Elvis Blog Archives — August 2009
Entry #74: Posted August 6, 2009 “His kind of music is deplorable, a rancid smelling aphrodisiac. It fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people.” — Frank Sinatra, 1956 Some time ago, on another Elvis web site, I came across this alleged Frank Sinatra quote about Elvis, allegedly from 1956. The italicized words are required because no source reference was provided for the statement. Where did Sinatra say it? And when, exactly, did he say it? In what publication did it first appear? When I inquired, the web site owner referred me to another site where he found the quote. On going to that other site, I found the quote, but—surprise—no attribution there either. It’s a perfect example of the bad side of the internet. Certainly, the web has been a boon to Elvis Presley fans. We can find out so much more information about the man and his music than was ever available to us before. However, we have to be careful because a lot of distorted and downright phony information about Elvis is circulating out there on the web. That’s why I always try to provide the sources for the information I pass along on Elvis-History-Blog.com. I happen to know that the alleged quotation attributed to Frank Sinatra above is a distortion, because I came across it while doing research for my book, Elvis ’57: The Final Fifties Tours. So let’s see if we can’t set the record straight about what Frank Sinatra really said about Elvis in the 1950s. While in Paris, France, in the fall of 1957, Sinatra wrote a short article about American music that was printed in the French magazine Western World. An Associated Press article that focused on Sinatra’s comments about rock ’n’ roll in the French magazine appeared in many U.S. newspapers in late October 1957. The following two paragraphs were quoted directly from Sinatra’s French article in the October 28, 1957, edition of the Los Angeles Mirror News. “My only deep sorrow is the unrelenting insistence of recording and motion picture companies upon purveying the most brutal, ugly, degenerate, vicious form of expression it has been my displeasure to hear—Naturally I refer to the bulk of rock ’n’ roll. “It fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people. It smells phony and false. It is sung, played and written for the most part by cretinous goons and by means of its almost imbecilic reiterations and sly, lewd—in plain fact, dirty—lyrics, and as I said before, it manages to be the martial music of every sideburned delinquent on the face of the earth … this rancid-smelling aphorodisiac I deplore. But, in spite of it, the contribution of American music to the world could be said to have one of the healthiest effects of all our contributions.” It's obvious that whoever first floated the opening alleged Sinatra statement about Elvis took two passages from Sinatra’s complete statement above (in which he referred to rock ’n’ roll in general), and added “His kind of music … ” at the beginning to make it appear Sinatra was speaking about Elvis. In fact, Frank had not named any specific rock ’n’ roll singer in his article. What’s to be gained by distorting Sinatra’s statement to make it appear as if he were blasting Elvis Presley? It’s a psychological ploy that some Elvis pseudo-journalists like to utilize and one to which many Elvis fans fall prey. Build up Elvis by knocking down his competitors. Want to promote Elvis as a rebel in the entertainment world? Then demean the power players around him, like Sinatra, even if you have to make up stuff to do it. Really, Elvis’s accomplishments were impressive enough without having to embellish them with phony, distorted claims. Let’s complete the Sinatra-Presley story from 1957. When Elvis held a press conference in Los Angeles on October 28, 1957, prior to his appearance that night at the Pan-Pacific Auditorium, he was asked his reaction to Sinatra’s comments about rock ’n’ roll. From the press reports in several LA newspapers the next day, it’s impossible to know exactly what Elvis said in response, since various reporters translated their notes differently. Still, all reports were consistent about the tone of his response. In his Herald-Express article of the 29th, Gerry McCarthy quoted Elvis as follows: “He has a right to his opinion, but I can’t see him knocking it for no good reason. I admire him as a performer and an actor but I think he’s badly mistaken about this. If I remember correctly, he was also part of a trend. I don’t see how he can call the youth of today immoral and delinquent. It’s the greatest music ever and it will continue to be so. I like it, and I’m sure many other persons feel the same way.” McCarthy also asked one of Elvis’s female fans what she thought of Sinatra’s comments. “He’s had his day, and his day is past,” she said. “Long live Elvis.” The ire of other Elvis fans came down on Sinatra in the Herald-Express letters-to-the-editor column. The excerpts that follow come from a letter printed on November 5, 1957. “Why don’t you and that old bag Frank Sinatra keep your mouths closed? Frank Sinatra thinks he’s something, but he’s just a crabapple. Elvis Presley is a gentleman and if you and others had brains, you would know that he wiggles around because he shows what’s in his heart. The reason Frank Sinatra doesn’t like Elvis is because he can’t wiggle around and he’s just jealous. Why? Because he’s an old croney. So I suggest that you would keep your mouths shut, and tell Frank, Frank Sinatra, the great, the baldheaded ape, to do the same.” — Estella and Sarah Sinatra had his defenders too. One letter, written in response to Estella and Sarah, was printed in the paper’s November 15, 1957, edition. It read in part: “So they called Sinatra a crabapple. Well they can call me a crabapple too, if they wish, because I sincerely hope they will be on hand to see Elvis Presley run out of town by citizens who prefer to be entertained. Frank Sinatra can probably wiggle around just as much as Presley, but he knows how to express his feelings for a song without going into vulgar and derogatory motions.” — R.S. So, what did Frank Sinatra really think about Elvis Presley in 1957? In a short article in Variety on June 5, 1957, Sinatra, then on the set of Pal Joey in Hollywood, was asked to comment of Presley’s singing ability. He responded: “Only time will tell. They said I was a freak when I first hit, but I’m still around. Presley has no training at all. When he goes into something serious, a bigger kind of singing, we’ll find out if he is a singer. He has a natural, animalistic talent.” — Alan Hanson
Entry #75: Posted August 13, 2009 Certainly “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” is a song associated intimately with Elvis Presley. This is in spite of the fact that it was written nearly a decade before Elvis was born and that numerous singers recorded it before he did. The song had an interesting history leading up to Presley’s 1960 chart-topping version. Elvis’s hit recording also had a ripple effect, sending out waves of financial success to a flock of female singers who released “answer records” and the music publishers who controlled the tune. Two men who didn’t benefit from Elvis’s recording of “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” were Lou Handman and Roy Turk, who wrote the song in 1927. Both were dead by the time Elvis recorded their tune. Handman had a hand in the initial recording of his song, when he played piano on his sister Edith’s vocal rendition in 1927. The song first hit the Billboard pop charts in 1950, when Blue Barron’s release on MGM records peaked at #19. Al Jolson also released a version of the song on the Decca label. Just what inspired Elvis to record the song is difficult to nail down. Some sources credit Colonel Parker for suggesting the song. Elvis also might have heard Jaye P. Morgan’s MGM label release, which reached #65 on the charts in 1959. At that time Elvis was in the army and known to be considering recording material for his first post-army session the following year. In any event, Elvis recorded “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” at RCA’s Nashville Studio B in the early morning hours of April 4, 1960. Musicians working the session were guitarists Scotty Moore and Hank Garland, bassist Bob Moore, drummers D.J. Fontana and Buddy Harman, and pianist Floyd Cramer. The Jordanaires provided their usual vocal backing. When it was released in early November 1960, both Variety and Billboard predicted hit status for the record. (Not a stretch for either publication, considering Presley’s previous two singles that year, “Stuck on You” and “It’s Now or Never” had shot to the top of the charts.) Variety noted, “Elvis Presley’s ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’ chalks up another smash hit in this restrained workover of the oldie.” Billboard’s review read, “Elvis Presley turns in a warm and touching performance on the oldie, which also features a tender recitation.” The recitation was Elvis’s personal imprint on the song. The spoken part was not part of the original published lyrics, and so speculation grew around who had penned those words. It has been suggested that the recitation was based on Shakespeare’s “All the world’s a stage” speech in As You Like It. That may be so, but who wrote the adapted lines for the song? In a short article in its December 12, 1960, issue, Billboard claimed to have found the answer. “After much diligent footwork on the part of The Billboard,” the magazine explained, “it was discovered this week that the writer of the recitation on the Elvis Presley record of ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’ was written by veteran music man and writer Dave Dreyer. Dreyer, the composer of ‘Cecilia,’ ‘I’m Following You,’ ‘Me and My Shadow,’ and other hits, penned the recitation while working for Bourne Music in the 1920’s. At that time recitations were used by singers in theaters and music halls to dramatize songs before a live audience. The recitations were often printed on the back of sheet music copies.” Elvis’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight” entered Billboard’s “Hot 100” at #35 on November 11, 1960. It leaped past his own “It’s Now or Never,” which was at #47 that week, on it’s way down the chart after spending five weeks at #1. The next week “Lonesome” was at #2, before settling in at #1 on November 28, only it’s third week on the chart. It displaced “Stay” by Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs in the top spot. “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” held on to #1 for six weeks, before giving way to Bert Kaempfert’s instrumental “Wonderland by Night.” Elvis’s record held the #2 spot for two weeks before starting its slow withdrawal from the chart. In the end, “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” spent 17 weeks in the “Hot 100,” 11 of them in the top 10. Elvis wasn’t the only one to capitalize on his hit recording. At least five female singers took a ride on Presley’s rocket by recording answer records. In its December 5, 1960, edition, Billboard took notice of the phenomenon as follows: “Elvis Presley’s smash hit waxing of ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight’ has inspired the biggest flock of answer records to any one disking in years. And all of the answer disks are by fem artists, indicating the effect that Elvis still has his large, loyal and young female following. The answer records, complete with heartfelt recitations, include diskings by Dodie Stevens on Dot, Linda Lee on Shasta, Ricky Page on Rendezvous, Thelma Carpenter on Coral and Jeanne Black on Capitol.” The first four versions were all titled, “Yes, I’m Lonesome Tonight.” They kept the original lyrics, adding only a change in the personal tense. Thus Turk and Handman were still credited as the writers and Bourne-Cromwell as publishers. Variety reported that at first the publishers “weren’t anxious for an ‘answer’ song so soon after the release of the Presley disk for fear that it hurt the original’s sales momentum.” However, since all four recordings adhered to the original lyrics, they couldn’t be stopped, and when it became clear that nothing was hindering sales of Elvis’s record, the publishers were said to be “walking on clouds.” Jeanne Black went a little different route. Her answer song, “Oh, How I Miss You Tonight,” was a different tune, but with her own touching recitation added. “It is all as if they are singing to Elvis personally, thru the media of recording,” Billboard noted. The scramble was on for the record labels of the five answer songs. “All of this romantic effusion has caused a wild sales race on the part of the five diskeries,” Billboard reported, “as trying to get their copy of the Elvis answer to disk jockeys, distributors and dealers before their competitors can do the same. There are reports that some enthusiastic sales personnel are calling competitor’s versions unauthorized but a check of the publishers indicates that all versions are not only authorized but welcome.” Meanwhile, Colonel Parker was ecstatic over all the furor created by Elvis's latest mega-hit. "Sort of confirms his belief that Elvis remains the No. 1 singing act in the business," noted Billboard of the Colonel. Insiders in the recording industry didn't agree. At the 1960 Grammy Awards, "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" by Elvis was nominated for “Best Performance by a Pop Single Artist” and “Best Vocal Single Performance” by a male artist. He lost in both categories to Ray Charles and his recording of “Georgia on My Mind.” — Alan Hanson
Entry #76: Posted August 20, 2009 Elvis anniversaries—there have been a bunch of them noted and celebrated to various degrees in recent years. In 2004 we had the 50th anniversary of Elvis’s first commercial recording, “That’s All Right.” The next year marked 70 years since his birth. The year 2006 featured multiple anniversaries, including Elvis’s first #1 record, his first movie, and his appearances on the Sullivan show. Then in 2007 we remembered the 50th anniversaries of Elvis’s gold lamé suit and the films Jailhouse Rock and Loving You. (That year, however, Elvis Presley Enterprises chose to focus on the 30th anniversary of Elvis’s death.) In 2008 we recalled both Elvis’s 1958 entry into the army and his 1968 TV special. Now here we are in 2009 and the big anniversary push seems to be Elvis’s return to live performing in Las Vegas 40 years ago. I use the term “push” because all of these anniversaries are perfect themes for EPE to use in promoting their Presley merchandise. And the perfect product to fit all the anniversaries is the Teddy Bear. Of course, the cuddly toy has a perpetual connection to Elvis thanks to his charting topping record in 1957. Just by changing the bear’s outfit, EPE has been able to align it with each new Elvis anniversary. They’ve sold the same bear in gold lamé, jailhouse stripes, army fatigues, and black leather. And this year all they had to do was slap a little jumpsuit on the bear, and they created the perfect collectible to remember Elvis’s 1969 Las Vegas debut. Now, those of you who are regular readers of this blog know I don’t often deal with Elvis collectibles. It’s certainly not that I look down upon those who enjoy accumulating Elvis items. It’s just that this is Elvis-History-Blog.com, and I see collectibles as playing a minor role in the “history” of Elvis Presley. Neither is it my intent to demean EPE, which is ultimately a business that must sell Elvis collectibles to thrive. In fact, in addition to selling doodads, EPE offers some services that are very useful to fans like me who are interested in Elvis history. One of those is the “Elvis Insiders” club that EPE administers. I’ve been a member since the group started in 2002. From time to time, I scroll through the Insiders’ on-line forum searching for interesting discussion threads. Occasionally, the site administrator poses a question and invites members to respond. Recently a thoughtful question drew some thoughtful replies. The question—“What effect do you think Elvis’ years performing in Las Vegas had on his career?” Of course, many responses portrayed Elvis as being like a Saint presiding over the faithful masses who made their pilgrimage to the desert. However, many others offered more balanced views of Elvis’s work during those years. They were able to see how the Vegas stage influenced Elvis’s career in both positive and negative ways. Here are a few examples. “Some of his best live performances were on the Las Vegas stage. I do believe that Elvis should have concentrated more on 3-5 day engagements in large venues such as Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, Dallas and Houston rather than a grueling one or two day appearances in smaller venues …” — GiGi, Tennessee “ … Being in Vegas was probably good in the beginning but I think he performed there for too long. Two shows a night for seven years plus touring as well I think had a detrimental effect on his health. No stars today would do such a thing …” — Gary, United Kingdom “ … to his fans he was within reach again. Being Elvis, that sure was good for his career. However, as the years moved along the show with its repetition and high frequency of performances must have felt to Elvis somewhat like his once promising movie career—stuck. Elvis’ professional career could have benefited more had he been able to pursue some other creative challenges that were offered to him. The blessings of the Las Vegas contract expired long before its duration was up.” — Claudia, Canada Claudia made a couple of important observations. First, by returning to live performances, Elvis made himself available to his fans once again. During the Hollywood years, most of his fans, including me, had no hope of ever seeing Elvis in any venue other than a movie theater. Without doubt his popularity began to dwindle away during the middle sixties. His return to the stage revitalized his career. It reawakened many of his old fans and won him multitudes of new ones. I never saw Elvis perform in Las Vegas. (Once in 1970, however, I was visiting my father in Las Vegas while Elvis was appearing there. I couldn’t get in, of course, but one night I went to the International, stood outside the closed showroom doors, and faintly heard Elvis singing inside.) Later, when he went on the road, I was able to see him perform, and it is something I’ll never forget, something that would never have been possible without him first appearing in Las Vegas. But, as Claudia pointed out, instead of focusing solely on live performances, Elvis’ career would have been better served had he focused on a variety of “creative challenges.” In the 1950s Elvis performed on stage often, but he also appeared on TV occasionally and made several movies. When he came out of the army in 1960, however, he made the mistake of concentrating solely on making films. There were no multiple TV appearances or annual concert tours. That course eventually drained his creativity and enthusiasm. Unfortunately, when he returned to live performing, Elvis made the same mistake. For the rest of his life, he focused on concert work only, forsaking all other “creative challenges” open to him. That decision—and make no mistake, it was Elvis’s decision alone—was inevitably fatal to his creative spirit. Elvis was not a big fan of Frank Sinatra, but it would have done him some good to emulate Sinatra’s career path. Frank played Vegas, but not nearly as often as Elvis. In addition to his recording work, Sinatra also went on tour occasionally (both in the U.S. and abroad), usually made one movie per year, and appeared on TV from time to time. Sinatra lived to the age of 82. Perhaps if Elvis had chosen to be moderate in his Vegas work and had learned to better diversify his career, he might have lived to celebrate his 75th birthday this coming January. That leads us back to EPE’s Elvis Teddy Bear. What kind of clothing will it be wearing in 2010? I can’t think of an outfit that could be identified with a 75th birthday. I’m guessing, then, that next year the bear will be back in military garb in recognition of the 50th anniversary of Elvis’s first post-army movie, G.I. Blues. The Teddy Bear would then remind us of a time of great promise for Elvis, when the entire range of the entertainment world was open to him. Over exposure in Las Vegas was still a long ways away, and preventable. — Alan Hanson
Entry #77: Posted August 27, 2009 If you’ve been a regular reader of this blog, then you know I have little patience with falsehoods, exaggerations, and misinformation about Elvis that have been spread and perpetuated primarily through the Internet. On Elvis-History-Blog.com, any information about Presley that might be questioned or open to interpretation is accompanied by a source reference, usually an article or book written by a credible writer. However, I still apply the same reliability tests to professional journalists and authors that I do to the nut cases who spread garbage about Elvis on the web. For example, I recently came across an article about Elvis in The New York World-Telegram and Sun from February 1960. At that time many major U.S. newspapers were printing articles speculating on Elvis’s future in the entertainment business following his discharge from the army in March 1960. The World-Telegram’s article was written by Fred Sparks of the “Newspaper Enterprise Assn.” Sparks claimed to have covered Elvis’s career “from truck driver to king of rock ’n’ roll” and said he visited Elvis in Germany to gather information for his article. He sounded legitimate. But was he? Below I’ve listed 10 questionable assertions Sparks made in his story along with my reactions to them. 1. “Have two years of relative military oblivion cooled Presley fans? Can Elvis still fill Madison Square Garden by twitching one knee cap? Has he gone arty, upstage?” Apparently Sparks didn’t know that Elvis never played Madison Square Garden before entering the army. In fact, Elvis never performed in concert anywhere in the state of New York during the 1950s. 2. “It is true that Elvis wants to be a serious actor, the inevitable transfer from clown to Hamlet, duck tail to long hair. His pin-up is Frank Sinatra, the bread-stick thin crooner who won an Oscar from a meaty role in ‘From Here to Eternity.’” Elvis may have respected Frank Sinatra, but there’s no evidence he ever considered Sinatra a role model for his career. In fact, in 1957, shortly before Elvis entered the army, Frankie blasted rock ’n’ roll and the “cretinous goons” who performed it. “He is a great success and a fine actor,” Elvis responded to Sinatra’s comments, “but I don’t think he should have said it. … It’s an American development, just like crooning was a few years back.” Frank Sinatra surely never attained “pin-up” status in Elvis's eyes. 3. “Elvis is shopping around for a script that will give him the same chance for a Cinderella-transfer, something simple like ‘War and Peace’ or ‘The Ten Commandments.’” Elvis never shopped around for movie scripts. His Hollywood contracts gave him no power to approve scripts, not then or ever. As with his first post-army film, G.I. Blues, Elvis was always sent a pre-production script for his next movie so that he could learn the lines already written for him. He may have been disappointed with the scripts he got, but he never had, nor demanded, any creative input in his films beyond his acting work. 4. “When the draft board first tapped him, song and movie manufacturers with dividends at stake won a deferment—time to record 24 Presley songs for monthly release. Elvis, home or abroad, has kept the coins flowing.” I don’t know where Sparks came up with 24 as the number of songs Elvis recorded during his 60-day army induction deferment. The actual number was 16. All but four of them were recorded for the soundtrack of King Creole. Even if you count five other songs Elvis recorded in June 1958, after he was already in the army, the total number of songs Elvis recorded for release while he was in uniform totaled only 21, and three of them, “Danny,” “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” and “Ain’t That Loving You Baby,” weren’t released until years after Elvis left the army. 5. “Presley is a continuing story for me. I’ve written acres about how the Tennessee truck jockey, an amateur country-style rock-a-billy singer, paid $4 in a drug store to make his first record, ‘My Happiness’ …” Really now, Mr. Sparks. Even in 1960 everyone knew that Elvis made that first recording, not in a drug store, but in the studio of Sam Phillips’ Memphis Recording Service. 6. “Elvis … brought side-burns and duck-tail haircuts to every UN nation.” Sideburns, OK, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picture of Elvis with a duck-tail haircut. He may have had one at one time, but he sure didn’t popularize the DA style around the world. Elvis was better known in the fifties for the greasy mop of hair that continually fell down over his eyes while he was performing. 7. “Would they dare show Elvis swiveling his hips, knocking his knees, bumping, grinding? Elvis’ trembling torso was then being attacked as a ‘social menace’ and as invitation to after-school mischief. Caution triumphed. Only his upper half appeared on TV.” This bit of misinformation continues to live on over 50 years later. Elvis was actually shown only above the waist on one rendition of “Hound Dog” on the Sullivan show. On other Sullivan performances, including “Ready Teddy” and another version of “Hound Dog,” Elvis’s gyrating lower half was in full view. 8. “Censorship and curiosity are the greatest salesmen; Elvis was IN and asked and got $25,000 for singing a few classics like ‘Get Off My Blue Suede Shoes’ and ‘Heartbreak Hotel.’ And, of course, squirming like a wet poodle.” If Sparks was still referring to the Sullivan shoes, then the facts are that Elvis didn’t sing either of those two songs on any of his Sullivan appearances. I guess he may have been referring to a 1957 Elvis concert. In any event, the first title Sparks listed should have been simply “Blue Suede Shoes.” 9. “Elvis bought Cadillacs by the pair. He got the roller skating bug and rented a rink by the month. He gave small dinner parties—chauteaubriand and grits—for 160.” I’ll grant the Cadillac thing, but Elvis rented skating rinks, amusement parks, and movie theaters but the “night,” not the “month.” And as for the reference to multiple dinner parties with such a menu and for so many people—Mr. Sparks, you really needed to provide a credible source before you could expect anyone to believe such a ridiculous assertion. 10. “Recently Elvis and Cliff Gleaves, No. 1 buddy-buddy, had a furlough blast in Paris. They closed every Champs Elysee night club, went through $100-$500 daily.” Elvis had summoned Cliff Gleaves from Memphis to join his entourage in Germany, but Cliff had not arrived in time to join Elvis on the June 1959 trip to Paris. Lamar Fike, Rex Mansfield, and Charlie Hodge were the three buddy-buddies who accompanied Elvis to Paris. The point of all this is that when a writer includes factual errors in a story about Elvis, it’s difficult to take any part of the article seriously. And when a writer like Fred Sparks, presenting himself as an expert on Elvis, obviously makes stuff up as he goes along, it’s, well, just downright irritating. — Alan Hanson Go to Blog Archives 2009
|
