Elvis History Blog Archives
December 2008

Entry #39: Posted December 4, 2008
Elvis's Christmas Album Drew Harsh Criticism in 1957

As we enter another Christmas season, I thought it would be interesting to go back 50 years and look at how Elvis’s first Christmas album was received when it first appeared in 1957. Elvis fans, of course, embraced “Elvis’ Christmas Album,” as they did every record he released in those days. To those adults who were already convinced that Elvis threatened the morals of the nation’s youth, an album of Christmas songs from him was especially troublesome. For Elvis to sing rock ’n’ roll was bad enough, but for him to step outside that category and into the traditional and religious field of Christmas music was frightening to many.

Before looking at how critics reacted to “Elvis’ Christmas Album” in 1957, let’s take a quick look at the LP’s content. Four of the album’s 12 cuts were recycled recordings of non-Christmas religious hymns that Elvis had recorded in January 1957 and released on an extended play album in April of that year. They were “Peace in the Valley,” “I Believe,” “Take My Hand, Precious Lord,” and “It Is No Secret (What God Can Do).” Elvis used traditional arrangements on all four songs, and so, beyond the quality of his voice, critics found little to disparage in those recordings when they were included in Presley’s holiday album.

What incensed critics was Elvis’s treatment of the eight Christmas songs he recorded in Hollywood from September 5-7, 1957. (By the way, it was after this session that Scotty Moore and Bill Black, angered that they were not allowed to record their own instrumental album, quit Elvis’s band.)

What emerged were eight varied recordings. It’s difficult to understand how anyone could have gotten upset over Elvis’s versions of the carols “Silent Night” and “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” He sang both in traditional style, but his temerity in even recording them at all angered his critics. Two other recordings, “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” and “Here Comes Santa Claus,” had a bit of a rhythm and blues edge, but not much. The other four tunes received Elvis’s “sexy, rock-it-up approach,” in the words of Elvis historian Ernst Jorgensen. They were “Blue Christmas,” “Santa Claus Is Back in Town,” “Santa Bring My Baby Back (To Me),” and “White Christmas.”

Elvis first spoke publicly of his Christmas album during a press conference in San Francisco on October 26, 1957. In what a San Francisco Chronicle reporter called “chilling” news, Elvis announced his Christmas album would be released soon. “It’ll be a rock ’n’ roll Christmas,” he told the assembled press, adding that “Silent Night” was the only song he hadn’t “monkeyed” with.

A few examples will suffice to demonstrate how this news was received within the music industry. Time magazine reported that bandleader Sammy Kaye said Elvis’s album “borders on the sacrilegious. Presley has gone too far this time.” Then, the Ohio Penitentiary News, representing a captive radio audience, condemned Elvis’s treatment of “White Christmas,” which the paper called “a song beloved until this creature recorded his barnyard version of it.”

Elvis’s version of “White Christmas” closely followed an earlier recording of the song by The Drifters. Irving Berlin was said to have been so upset by this arrangement of his song that he tried to have it banned from being played on radio stations.

Some stations went along with his request. One was KEX in Portland, Oregon. On December 10, 1957, the station’s all-night disk jockey, Al Priddy, was fired for intentionally playing Elvis’s recording of “White Christmas” on the air in violation of station policy. Variety reported that station program manager Mel Bailey “had forbidden all KEX jockeys to play the RCA Victor platter because he felt that this treatment of the song is in ‘extremely bad taste.’”

It was from radio stations north of the border, however, that “Elvis’ Christmas Album” received the most criticism and banishment from the airwaves. This was despite Presley having played to huge crowds earlier in the year during concerts in Toronto, Ottawa, and Vancouver B.C. In the latter city, all six of the town’s radio stations agreed to a proposed ban on Elvis’s holiday recordings.

Radio station CKXL in Calgary also banned Elvis’s album. “Presley’s latest release has, we feel, no place on our station,” said a CKXL spokesman. “We have the album for audition—it speaks for itself. Presley sings the Christmas songs exactly as we expected he would. It is one of the most degrading things we have heard in some time.” He described Presley as “panting” through the hymns “Silent Night” and “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” Another Calgary station, CFCN, denied an official ban, but stated Elvis’s album “would not be played because it happens to be in lousy taste.”

In Toronto, station CFRB banned the album, declaring, “there are better interpretations of Xmas hymns.” Gordon Sinclair, columnist for the Toronto Star, condemned Presley’s rock ’n’ roll treatment of Christmas carols. “Only Mahalia Jackson could jazz the hymns,” he said. Sinclair added that he disliked censorship, but found Elvis’s treatment of Christmas songs to be “wildly inappropriate.”

The Canadian Press, a newsgathering organization, surveyed disk jockeys across Canada and found, while many refused to spin any cut on Elvis’s album, other stations planned to play the non-religious songs, like “Santa Bring My Baby Back to Me,” while shying away from the Christmas standards like “Silent Night.” Other stations stated they were waiting for their listeners' views before making a decision on whether or not to play the album.

The nationwide Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, however, took a progressive stand on “Elvis’ Christmas Album.” A spokesman stated, “We have no objection if listeners want to hear the Presley albums and CBC disk jockeys want to play the numbers.”

Of course, back in the U.S. “Elvis’ Christmas Album” racked up big sales. On October 7, Billboard reported that advance orders for the LP far exceeded RCA’s planned production of 200,000 copies. An RCA exec called it, “the greatest advance album order in the history of the company.”

“Elvis’ Christmas Album” reached #1 on Billboard’s album chart during the 1957 holiday season. Elvis’s version of “Blue Christmas,” now considered a rock ’n’ roll holiday classic, is played on radio stations across the country every December.

Of course, “Elvis’ Christmas Album” was reissued every holiday season after its first appearance in 1957. During the Yule season of 1963, sales of the album finally reached the $1 million mark, earning it gold record status. It was Elvis’s sixth gold album at the time. In the 45 years since then, Elvis’s first Christmas LP has continued to sell in a multitude of repackaged recording products. The popularity of Elvis’s first Christmas recordings has outlived most of those critics who condemned them over 50 years ago. — Alan Hanson

Entry #40: Posted December 11, 2008
Memories of Elvis Christmas Presents—Past and Present

Christmas is just two weeks away now, and my relatives are starting to press me. “What do you want for Christmas?” As I get older (I’ll be 60 next month), I find that question harder and harder to answer. What I need, I buy for myself. I’m not about to ask for underwear for Christmas. “What do you want?” is an entirely different question. Starting with baseball cards at age seven, for much of my life I was a collector of many things, including Elvis “stuff.” Now, though, I’ve entered the down-sizing phase of my life. I’m trying to get rid of the storeroom full of “stuff” I accumulated over the years, not add to it. That’s why it’s so hard to come up with a list of things I want.

That wasn’t always the case, however. At various times through the years, Elvis items appeared on my Christmas list. It started when I first became an Elvis fan in 1963. My paper route provided a moderate income, so I was able to purchase the soundtrack LP for Girls! Girls! Girls!, and, later that year, the “It Happened At the World’s Fair” album as well. As I remember, those LPs in stereo retailed at $3.98 at the time. The mono versions were a bit cheaper.

As Christmas 1963 approached, Elvis albums filled my Christmas list. After all, I had some catching up to do. From 1956 through 1962, Elvis had released 15 LPs, and I wanted them all. My paper route profits allowed me to purchase most of his back 45 singles (98¢ each), but at four bucks a pop, getting those 15 albums on my own would have taken me several years. But along comes Christmas—the perfect opportunity to get those Elvis albums without having to pay for them. In addition to my parents and grandparents, I had a dozen aunts and uncles, so I had great hopes of putting a big dent in my missing Elvis albums.

That Christmas morning in 1963, I did indeed receive a number of Elvis LPs, although the only one I can remember now was “Fun in Acapulco,” the soundtrack for the Elvis movie then in theaters. However, I vividly remember a trick pulled on me that morning by one of my aunts. It was obvious what her present to me was. It was a flat, 12” X 12” package. What else could it be but a record album? When I opened it, though, there was no Elvis album, just two $1 bills. I can still remember my aunt laughing as I realized how she had deceived me.

Elvis records were never on my Christmas list in future years. Like most fans, whenever an Elvis LP came out, I had to buy it immediately. I wasn’t about to wait until the next Christmas to listen to a new Elvis album!

I have, however, received some Elvis items as Christmas presents through the years. My daughter Beth usually finds some Elvis product to give me. They have included a blanket with a scene from Jailhouse Rock on it, an Elvis light-switch cover, and an Elvis snow globe. I’ve also received several Elvis books as Christmas presents. They’ve proved very helpful in my Elvis research over the years.

Several years ago, I noticed an item on ShopElvis.com that intrigued me. It was a foot-and-a-half tall Crosley bubbler juke box replica. It has an etched drawing of Elvis on glass and a list of Elvis songs like they might appear on a real juke box. It doesn’t operate like a juke box, though. It plays CDs and has an AM/FM radio. At $350 it was something I would never have bought for myself. So, I put it on my Christmas list, and my wife and mother went in together and gave it to me. It sits in my office, and although I never use the CD player or the radio, I enjoy turning on its neon lights and bubbler feature while I work at my computer. The only other one I’ve seen was in DJ Red Robinson’s office in Vancouver, B.C., when I interviewed him for my Elvis ’57 book a couple of years ago.

Getting back to this Christmas, I’m finding myself intrigued by another Elvis item that I might put on my Christmas list. I got the idea from an article in this month’s issue of Spokane Living magazine. The editors asked several well-known Spokane citizens to tell about a memorable Christmas past. One of them was Doug Clark, a columnist for the Spokesman-Review newspaper. Clark started his remembrance with the following:

“Call us old fashioned. But when it comes to yuletide traditions, the Clark household is all shook up about The King. And by that I mean our talking/singing ‘animatronic’ head of Elvis—The King of Rock.”

Clark and his wife found the Elvis head at Walmart a week before last Christmas. “Oh, sure,” he admitted, “I had a bad moment or two when I examined the price tag. A little voice that must have been my conscience said: ‘Doug, are you nuts? You can’t spend 250 bucks on an Elvis head. Give your money to the poor. Make the world a better place. Fortunately, I found the inner strength to tell that little voice to shove it.”

They took the rubberized Elvis home, set him on a table near the Christmas tree, and fit a Santa hat over his ink black hair. “Soon we were learning how to use the microphone-shaped remote control,” Clark explained. “We had Elvis curling his lip, singing his hits and saying things like, ‘Don’t criticize what you can’t understand, son?’”

Elvis turned out to be the hit of the Clarks’ annual holiday party. “Our guests marveled at his synthetic skin,” he recalled, “and how the ten hidden precision motors could move his eyes and give his face eerily lifelike expressions. It was just like having the real Elvis in your home.”

OK, I’m sucked in. Right after I finish writing this, I’m heading right over to my local Walmart and see if they still stock the Elvis head. If they do, I’m going to buy it before my conscience can convince me what a frivolous thing it is. Then I’ll give it to my wife, and say, “Here, give this to me for Christmas?” No one can ever say the Elvis spirit doesn’t still live in me at Christmas time.— Alan Hanson

Entry #41: Posted December 18, 2008
Elvis’s 1968 TV Special Still Remains a Spiritual Experience

December 3rd was the 40th anniversary of Elvis’s 1968 television special, now commonly known as his “Comeback” special. There is no doubt that it was an extraordinary landmark in his career, as well as a joyous event for all of us who were Elvis fans at that time. Today there are many other Elvis fans who were not even born by December 1968. They know Elvis’s first TV special only by viewing it years after the fact on VHS or DVD format. This week I’d like to take them, as well as my fellow “vintage” fans, back to the Christmas season of 1968 and give them a sense of what it was like when a leather-clad Elvis made his first TV appearance in over eight years.

Let’s start with some basics. Officially titled Singer Presents Elvis, after it’s sponsor, the Singer Sewing Machine Company, Elvis’s special first aired on the NBC-TV network at 9 p.m. on Tuesday, December 3, 1968. The program had been heavily promoted with full-page ads appearing in many national publications, including The New York Times and Variety. Running 60 minutes, it was easily the highest rated prime time program in the Nielsen ratings for the week of December 2-8, 1968. (NBC’s Laugh-In and CBS’s Charlie Brown’s Xmas came in a distant second and third.)

The special ran again on NBC eight months later on Sunday night, August 17, 1969. For that showing, one change was made in the program’s content. Elvis’s rendition of “Blue Christmas” was replaced with “Tiger Man” in the summer re-run. I watched the initial December airing with some of my Chi Psi fraternity brothers at the University of Washington in Seattle. My grandmother and I watched the August re-run in her living room in Portland, Oregon.

Of course, as a 19-year-old Elvis fan in 1968, viewing that TV special was almost a spiritual experience. I had been an Elvis fan for five years by then and only had seen him in a series of continually disappointing movies. His powerful performance in the special not only validated by faith in his talent, but also gave him some credibility with my fraternity brothers, who previously had taken great glee in teasing me about my fondness for Elvis.

Forty years later the generally accepted consensus concerning Elvis’s ’68 TV special is summed up by Ernst Jorgensen in his book Elvis: A Life In Music. He wrote that the special, “only gave Elvis’ record sales a modest boost at first, but its real effect was much broader and deeper. It re-established his place as a dominant force in American music and culture.” Thus, the “Comeback” label, which is generally attached to the ’68 special these days.

Believe me, I’m as devoted an Elvis fan today as I was 40 years ago. Reluctantly, though, I have to admit that he was a “dominant force in American music and culture” only during the 1950s, and his ability to shape the same ended when he entered the army in 1958. While Elvis was away in Hollywood making movies, rock music had branched out into styles quite different from the basic form Elvis had popularized in the fifties. The purpose of his ’68 special was clearly not to reestablish him as the leader of a new movement in rock. In fact, the intent of that special was to take Elvis back to his old style of music.

On December 1, 1968, The New York Times printed an article entitled, “Elvis? Ah, The Good Old Days!” by Albert Goldman. (Yeah, the same Albert Goldman, who 13 years later would publish a hatchet-job biography of Elvis.) It is clear from the article that Goldman had seen a preview of Elvis’s special that would air on network television two days later.

As much as I recent Goldman’s intellectual drivel in his later book about Elvis, I believe he hit upon the essence of Elvis’s TV special in his 1968 article. He said the allure of the program was based upon a cultural force, which he termed IPA—“Indefinitely Prolonged Adolescence.” As Goldman explained it, when a person reaches the years between 18 and 20, they put away “childish” things (like Elvis), go to college, get a job, raise a family, and settle into the responsibilities of adulthood.

Then one day, says Goldman, “They’re rooting around in the basement and they uncover a stack of long-ignored records. Hey! Here’s ‘Rip It Up,’ ‘Hound Dog,’ ‘Heartbreak Hotel.’ Let’s bring them upstairs and slip them on the phonograph.” It’s that desire we all feel, periodically, to return to that simpler cultural time of our youth.

Goldman suggests that viewing Presley’s coming TV special would be like finding a stack of his records in the basement. “So the Elvis special becomes a very, well, special kind of program,” he explains, “a marker, a reminder, a coarsely pious Christmas card which demands some appropriate response. Might we suggest a solemn ‘Yeah!’ and a single exquisitely positioned finger-pop?”

Rather than his “Comeback Special,” then, a better nickname for Elvis’ 1968 TV program might be his “Throwback Special.” Both the advertising for and the content of that special suggests that it was designed to portray Elvis as he used to be, and not as he would be. “This is the old Elvis,” an ad for the upcoming special proclaimed in 1968. “This is the ‘Hound Dog,’ ‘Jailhouse Rock,’ ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ Elvis that we all remember.” Most of the songs Elvis sang in the special dated back to the fifties, some even all the way back to his Sun Records days. The only number in the entire hour that could be considered forward-looking at the time was the closer, “If I Can Dream.”

In the final analysis, then, Elvis’ 1968 TV special should not be exalted for more than it was—a fantastic trip down memory lane. Elvis, himself, apparently was not impressed with the special. In August 1969, eight months after the special first aired, he introduced the song “Memories” to a Las Vegas audience by saying, “A song I just did on my recent TV show, which was pretty bad, but … can’t win’em all.”

What, then, is the true legacy of Elvis’s 1968 TV special? For Elvis it signaled a career change from actor to concert performer. And that gave all his fans the opportunity to do something we never thought possible—to see Elvis Presley perform live on stage. For that alone, at least in my book, his 1968 TV special was the most significant event in Elvis Presley’s momentous career. — Alan Hanson

Entry #42: Posted December 18, 2008
Reviewing Elvis's 23 Christmases from 1954-1976

This week Christmas falls on Thursday, my regular blog day, so I’d like to start out by wishing all Elvis fans everywhere a very merry Christmas. Of course we know that Christmas was a very special time of year for Elvis. Wherever his work found him, whether it was in Hollywood, in Las Vegas, or on the road somewhere, he almost always came home to Memphis for the holidays. He loved to decorate Graceland for his fans to see, and at Christmas time he gave generously to many of his hometown charities. We know that, regardless of the season, he loved to give gifts to his family and friends, but that was especially so at Christmas time.

Elvis celebrated 23 Christmases during his years as a professional entertainer from 1954-1976. Below is a record of where Elvis spent December 25th each of those years, along with a brief note about his activities that particular Christmas. The information comes from the book Elvis: Day By Day by Ernst Jorgensen and Peter Guralnick.

1954: Elvis spent Christmas with his parents in the family’s Memphis apartment at 462 Alabama Street. A week before Christmas, Elvis had appeared on the Louisiana Hayride radio program and just three days after Christmas he played a club in Houston, Texas.

1955: Again Elvis was home on Christmas Day. The family had moved to a house at 1414 Getwell in Memphis. A month earlier he had signed on with RCA Records, and his 21st birthday was just two weeks away.

1956: Elvis’s fabulous success during the year had enabled him to purchase a new home for his parents on Audubon Drive in Memphis. He spent the holiday season there with his family.

1957: Elvis must have had mixed emotions at Christmas time in 1957. It was his first Christmas at Graceland. Just five days before Christmas, however, he had received his draft notice. On Christmas Eve he requested a deferment, which pushed his induction day to March 20, 1958.

1958: This was Elvis’s first Christmas without his mother. He spent it with his father, grandmother, and friends in the Hotel Grunewald in Germany, near his army post. Vernon’s gift to Elvis was an electric guitar. That season Colonel Parker sent out Christmas cards with a picture of himself dressed as Santa and Elvis in his military uniform.

1959: This was Elvis’s first Christmas with Priscilla. It was celebrated with family and friends at Elvis’s rented home on Goethetrasse in Germany. Priscilla gave Elvis a set of bongo drums. Meanwhile, Elvis had arranged for a French poodle to be delivered to girlfriend Anita Wood in Memphis.

1960: Out of the service, Elvis again celebrated Christmas at Graceland. The photo on Colonel Parker’s Christmas card that year featured Elvis sitting on Colonel Santa’s lap. It was taken in November on the set of Wild in the Country.

1961: Elvis spent the holidays with friends at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas. It was the last Christmas of his life that he would spend away from Graceland.

1962: Priscilla flew in from Germany to spend Christmas with Elvis at Graceland. Elvis held a private party for about 30 friends. Elvis’s gift to Priscilla was a toy poodle that she named Honey. She gave Elvis a wooden cigarette box that played the song “Surrender” when opened.

1963: Again Elvis spent the holidays at Graceland with Priscilla. A week before Christmas he presented the mayor of Memphis with a check for $58,000 to be shared by 58 Memphis charities.

1964: At Graceland a dozen or so members of Elvis’s male entourage went in together to present Elvis a Christmas gift of a bible with a “tree of life” drawn on the front page. Each of the lines had the name of one of the guys. Noticing that Larry Geller’s name was missing, Elvis refused to accept the bible until Larry’s name was added. Elvis was just two weeks away from his 30th birthday.

1965: Again spending the holidays at Graceland, Elvis received a slot-car racing set as a Christmas present from Priscilla. The guys gave Elvis a $500 statue of Jesus, which is still in the Meditation Garden at Graceland.

1966: On Christmas Eve, Elvis proposed to Priscilla. The next day Elvis had a catered dinner served at Graceland.

1967: It was Elvis and Priscilla’s first Christmas as man and wife. They hosted a party at Graceland on Christmas Eve. As usual, the grounds were decorated with a life-size Nativity scene and eight lighted garland trees.

1968: Early in December, Elvis’s “Comeback Special” aired on NBC-TV. At Graceland on Christmas day, Vernon dressed like Santa for Lisa Marie’s first Christmas. To his employees Elvis handed out gift certificates ranging from $100-$200 to Goldsmith’s Department Store.

1969: A week before Christmas, Elvis returned home to Memphis from Los Angeles. Vernon again played the part of Santa. Elvis gave Priscilla a black fox coat, and she gave him a velvet suit with shirts and slacks all designed by Bill Belew, who had designed the clothes for Elvis’s 1968 TV special.

1970: In the early morning hours of Christmas Day, Elvis visited Memphis police headquarters to say hello to “the men and women who had to work on Christmas.” Elvis and Priscilla spent the rest of the day quietly at Graceland. In the evening they went to the Memphian theater to see Little Fauss and Big Halsey starring Robert Redford.

1971: At Graceland, Elvis distributed MacDonald’s gift certificates as a joke before handing out his real presents. Many of the guys noticed that Elvis and Priscilla seemed “distant” over the holidays.

1972: Having separated from Priscilla, Elvis gave his girlfriend, Linda Thompson, a mink coat for Christmas at Graceland. The Memphis Press Scimitar noted that Elvis again had given graciously to local charities.

1973: Divorced from Priscilla, Elvis spent another Christmas at Graceland. Among the extravagant presents he gave were a three-quarter-length mink coat and a $2,000 fox suede coat.

1974: Elvis experienced health problems during the Christmas season. (As a result, he was forced to cancel his January Las Vegas engagement.) During the holidays, Elvis flew Voice, a gospel backup group, in and out of Memphis a couple of times to sing with him at Graceland. Elvis’s 40th birthday was now just two weeks away

1975: On Christmas Eve, Elvis took the Graceland gang up for a ride in the Lisa Marie. There he handed out pieces of jewelry, which he had personally selected for each individual.

1976: The final Christmas season of Elvis’s life was a hectic one. He returned to Memphis on December 13, after a bizarre Las Vegas engagement. Just two days after Christmas, he appeared at Wichita State University to start a new tour. Six-and-a-half months later, Elvis died at Graceland. — Alan Hanson

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