November 22nd

 

In 1961, Elvis moved to his new rented home at 10538 Bellagio Road. This was just around the corner of the Perugia Way house.

The entourage was now made up of Joe Esposito, Gene Smith, Lamar Fike, Ray Sitton, Marty Lacker and Sonny West.

Charlie Hodge and Red West were still part of the picture but worked outside the group too.

November 23rd

 

In 1976, there was a bit of trouble at the gates of Graceland. This was the second night in a row that Jerry Lee Lewis appeared at the gates in the early morning. He was waving with a gun and demanded to see Elvis. According to witnesses he was screaming and cursing, and the police said that the singer was sitting in his car with a loaded 38 derringer resting on his knee when they arrived. Elvis watched the whole thing on the closed-circuit monitors. :blink:

November 24th

 

In 1955, Elvis as at the Silver Moon Club in Newport, Arkansas.He is booked with local rockabilly Sonny Burgess, who will start recording for Sun himself the following tear. The newspaper advertisement promises: If you like GOOD Western Music (and who doesn’t) You’ll enjoy Elvis Presley and the Moonlighters singing and playing your favourite western tunes. ‘Show time is ‘9 til ?’

Colonel Parker telegrams Sam Phillips from the Warwick Hotel in New York to inform him that he has been authorised by Elvis’ parents to handle all negotiations for the sale of Elvis’ Sun Records contract. Putting the horse somewhat after the cart, Parker asks Phillips to name his price.

November 25th

 

In 1955, Elvis performed at the Woodrow Wilson High School, Port Arthur, Texas. This was the first time he had an engagement since the signing of the RCA deal. The group was paid $350. :cheer:

November 26th

 

In 1955, Elvis is at the Louisiana Hayride in the Municipal Auditorium, Shreveport.

 

In 1960, Elvis flies to Las Vegas for the weekend with Charlie Hodge, Joe Esposito, Red West and Alan Fortas.

November 27th

 

In 1975, with his newly hired personal pilot, Milo High, Elvis takes his first real flight in the Lisa Marie, travelling with Linda Thompson to Las Vegas for the start of a two-week engagement. B)

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y48/elvis1959/lisamarie.jpg

 

November 28th

 

In 1954, Elvis had been booked for two shows in Memphis with Opry star Kitty Wells and, once again, Jimmy and Johnny. The show is hosted by prominent Memphis DJs Bob Neal and Sleety-Eyed John, but Elvis is unable to get back from Houston in time.

 

November 29th

 

In 1976, Elvis performed at the Cow Palace, San Francisco, California.

 

In 1966, just outside of Little Rock Elvis heard George Klein play Tom Jones' Green Green Grass Of Home on his radio show. Elvis kept calling George over and over again to hear the song again. This much to annoyance of Red West, because he brought the song to Elvis attention the year before and was told it was too country for Elvis.

At home, at Graceland, Elvis' bedroom was redecorated, mostly into red and black. This would stay the almost the same until Elvis' death.

November 30th

 

In 1956, Elvis attends the E.H. Crump Memorial Football Game, a Memphis charity event to benefit the blind. :cheer:

December 1st

 

In 1955, Elvis and the Colonel had a meeting with RCA executives. There were pictures taken which were used on the back of Elvis' first album. :dance:

December 2nd

 

In 1975, Elvis performed at the Showroom at the Las Vegas Hilton, Las Vegas. Elvis was in better health and spirits than he had been in some time. :cheer:

December 3rd

 

In 1970, Elvis made a big donation of $7,000 to the LA Police community relations program, however, he requested that the gift could be stay unknown to the public. A little time later, Elvis received a gold commissioner's badge from Chief Davis.

On this same date Elvis went shopping at Kerr's Sporting Goods. It took 4 salesmen to help him, because he made purchased not only for himself, but as well as for friends and even customers who were wandering in off the street. :wub:

 

In 1968, the NBC special was aired at 9.00 p.m. and was viewed by 42 % of the viewers, giving NBC its biggest rating victory of the year . However the special was called "Singer presents Elvis". The press was critical but loved it too. Los Angeles Times: "I don't think many viewers care to see singers sweat on TV, but there is no question: Elvis is back". :yahoo:

 

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Million Dollar Quartet Session :dance:

 

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Tuesday 4th December 1956

 

Accompanied by Marilyn Evans, a showgirl he met in Las Vegas, Elvis stops by the Sun recording studio in the middle of a Carl Perkins recording session and stays to jam with Carl and Sun’s newest artist, Jerry Lee Lewis, who is playing piano on the session. Elvis takes over the piano seat as Sam Phillips keeps the tape running. The resulting recordings will become known as the ‘Million Dollar Quartet’ session (Johnny Cash is present for the picture-taking ceremony only). While the group sings some country and rock ‘n’ roll, it is ragged gospel harmonies which predominate, along with Elvis’ animated impression of the unnamed ‘colored’ singer (Jackie Wilson) who has so captivated him in Las Vegas with his version of ‘Don’t Be Cruel.’ ‘He tried so hard,’ Elvis tells a disbelieving audience of fellow singers and hangers-on, ‘till he got much better, boy, much better than that record of mine. Man, he was cutting out. I was under the table when he got through singing'

 

(Elvis Day By Day – Peter Guralnick and Ernst Jorgensen)

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y48/elvis1959/2005_0704Image0042.jpg

 

Just over a year after he left Sun, Elvis Presley returned one early winter afternoon. A Carl Perkins session was winding down, and Jerry Lee Lewis-just settled in town-was trying to earn some spending money playing backup piano.

Presley listened to the playbacks of the session and pronounced the results to be good.

 

Then, inevitably, they started singing and playing together. Lewis was the only outsider, by virtue of his recent arrival-but typically, he ensured that he wasn’t overlooked. He made a point of auditioning his first single for Presley, who declared to the Press Scimitar’s Robert Johnson, ‘That boy can go. He has a different style and the way he plays piano just gets inside of me.’

 

Very soon the control room and studio began to fill up. Phillips had called Johnson, sensing there might be a story and photo opportunity. With that in mind, he also called Johnny Cash, who dutifully came over to the studio. Another Sun artist, Smokey Joe Baugh, came by, and the songwriter Charles Underwood contributed his acoustic guitar and his harmony vocals. Perkins’ brothers, Jay and Clayton, hung around for a while. Others came and went.

 

‘If Sam Phillips had been on his toes, he’d have turned the recorder on when that very unrehearsed but talented bunch got to cutting up,’ wrote Johnson the following day. As Johnson probably knew, that was precisely what Phillips had done. Using the microphone placements from the Perkins session, Phillips did a rough mix through the board, punched the RECORD button then joined the melee on the studio floor. He was in his element, holding court and trying to persuade Presley to record ‘When It Rains It Realy Pours,’ on which he held the publishing rights.

 

Cash left almost immediately after the photo session, but Presley, Lewis and Perkins sang for an hour or two. They stayed on familiar ground; country, gospel and the hits of the day were on the menu. Feeling, no doubt, that he had returned home-far from the callousness of the northern media and the tawdry Vegas glitz- Presley let his true musical style come up for air. That afternoon, he sang an eclectic mix of material, including Chuck Berry’s ‘Brown Eyed Handsome Man, ‘The Five Keys’, ‘Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind,’ Ernest Tubb’s ‘I’m With A Crowd But So Alone,’ Pat Boone’s ‘Don’t Forbid Me,’ four Bill Monroe songs, and a host of gospel favourites. He did impersonations, tried out new tunes, sang the harmony on ‘Softly And Tenderly’ to Lewis’s lead, and left the hillbilly edges intact on his voice…….

 

(Good Rockin’ Tonight – Colin Escott with Martin Hawkins)

 

 

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December 5th

 

1955

*Lyric Theater, Indianapolis

Whilst in Indianapolis, Elvis and Anita Carter take a tour of the Indianapolis RC manufacturing plant

 

1970

Elvis arranges for everyone, including his father and stepmother, to fly to Las Vegas for the wedding of George Klein and Barbara Little in his International Hotel suite.

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y48/elvis1959/george.jpg

 

December 6th

 

1959

Elvis starts karate lessons with Jurgen Seydel, known as the ‘father of German kararte.’ Karate is a discipline with which Elvis has been fascinated ever since reading a magazine article about Hank Slamansky, an ex-Marine who pioneered in teaching the sport in the service. He will take lessons fron Seydel twice a week until he returns to the States.

 

1957

The WDIA Goodwill Review this year features Ray Charles, Little Junior Parker, Brook Benton, Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland, the Staple Singers and the Spirit of Memphis Quartet. Once again, Elvis is a warmly greeted backstage visitor, having his picture taken with his heroes, Little Junior Parker and Bobby Bland. The next day he is quoted in the Memphis Press-Scimitar as saying that their music, rhythm and blues, is ‘the real thing…….Right from the heart.’

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y48/elvis1959/WDIA.jpg

 

December 7th

 

1955

Elvis performed at the Lyric Theater, Indianapolis. Elvis and the group got paid $1,000 for 4 shows. Tom Diskin reported to the Colonel that Elvis had done better and better, getting the kids "all hopped up" each night, but he still needed to work on pacing his act.

 

1956

Elvis and George Klein attend radio station WDIA’s Goodwill Revue, a charity event that takes place twice a year. WDIA, the first radio station in the country to feature all-Negro talent, is known as ‘The Mother Station of the Negroes’ and presents an array of gospel music, rhythm and blues, and comedic talent at these events. This year the show features Ray Charles, B. B. King, the Moonglows and DJ Rufus Thomas, among others, and Elvis’ brief emergence from behind the curtains causes the audience to go wild. In succeeding weeks, the black press will, for the most part, picture Elvis as a hero for his public embrace of the Negro cause, although WDIA personality Nat D. Williams wonders, in his column in the Pittsburgh Courier, ‘How come cullud girls would take on over a Memphis white boy…….when they hardly let out a squeak over B. B. King?’

 

Elvis and B.B.King taken the following year B)

 

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December 8th

 

1955

 

*Rialto Theater, Louisville, Kentucky

Elvis appears with Hank Snow on another show for Philip Morris Company employees.

 

1954

According to Elvis Day By Day, this has been touted as a possible date that Elvis had his next Sun Session, at which he records Milkcow Blues Boogie and You’re A Heartbreaker :dance:

 

Milkcow Blues Boogie

 

 

You’re A Heartbreaker

 

 

December 9th

 

1955

Elvis performed twice today. Firstly at the High School, Swifton, Arkansas with Johnny Cash and later at the B&I Club, Swifton, Arkansas, later in the evening, where he sang Heartbreak Hotel and, in B&I Club owner Bob King’s recollection, Elvis declared: "It's gonna be my first hit". :cheer:

December 10th

 

1973

Elvis returns to Stax for a weeklong session. To overcome some if the technical problems that plagued the session in July, RCA sends its recording truck, along with four engineers. Each night things get underway at 9.00pm, with a band comprising of TCB Band stalwarts James Burton and Ronnie Tutt together with Norbert Putnam and David Briggs from Nashville, Memphian Johnny Christopher on rhythm guitar, and Swedish-born Per-Erik ‘Pete’ Hallin (who now plays piano for Voice) doubling with Briggs on keyboards. The number of backup vocalists reaches an almost unmanageable total of eleven, including Voice. Tonight’s session goes until 4.30am, and although they come out of it with only two finished masters (I Got A Feeling In My Body and It’s Midnight), Elvis’ attitude is entirely different from what it was in the summer, and one of the songs, Dennis Linde’s I Got A Feeling In My Body, is a real highpoint among recent recordings.

(Elvis – Day By Day)

 

I Got A Feeling In My Body

 

 

December 11th

 

1954

Elvis performed at the Louisiana Hayride, Municipal Auditorium, Shreveport and the Billboard reported that the hottest piece of merchandise on the Louisiana Hayride at that moment was Elvis Presley, the youngster with 'the hillbilly blues beat'. :dance:

 

1956

Louisiana governor Earl K. Long promotes Elvis to the same rank as his manager, giving him the honorary commission of a Louisiana colonel.

 

1970

Elvis hosts another wedding, this time in Palm Springs, where Palm Springs policeman Dick Grob, a weapons training specialist who originally met Elvis while working security details at the house. Elvis’ wedding gift is a new Cadillac and Grob will eventually join the entourage on a full-time basis.

 

1973

The session at Stax produces two more songs, You Asked Me To and Red West’s If You Talk In Your Sleep :wub:

 

If You Talk In Your Sleep

 

 

You Asked Me To (Take 1)