I found these articles which have appeared in Rolling Stone magazine, posted on another Elvis forum and thought I would share them :dance:

 

A review from the International in 69 Written by David Dalton and published in Rolling Stone in February 1970

 

Elvis wagging his tail

 

Elvis was Supernatural, his own resurrection, at the Showroom International in Las Vegas last August.

 

Everyone complained that Las Vegas was a bad choice, but you only have to look at the old colour publicity photos of Elvis to know why it was the only possible place for him to make his debut after nine years of hibernation: The iconic, frontal image, completely symmetrical, stares out of the glossy blue background. The glaring eyes, the surly mouth, the texture of the face completely airbrushed out, the hair jet black with blue metallic streaks – these are superhuman attributes. It is the disembodied face of Krishna, Christ, Mao, where the image dominates the reality. The adherence to this formula has been so dogmatic that until recently you were in danger of a lawsuit from the Colonel if you used a photo of Elvis that was not the officially-sanctioned publicity handout

 

As you drove in from the airport, the giant neon billboard for the Showroom Internationale flashed 'Elvis In Person' in 20-foot letters of solid light. In person, in the flesh; the word, the voice, the image, made flesh. The distinction has to be made, for Elvis has been invisible for nine years.

 

Like the Temptation of Saint Anthony, Las Vegas bristles with absurdities; it reeks of unreality. Its suddenness in the desert is a thirst-demented prospector's hallucination; the neon totems on the Strip pumping liquid light into the brain like pulsating neurons, the endless chrome dispensers of fate in the casinos, and the total absence of time (there are no clocks in Las Vegas).

 

Even the room you are staying in is wildly improbable; the colour TV on its Renaissance stand, an octagonal quattrocento breakfast table under a fake Renoir. From a distance of five feet everything seems to be made of some incredibly ancient worm-eaten wood. In fact, it's not even wood.

 

It's just the ultimate transubstantiation, some synthetic substance that can be excreted into any conceivable shape. It's obvious – Las Vegas is the only place for the materialization of a Hollywood divinity, the re-entry of the celluloid image into the real world.

 

Even Elvis seemed to find his reincarnation hard to believe. Mumbling, "Whass that, whass that?" He suddenly interrupted one of his long monologues like a speed flash – "Oh, it's okay, its me, it's me!" And it was hard to believe as the curtain finally went up for the third time on Elvis. His head hung down, legs braced for his defiant stance and an acoustic guitar symbolically slung around his neck.

 

 

Waaal, It's one for the money, two for the show,

Three to get ready, now go cat go...

 

Wham! Right into 'Blue Suede Shoes' before you have time to take in the whole scene. You are out of control, breathlessly slippin' and slidin' backward, faster and faster into the past. An incredible rush, and it flashes at you all the faster because Elvis is singing it at almost twice the speed of the old single, so that it lasts in all about a minute and a quarter. As soon as it's over he tears into another hard rocker from his first RCA album:

 

Well, said I got a woman way 'cross town

She's good to me, oh yeah...

 

and the Sweet Inspirations echo "she's good to me," pumping back that gospel rhythm like a piston.

 

He pauses a moment and for the first time you can take everything in. Elvis is wearing a blue karate jump suit with a long karate belt. His bellbottoms have bright red satin vents and he's wearing a red and white scarf around his neck. His black pointed boots have studs on the toes and heels. His hair is cut in a short Beatle fringe at the front but he's still wearing the Presley sideburns. Behind him is a six-piece band from Memphis and behind them a twenty-five piece orchestra silhouetted by glowing backdrop lighting that oozes through a syrupy range of chartreuse, cerise and aquamarine. To his right are the Sweet Inspirations, a soul group that preceded him with some insipid versions of show tunes. Behind them, Elvis' own back-up group, the Imperials, neatly dressed in blazers.

 

Elvis speaks. "Viva Las Vegas", he says, laughing; "no, man, that's one man, that's one number I ain't gonna do" – unexpectedly revealing his attitude to the twelve years of schlock movies. "Welcome to the Showroom Internationale, ladies and gentlemen. This is somethin' else, ain't it? Lookin' 'round at all them decorations, funky angels hangin' from the ceilin'... tell ya there ain't nothin' like a funky angel, boy."

 

Presiding over the gigantic dining room and its 2,000 paying guests are a giant 20-foot pair of papier maché statues representing Marie Antoinette and Louis XIV, holding a lace handkerchief the size of a tablecloth, and from the ceiling hang a pair of gargantuan cherubs exchanging a length of cream satin material. Above the stage there's a dumpy coat of arms, strictly from Walt Disney. Funky.

 

"Well, here we go again," says Elvis as he leans into a classic Presley contraposto. He's putting himself on. Elvis imitating Elvis. He holds it until everybody catches on and laughs.

 

"uhuhmmmmmmmm, uhuhmmmmmmmm,

uhuhmmmmmmmm..."

 

"Here it comes," he says in a tiny mocking voice, interrupting himself like a self-contained Laugh-In. He goes into the classic Elvis warm-up, a deep, guttural, purring, humming of soft internal combustion, reviving up as he lurches into epileptic rhythms of 'All Shook Up'. It really blows your mind to see Elvis doing his imitation Elvis. He is very good at it; he looks like he's been rehearsing the part for 13 years, and it's probably got a lot of laughs all these years from his buddies up at Graceland, sitting around drinking Pepsis on nights when everyone got tired of playing pool and watching color television.

 

Elvis' back band is tight and probably a lot better as musicians than Bill Black and Scotty Moore, who played on Elvis' early disks, but the sound is bland and professional. The arrangements, too, are more stylized than the originals. The drumming, for instance, is very syncopated, especially in the fast numbers, imitating the percussive hiccuping quality of Elvis' voice in songs like 'All Shook Up' ("I'm in love" – boom boom boom).

 

The stylization has the effect of putting the music in parentheses, quoting it, putting it in perspective, putting it on. Elvis introduces the lead guitarist jokingly as B. B. King or Lightnin' Hopkins and his licks are very tasteful 1969 blues licks.

 

Elvis singing 'All Shook Up' is a put-on too, of course, but it's a serious put-on; he's putting on a whole era, he's putting on the '50s. He's the medium and this ritual is so drenched in memory, time and remoteness that his act is a violent manipulation of the audience's heads. The memory floats back to the first time everyone heard 'Hound Dog' and the details of that day, that afternoon, come flashing up like a rainy windshield. And Elvis is the man who knocked out a whole generation, a whole civilization.

 

Elvis, with his unfunky (yet mechanical, alienated) bump-grinding, was still too much Body (too soon) for the strained, collapsing psyches of the Omnipotent Administrators and Ultrafeminines... So Elvis Presley came, strumming a weird guitar and wagging his tail across the continent, ripping off fame and fortune as he scrunched his way, and, like a latter-day Johnny Appleseed, sowing seeds of new rhythm and style in the white souls of white youth of America, whose inner hunger and need was no longer satisfied with antiseptic white shoes and whiter songs of Pat Boone. "You can do anything," sang Elvis to Pat Boone's white shoes "but don't you step on my blue suede shoes!" - Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice

 

See, in this corner there was Ike 'Nukeler' Eisenhower, and over in that corner was Elvis the Pelvis. Man, it was a massacre.

 

After a pause to catch his breath, Elvis modestly mumbles, "This is my first personal appearance in nine years." Thunderous applause, and from the balcony a couple of kids are shouting, "Dynamite, baby, too much." But the audience is super-straight, mostly middle-aged people with children and affluent old Elvis fans in their late thirties, their ducktails trimmed into neat executive crewcuts, their leather jackets turned in for seersucker suits.

 

The silicone couples in their After-Six tuxedos and dynel wigs would not admit it but what they were paying $15 a plate for is a Resurrection. They have embalmed him like the queen bee – with love, money, energy, and in return he performs the precious ritual.

 

Elvis ambles over to get a glass of "wa-uh." "It's so dry here in Las Vegas, seems as if I'm gonna have a little trouble with my thang – [laughter]... you know, my throat. This stuff here is called Gatorade, 'cause it aids you gator. Just do a little commercial here: 'Use this here Gatorade and you...' but really it's meant to be ten times better than water. .. 'n' boy, it sure looks to me like it's already bin used!"

 

That looks pretty lame in cold print, but it was a different thing when it was said with that Elvis drawl, everything mumbled out of the side of his mouth so that every line is thrown away as casually as spittin' tobacco. His Memphis buddies would laugh at a line like that and they probably have, yukking it up backstage.

 

Later, in the casino, Tony Secunda was talking about the scene in the dressing room: "All his buddies were there, it was a very tense situation, glances, messages flashing around the room; you could feel the electricity. It was embarrassing, you know, they laugh at absolutely everything he says. I said to Elvis, 'You probably know each other so well, all you need is a look and you know.' He said, 'Sometimes you don't even need that.' It's a scary scene." You wonder what he's been doing all these years behind the electronic gates at Graceland and when you find out, the revelations are about as inspiring as a rerun of The Beverly Hillbillies.

 

"This next song is one of the first things I recorded for RCA back in nineteen hundred and twenty-seven..." Into 'Love Me Tender'. Really heavy string arrangement, and in the background the schmaltzy lighting is having an orgasm. It's a tearjerker alright, but Elvis does it with style, Sweet Inspirations cooing, the majestic sweeping strings, and Elvis' deep crooning voice washes over the room like a Technicolor wave, and the audience is swept up on the shores of Memory Lane as helplessly as an old hula hoop on Miami Beach. Elvis, the ballad singer, has always been at home with sentimentality; he can carry it. He has pulled off some really heavy tearjerkers beautifully that would have crushed a lesser crooner under the sheer weight of goo. It's just the white version of the kind of thing Levi of the Four Tops gets into when he's being "real sincere".

 

As Elvis gets ready for the next number, his hips begin shaking, "Down, boy!" and his hand is strumming the guitar like an invisible machine gun. "Had a little trouble with that when I was over there in the army. They give me a rifle and right away I'd be goin' pow! Pow! Pow! – yes sir" He lays into 'Jailhouse Rock'; after two verses he switches into 'Don't Be Cruel', then 'Heartbreak Hotel'.

 

He's panting, really out of breath as he winds up 'Heart- break Hotel'. "Tell ya, body, mind, everything's goin', man. Deteriorating right here on the stage... that's what it's about come to for sure. Anyway I'd like to dedicate this special song here..." He crouches over in that raunchy Presley starting position, neck of his guitar practically touching the floor. Everyone cracks up. "See, I looked her square in the eye, 'cause that was all she had, one big square eye. I said 'baby,' she said 'mmmmmmm.' She was a weird kinda girl. She had on a guitar too and we were both going 'hmmmmmnnm.' So anyway I said 'baby' 'n she said 'deeper, baby, deeper.' I got up real close to her face 'n I was goin' – [croaks] – 'uhnnn, uhnnn, uh nnn.' See she split 'cause she thought I was a frog. Anyway my legs were gettin' tired in this position so she asks me 'hmmmmmmm?' [croaks into the mike]. See, she had on a microphone too. So I cleared my throat–[clears his throat over the P.A.]; that's another thing you don't do over the microphone..."

 

It's like an old radio show with one of those purple people-eater lead-ins.

 

Super teen humor – "So I went up to this green thing with four red eyeballs and nine hairy legs..." Elvis continues: "So I said 'YOU!' blew her hair straight back, man. I said:

 

"YOU... ain't nothin' but a houn' dog..."

 

'Can't Stop Loving You' is his next number. The band pauses while he chokes up "those happy hours" like an ancient whisper, and lines like "I live my life in dreams of yester... daaay" come out, like some other songs in the show, as more than a little symbolic.

 

"One of the first records I ever recorded... I did about five records before anyone realized who I was. One of them is pretty raunchy... my nose was runnin', my eyes, my ears... [grunts]. Well, here we go, I guess..." –and then he stops abruptly in a dazed way as if he were pretty stoned on something himself. "We already did this song, right?" The song is 'Mystery Train', country blues, one of the old Sun releases, a muted trumpet honks: "Train comin' roun' the bend."

 

Just about the time that train is comin' 'round the bend right there into "I'm the king of the jungle, they call me tiger" boom/boom/boom/boom/boom. A strobe flashes in time to the syncopated drum-bass-tambourine on Elvis leaping about the stage.

 

"Like to tell you a little about myself. I started out... in childhood. I started out when I was in high school, wen into a record company one day, made a record and when the record came out a lot of people liked it and you could hear folks around town saying 'Is he, is he?' and I'm goin 'Am I, am I?'... [whew out of breath]... Elvis deteriorating at the Showroom Internationale in Las Vegas . . where was I?... oh, anyway, made a record, got kind: big in my home town, few people got to know who I was that's double ya, yew zee, was. See, so I started down in the wuz [he really must be stoned]... ah shucks, what I mean to tell ya is I was playing around these nightclubs, alleys 'n things; did that for about a year and a half, then I ran into Colonel Sanders–Parker, Parker and he arranged to get me some [blows his nose] Kleenex... he arranged to get me... whew. I'm telling you... shot to hell, this no; can't even finish a sentence straight... anyway there was a lot of controversy at that time about my moving around on stage so I... cleared my throat again, looked at nor watch and ring and the guy said... the guy said?... the guy said nothin'... I'm the guy! I'm telling you, you better get this together, boy, or this is gonna be the last time they let you up on a stage.

 

"So, as I said, I went up to New York, did the Jackie Gleason Show three times – whew, sure has been a long long time – anyway, did that couple of times... had pretty; long hair for that time, and I tell you it got pretty weird. They used to see me comin' down the street and they'd say 'Hot dang, let's get him, he's a squirrel, get him, he just come down outta the trees'... Well, anyway, did the Ed's Sullivan Show. They just shot me from the waist up. Ed' standing there in the wings saying 'Sonofabitch! Sonofabitch!' I didn't know what he was saying so I'd say, Thank you very much, Mr. Sullivan.'

 

"Next thing, they dressed me up in a tuxedo and had me singing to a dog on a stool; you know I'm singing to this dog 'n the dog is going "Whooooogh!' and I'm going 'Whoooooghl' Then I got into the movies. King Creole, Jailhouse Rock, Love Me Tender, Loving You, loving her... So I'd done four movies and I was feeling pretty good with myself, had a pair of sunglasses and was sitting there in my Cadillac going: I'm a movie star, hot damn!' and the driver's going, 'Whew, watch that squirrel, man, he's just out of the trees.' I was livin' it up pretty good there for a while and then I got drafted, and shafted and everything else. One thing I found out, though, is that guys really miss their parents in the army, they're always going around calling each other 'mother.' When I got out I did a few more movies, and a few more movies, and I got into a rut, you know there's this big rut just the other side of Hollywood Boulevard... Pow!... you know they let me do my thang here for a while and then they'll put me away for another nine years..."

 

Elvis straps on an electric guitar, tunes it, pretends not to be able to play it and then gets into the classic second and third string rhythm progression, dum-de-dum-de-dum-de-dum...

 

We're goin' up, we're goin' down...

 

Elvis sings Jimmy Reed! He does it very funky, just playing with the band a tight down-home blues. Next he does a country number, 'Detroit City', and then Del Shannon's hit, 'Runaway'. The last part of the show consists of very heavy production numbers beginning with the Bee Gees' mournful metaphysical ballad, 'Words'.

 

Then the, lights die down, the strings pick, the piano tinkles like an ice cube...

 

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away;

Now ft looks as though they're here to stay...

 

Elvis sings Paul the way Paul would sing Elvis.

 

Suddenly, I'm not half the stud I used to be...

 

The orchestra is welling up with emotion like a giant Welk, the Sweet Inspirations are drifting up, scaling the heavenly stairs like an angel choir at the end of one of those Bible spectaculars, "oooh, oooh, oooh," and Elvis singing "I believe in yesterday" like a true confession. I can't stand it, it's the end of the world. Still, this is only the beginning because the next song is:

 

Na na na nanana na, nanana na, hey Jude...

 

By this time the chicks at the front tables in their giant bouffants are getting really out of hand, reaching up to grab him. He leans over and gives each of them a kiss. They throw their table napkins up to him, and he wipes his face, under his armpits, and throws them back. He even blows his nose on one of them and hands it back to a squealing middle-aged fan who holds it reverently like a piece of the true cross. You can see he digs it too, he really appreciates that people still dig him that much. These are chicks that really went ape for the Pelvis way back then, flipped their wig, baby, for an itsy bitsy piece of his gold lamé threads. Kind of grungy nowhere chicks who'd write those dumb letters to Elvis all made up of the titles of his hits:

 

Big Hunk o' Love,

 

I want you, I need you, I love you. Alt shook up over you so Don't be cruel Just because... Treat me nice I beg of you. Let me be your teddy bear. Don't let this be a one- sided love affair. There' d just be one broken heart for sale.

 

Signed,

Loving You

 

Next he does his mini soap opera, 'In the Ghetto', and follows it with his new single, 'Suspicious Minds', a heavy production number. When he gets to the line "caught in a trap, I can't walk out," he crouches on the ground and leaps up like a 'possum, springing a bear trap. The line has a pretty symbolic sound.

 

As an encore he does his 1962 hit 'Can't Help Falling in Love'. "You've been a beautiful audience, ladies and gentlemen, you've made it all worthwhile."

 

Wise men say only fools rush in

But I, but I, but I, can't help falling in love with you.

Shall I go, would it be a sin?

But I can't help falling in love with you.

Like a river flows slowly to the sea,

Darling so it goes, some things were meant to be.

Take my hand, take my whole life too

For I can't help falling in love with you.

 

As we are walking out into the casino, a balding man with a beer belly is handing out thirteen-year-old colour photos of Elvis. Someone says, "Hey man, you know who that is? It's Colonel Parker."

 

From Rolling Stone Magazine 1969

 

HOLLYWOOD -- The notice outside the big gray double-doors was simple and to the point. SET CLOSED, ABSOLUTELY NO ADMITTANCE. You find notices like this outside a lot of film studios, and they tend to have a certain elasticity. This one, outside what looked like an aircraft hangar but was actually Stage D at Universal Studios, meant it.

 

Inside, Elvis Presley was filming. And where Elvis goes, the barriers go up as if some sinister germ warfare experiment were being carried on within. Like a suckling infant, he is swathed and coddled against the realities of the world outside, as if he were made of rare porcelain rather than hewn from good old-fashioned Tennessee stock.

 

But this day he was on show. I had been given the magic formula. The secret open-sesame known only by its brand name of "Colonel Parker's Okay" had been handed me. The doors swung wide, and I was in.

 

They say Colonel Parker is the man who built Elvis from the erotic gyrating days of the swiveling Pelvis through 14 long and fruitful summers to his present status, by pushing and pulling his protege through the tricky cross-currents of pop music taste. I wouldn't know. I had asked to see him, this onetime Texas fairground barker, to thank him for the green light. But he was always somewhere else. In his office at Universal, over at Metro, down in Palm Springs, in Las Vegas to lay the trail for the next live show . . . always somewhere else.

 

No matter. Who needed Colonel Parker when Elvis himself was alive and well and filming? The Publicity Man who escorted me as close as if he were handcuffed said proudly: "I'd like to work with him again, he's so sweet and uncomplicated. I was surprised you got through -- no one's talked to him yet, you know. There must have been a good breeze blowing."

 

The good breeze continued to blow as far as the set. A mauve-walled pad with kitchen adjacent and a king-size bed visible through half-drawn yellow curtains. Elvis sat at a table, staring at his hands, while three mini-skirted girls, Mary Tyler Moore, Barbara McNair and Jane Elliott, scurried around with trays of food.

 

The film is about three nuns who pose as nurses to "identify with the people" in a Negro ghetto in New York. The title is Change of Habit (yes, it is) and stars Elvis as a medic who falls for one of the nuns.

 

Elvis is wearing a paint-stained blue denim shirt and tight blue jeans. He looks relaxed and affable and rather meatier around the jaw-line than one remembers from previous films. Marriage (back in May 1967 to Priscilla Beaulieu) is obviously agreeing with him.

 

His eyes have that smoky slow-burn of the old-time movie vamp. He siezes a guitar and strums a few chords. It's the last week of shooting, and like the good days between exams and the end of term.

 

The atmosphere on the set is hip and loose, full of leather-clad youth and clever in-talk. The director is thin and intense, wears a check shirt and gym shoes, and is called Billy Graham, which is going to look interesting on the posters of a swinging nun.

 

Elvis produces some dialogue. He is never likely to win an award as an actor, but he knows what the kids want and he gives it to them. The girls are talking about a party. The cameras turn. Elvis says: "You get a lot of people down here on a Saturday night, and all the old hates come out. Before you know it they're bombed out of their skulls and you've got World War III on your hands."

 

Earth-quaking stuff. But this simple homespun philosophy is off-key. "Bombed out of their skulls" wasn't in the script. And the director isn't too happy about it. "It's a good line," says Elvis. "Okay, okay," says Billy Graham. The line stays. Maybe it will come out in the cutting room, but it's there for now.

 

"The whole thing is downhill," says a technician. "He don't talk to anyone, except his own friends." There is no sign of tension, but then Elvis has nothing to be tense about. He can go on churning out the same thing for another decade, and they'll still queue to see it. If he's over the top, as some unkindly souls occasionally try to make out, he doesn't seem bothered.

 

He is thirty-four . . . Raised in Memphis . . . Once a truck-driver, stumbled into records, took the world by storm as the original snake-hips . . . Now lives in cloistered seclusion in a colonial mansion near Nashville, with a Rolls, a solid gold Cadillac, a wife, a daughter (Lisa Marie, aged one) and several bodyguards for company . . . Has made twenty-nine films, grossing 220 million dollars at the box office, and sold more than 200 million records.

 

Elvis heads for his trailer in the far corner. A group of friends (known in some quarters as the Memphis Mafia) close around him like a football scrum after a loose ball. The code-word is given. I am beckoned over. The good breeze was still blowing.

 

"You won't probe too deep, will you?" The Publicity Man asks anxiously. "This is just an informal chat, that's the deal. So keep it light and airy, okay?"

 

Well... okay. I checked my notes. Does Elvis fly high on acid trips? Does he see himself as a prophet for the new generation? Does he think his style is too square? Does he have any sexual hang-ups? His marriage altered his attitude to life in any way? Does he kick his cat? Does he have a cat to kick? What are his views on pop, religion, hippies, demonstrators, Vietnam? Stuff like that. No, I wasn't going to probe too deep.

 

In the dressing room Elvis shakes hands in a firm grip. "This is Charlie, this is Doc." Two small, burly men. in light leather jackets and open-neck shirts rise and shine briefly and subside again. The trailer feels a bit crowded.

 

Elvis talks. He speaks slowly and carefully, and puts a lot of space between his words. "The film? Uh, well . . . it's a change of pace for me, yeah. It's more serious than my usual movies, but it don't mean I'm aiming for a big dramatic acting scene, no sir. The way I'm headed, I want to try something different now, but not too different. I did this film because the script was good, and I guess I know by now what the public goes for.

 

"Most of the scripts that come my way are all the same. They've all got a load of songs in them, but I just did a Western called Charro which hasn't any songs 'cepting the title tune. It did have a couple of nude scenes, but they've been cut. Anyhow, can you imagine a dramatic Western where the hero breaks out into song all the time?"

 

He has said plenty, and now he leaps to his feet, hands flashing to imaginary holsters, and sings in a deep drawl: "Go for your guns . . . you've got 'til sundown to get outa town . . ." could be the start of a promising sketch. The others follow suit, singing, clowning, all on their feet. If this is the Memphis Mafia, they're a friendly bunch.

 

Elvis sits down, and everyone stops singing. He eyes himself in the dressing room mirror. "I don't plan too far ahead, but I'm real busy for a while now. I've got a date in Vegas, and maybe another film after that. Then I'm going to try to get to Europe, because I've always promised I would and I've got some go, faithful fans over there."

 

Slow-talking Elvis may be. But he certainly isn't the slow-witted hick from the backwoods his detractors make out. If he is, then he's a better actor than they give him credit for. Get through to him, and you find a pleasant, honest, not-too-articulate hometown boy who has been protected for his own good from the hysterical periphery of his present world.

 

The party was warming up. Elvis cracked a gag. Charlie cracked a gag. There was a call from the door. Elvis was wanted, and the good breeze was still blowing as he made for the set, one hand on my shoulder. Charlie and Doc were all smiles.

 

"Okay?" said the P.M. "You did real fine."

 

Well...not quite. I said. This Colonel Parker, would he be around for a word later? Elvis stopped in his tracks. The P.M. went a whiter shade of pale, and whispered something to a friend. The friend nodded in sympathy. "I must tell you about an experience I had like that once," he said, eyeing me as if I'd crawled out of the woodwork. Elvis said: "I think he's in Palm Springs. I'm not sure . . ." He hurried off.

 

The P.M. said: "Don't let's push our luck any more. We never trouble his for too long a time. You should be very happy. You had more than anyone's had in years."

 

Somewhere along the line, unaccountably, the good breeze had dropped.

 

WILLIAM OTTERBURN-HALL

(RS 37 - July 12, 1969)

Edited March 19, 200817 yr by Tilly

More great articles from Rolling Stone I've added a pic for each one B)

 

The King returns to Vegas for musical documentary

 

Posted Sep 17, 1970 12:00 AM

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y48/elvis1959/fringe201.jpg

 

This article is about the filming of That's The Way It Is

 

LAS VEGAS -- The morning of the day Elvis Presley opened his third month-long appearance at the International Hotel, his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, was supervising the decoration of the building's entrance, watching half a dozen men climb ladders and hang hundreds of little colored flags on strings. The flags said it was an "Elvis Festival" and they gave the entrance to the huge hotel the look of a used car lot.

 

Inside, on the carpeted steps leading to the casino dripping crystal stood a pretty blonde hawking Elvis Presley photographs ($1) and picture books ($1.50) and beyond her every dealer and pit boss was wearing an Elvis Presley scarf ($3.50 available at the hotel's gift shops) and a white styrofoam skimmer with a colorful bond that once again proclaimed the month an "Elvis Summer Festival."

 

Elsewhere in the hotel -- in the six restaurants, by the bay-sized pool (largest man-made body of water in Nevada, aside from Lake Mead), in the half-dozen bars, in the youth (baby-sitting) hostel -- were posters and autographed pictures and scarves and banners and flags. Outside the 2000-seat Showroom Internationale the hotel's professional decorator was stapling this stuff to everything that wasn't moving.

 

At the reservation desk there was a line 30 feet long and an attractive redhead was telling the day's 300th caller (her estimate) that no, there wasn't any room in the inn -- every one of the hotel's 1519 rooms was full. (Herb Alpert was told he could bunk in with Lou Adler or go somewhere else.) The showroom itself was reported sold out two shows a night, seven nights a week for more than half the engagement, unprecedented on opening day.

 

Why? Nick Naff, the short, dapper hotel publicist, says, "Elvis changes the entire metabolism of the hotel. And he is singularly significant in one regard: there is constant occupancy. Tom Jones, they fly in, see the show, fly out again. Elvis has such a following, so many fans for him they fly in, check in and stay the month."

 

The fans . . . the incredible Elvis fans, who make it clear once and for all that the word's origin is in "fanatical." Bob and Nancy were here to get married in a chapel near the hotel. Sue and Cricket were here, too, but wherever Elvis is, they are -- literally, most hours of every day, 365 days each year -- so that was expected. The girl from Chicago, the one who'd bitten Elvis on the neck in February, was back. On the elevators were dozens more, trying so get past the guards on the 30th floor, where Elvis was staying in the incredibly luxurious Crown Suite. White still more wandered aimlessly through the casino, wearing I LIKE ELVIS buttons, seeking a familiar face -- a fan from England or Australia met here the last time Elvis was in Las Vegas; one of Elvis' hired hands; or, prize of prizes, Elvis' dad Vernon, who likes to play the slot machines, or Colonel Tom, whose favorite game is roulette.

 

Giving the scene a final, bizarre touch was a 40-man camera crew from MGM, here to make a feature-length documentary for national distribution in time for the Thanksgiving school holidays. So regularly were they in the casino -- interviewing the bell captains, the dealers, the maitre d', the bartenders, the change girls, the chefs, the fans -- the gamblers paid them no mind, even if they were hauling and shoving huge Panavision cameras between the rows of slot machines.

 

"What's all that?" said a woman with pendulous breasts, dressed in a halter and Bermuda shorts.

 

"They're makin' a TV about Elvis," said her husband.

 

"Oh," said the woman. Gimme another five, will ya, hon? I wanna play the quarter machines."

 

It had begun a week earlier, as Eddy Arnold approached his final week in the showroom. It was then the film crew arrived with the Colonel and some of his staff, followed by Elvis and his "Memphis Mafia" and the five-man backup band. Each day thereafter you heard the name Elvis more and more.

 

Already the filming had begun, back in Los Angeles, as Elvis started rehearsals with his band and the documentary's Oscar-winning director, Denis Sanders visited some of southern California's top Elvis fans.

 

"What we're trying to do," said Denis, once arriving in Vegas, "is capture Elvis the entertainer, from the point of view of the fans, the hotel, the city, the audience."

 

He explained that about half the film -- 50 minutes to an hour -- would be edited from Elvis' first five performances in the showroom, the rest would be in scene and interview. Scenes like Bob and Nancy Neal's wedding -- in three takes, incidentally -- and interviews like those with members of the Hair cast.

 

(Those filmed with the cast appearing at the hotel's theater were deemed too "far-out" for inclusion in the film: they began with someone mentioning one of Elvis' MGM films, Harum Scarum, and saying what a horror it was, building to where a black actor improvised a scene, playing Elvis as an illiterate learning how to talk.)

 

"What I'm shooting is a musical documentary," says Denis, "and I'm not just talking about the concert segments. Everything in the film will be musical. Just as Elvis, or any other performer, alternates fast numbers with slower numbers, say, or creates moods, so will I. We'll have a sad scene, a happy scene, another sad scene, and so on. Other elements will be constructed like, in ballad when you bit the instrumental break, we'll maybe cut to a face in the audience and from that cut to the same face getting married."

 

If this sounds not at all like the predictable Elvis Presley flick, it is because Denis Sanders is not the predictable Elvis Presley director. He comes to the project with an astonishing -- for Elvis -- background. His six-hour documentary for National Educational Television, Trial: City and County of Denver vs. Lauron R. Watson, won the 1970 Saturday Review TV award and the 1970 Cannes Film Festival prize for best news film. He wrote the 90-minute TV special, The Day Lincoln Was Shot; directed episodes of TV's Naked City, Route 66, Alcoa Premiere and The Defenders, as well as several features, including Shock Treatment and Our Man's Way; wrote the screen adaptation of Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead. And his Czechoslovakia 1968 won the Academy Award for best documentary last year.

 

Denis says he does not know why he was called to direct the Elvis film. He'd never even met the Colonel or Elvis and the only contact he'd had with MGM was in 1959 when he was kicked off the lot after working just two weeks as director of The Subterraneans. At that time, he says today, MGM accused him of trying to turn Jack Kerouac's novelette into an "immoral film."

 

However mismatched Denis may seem to be, on the surface, probably he is the perfect choice. Elvis's films haven't been making the fortunes claimed in recent years and it is logical that with his return to personal appearances there should be a concurrent shift in film direction. Making a documentary -- as opposed to another creampuff musical -- is a means of realizing this shift. Making a good documentary cinches it.

 

Says Denis, not immodestly: "The film will make a fortune. The money will come in buckets, which is something Hollywood understands. But it also will change things stylistically. I think it will make it much easier for other documentarians.

 

"There is a greater demand for reality today. We can televise an event, say, and if we do it 'live,' that is reality. If we run it on tape delay, that's a documentary, isn't it? And if we start editing, we're rearranging reality -- but maybe that's the way we get closest to reality. Maybe that's the way we capture the essence.

 

"This is what I am trying to do with Elvis. I know what my elements are and although I'm still not certain of the construction, I have the basic tinker-toy going. All I have to do now is build it. It's not like in 'story' films, where all the elements are dependent upon those preceding them. I can move modules in an out and introduce totally different elements, and still make my overall point."

 

Pretty heady talk for the man in charge of an Elvis Presley flick. But it probably will be an unusual film, if for no other reason because no documentary has ever been made in Metrocolor and Panavision and none has had a budget of more than a million dollars -- surprisingly little of which goes to Elvis. Denis gets no more specific than to say half the budget covers all the "above-the-line," or creative, costs. Normally Elvis gets a million dollars in salary, plus 50 percent of the profits, so this apparently means Elvis has taken a cut. It has been an unusual week for Elvis in many ways.

 

When the Colonel arrived, trailing a staff of attendants from RCA Victor, MGM and the William Morris Agency, he took an entire wing on the fourth floor, posting a 24-hour guard who was permitted to allow no one admission, but was instructed to give all visitors an Elvis Presley post card and an Elvis Presley calendar. The Colonel then had his staff decorate the hallway -- covering one wall with a gigantic Elvis movie poster, the others with banners and flags, stacking the styrofoam "straw" hats outside the doors.

 

Meetings were held almost daily, during which minions were given orders for each day, or perhaps did little more than chat with the Colonel's wife (back in Palm Springs) on the phone.

 

"Say hello to Stan," the Colonel'd say to his wife, Marie.

 

"Hello, how' are you feeling today?" Stan would say. "How are Chrissie and Midnight? [The Parker cats] Yes, ma'am, everything sure is going OK. Yes, ma'am. Here's the Colonel now."

 

And the Colonel, who called his wife two or three times daily, would tell her what he had for breakfast.

 

"Parker was here ten days ahead and he created tremendous excitement," says Nick Naff, who insists Elvis is worth anything the Colonel asks. "The first time he was booked in here, some of its had our doubts. I mean, we opened July Fourth with Barbra Streisand, who'd just won an Oscar, had three pictures going. She was one of the hottest entertainment properties in the world, the name was fantastic. We knew we had something. Elvis was an unknown stage property. He hadn't appeared anywhere in eight years. We knew he'd be something of a draw, but my God! Elvis was, and is, a blockbuster. He makes Streisand seem like . . . well, let's say that Elvis is extremely appealing, that I've never seen anything like it before."

 

A few months ago, Nick says, all the Las Vegas kitchen help walked out, causing all the hotels to shut dawn. Suddenly the town was dead. Nick says the hotel owners had a meeting to decide what to do when the strike ended, because there had to be something to pull the people back again, fast.

 

"We knew there would be no immediate occupancy afterward unless we had an incredible draw, so all the hotel owners agreed: the best thing for Vegas was Elvis. If we could get him for a week, we knew everybody would do OK."

 

(The Colonel agreed to have Elvis return for ten days, but according to Nick, the strike ended before Elvis could get his band together and rehearse properly, so the International went ahead with an earlier booking, the Gene Kelly Show. Others say Kelly refused to be bumped for the week.)

 

"Look," Glenn D. Hardin, the pianist in Elvis's backup band, said to some musician friends in Los Angles, "if you're with Elvis, they take care of you in Vegas, no matter what hotel you're at. Business picks up all over. Every hotel we went to, they said employment was up, tips were up. It's the magic word. So if you guys are up there, say, 'I'm with Elvis . . . he's waitin' in the car.' They'll take real good care of you.

 

"The hotel opened July 4th with Streisand," says Glenn D., "and they couldn't keep the sumbitch full. But with Elvis it was full full full. Had 'em sittin' in the aisles and the fire marshal was there sayin' you gotta get these tables outa the aisles. And they're sayin' shut up and we'll get you a seal in the front next week."

 

So popular was Elvis in February, the maitre d' and bead waiters reportedly split $300,000 in "tips" for the month.) That's $10,000 a night).

 

As the days passed, the activity increased. The Colonel was in a room the hotel had converted into a paneled office -- unprecedented for a manager everywhere: now the Colonel has a permanent "Las Vegas office." Across the street the Landmark Hotel had been booked solid with the overflow from the International. In the gift shops there were no more scarves or "Elvis Summer Festival" hats. (Someone said this was planned by the Colonel, who knew if there weren't enough to go around, the demand would be greater than ever.) The hotel's security force had been augmented by 50 percent -- to provide Elvis and the Colonel with round-the-clock guards, give Elvis two guards to walk him from the dressing room to the showroom, and post one guard outside every door leading backstage. Whenever anyone ordered something from room service, with their order name an RCA Victor catalog of all Elvis's records, two 8-by-10 black-and-white photographs, two color 8-by-10s, and an Elvis Presley pocket calendar.

 

In the casino bars could be seen the people from Elvis's past, coming to pay semi-annual homage to the man they knew in the old days. George Klein, who was president of Elvis' senior class at Hume High in Memphis in 1957, was there, talking with the mountainous Lamar Fike, who'd been one of Elvis' "bodyguards" for so many years, before Elvis got him a job running Hill and Range Songs in Nashville, who was buying a drink for Jim Kingsley, a Memphis newspaperman who'd grown up in Tupelo, Mississippi, about the same time Elvis did and since has prided himself on being "the newspaperman closest to Elvis."

 

And Emilio, the maitre d', was checking the celebrity reservations: Dwayne Hickman, Juliet Prowse, Sid Caesar, Xavier Cugat, Slappy White, Mark Alpert, Dale Robertson. George Hamilton, Jack Benny, Jane Morgan, Jackie Cooper, Sammy Davis, Jr., Sonny Liston, Cary Grant.

 

And Denis Sanders was giving his 40-man crew final instructions before taking eight cameras into the showroom, five of which were to remain rolling throughout the hour-long show.

 

And the Colonel was giving Denis his last-minute instructions. "Now don't you go winning no Oscar with this pitcha," he said, "because we don't have no tuxedos to wear to the celebration."

 

Upstairs on the 30th floor, where he would remain the rest of the month except to sing twice nightly, Elvis was taking a nap.

 

JERRY HOPKINS

(RS 66 - September 17, 1970)

The Presley circus rolls into New York

 

Posted Jul 20, 1972 12:00 AM -- Rolling Stone

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y48/elvis1959/nyc3.jpg

 

NEW YORK -- Having allowed this city to hold its red carpet at the ready for seventeen years, Himself, Elvis Presley, finally came to New York June 9th.

 

Ask why Elvis waited so long to conquer New York and you get the same cornball excuse: There never was enough money to make it worthwhile. When Elvis retired from touring in the early Sixties Colonel Tom Parker, his mouthpiece, said: "There ain't no reason for a boy who can make a million dollars for two weeks of movie work to have to play to the public for his supper." If New Yorkers wanted to see Elvis they could go to the Whitestone Bridge Drive In. The first sign of a change in the pattern came in 1968 when Presley did his highly acclaimed television special.

 

Steve Binder, who produced and directed it, described the state he found Elvis in. "I felt very strongly that Elvis was creatively burning to perform. All of his talents were being hidden under the most highly controlled situations. The people around him weren't interested in the creative product, just the financial benefit of keeping his name up. And Elvis himself was a frustrated fireball.

 

"I'm not sure why The Colonel wanted him to do the special, maybe he felt he needed a shot in the arm. But they approached the TV special with an idea of maintaining the same controlled formula as with all the films. They figured that any appearance was as good as any other, as long as Elvis did twenty to twenty-five minutes that somehow tied in with the Christmas season. Everybody was scared of the power structure. I took Elvis aside and told him that I wanted him to do the TV special as if it was something new, to put the same feeling and enthusiasm into it as he did on his very first album. That got to him.

 

"All of a sudden after the special he was on fire again. He told me he wanted to change his lifestyle. He said doing the program had given him a new feeling of confidence. 'It's the public who made me,' he said, 'but I've been away from them for too long. They've given me a lot of love and now I want to give it back to them. From now on I'm only gonna do what I want to do.'"

 

The first Vegas invasion, during which Elvis would break all the attendance records held by Sinatra and Streisand, came quickly after the airing of the special. Announcement of a tour of major cities followed the second Vegas triumph. New York was included on the itinerary, but the date was held off until the start of the third tour 30 months later.

 

To accompany him, he selected high caliber talent -- James Burton and others, the cream of the Memphis studio scene, and back-up voices including the Stamps Quartet and the Sweet Inspirations. The ever-present Colonel Parker, of course, still had much of the power.

 

For example: In planning the first tour The Colonel got involved in a heated negotiation with a Midwestern promoter who was bidding for the right to produce in St. Louis and Kansas City. Parker demanded a $250,000 guarantee and wouldn't budge. The promoter insisted that he couldn't possibly profit on a deal like that. He couldn't be sure Elvis was still capable of generating such a gate in that part of the country after such a long absence. Besides that, his facilities weren't the same as larger Eastern and Western cities. None of this reasoning moved Parker and he held pat. Finally the promoter challenged Parker's credentials. He said he didn't want to continue negotiations unless he could speak to Elvis personally, that he doubted Parker's authority and his power.

 

With lawyers present Parker invited the Kansas City Slicker to challenge his authority. "Here's what we'll do," Parker is reported to have said, placing a silver dollar on the negotiating table. "I flip this coin. You call it in the air. If you call right you'll have a written guarantee that Elvis Presley will play for you free. But if you call it wrong, son, it's gonna cost you a half a million dollars." Kansas City had to drop out of the game.

 

Eventually this medicine show just had to come to Fun City. The second tour in the winter of '71 came close to New York, hitting Philadelphia one night and Boston the next without touching down. When it was first announced that the third tour would start from New York in June, the press carried a promise of history being made twice over: the King of Rock and Roll coming to New York for the first time to play at what is potentially the world's greatest Rock Palace: Radio City Music Hall. By the time definite announcements were made the location had been switched to the much larger Madison Square Garden -- already deflowered by the likes of the Rolling Stones, Sly, Grand Funk, and the Concert for Bengla Desh. A number of columns carrying the announcement boasted an intriguing footnote. Elvis would be available for interviews to any periodical willing to pay his required fee of $120,000. There were no takers. But in a surprise last minute move The Colonel announced that Elvis would meet the press, for the first time since his 1969 Vegas opening -- in the Mercury Ballroom of the New York Hilton at 4 o'clock on the day of the first of four sold-out concerts.

 

At the Hilton, the TV press corps came dressed in full battle regalia, and were soon immersed in the struggle to untangle their hardware. At center stage, WABC's long-haired pride, Geraldo Rivera was leading an attack to remove a New York Hilton seal from a position on the podium where it obscured camera angles.

 

"Colonel Parkers says that there'll be no conference unless the seal stays put," a Hilton employee argued.

 

"Oh, come on. You don't really expect us to buy that bull$h!t. It just doesn't make any sense," Rivera countered.

 

"I'm sorry, I assure you it makes no difference to me, but have you ever tried to deal with Col. Parker?" the pale-faced executive stuttered. The logic of this staunch position would be revealed later with the announcement of Elvis' plans for a four-week engagement following the tour at the Las Vegas Hilton. The Colonel doesn't miss chances to make points. Seated beyond the TV cables was every single person who had ever written an article about rock and roll in New York.

 

Now there was some commotion up front. An old timer in a straw hat, black shirt, red cowboy boots and cane was passing through the crowd, looking as if he'd just stepped down from the "guess your weight" booth at Coney Island, and handing out red and blue ELVIS-NOW-72-NOW-R.C.A. ball point pens.

 

"Come on, hurry up, this is your last chance to get an Elvis pen," Colonel Tom Parker barked vigorously limping down every row. When the pens were gone, he opened another carton and began to retrace his tracks passing out Elvis wallet calendars.

 

By the time Parker was halfway through his calendars he had amassed a respectable press entourage. Some were satisfied to comment "Gee you look terrific, Colonel," for which they received the world's most cordial "Thank you, glad to see you," and another calendar.

 

Finally it is announced that Elvis will enter from stage left, preceded by his father. A warm hand for Vernon Presley, a handsome man whose presence sets off the first goose-tingles of Fifties nostalgia. "And Vernon Presley wants to introduce you to a friend of his."

 

"We love you Elvis."

 

"Thank you dear."

 

My, would you look at him! He seems not to have aged a day, he's just gotten bigger. Lights twinkle off his gold trim, his buttons and his teeth before Geraldo Rivera is shooting the first question out over the steady staccato of Nikon clicks.

 

Elvis found the early going easy. The questions were vehicles for him to be proud, polite, humble and humorous. Nobody seemed to care much what he said as long as it looked good through their view finders.

 

Elvis, why have you waited so long to come to New York?

 

"Well sir, we had trouble finding a good building. And once we found one, we had to wait our turn."

 

Mr. Presley, why have you outlasted all your competition?

 

"I take a lot of vitamin B. No, actually, honey, I suppose I've just been very fortunate."

 

Elvis, are you satisfied with your image?

 

"Well sir, it's very hard to live up to an image."

 

And when the questions got painfully obvious, Elvis would supply painfully obvious answers:

 

You seem to have less grease in your hair these days.

 

"Yes sir, I've stopped using that greasy kid stuff."

 

But slowly, through the perpetually disturbing click, click, click, you could begin to pick up a feeling from the King of Rock and Roll. He was scared. Disarmingly so. Nervousness could be expected, but at times, when some questions mildly threatened to penetrate the glorious glitter, an uneasy ticklish terror would envelop him. He stammered, and a shaky hand added a degree of pathos to the standard southern gentleman's defense of blinking an eyelid before avoiding a question.

 

Elvis, we are told that deep down you're really very shy and humble.

 

"What do you mean shy? I'm wearing this belt," he grinned and received comforting laughter. It was a dazzling golden champions' belt.

 

Subsequent questions exposed the delicate ironies, tender and tragic, that go with the privilege of being Elvis.

 

Do you plan to go to Europe?

 

"Yes sir, I've always wanted to play in places like Great Britain and Germany, and I would like to go to Japan. But actually I've never been out of the country, except for the time I spent in the service."

 

Elvis, why is it that you don't do longer personal interviews and have never consented to an authorized biography?

 

"Well, I would like to do something like that, but I don't think it's the time yet. I would like to but I'm just not ready yet."

 

Elvis, who do you think is sexy?

 

"Ehhh. Well ehh, lot's of people . . . I guess I got myself out of that one."

 

The Colonel was soon on stage saying, "I'd like to live up to my reputation of being a nice guy. This is it, folks," and with that Elvis and Vernon Presley were swiftly ushered off-stage before the ordeal was allowed to become more uncomfortable.

 

Reached by telephone in Los Angeles Steve Binder was excited to hear that Elvis seemed nervous just prior to his first New York appearance. "That's very good Elvis is only effective when he's somewhat unnerved, it means he's excited, there is still something to give to his audience. He's a very special kind of string that has to be kept taut. He should always be kept on the edge. That's how he was at his first opening in Las Vegas. He knew he was about to do something different which is what every artist must do to keep growing. Never repeat anything twice. He was fantastic then. But when I saw him six months later, he was still doing the same things and it seemed like he had nothing left to give to his audience. He was bored."

 

On Saturday night, Jerry Weintraub, who is producing the current tour (as he did the last two), beamed out at the ocean of spectators. "This is the only show in the world that's not sold out until it's sold out." Weintraub is a lean, energetic man in his mid-thirties with an unnerving physical resemblance to Pat Boone. "There are no complimentary tickets, no special guests, no tickets for the mayor. Elvis is the only artist in the world, working for the public and not for press agents. George Harrison is sitting way up there tonight," he pointed a tan hand toward a distant balcony. "And last night Dylan and Lennon were both sitting way back there," he continued, directing my vision to the seats that go a $1.50 when the Knicks play.

 

On stage, business was being handled by Al Devoure, the official tour MC along for his third ride, a whale of a man with a pencil thin moustache drawn across a head the size of a medicine ball, topped with at least half the contents of a Vitalis bottle.

 

"Ladies and Gentlemen, available in the Madison Square Lobby are a number of specially-priced Elvis souvenirs which you will long cherish after tonight's performance. The Elvis poster for $2, the Elvis souvenir program and the Elvis 11x14 photos, specially designed for this tour only, for $1."

 

Next, Devonre was telling the audience that Elvis has specifically requested they give the same warm welcome to other acts on the show they would give to him, At the first show comedian Jackie Kahane had run into untold trouble trying to get his repertoire of wife and fag jokes across. With the statement "There are 20,000 of you and only one of me," he surrendered.

 

So, by the second night Devoure was taking precaution to introduce Kahane as "The comic star of our show and Elvis' very close friend..." The introduction did nothing for his material. He relied on the same jokes as the previous evening and the previous tour.

 

Kahane was followed by the Sweet Inspirations. They are always fine but suffer from lack of experimentation and failure to add to their material. Their single of years past "Sweet Inspiration," is still the backbone of their performance. "Take another bow, girls," Devours said as they exited. Then the houselights were on again so that the audience could see the poster vendors better. When the lights dimmed again, the entire Elvis Orchestra and choir broke into the ominous opening bars of Thus Spake Zarathustra, and there he was again, the god of machismo in a white body suit with gold trim and white cape, strutting his goods across the stage amid blinding strobic blasts from 10,000 brownie cameras. He strapped on a guitar for old-time's sake.

 

The old-time excitement was there in the audience, but the King was playing it safe. He showed great heart and the ability to project deep emotion through the more subdued numbers, such as a beautiful medley of "Dixie," "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "All My Trials." But his inhibitions and defenses against his old kick-ass self rose each time he should have rocked. Following a half-inspired rendition of "Fools Rush In" he offered the audience a final spread-eagle and was gone. There was no call for encore, as if the lesson of the evening had been to accept what is given and ask for no more. Yet all the reviews of the concert that adorned the New York papers would echo some variant of "Elvis Still the King."

 

Steve Binder claims that the Colonel takes great precaution to make sure that no more wild-eye idealists are allowed to get into young Elvis's head. "What I would like to see happen," Binder said dreamily, "would be for Elvis to dump all the dead weight, all the businessmen that Parker surrounds him with, and replace them with people who have his creative interests in mind. I feel if he did that he could become a greater artistic force than people dare imagine. I really feel he could be remembered like Beethoven for his time. But he's gonna have to do it himself. Otherwise he'll just go down as somebody who was molded and used and dissipated, down to his grave. And all people will have to say is, 'Yeah, he was talented.'"

 

STU WERBIN

(RS 113 - July 20, 1972)

Some cool articles there Carole, and fantastic pics as always :yahoo: :wub:

Not from Rolling Stone magazine, but a great article anyway

 

Bloch Arena – March 25th 1961

 

This was to be Elvis’ last live concert for 8years (not including the ’68 Comeback Special)

 

 

http://starbulletin.com/2001/03/23/features/story4.html

 

Bono on why Elvis is King B)

 

This essay was first published in Rolling Stone, issue 946 (March 24, 2004). It was part of a series of essays called "The Immortals: The Fifty Greatest Artists of All Time," and was written by "their peers and heirs, those who have learned from their innovations, struggles and legacies

 

 

Out of Tupelo, Mississippi, out of Memphis, Tennessee, came this green, sharkskin-suited girl chaser, wearing eye shadow — a trucker-dandy white boy who must have risked his hide to act so black and dress so gay. This wasn’t New York or even New Orleans; this was Memphis in the Fifties. This was punk rock.

 

This was revolt.

 

Elvis changed everything — musically, sexually, politically. In Elvis, you had the whole lot; it’s all there in that elastic voice and body. As he changed shape, so did the world: He was a Fifties-style icon who was what the Sixties were capable of, and then suddenly not. In the Seventies, he turned celebrity into a blood sport, but interestingly, the more he fell to Earth, the more godlike he became to his fans. His last performances showcase a voice even bigger than his gut, where you cry real tears as the music messiah sings his tired heart out, turning casino into temple.

 

In Elvis, you have the blueprint for rock & roll: The highness — the gospel highs. The mud — the Delta mud, the blues. Sexual liberation. Controversy. Changing the way people feel about the world. It’s all there with Elvis.

 

I was barely conscious when I saw the ’68 comeback special, at eight years old — which was probably an advantage. I hadn’t the critical faculties to divide the different Elvises into different categories or sort through the contradictions. Pretty much everything I want from guitar, bass and drums was present: a performer annoyed by the distance from his audience; a persona that made a prism of fame’s wide-angle lens; a sexuality matched only by a thirst for God’s instruction.

 

But it’s that elastic spastic dance that is the most difficult to explain — hips that swivel from Europe to Africa, which is the whole point of America, I guess. For an Irish boy, the voice might have explained the sexiness of the U.S.A., but the dance explained the energy of this new world about to boil over and scald the rest of us with new ideas on race, religion, fashion, love and peace. These were ideas bigger than the man who would break the ice for them, ideas that would later confound the man who took the Anglo-Saxon stiff upper lip and curled it forever. He was "Elvis the Pelvis," with one hand on the blues terminal and the other on the gospel, which is the essence of rock & roll, a lightning flash running along his spine, electroshock therapy for a generation about to refuse numbness, both male and female, black and white.

 

I recently met with Coretta Scott King, John Lewis and some of the other leaders of the American civil-rights movement, and they reminded me of the cultural apartheid rock & roll was up against. I think the hill they climbed would have been much steeper were it not for the racial inroads black music was making on white pop culture. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Creedence Clearwater Revival were all introduced to the blues through Elvis. He was already doing what the civil-rights movement was demanding: breaking down barriers. You don’t think of Elvis as political, but that is politics: changing the way people see the world.

 

In the Eighties, U2 went to Memphis, to Sun Studio — the scene of rock & roll’s big bang. We were working with Elvis’ engineer and music diviner, Cowboy Jack Clement. He reopened the studio so we could cut some tracks within the same four walls where Elvis recorded "Mystery Train." He found the old valve microphone the King had howled through; the reverb was the same reverb: "Train I ride, sixteen coaches long." It was a small tunnel of a place, but there was a certain clarity to the sound. You can hear it in those Sun records, and they are the ones for me — leanness but not meanness. The King didn’t know he was the King yet. It’s haunted, hunted, spooky music. Elvis doesn’t know where the train will take him, and that’s why we want to be passengers.

 

Jerry Schilling, the only one of the Memphis Mafia not to sell him out, told me a story about when he used to live at Graceland, down by the squash courts. He had a little room there, and he said that when Elvis was upset and feeling out of kilter, he would leave the big house and go down to his little gym, where there was a piano. With no one else around, his choice would always be gospel, losing and finding himself in the old spirituals.

 

He was happiest when he was singing his way back to spiritual safety. But he didn’t stay long enough. Self-loathing was waiting back up at the house, where Elvis was seen shooting at his TV screens, the Bible open beside him at St. Paul’s great ode to love, Corinthians 13. Elvis clearly didn’t believe God’s grace was amazing enough.

 

Some commentators say it was the Army, others say it was Hollywood or Las Vegas that broke his spirit. The rock & roll world certainly didn’t like to see their King doing what he was told. I think it was probably much more likely his marriage or his mother — or a finer fracture from earlier on, like losing his twin brother, Jesse, at birth. Maybe it was just the big arse of fame sitting on him.

 

I think the Vegas period is underrated. I find it the most emotional. By that point Elvis was clearly not in control of his own life, and there is this incredible pathos. The big opera voice of the later years — that’s the one that really hurts me.

 

Why is it that we want our idols to die on a cross of their own making, and if they don’t, we want our money back? But you know, Elvis ate America before America ate him.

 

(Source: U2 France)

 

Read the other articles on the ‘Immortals’ here B)

 

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/593...the_first_fifty

 

A great article Carole and a super read :yahoo: