On This Day – Elvis Lives !
Jan 8, 2010 On This Day
Jan 8th was a significant day for Elvis, he was born on this day in 1935, Jan 8th 1945 he was given his first guitar, Jan 8th 1955 he released his 3rd single. Not too shabby.
So January 8th was not a bad day for Elvis, or for us music lovers as it also saw the birth of Bowie (1947), Shirley Bassey (1937), (the Dame is 10 years younger than the Dame?) and Bill Graham in 1931.
ON the other hjand January 8th has provide some lows as well. Yoko Ono released “Approximately Infinite University” in 1973.
‘Nuff Said (One for the older readers)
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On This Day – What a Week For Elvis!
Oct 19, 2009 On This Day
On this day in 1956 Elvis was involved in a fist fight. He had stopped at a petrol station in Memphis to get some petrol and was mobbed by teenagers. The petrol station manager wanted him to go away so that he could start selling petrol again. Tempers became frayed and the owner, Ed Hopper, hit Elvis on the head (You should not mess with a rock star’s hair!). Elvis, in turn, hit him in the eye. Hopper’s assistant, Aubrey Brown, went to help his boss and got much the same.
Ed Hopper brought charges but they were thrown out of court 4 days later as all the fans confirmed that Elvis did not start the fight. Hopper and his 6′4″ assistant were fined, and promptly sacked by the petrol station owner.
Three days after the petrol station episode Elvis went to the movies. Surprise, surprise, he was mobbed, again. This time the only damage was to Elvis’ car.
Perhaps Elvis should have realised that he could not just go out in public without attracting a crowd…. Only a month later Elvis was attacked again. This time by Louis Balint. His beef with Elvis was that his wife carried a photo of Elvis in her purse. Balint was fined for assault but as he was destitute he was sent to jail instead.
All in all, quite an eventful week for Elvis. Towards the end of the week Elvis got a his first letter from the draft board……………
Tags: classic rock music, elvis fighting, elvis presley, love rock music, On This Day, rock and blues
On This day – Little Susie is Being Suggestive!
Oct 14, 2009 On This Day
On this day in 1957 The Everley Brothers reached the top of the charts in the USA with “Wake Up Little Susie”. That inspite of it being banned by some radio stations because of the suggestive lyrics.
I have always said that it is a dirty little song, a threat to the morals of our youth and quite capable of destroying society. (Sorry, I was having a irrational time warp back to the 50s moment). However, that is just what some people thought, otherwise sensible and responsible people. Mind you, most people thought that fighting a nuclear war, and surviving it, was entirely possible. Also remember that the FBI investigated a song (Louie, Louie) because of the filthy lyrics (the whole story here).
There have always been bans imposed on rock music. Given the origins I do not think that we should be surprised. Rock was born on the back of black ‘race’ music. Music made by and for black America. It was not heard or played by white people. When rock began it took the rhythms, feel and in some cases whole songs. That worried the white establishment. Sexual references was just one area that scared the hell out of them. Hence not showing Elvis’ hips when he was singing. That “Wake Up Little Susie” should fall foul of the censors is just a reflection of the paranoia of the time.
What the establishment wanted was more Rock Hudson and Doris Day films (sort of ironic of course).
One notable incident of banning music from being played that predates rock was the banning of Billie Holiday’s version of “Gloomy Sunday” by the BBC in 1941 (and that was the version with the rewritten happy ending!).
However, banning became far more common with the advent of rock. “such a Night” by Johnny Ray was banned by the BBC in 1954. The police in Memphis banned The Drifter’s “Honey Love”. Both banned because of the suggestive lyrics. There are many more examples in the late 50s and early 60s. But the practice went on, and on. In 1969 “Je T’aime… Moi Non Plus” was banned (again by the BBC) because of the sexual nature of the recording. Other, obvious examples are Hendrix “How Would You Feel”, Van Morrison’s “Gloria”, The Who’s “Pictures of Lily”. There are so many.
More worrying as far as I am concerned is the banning of songs because of political or social comment. The Byrds “8 Miles High” was banned by many US radio stations because of the drug reference, “Puff The Magic Dragon”, Janis Ian’s “Society’s Child” was banned because by many US radio stations because the interracial dating references. Sponsors of the Pet Clark Show got their nickers in a twist when she touched Harry Belafonte on the arm during a duet. etc etc.
Somehow I am not surprised that the Colonels in Argentina banned more than 200 songs because they threatened the regime. I am not worried that the Soviet state and its satellites banned hundreds and hundreds of rock music. I find it hard to see Elton John as being a threat to society but any society should be able to stand up to threats from the arts, and the arts should threaten society.
Luckily, the act of banning a record only helps to make it receive more attention than perhaps it otherwise would. Again there are many examples of that. Frankie goes to Hollywood’ “Relax”, The Pistol’s “God save The Queen”, “Je T’aime”. Just add your favourites to the list. The “explicit Lyrics” stickers were a joke, and a magnet to some record buyers. One Zappa album has an “explicit Lyrics” sticker, even though it is purely instrumental!
The censorship of album covers has also gone on as well. Here are a couple of examples;
There are other examples, of course, Blind Faith, Black Crows, Scorpions, the Beatles with the ‘Babies cover’ etc.
I think that censorship is rarely right (exceptions being child porn, coercion, exploitation). I also believe that it is largely ineffective.
Tags: censorhip, classic rock music, elvis presley, frank zappa, love rock music, On This Day, rock and blues, rock music, the who
On This Day – Love Me Tender (again and again 856,327 times)
Sep 29, 2009 On This Day
On this day in 1956 RCA Victor announced a huge number of advance orders for “Love Me Tender” by Elvis Presley.
Only a couple of days ago it was the anniversary of Emile Berliner inventing the gramophone. In 1956 the record company that he co-founded with Eldridge Johnson was going from strength to strength.
These days, of course, RCA is part of Sony BMG. The history is somewhat contorted but, briefly;
In the ’80s RCA bought 50% of Arista. General Electric bought RCA in ‘86 (selling its interest in the RCA/Ariola International back to Bertelsmann the owner of Ariola). The RCA/Ariola International entity was renamed Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG). GE meanwhile closed all RCA entities ‘cept for a NBC. So, BMG was the only RCA game in town. They also resurrected RCA Victor for Rock music.
While RCA had acts like The Eurythmics on its books it also produced a number of successful albums of shows on Broadway.
in 2004 BMG merged with Sony to produce ‘Sony BMG’. Interestingly, RCA once owned NBC now RCA was in a group once owned by NBC’s rival CBS, Columbia Records.
2008 saw BMG being bought out by Sony and Sony BMG became Sony Music Entertainment.
There, told you it was simple!
Tags: elvis presley, emile berliner, rca, rca victor, real rock and blues, rock and blues
On This Day – The Beatles Jam with Elvis
Aug 27, 2009 On This Day
On This Day in 1965 the Beatles were on their second US tour. Brian Epstein was able to arrange a visit to meet Elvis in his Bel-Air home. The visit lasted some 4 hours and while Col Tom Parker an Epstein played pool the Fab Four and The Hips told stories and chatted. They also jammed together. Want a copy of that recording? Well, tough luck no one thought to turn a tape recorder on!
Here is an excerpt from the book The Beatles Anthology talking about meeting Elvis.
PAUL We met Elvis Presley at the end of our stay in L.A. We’d tried for years to, but we could never get to him. He was our greatest idol, but the styles were changing in favor of us. He was a pretty powerful image to British people. You’d look at photos of him doing American concerts, and the audience would not even be jumping up and down. We used to be amazed, seeing them sitting in the front row – not even dancing.
JOHN LENNON : When I first heard “Heartbreak Hotel,” I could hardly make out what was being said. It was just the experience of hearing it and having my hair stand on end. We’d never heard American voices singing like that. They’d always sung like Sinatra who enunciated well. Suddenly, there’s this hillbilly hiccuping with echo and all this bluesy background going on. We didn’t know what the hell Presley was singing about or Little Richard or Chuck Berry. It took a long time to work out what was going on. To us, it just sounded like great noise.
PAUL We tried many times to meet Elvis, Colonel Tom Parker, his manager would just show up with a few souvenirs, and that would have to do us for a while. We didn’t feel brushed off we felt we deserved to be brushed off. After all, he was Elvis, and who were we to dare to want to meet him? But we finally received an invitation to go round and see him when he was making a film in Hollywood.
GEORGE HARRISON Meeting Elvis was one of the high-lights of the tour. It was funny, because by the time we got near his house we’d forgotten where we were going. We were in a Cadillac going round and round along Mulholland, and we’d had a couple of “cups of tea” in the back of the car. It didn’t really matter where we were going – it’s like the comedian Lord Buckley says, “We go into a native village and take a couple of peyote buds, we might not find out where we is, but we’ll sure find out who we is.” Anyway, we were just having fun, we were all in hysterics. (We laughed a lot. That’s one thing we forgot about for a few years – laughing. When we went through all the lawsuits, it looked as if everything was bleak, but when I think back to before that, I remember we used to laugh all the time.) We pulled up at some big gates and someone said, “Oh yeah, we’re going to see Elvis,” and we all fell out of the car laughing, trying to pretend we weren’t silly, just like a Beatles cartoon.
JOHN It was very exciting, we were all nervous as hell, and we met him in his big house in L.A. – probably as big as the one we were staying in, but it still felt like “big house, big Elvis.” He had lots of guys around him, all these guys that used to live near him (like we did from Liverpool, we always had thousands of Liverpool people around us, so I guess he was the same.) And he had pool tables! Maybe a lot of American houses are like that, but it seemed amazing to us. It was like a nightclub.
RINGO STARR I was pretty excited. We were lucky because it was the four of us and we had each other to be with. The house was very big. We walked in, and Elvis was sitting down on a settee in front of the TV. He was playing a bass guitar, which even to this day I find very strange. He had all his guys around him, and we said, “Hi, Elvis.” He was pretty shy, and we were a little shy, but between the five of us we kept it rolling. I felt I was more thrilled to meet him than he was to meet me.
PAUL He showed us in. He just looked like Elvis – we were all major fans, so it was hero worship of a high degree. He said, “Hello, lads – do you want a drink?” We sat down and watched telly, and he had the first remote any of us had ever seen. You just aimed it at the telly and – wow! That’s Elvis! He was playing Charlie Rich’s “Mohair Sam” all evening – he had it on a jukebox.
JOHN He had his TV going all the time, which is what I do; we always have TV on. We never watch it – it’s just there with no sound on, and we listen to records. In front of the TV, he had a massive amplifier with a bass plugged into it, and he was up playing bass all the time with the picture up on the TV. So we just got in there and played with him. We all plugged in whatever was around, and we played and sang. He had a jukebox, like I do, but I think he had all his hits on it. But if I’d made as many as him, maybe I’d have all mine on.
PAUL That was the greatest. Elvis was into the bass, So there I was, “Well, let me show you a thing or two, El…” Suddenly he was a mate. It was a great conversation piece for me. I could actually talk about the bass, and we sat around and just enjoyed ourselves. He was great. Talkative. Friendly and a little bit shy. But that was his image. We expected that, we hoped for that.
JOHN At first we couldn’t make him out. I asked him if he was preparing new ideas for his next film and he drawled, “Ah sure am. Ah play a country boy with a guitar who meets a few gals along the way, and ah sing a few songs.” We all looked at one another. Finally Presley and Colonel Parker laughed and explained that the only time they departed from that formula – for Wild in the Country – they lost money.
PAUL She came in, and I got this picture of her as a sort of a Barbie doll – with a purple gingham dress and a gingham bow in her very beehive hair, with lots of makeup. We all said hello, and then it was, “Right, lads, hands off – she’s going.” She didn’t stay long. I can’t blame him, although I don’t think any of us would have made a pass at her. That was definitely not on – Elvis’s wife, you know! That was unthinkable – she didn’t need to be put away quite so quickly, we thought.
GEORGE I don’t remember even seeing Priscilla. I spent most of the party trying to suss out from the gang if anybody had any reefers. But they were uppers and whiskey people. They weren’t really into reefer smoking in the South.
JOHN It was nice meeting Elvis. He was just Elvis, you know? He seemed normal to us, and we were asking about his making movies and not doing any personal appearances or TV. I think he enjoys making movies so much, We couldn’t stand not doing personal appearances, we’d get bored – we get bored quickly. He says he misses it a bit.We never talked about anything else – we just played music. He wasn’t bigger than us, but he was “the thing.” He just wasn’t articulate, that’s all.
Tags: classic rock music, elvis presley, love rock music, On This Day, real rock and blues, rock and blues, the beatles
Elvis’ Tooth Goes On Ebay
Jul 8, 2009 On This Day
On this day in 2003 one of Elvis’s teeth was listed on eBay, together with some hair and a gold record. The reserve price was $100,000.
Just how do you get a tooth without actually digging him up? Easy, you get the tooth from a man who got it from his dad, who happens to be the founder of the Elvis museum, and he in turn got it from from of Elvis’ old girlfriends….. I told you it was easy. Now why did she have tooth? Apparently, it was pulled after Elvis had an accident, but I have no idea what type of accident (or pulled by a dentist, depending on which story you want to believe).
The tooth, hair, and gold record failed to sell.
Tags: classic rock, ebay, elvis presley, love rock music
On This Day – 1st July 1956 was a good day!
Jul 1, 2009 On This Day
On this day in 1956 Elvis sang on the Steve Allen show, for $5,000 – which was a lot for Elvis at the time. He sang Hound Dog which he recorded the next day. Naturally, his appearance was criticized by the critics and adults. Let’s face it, our parents never got rock ‘n’ roll – what is even sadder is that when those kids grew up and were parents they did not get their kid’s music either.
Also on this day an 11 year old Brenda Lee AKA Little Miss Dynamite (accept no imitations) signed her first recording contract on this day. I have a bit of a soft spot for Brenda Lee, as did my dad – which is the reason why I do. On the other hand he also liked Kathy Kirby who I thought then, and still do, was rubbish – with a capital Rub…..
Tags: brenda lee, classic rock, elvis presley, On This Day
