir, I can and will be of any service that I can to help the country out,” he wrote. All he wanted in return was a federal agent’s badge. “I would love to meet you,” he added, informing Nixon that he’d be staying at the Washington Hotel under the alias Jon Burrows. “I will be here for as long as it takes to get the credentials of a federal agent.”

That’s all it took to get an Oval Office meeting with Nixon, who happily posed for pictures with the King of Rock and Roll. The National Archives has an entire online exhibit called When Nixon Met Elvis and there’s a hilarious movie, Elvis Meets Nixon, which takes some liberties with the truth and features my cyber-friend Curtis Armstrong as Farley Hall. Both are highly recommended by me.

Nixon went on to quit the presidency over Watergate, while Elvis died on the crapper.

Headlines Du Jour ► Thursday, January 8, 2015

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Howdy, Headliners! Today’s birthday belongs to Elvis Presley, who helped kick start Rock and Roll. Among the other Headlines Du Jour of yesteryear:

Here is today’s Headlines Du Jour:

CHARLIE HEBDO ATTACKS:

SO GLAD WE’RE LIVING IN A POST-RACIAL SOCIETY:

MORE OF THAT GOP OUTREACH:

The speaker is removing rebellious House conservatives
from plum committee assignments — at long last

IN LGBT NEWS:

TODAY IN CLIMATE CHANGE:

TODAY IN RELIGION:

MORE EXCITING EPISODES OF COPS GONE WILD:

FREE THE WEED!!!

IN INNER SPACE:

IN OUTER SPACE:

VIDEOS DU JOUR:

Headlines Du Jour is a leisure-time activity of Not Now Silly, home of the
Steam-Powered Word-0-Matic, and your rest stop on the Information
Highway. Use our valuable bandwidth to post your news comments in
today’s open thread.

Ed Sullivan Changes Rock and Roll Forever ► Another Magical Tee Vee Moment

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Animation by author from White House still photo archives

I was 4 years old when it happened, which is why I don’t remember. However, on September 9, 1956, when Ed Sullivan brought Elvis Presley on his show, the world of Rock and Roll changed forever.

It wasn’t Elvis’ first time on the tee vee tube, nor was it even his first time on network tee vee. Presley had already been signed to a year’s worth of Saturday Night shows on the radio show Louisiana Hayride, a competitor of the Grand Old Opry, when that august body passed on the Rockabilly artist. He made his first tee vee appearance on March 3, 1955, on local Shreveport station KSLA’s version of the Louisiana Hayride, after failing his audition to appear on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, a network show. At this early point Elvis was still releasing his earliest 45s on Sun Records.

But, there was no stopping Presley. Sun Records sold his contract to RCA Records and in January of 1956 he made his first recordings for that company.

On January 28th, the day after Heartbreak Hotel was released, Elvis made his first network appearance on CBS’s Sound Stage.

Then came two odd appearances on The Milton Berle Show on NBC. The first (April 3) was from the deck of the USS Hancocock. However, it was his 2nd appearance on the Berle Show that made the Headlines Du Jour of the day. The WikiWhackWoo, as always, tells the story:

Berle persuaded the singer to leave his guitar backstage, advising, “Let ’em see you, son.” During the performance, Presley abruptly halted an uptempo rendition of “Hound Dog” with a wave of his arm and launched into a slow, grinding version accentuated with energetic, exaggerated body movements. Presley’s gyrations created a storm of controversy. Television critics were outraged: Jack Gould of The New York Times wrote, “Mr. Presley has no discernible singing ability. … His phrasing, if it can be called that, consists of the stereotyped variations that go with a beginner’s aria in a bathtub. … His one specialty is an accented movement of the body … primarily identified with the repertoire of the blond bombshells of the burlesque runway.” Ben Gross of the New York Daily News opined that popular music “has reached its lowest depths in the ‘grunt and groin’ antics of one Elvis Presley. … Elvis, who rotates his pelvis … gave an exhibition that was suggestive and vulgar, tinged with the kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos”. Ed Sullivan, whose own variety show was the nation’s most popular, declared him “unfit for family viewing”. To Presley’s displeasure, he soon found himself being referred to as “Elvis the Pelvis”, which he called “one of the most childish expressions I ever heard, comin’ from an adult.”

Making the Headlines Du Jour is always good for business, so Steve Allen booked Elvis on his show. However, Allen was not a fan of Rock and Roll. Elvis was used, mostly, as comic fodder. He would later call this the most ridiculous performance of his career.

The Steve Allen performance, however absurd, beat the Ed Sullivan Show in the ratings. Ed had earlier vowed not to have Presley on his show, but he relented, signing Elvis to three appearances for a record $50,000. These are the appearances that catapulted Presley to national fame. Ironically, Sullivan was not around for Elvis’ first appearance on September 9th. He was resting after a car crash and actor Charles Laughton took over the hosting duties. However, Ed made his views known:

According to Elvis legend, Presley was shot from only the waist up. Watching clips of the Allen and Berle shows with his producer, Sullivan had opined that Presley “got some kind of device hanging down below the crotch of his pants–so when he moves his legs back and forth you can see the outline of his cock. … I think it’s a Coke bottle. … We just can’t have this on a Sunday night. This is a family show!” Sullivan publicly told TV Guide, “As for his gyrations, the whole thing can be controlled with camera shots.” In fact, Presley was shown head-to-toe in the first and second shows. Though the camerawork was relatively discreet during his debut, with leg-concealing closeups when he danced, the studio audience reacted in customary style: screaming. Presley’s performance of his forthcoming single, the ballad “Love Me Tender”, prompted a record-shattering million advance orders. More than any other single event, it was this first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show that made Presley a national celebrity of barely precedented proportions.

It was Sullivan’s tacit approval that Rock and Roll was ready for prime time that opened the floodgates to all the other shows booking the earliest acts in a still nascent Rock and Roll. Nothing was ever the same again. And, that’s how Ed Sullivan changed Rock and Roll forever.

Elvis Scandalizes ‘Merka ► Another Magical Tee Vee Moment

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Dateline June 5, 1956 – Elvis Presley appeared on the Milton Berle Show. Coming during his first brush with national fame, his pelvic gyrations were so suggestive that it became a national scandal. No, really!

In March of ’56 Elvis had released his eponymous debut LP on RCA. The label bought out his contract from Sun Studios the previous year. This LP would go on to become the first #1 Rock and Roll album, topping the Billboard charts for 10 weeks. Some 50 years later it ranked #56 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. However, Elvis was barely known at this point in his career. All that would change within the next six months.

Just a month after the LP’s release, Elvis appeared for the first time on the Milton Berle Show, singing an extremely hot version of Heartbreak Hotel from the deck of the USS Hancock. (Don’t ask.) When the performance finished, Elvis continued his tour. There was no public outcry. Watch:


To show how much Show Bidnezz has changed since then: Heartbreak Hotel wasn’t even on the LP Elvis had just released. He wasn’t promoting his new LP; Elvis was still promoting his January single, which had already topped the Billboard charts for 7 weeks. The music industry still thought of 45s as the money-makers, with LPs often an afterthought. Heartbreak Hotel would go on become the biggest selling single that year.

Elvis was just on the cusp of national and international fame. He had recently signed a 7-year Hollywood contract to star in movies and was still touring extensively. Milton Berle, who was trying to save his show from cancellation (unsuccessfully, as it turned out), booked Elvis for a return visit to his show in June, this time appearing at NBC’s studio in Hollywood. Before the show began Milton Berle, the show biz veteran of Vaudeville, radio, and tee vee, gave Elvis some advice; five words that changed history.

“Let ’em see you, son,” Milton Berle reportedly told Elvis, successfully convincing him to leave his guitar behind when he performed Hound Dog, a song he hadn’t even recorded yet. Without his guitar to hide behind, Elvis’ dancing was more exaggerated than his previous visit. While some girls screamed, much of the audience is confused, laughing and tittering. Clearly, they’ve never seen anything quite like this before:

‘Merka clutched its metaphorical pearls. According to the WikiWackyWoo:

Presley’s gyrations created a storm of controversy. Television critics were outraged: Jack Gould of The New York Times wrote, “Mr. Presley has no discernible singing ability. … His phrasing, if it can be called that, consists of the stereotyped variations that go with a beginner’s aria in a bathtub. … His one specialty is an accented movement of the body … primarily identified with the repertoire of the blond bombshells of the burlesque runway.” Ben Gross of the New York Daily News opined that popular music “has reached its lowest depths in the ‘grunt and groin’ antics of one Elvis Presley. … Elvis, who rotates his pelvis … gave an exhibition that was suggestive and vulgar, tinged with the kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos”. Ed Sullivan, whose own variety show was the nation’s most popular, declared him “unfit for family viewing”.

Ed Sullivan was brutal in his assessment of Elvis Presley:

Watching clips of the Allen and Berle shows with his producer, Sullivan had opined that Presley “got some kind of device hanging down below the crotch of his pants–so when he moves his legs back and forth you can see the outline of his cock. … I think it’s a Coke bottle. … We just can’t have this on a Sunday night. This is a family show!” Sullivan publicly told TV Guide, “As for his gyrations, the whole thing can be controlled with camera shots.”

Which is exactly what he did.

Sullivan was forced to book Elvis when Steve Allen’s show with Elvis singing Hound Dog to an actual hound dog, beat Sullivan’s show in the ratings. Elvis has called this the most ridiculous performance of his career:

Quickly reversing his principled stand to obtain boffo ratings, Sullivan offered Elvis the unheard of sum of $50,000 for three appearances. In case anything went terribly wrong on the first Sullivan performance, Ed Sullivan made sure that he could not be blamed. He had guest host Charles Laughton filling in while he recuperated from a car accident. Elvis performed Love Me Tender for the 60 million viewers who tuned in.

While his first Sullivan appearance cemented Elvis Presley’s fame, it was his appearance on the Milton Berle Show that earned him the nickname of Elvis the Pelvis. He hated this phrase the rest of his life, calling it, “one of the most childish expressions I ever heard comin’ from an adult.”

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A Musical Appreciation ► Rompin’ Ronnie Hawkins

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DATELINE January 10, 1935 – Ronald “Rompin’ Ronnie” Hawkins is born in Huntsville, Arkansas, just two days after Elvis Presley is born in Tupelo, Mississippi. Both carved out quite a niche in Rock and Roll, but Elvis’ story is better known. That’s a shame.

Ronnie Hawkins started his first band when he was studying Phys Ed at the University of Arkansas. Called The Hawks, it toured throughout several southern states. On the advice of Conway Twitty, who was one of the up and coming Rock and Rollers who played at a club Hawkins owned in Fayetteville, he began playing in Canada in 1958. The first place he played in Canada was the last place I lived in Canada: Hamilton, Ontario. Apparently he was a huge hit at the Golden Rail, near the corner of King and John Streets. It was this initial success that prompted Hawkins to move to Canada.

The Hawks were less thrilled with Canada and they all quit and went back to ‘Merka, except for Levon Helm, the good ol’ boy drummer. Ronnie Hawkins was forced to recruit a new set of Hawks. He found some good ol’ Ontario boys in Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson. This version of The Hawks was rehearsed within an inch of their lives by Hawkins, a notorious perfectionist. When, some 5 or 6 years later, this tight group of Hawks up and quit on Hawkins, they changed their name to The Band and worked with some barely known folk singer named Bob Dylan in a barely known town in upper New York named Woodstock.

This is why, in homage to their early mentor, Ronnie Hawkins appeared at The Last Waltz.



When the band called The Hawks quit to become The Band, Hawkins hired a new band, which he called “And Many Others.” When, some 4 years later, Hawkins fired “And Many Others” they took the name Crowbar. This was also in homage to Hawkins who told them as he sacked them, “You guys are so crazy, you could fuck up a crowbar in 3 seconds.”

Crowbar became one of Canada’s best-known bands, who had a huge hit in 1971 with “Oh, What A Feeling.”

John Lennon & friends bundled against the Canadian cold

I wasn’t as lucky as John Lennon, who hung out at Ronnie’s farm signing his Bag One lithographs while planning a peace festival. However, I was still fortunate enough to meet Ronnie Hawkins twice. Both times he had me laughing so hysterically, my sides hurt.

The first was soon after he appeared as a special guest vocalist on a spoken word LP by Xaviera Hollander, still in the flush of success following the publication of The Happy Hooker: My Own Story. Hawkins was helping her promote the GRT release and appeared on my show at Radio Sheridan, the college campus station. During the interview he swore more than I had ever heard anyone swear before, telling one obscene joke after another.

This was only a week after Xaviera Hollander simulated giving me fellatio under the table during her interview about the LP. As Station Manager I was called on the carpet for the “inappropriate” content of the Hollander interview. Now Ronnie Hawkins had me in stitches and he was being far more obscene than Xaviera had been. As I doubled over in side-splitting laughter, I couldn’t help but think the administration was going to revoke our license to operate. Luckily nothing happened. Either the admin didn’t get wind of it, or John Bromley decided we were a lost cause.

The next time I ran into Ronnie Hawkins was more than 15 years later. I was working at Citytv by then and heard a loud voice coming from a room that was normally locked and used for storage. I peeked inside and Ronnie Hawkins was pacing the room all by himself, rehearsing some words that he was expected to tape for MUCHMusic, which was broadcast out of the same building. He noticed me in the doorway and stopped, so I reintroduced myself to him and reminded him of the interview and how much I feared being called up in front of the administration for it, but it would have been worth it.

While not acknowledging whether he remembered me or not, he started off on a series of obscene one-liners that didn’t stop until he was fetched 15 minutes later for his close-up.

There are two stories I’ve heard about Ronnie Hawkins and I pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster neither of them are apocryphal:

After Ronnie Hawkins had his first brush with fame, he decided he deserved a Rolls Royce. He went to the Rolls Royce dealer on Bay Street in Toronto looking like a Hippie and the saleman treated him like something that had stuck to the bottom of his shoe. He wouldn’t even let Hawkins have a test drive. Imagine that! Hawkins left and came back a short time later. He slapped — in cash — the asking price of a Rolls Royce on the hood of one and drove it out of the showroom.

The second story is from when Hawkins was hiring the [not yet] The Band to be The [replacement] Hawks. As incentive he apparently said, “Sign up with me boys and you’ll get more pussy than Frank Sinatra.”

Happy Birthday, Ronnie Hawkins!!!

Here’s a Ronnie Hawkins documentary for those who want to know more:

Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra ► Nostalgia Ain’t What It Used To Be

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Dateline: May 12, 1960 – Elvis Presley, newly returned from the U.S. Army, serving Uncle Sam, makes his first network tee vee appearance with Chairman of the Board, Frank Sinatra:

 

And here is Elvis in his prime, in 1956, with one of his earliest hits:

 

Elvis loved Gospel Music. Listen to his sensitive treatment of the classic “It Is No Secret.”

 

Fifty-two years ago today!!!