Last Train to Memphis

by Peter Guralnick

  a “morbid mess”: New York Post, October 3, 1956.

  Stoker, who had met the boy: Interview with Gordon Stoker, 1989.

  “They all told me”: Tandy Rice interview with Steve Sholes, Country Music Foundation collection, used by permission.

  a father’s night show at Humes: Robert Johnson, Elvis Presley Speaks!, p. 44.

  a Christmas show produced by Miss Scrivener: “Elvis Presley,” prepared by the editors of TV Radio Mirror, 1956, p. 31.

  “I think there was a big difference”: Shelley Ritter interview with Minnie Pearl, 1990.

  According to Maylon Humphries: Interview with Maylon Humphries, 1991.

  Steve Sholes introduced: Interview with Chick Crumpacker, 1992; additional interviews with Arlene Blum and Lorene Lortie, 1993.

  “Steve brought Elvis in”: Interview with Anne Fulchino, 1992.

  introduced Elvis to the Dorseys: Interviews and correspondence with Grelun Landon, 1988–94; also, unpublished manuscript by Landon.

  “and Elvis exhibited a kind of deference and courtesy”: Arnold Shaw, The Rockin’ ’50s, p. 11.

  (“We didn’t know what to expect”): Jerry Hopkins interview with D. J. Fontana (MVC/MSU).

  talking to Grelun and Chick Crumpacker: Interview with Chick Crumpacker, 1989.

  The show that night: Chick Crumpacker liner notes to Elvis (RCA LPM 1382) and interviews and correspondence, 1989–94.

  “Daddy just sat there”: Interview with Jackson, Sarah, and Eve Baker, 1990.

  Bob Johnson wrote in his notes: Elvis Presley Speaks!, p. 45.

  it was no use doing any more: Grelun Landon, “Elvis Presley: The Tape Keeps Rolling.” RCA publicity package, 1984.

  On the second day of recording: Interview with Fred Danzig, 1993.

  “a tall, lean young man”: Manuscript copy of “The Day No One Wanted Elvis—But Me” by Fred Danzig.

  They went into the control room: Interview with Fred Danzig.

  The William Morris people threw a party: Interviews with Freddy Bienstock and Grelun Landon; also Martha Lopert, “The Boy with the Big Beat,” Celebrity, winter 1958, p. 62.

  a reception at the Hickory House: Interviews and correspondence with Chick Crumpacker; also interviews with Arlene Blum and Fred Danzig.

  “I thought Elvis did even better”: Booklet for Elvis: The Complete 50’s Masters.

  “The Colonel embarrasses me”: Interview with Gabe Tucker, 1990.

  “We were working near every day”: Jerry Hopkins, Elvis, p. 125.

  To Justin Tubb: Interview with Justin Tubb, 1989, and subsequent correspondence.

  (“My brother didn’t get along”): Jimmy Guterman interview with Charlie Louvin, 1987.

  “Fuck the Colonel”: Interview with Chet Atkins, 1988.

  “Elvis said, ‘Boy’ ”: Howard Miller, The Louvin Brothers, p. 47.

  Ira flashed: Jimmy Guterman interview with Charlie Louvin.

  In Jacksonville on February 23: Robert Johnson, “Elvis Himself,” TV Star Parade, September 1956, p. 65; also Elvis Presley Speaks!, p. 45. Other sources include the Jacksonville Journal (as cited in Morrie and Virginia Kricun, Elvis: 1956 Reflections); my interview with Justin Tubb and Jimmy Guterman’s with Charlie Louvin; also James Poling, “Elvis Presley: Go, Cat, Go,” Pageant, July 1956, p. 12, and Red West et al., Elvis: What Happened?, p. 109.

  THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN

  All quotes from Scotty Moore are from the author’s interviews, unless otherwise noted.

  “I suppose,” Neal said: Jerry Hopkins interview with Bob Neal (MVC/MSU).

  Hazen’s sister-in-law: Interview with Joseph Hazen, 1993.

  Wallis was impressed: Hal Wallis and Charles Higham, Starmaker.

  From Anne Fulchino’s point of view: Interview with Anne Fulchino, 1993.

  “The transformation was incredible”: Allan Weiss, “Elvis Presley: Rock Music Phenomenon,” in Danny Peary, ed., Close Ups: The Movie Star Book. Used by permission.

  “I knew my script”: August 6, 1956, interview.

  This character was “lovesick”: Will Jones, “Squeals Drown Presley’s Songs,” Minneapolis Tribune, May 13, 1956.

  Just when Elvis delivered this opinion is a matter of conjecture. As of April 13, he evidently still believed he would be making The Rainmaker starting in June (this is borne out by an interview with Jay Thompson in Wichita Falls, Texas, on April 9 and his interview in the Press-Scimitar four days later), but whenever he spoke to Wallis, and whatever words he actually used, I believe that the feelings represented here—not to mention the combination of verbal confusion and emotional assurance—ring true.

  Wallis for his part: All Wallis quotes from Wallis and Higham, Starmaker; further information gleaned from interviews with Joseph Hazen and William Morris agent Leonard Hirshan, and correspondence with Nick Tosches.

  The Colonel reserved the right: Just for the record the strategy worked, and the Colonel continuously improved every aspect of the deal, getting Elvis $65,000 for the first Wallis picture (1957’s Loving You) after making Love Me Tender in 1956 for Twentieth Century Fox at a salary of $100,000.

  Berle met Elvis and the Colonel: Andrew Solt interview with Milton Berle.

  At one point Elvis: Variety, April 11, 1956.

  “The crowd was too noisy”: San Diego newspaper story, as quoted in Ger Rijff, Long Lonely Highway, p. 78.

  “I changed my whole style”: Interview with Glen Glenn, 1990.

  The Colonel had extricated Elvis: Interview with Horace Logan, 1991. In Elvis’ interview with Jay Thompson on Monday, April 9, he speaks of his final night on the Hayride as being “last Saturday night,” but March 31 was advertised as his final appearance. The figure of ten thousand dollars is stipulated in the revision of his Hayride contract.

  a recording session on Saturday, April 14: This session has always been listed as taking place on April 11, but Ernst Jorgensen called my attention to a number of discrepancies in scheduling, and a story in the Press-Scimitar on April 13 makes it clear that Elvis recorded on the fourteenth.

  everyone wanted to know everything: All quotes are from Elvis’ interview at the Warwick Hotel on March 24 but reflect fairly both the kind of questions he continued to be asked and the answers that he gave.

  “He was working for Elvis, period”: Interview with D. J. Fontana, 1991.

  Scotty and Bill knew the Colonel: One of the Colonel’s early schemes, according to both Scotty and D. J., was to replace them with Hank Snow’s band for the ostensible purpose of saving money. The difference in musical styles was of little or no concern to him, they felt.

  In Red’s account Elvis: Red West et al., Elvis: What Happened?, pp. 120–121.

  “I’ll bet I could burp”: Interview with Gordon Stoker, 1989.

  They chartered a plane: Interviews with Scotty Moore, 1988, 1989; also Memphis Press-Scimitar account, May 4, 1956.

  “Man, I don’t know if”: Interview with Chet Atkins, 1988.

  “It was the worst sound”: Interview with Gordon Stoker.

  Elvis gave a brief interview: “Elvis Gives Out with Crazy Cool Interview,” Waco News-Tribune, April 18, 1956.

  Scotty and Elvis and Bill headed for the Club El Dorado: Interviews with Scotty Moore and Lowell Fulson, 1989.

  “no check is good”: Time, May 16, 1960.

  It was the first sit-down gig: Principal sources for this account of the Las Vegas booking are interviews with Scotty Moore and D. J. Fontana; stories in the Memphis Press-Scimitar and Commercial Appeal; Robert Johnson, Elvis Presley Speaks!; Billboard and Variety coverage; Marge Crumbaker and Gabe Tucker’s Up and Down with Elvis Presley; Bill Randle’s comments as detailed in Ger Rijff and Jan van Gestel, Memphis Lonesome; RCA’s recording of the final show as presented on Elvis: The Complete 50’s Masters; various contemporary interviews with Elvis Presley; Bill Dahl’s story on Freddie Bell (“Remembering Rock” Chicago Tribune, December 5, 1990); and Jonny Whiteside’s interview/memorial to Johnnie Ray, “Who’s
Crying Now,” LA Weekly, March 9–15, 1990.

  It should be noted that it has frequently been assumed that Elvis was fired from this engagement because he left after two weeks and Freddy Martin stayed on. In fact it would appear from all indications that Elvis was hired for the first two weeks of Martin’s engagement only. He went on to regular scheduled gigs starting in St. Paul on May 12 and going through the entire next week, which included a headlining appearance at the Cotton Carnival in the middle of what would have been his fourth week in Vegas. I think the confusion initially arose from trade accounts that had him “replaced on the bill by Roberta Sherwood” (Variety, May 9, 1956). This came in the midst of a negative article, and indeed in the midst of a negative sentence (“The more sophisticated gambling clientele didn’t dig his frenzied antics, and Presley was replaced…”), but I believe from interviews and all other indications that it was booked as a two-week engagement from the start and that the announced replacement was a planned one, the conjunction (“and”) merely sequential. This, too, however, is subject to revision.

  one of Richardson’s guests: Crumbaker and Tucker, Up and Down, p. 38.

  “For the first time in months”: Elvis Presley Speaks!, p. 53.

  “After the show our nerves”: Elston Leonard, “Elvis Presley: The New Singing Rage,” Tiger, c. 1956, p. 14.

  “They weren’t my kind of audience”: Elvis Presley, prepared by the editors of TV Radio Mirror, 1956, p. 43.

  “It was strictly an adult audience”: May 14, 1956, interview, La Crosse, Wisconsin. See the Memphis Commercial Appeal of May 9 for a similar interview, in which he declares, “Man, I really liked Vegas. I’m going back there the first chance I get.”

  “Elvis, who has played hard audiences”: Robert Johnson, “The Golden Boy Reaches for a Star While the Music Goes Round and Round and—,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, May 4, 1956.

  They played what Elvis calculated: Richard Lyons, “Presley Irked by Overtime—Even at $4000 an Hour,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, May 9, 1956.

  “One thing about Las Vegas”: Elvis Presley Speaks!, p. 55.

  “The carnage was terrific”: Memphis Press-Scimitar, May 4, 1956.

  eight-hundred-dollar watch with diamonds: The gift is shown in a photograph accompanying the Press-Scimitar story. The thank-you notes are specified by Marge Crumbaker and Gabe Tucker in Up and Down with Elvis Presley.

  “Like a jug of corn liquor”: “Hillbilly on a Pedestal,” Newsweek, May 14, 1956.

  He was back in Memphis: Memphis Commercial Appeal, May 9, 1956.

  “THOSE PEOPLE IN NEW YORK ARE NOT GONNA CHANGE ME NONE”

  this “new and open-to-the-public feature”: Memphis Commercial Appeal, May 13, 1956.

  “Henry introduced me to him”: Shelley Ritter interview with Minnie Pearl, 1990.

  “I grabbed his hand”: Memphis Commercial Appeal, May 13, 1956.

  Vernon and Gladys were already present: This account is based primarily on Fred Davis’ firsthand testimony, as well as the Press-Scimitar story of May 16 and a fortuitous recording of the Little Rock concert the following day, which followed virtually the same format.

  Hank Snow meanwhile was finally beginning: Hank Snow with Jack Ownbey and Bob Burris, The Hank Snow Story, p. 390. Used by permission. The chronology of Snow’s understanding is somewhat difficult to understand. In a March 2 letter to his attorney, the Colonel explained that a “recent unpleasantness” with Snow had been resolved by the dissolution of their management and booking agency contracts, but clearly Snow could not at first fully accept that he would see nothing from the deal. In his book, Up and Down with Elvis Presley, coauthored with Marge Crumbaker, Gabe Tucker posits that this all stemmed from a trap the Colonel laid when the idea of selling Elvis’ contract first came up. “Hank, you put in everything you make,” Tucker has the Colonel saying, “and I’ll put in everything I make, and we’ll buy this boy’s contract….” When Snow demurred, as Parker knew that he would, Parker cut him out of the deal.

  One essential factor not to be discounted is that Snow was a proud man and would never have been able to brook the idea of being “taken.” In the other words of his son: “I don’t think that my dad realized at that time what had happened,” and certainly Snow’s explanations to this day do not fully explain the matter.

  “I’m so proud of my boy”: Interview with Cliff Gleaves, 1990.

  Mrs. Presley answered the doorbell: Interview with Pallas Pidgeon, 1990; Robert Johnson, Elvis Presley Speaks!, p. 64; Jerry Hopkins interview with Faye Harris (MVC/MSU).

  “I wish,” he said to a contractor friend: Interview with Guy Lansky, 1990.

  Gladys had filled the house: Edwin Miller, “Elvis the Innocent,” Memories, May 1989. Miller’s account of his visit at precisely this time was written up first in a 1956 issue of Seventeen and, later, in this more reflective article.

  “It didn’t happen all at once”: Memphis Press-Scimitar, May 4, 1956.

  On the way they had heard a song: Peter Cronin interview with Scotty Moore, 1992.

  “If you ever do anything to make”: Albert Goldman, Elvis, p. 505.

  “it was a relaxed and therefore more effective”: Variety, June 13, 1956.

  “Mr. Presley has no discernible”: New York Times, June 6, 1956.

  “The sight of young (21) Mr. Presley”: New York Journal-American, June 9, 1956.

  under the banner “Beware Elvis Presley”: America, June 23, 1956.

  (“She’d get mad and cuss”): Shelley Ritter interview with Vester Presley, 1991.

  “I don’t do any vulgar movements”: Aline Mosby, “Presley Sexy? He Denies It,” New York World Telegram, June 15, 1956.

  “I’m not trying to be sexy”: Phyllis Battele, New York Journal-American, June 18, 1956.

  “I hired a doctor’s wife”: Interview with Charlie Lamb, 1990.

  “I’m going to get a wiggle meter”: New York World Telegram, June 15, 1956.

  He drove up to the house and found June: Interview with June Juanico, 1991.

  a one-shot appearance at $7,500: Allen indicated this figure in his interview with Andrew Solt, though the amount has also been cited as $5,000. The higher figure would seem to explain Ed Sullivan’s unprecented bid ($50,000 for three appearances) after the Allen broadcast.

  “there has been a demand that”: New York Journal-American, June 13, 1956.

  On June 20 a compromise of sorts was reached: Ibid., June 21, 1956.

  It was, said Allen: Andrew Solt interview with Steve Allen.

  Elvis Presley is a worried man: Kays Gary, “Elvis Defends Low-Down Style,” Charlotte Observer, June 27, 1956.

  “Mr. Johnson, you know some things”: Memphis Press-Scimitar, May 4, 1956.

  He arrived at NBC’s midtown rehearsal studio: This particular detail, along with extended and attributed quotations, comes from Alfred Wertheimer’s book Elvis ’56: In the Beginning, © 1979, and is used by permission. All observations are from Wertheimer’s point of view, unless otherwise specified, and are used with grateful acknowledgment. This credit carries through to the end of the chapter, wherever noted.

  “if you just stuck around with him”: Anita Houk, “Lensman’s Early Look at Elvis Was Rare, Personal,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, August 11, 1991.

  (“He always did the best he could”): Peter Cronin interview with Gordon Stoker, 1992.

  The next day he seemed: Once again Alfred Wertheimer’s firsthand observation (in words and pictures) was an invaluable source of visualization, information, and insight. In addition, interviews with Freddy Bienstock and Chick Crumpacker were of great help, along with Grelun Landon’s, Scotty Moore’s, and D. J. Fontana’s recollections. Finally, Chick Crumpacker took Ernst Jorgensen and me on a guided tour of the old RCA neighborhood and building, which is now a division of Baruch College, in which Studio B has been astonishingly preserved as a television teaching studio.

  “Barbara Hearn of Memphis”: Rhea Talley, “Memphis, Biloxi Girls Share Top Spo
t in Elvis’ Date Book,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, July 8, 1956.

  As Otis Blackwell later said: “Otis Blackwell: The Power Behind Elvis,” Essence, May 1978. For additional information on Otis Blackwell, see Gary Giddins, “Just How Much Did Elvis Learn from Otis Blackwell?,” Village Voice, October 25, 1976.

  “I wasn’t all that impressed”: Peter Cronin interview with Gordon Stoker.

  He ran into Gene Vincent: New Orleans radio interview, July 1956.

  It was a hot night, 97 degrees: Most of the detail on the Russwood Park show comes from Press-Scimitar and Commercial Appeal coverage the next day. Early editions of the Press-Scimitar had attendance at fourteen thousand, but the figure was corrected by the end of the day. Robert Johnson’s account in the Press-Scimitar was particularly vivid, as was Alfred Wertheimer’s in Elvis ’56.

  The fans “broke from their seats”: Robert Johnson, “Elvis Sings and Thousands Scream,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, July 5, 1956.

  “there was this keening sound”: Interview with Jackson Baker, 1990.

  “He rocked ’em”; “When it was time to go”: Memphis Press-Scimitar, July 5, 1956.

  All Elvis wanted: Ibid., May 4, 1956.

  A note on the title of this chapter: The quotation comes from Jackson Baker’s recollection of the event in a 1989 interview. Stanley Booth uses a variant of the same quote in his classic February 1968 story for Esquire, “A Hound Dog to the Manor Born.” The only reference in newspaper accounts is in Bob Johnson’s July 5 story in the Press-Scimitar, which states: “Elvis joked about his recent appearance on the Steve Allen show, when he had to restrain some of his wriggling,” but no direct quotation is made.

  ELVIS AND JUNE

  All quotes from June Juanico are from the author’s interviews, telephone conversation, and correspondence, 1991–94, unless otherwise noted. June’s own unpublished manuscript gives a wonderful picture of the period and should not remain unpublished for long.