Elvis Presley is the King (originally posted 6/6/09)

(At this opportunity, I would like to thank my father and mother for instilling in me a love for Elvis Presley. My father owned only three Elvis albums, Elvis's Golden Records Volumes 1 & 3, and the GI Blues soundtrack, and I would listen to these albums constantly during my middle school years. I would watch Elvis movies on television, and I distinctly remember waiting for Elvis to improbably break into another song during the picture so I could locate the song title on the record sleeve detailing the song lists of many Elvis albums inside the original RCA album cover. Later, when my mom and I would go to the Centereach Mall, she would buy for me the LP for the soundtrack I had seen at the now-defunct Record World (price usually between $3.99-$7.99). 33 CDs, 26 LPs, numerous souvenirs, and two trips to Graceland and to Sun Studios later, Elvis is still the King.)

Here are the five Elvis moments I would have most like to have witnessed:

1) Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show, Tupelo, Mississippi, October 3, 1945.
Elvis, dressed in a cowboy outfit, stands on a chair to reach the microphone and sings Old Shep in a talent-show, coming in second or fifth, depending on which version you read. I would have used whatever technology was available at the time to record this moment.

2) Monday, Sun Studios, Memphis, July 5, 1954.
One of the annoying memories of my days at the State University of New York at Stony Brook was during a 300-level class titled Foundations of Education. An African-American student was talking about high school and stated that she was never taught that various tribes from Africa may have arrived on the shores of the Americas before Columbus. Her voice betrayed a mixture of surprise and pride from absorbing this revelation.
Of course, this insight has absolutely zero relevance. For, although Africans and Vikings may have previously visited the Americas, it was Christopher Columbus who provided the impetus for other Europeans to explore the New World, leading to its settlement and ultimately, for better or worse, to the country we have today. Therefore, the Genoese explorer is no less important a figure in American history than Washington and Lincoln, and it is for this reason that we do not celebrate Leif Erickson Day.
And so, too, it is with Elvis Presley and rock-and-roll. For, although there were definitely antecedents in music that hinted at rock-and-roll (Jackie Breston's Rocket 88 is the usual proffered example), it was Elvis Presley who started the revolution, and the revolution started on a hot July day in 1954 at Sun Studios, with Elvis, guitarist Scotty Moore, and bassist Bill Black fooling around during a break from a rehearsal. After sipping cokes, Elvis took his guitar and, according to Scotty, "started singing this song and acting the fool, and then Bill picked up his bass and he started acting the fool, too, and I started playing with them." The song was a sped-up version of an old Arthur Cruddup blues tune That's All Right and, when Sun Studios head Sam Phillips asked them to do it again, Rock-n-Roll for practical purposes was invented.

3) Monday, RCA Studios, New York, July 2, 1956.
For those who believe that Elvis artistically was no more than a singer who followed orders, this legendary studio session that resulted in Hound Dog, Don't Be Cruel, and Any Way You Want Me (That's How I Will Be) will be a revelation.
The session took place on a hot July day at RCA Studios. Outside the studio, fans were yelling “We want the real Elvis!” in response to Elvis’s tuxedo-clad monstrosity on the Steve Allen Show the night before. Inside the studio were Elvis, Scotty Moore, Bill Black, drummer D.J. Fontana, and the Jordanaires, plus RCA executive Steve Sholes. Also in the studio was photographer Alfred Wertheimer, who would snap some iconic photos that day.
First on the agenda was Hound Dog, the Leiber-Stoller song Elvis performed live to raucous reactions after seeing Freddie Bell and the Bellboys perform it in Las Vegas. The song metamorphosed from the bump-and-grind in half-time version Elvis gave it on the Milton Berle Show to the faster, tighter arrangement we are familiar with today. Elvis’s band never cooked quite like this before. Scotty fired off some great lead lines, and the rhythm section fell right in. With each take, the song “(grew) tougher and sharper.” Sholes thought several takes were perfect, but Elvis refused to quit until he got the sound he wanted, which was on take 31.
After this, music publisher Freddy Bienstock met Elvis for the first time, with a new song in tow from a blues artist Elvis admired, Otis Blackwell’s Don’t Be Cruel. Elvis took an immediate liking to the song, and began to record it. Scotty delivered one of the most recognizable guitar intros in rock-and-roll history, and the others again fell in. Elvis slapped the back of his guitar to provide additional percussion. After more than two dozen takes, a second masterpiece was waxed that day, its pairing with the first resulted in the greatest double-sided single in rock-and-roll history.
At this point, the air conditioning was off, and an already-hot studio became sweltering. However, Elvis still found time to deliver a stunning performance on the ballad Any Way You Want Me (That’s How I Will Be), putting a cap on a remarkable day of recording which fully revealed Elvis’s quest for perfection, a trait that dissipated as the material got weaker after the Army years.

4) Saturday, Sicks Stadium, Seattle, September 1, 1957.
Most recollections of Elvis performing live stem from variety shows of the 50's (Dorsey Bros., Milton Berle, Steve Allen, and the Ed Sullivan Show), from the '68 Comeback, from the That's the Way it Is movie, or from the Aloha From Hawaii spectacle. I would have loved to have seen Elvis at the height of his powers, before his incarceration in the Army, and the concert I would have most wanted to see in person was his show on September 1st, 1957, at Seattle's Sicks Stadium.
Elvis performed concerts in two cities on that day. After leaving by train from Vancouver, B.C., where he had performed the night before (he had also performed earlier the day before in Spokane, WA), Elvis arrived at the King Street Station in Seattle at noon and checked into the Olympic Hotel. Elvis then travelled by limousine 35 miles along Interstate 5 to Tacoma for a 2 PM press conference and concert, and headed back to Seattle at 4:30 PM. He relaxed in his hotel room for a brief spell before his 8 PM show. What happened at the end of that legendary concert is the very essence of rock and roll; the tale seems apocryphal, but really happened. I think.
Tickets for Elvis Presley and "His All-Star Stage Show" on that Sunday night during Labor Day weekend were $1.50, $2.50, and $3.50(!). Over 15,000 delirious fans attended, with 90% of the crowd allegedly being teenage girls. The show began late, sometime around 8:30 PM. The "All-Star Stage Show" included singers, dancers, comedians, jugglers, and marimba players- a reasonable snapshot of the vapidity masquerading as entertainment that made the musical and cultural revolution spearheaded by Elvis so necessary. During the preliminaries, a fan would shout, "There he is!!!," but it was just a mirage.
Finally, after 10 PM, a cordon of policemen surrounded the stage, and Elvis appeared in a dark shirt and slacks, donning his trademark gold lame suit. Girls fainted. When the King approached the microphone, "the tsunami of noise from the audience reached a shrieking crescendo." Attendance included Dennis Lunde and Merrilee Gunst, who as Merrilee Rush had the 1968 hit Angel of the Morning. Elvis opened with Heartbreak Hotel and then "shook, shivered, slumped, slouched, and staggered" through a 45-minute set that included, in order, All Shook Up, I Got a Woman, That's When Your Heartaches Begin, I Was the One, Teddy Bear, Don't Be Cruel, Love Me, Fools Hall of Fame, Blue Suede Shoes, Blueberry Hill (with Elvis on piano), and Mean Woman Blues. Myrna Crafoot, a fan in attendance, jotted this list in order in her diary. Another Seattle fan, James Marshall (Jimi) Hendrix, also took notes of the set and later made a color drawing of Elvis accompanied by notes from that concert.
What happened next is recounted in Greil Marcus's 1975 book Mystery Train, from a February 1970 Seattle magazine article titled "Rock!" written by Gordon Bowker, who would go on to co-found Starbucks: "The noise from the 15,000 people was immense. Finally, the crowd grew quiet. 'I alluz like to end muh concerts with the National Anthem,' the King said, into the mike. 'Will y'all please rise?' (Everyone stood). Elvis picked up his guitar, twitched once more, took a breath, and groaned, "YOU AIN'T NUTHIN' BUT A HOUND DOG!" The crowd was stunned. Then it erupted in a frenzy that dwarfed the one a few minutes earlier. The grandstands swayed back and forth like a huge sea anemone. Not even Elvis could be heard above the roar." A local reporter compared the wailing to 12,000 girls all having their heads shaved at once. It must have been quite a moment. It was this type of hip humor that made Elvis the coolest cat ever.

5) International Hotel, Las Vegas, July 31, 1969.
The first Elvis live performance since 1961 featured in the audience such luminaries as Paul Anka, Shirley Bassey, Pat Boone, Carol Channing, Dick Clark, and Cary Grant. Sam Phillips was also invited, but I would have loved to have been at this concert just to observe Phil Ochs, a huge Elvis fan also in attendance, react to the King. The show, which featured Blue Suede Shoes (the opener), I Got a Woman, All Shook Up, Love Me Tender, Jailhouse Rock, and Don't Be Cruel, later inspired Phil Ochs to don a gold lame suit and to perform concerts singing Elvis songs under the theory that, for the anti-war movement to succeed, Elvis Presley must become Che Guevara. THAT did not go over too well with the Ochs fan base, although Phil was, of course, correct. The night also inspired Ochs’ brilliant song One-Way Ticket Home, which contains the lyric “Elvis Presley is the King/I was at his crowning/My life just flashed before my eyes/I must be drowning.”