vaunted independence, if he wanted to keep his label and move forward in
the new directions he was eager to explore, he was going to have to make
a hard decision soon.
Bob reported some of the offers to Elvis; others he kept to himself. He
didn't want to overwhelm the boy with possibilities, and after some years
in the business himself he knew that most of them would come to nothing.
But it was clear that something was going on - you didn't have so
many important people talking about you, looking to jump on the bandwagon,
if the bandwagon wasn't getting ready to move out. He thought
they were positioned just about perfectly. The July 16 issue of Billboard
showed "Baby, Let's Play House" at number fifteen on the national country
and western charts, and the summer issue of Country Song Roundup,
with a picture of Hank Snow on the cover, featured the story "Elvis Presley
- Folk Music Fireball," following national features in Cowboy Songs
and Country & WesternJamboree. Bob liked the boy - he couldn't say anything
bad about him, he was almost like another member of the family.
They all went waterskiing on McKellar Lake together and picnicked out
at Riverside Park; when Bob's son Sonny ran for student council in the
spring, Elvis and Scotty and Bill appeared at the Messick High chapel program
in support of his campaign, and Elvis regarded Helen almost like
a second mother. Bob couldn't imagine ever losing him, and when he
talked to Colonel Parker about all their far-flung plans, it was never with
anything less than a sense of partnership in a glowing future. There were
certain unpleasant realities to be faced, to be sure: the financial arrange2
0 4 '" M Y S T E RY T RA I N
ments with Scotty and Bill were going t o have to b e changed, and they
would have to be satisfied with a salaried status rather than the original
agreement, which gave 50 percent to Elvis and 25 percent to each of them.
But Elvis understood that, and they would have to understand it, too. The
kids were coming out to see Elvis now - it wasn't the Blue Moon Boys
who were drawing the crowds. With a little luck, and with the Colonel's
invaluable assistance, Bob Neal was firmly convinced, from here on in it
was going to be nothing but smooth sailing.
ON J U L Y I I, Elvis went back into the Sun studio. In about a week he
would be out on the road again, and it seemed like he had scarcely
been home at all. Everywhere he went around town - on Beale Street, at
the movies, at a drive-in for a hamburger, just waiting at a stoplight - it
seemed as ifhe was known, it seemed as if something was expected of him,
and he was always prepared to oblige, with a wink, with a wave, with a
knowing but deferential nod of his head. Only in the studio were things
still the same: Marion in the outer room, with the venetian blinds slanted
to fight the heat, Sam in the control room, waiting, watching, always
ready for something to happen, Scotty and Bill reassuringly constant they
would never change. For this session Mr. Phillips had brought in another
original number and another drummer. The song was, once again,
a country composition by Stan Kesler, the steel guitar player who had
written ''I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone," and the drummer was
Johnny Bemero, who played regularly with a number of different country
bands and worked at the Memphis Light, Gas and Water Company across
the street.
The song, Sam knew, was not to Elvis' taste - "he just didn't dig it at
first. Maybe it was a little too country, the chord progression, and it was a
slow song, too. But I loved the hook line, and I thought it was something
we needed at that point to show a little more diversification. So I called
Johnny - he was either in there that day, or I called him, 'cause he had
played on some other things for me. And we got it going, and he was
doing four-four on the beat, and I said, 'That don't help us worth a shit,
Johnny.' I told him, 'What I want you to do is do your rim shot snaJ;"e on
the ofibeat, but keep it four-four until we go into the chorus. Then yqu go
in and go with the bass beat at two-four.' And by doing that, it sounds like
J U N E- A U G U S T 1 9 5 5 '" 2 0 5
'I Forgot to Remember to Forget' i s twice a s fast a s i t really is. And Elvis
really loved it then."
With the next cut there was no need for any such trickery. They were
just fooling around without the drummer when they hit on a lick from
"Mystery Train," the song Sam had originally cut on Little Junior Parker
and the Blue Flames just two years before, and they went from there. It
was the driving rhythm-based kind of blues that Sam had been feeding
Scotty ever since they started recording, and the three of them fell in with
the same natural exuberance that they had first applied to "That's All
Right," but with a degree of knowledge - of themselves as much as of
any musical technique - that they had not possessed a year earlier.
"There was an extra bar of rhythm thrown in at one point," said Scotty,
"that if I sat down to play it myself right now, I couldn't, but with him
singing it felt natural." "It was the greatest thing I ever did on Elvis," said
Sam. "It was a feeling song that so many people had experienced - I
mean, it was a big thing, to put a loved one on a train: are they leaving
you forever? Maybe they'll never be back. 'Train I ride, sixteen coaches
long' -you can take it from the inside of the coach, or you can take it
from the outside, standing looking in. Junior was going to make it fifty
coaches, but I said, no, sixteen coaches is a helluva lot, that sounds like it's
coming out of a small town. It was pure rhythm. And at the end, Elvis was
laughing, because he didn't think it was a take, but I'm sorry, it was a
fucking masterpiece!"
The last cut they did was a rhythm and blues number, "Trying to Get
to You," that they had tried without success earlier in the year. This time
it was as free and unfettered as anything they had ever done, even with
the addition of Johnny Bernero on drums and Elvis chording on piano,
and like "Mystery Train" it aspired to a higher kind of- mystery, for
want of a better word. There was a floating sense of inner harmony
mixed with a ferocious hunger, a desperate striving linked to a pure outpouring
of joy, that seemed to just tumble out of the music. It was the
very attainment of art and passion, the natural beauty of the instinctive
soul that Sam Phillips had been searching for ever since he first started in
music, and there was no question that Elvis knew that he had achieved it.
For the few remaining days of his holiday he cruised around town with
Dixie, with Red and his cousin Gene, he stopped in to see Dewey at
the radio station. With Dewey he visited the clubs on Beale, where
2 0 6 '" M Y S T E R Y TRAIN
Dewey was still hailed as a conquering hero and this white boy who sang
the blues was readily accepted as yet another of Dewey's crazy ideas. "Elvis
had the feel of Beale Street," said Sam Phillips. "He was probably more at
home there than he was on Main. You know, Elvis didn't walk into Lansky
Brothers because someone suggested, 'Why don't you buy a chartreuse
fucking shirt?' " "We had a lot of fun with him," said wmxs Professor Nat
D. Williams, the unofficial ambassador of Beale. "Elvis Presley on Beale
Street when he first started was a favorite man.... Always he had that certain
humanness about him that Negroes like to put in their songs." That
was what he was aiming for, that common human element, and that was
what he achieved - there was nowhere he couldn't go that in one sense or
another he didn't feel at home, but if that was so, why was it that he felt
increasingly like a stranger, as if he alone sensed not only the breadth of
possibilities but the dangers lurking in the great world that existed outside
of his hometown?
Then he was back on the road, in Texas first, next in a return to Florida
that was marked by mounting expectations and increased attention from
the press. Few doubted that the Colonel fueled either those expectations or
that attention. The show was headlined by philosopher / comic Andy Griffith
("You saw him in U.S. Steel Hour TV production No Time for
Sergeants N O W S E E H I M I N P E R S O N ") and also included Ferlin Huskey
with His Hush Puppies, Marty Robbins, Jimmie Rodgers Snow, "newcomers"
Tommy Collins and Glenn Reeves, and "E X T R A E X T R A By Popular
Demand E L V I S P R E S L E Y with Scotty & Bill." At the bottom of each newspaper
ad came Oscar Davis' tag line, "Don't You Dare Miss It, " and few
Florida country music fans did.
In Jacksonville, the scene of the first riot, in May, there was another
near-riot, and 'before he could be rescued from his swooning admirers,"
Cash Box reported in an account that could have been written by the
Colonel himself, "they had relieved him of his tie, handkerchiefs, belt, and
the greater part of his coat and shirt. Col. Tom Parker presented him with a
new sports coat to replace the one snatched by souvenir collectors."
The Florida tour ended in Tampa on July 31, and he immediately began
another, a five-day package set up by Bob Neal, this time with Webb Pierce,
Wanda Jackson, and new Sun recording artist Johnny Cash. They played
Sheffield, Alabama, on August 2, then on the third they were booked into
Little Rock, which Mr. and Mrs. Presley, who had yet to assent to the new
J U N E-AUGUST 1 95 5 '" 207
agreement naming the Colonel "special adviser" to both Elvis and Bob Neal,
were scheduled to attend. Vernon seemed pretty much ready to sign, but
Gladys continued to balk. She was frightened by the riots in Florida, she
said, she didn't know why there was such a rush to do anything at this point,
she was afraid of what might happen to her boy. Well, that was certainly
understandable, said the Colonel - he, too, felt like maybe her boy was
being overworked. But if the money was right, why, then, Bob wouldn't
have to book him into so many of these little dates, he could even think
about taking some time off, maybe going to Florida with Mr. and Mrs. Presley
or spending a few days with Colonel and Mrs. Parker over in Madison.
The Colonel would never want to see any repetition of what had happened
in Jacksonville, and there was certainly no need to sign anything now. Once
they got things straightened out, though, he could guarantee Mrs. Presley
that nothing like the Jacksonville incident would ever happen again.
Although he himself had to be in Hollywood to attend to some movie
business for Hank Snow, the Colonel arranged for country comedian
Whitey Ford, the Duke of Paducah (''I'm goin' back to the wagon, these
shoes are killing me"), to meet the senior Presleys in Little Rock. Ford, a
Little Rock native, had worked the original Hank Snow tour in February
and was a longtime friend and associate of the Colonel's as well as a neighbor.
He was also known for his work with church and youth groups, and
though he was not on the bill, he was playing the White River Carnival in
Batesville with Elvis two days later and was glad to help the Colonel make
his case. "Mrs. Presley was reluctant," Ford told writer Vince Staten, "very
reluctant at first. She didn't want Elvis to make any changes, because he
was under all these contracts. But I told her these could all be bought
up.... I told her I had known the Colonel for years and that he really knew
all the angles for producing successful shows." Elvis' friend Jimmie
Rodgers Snow had done his best to convey pretty much the same message.
"They were country people, and Colonel was very slick - I'm sure they
picked up on that. I think they were more concerned with sticking with
Bob Neal. The idea was to explain to them that they had to progress and go
forward. I probably talked more to Mrs. Presley than to Vernon, because
she was really the one who made the decisions."
For the time being Gladys was still not fully convinced. "He seemed
like a smart man," said Vernon of the Colonel, 'but we still didn't know
too much about him, so we didn't sign." Elvis was frustrated, angry,
2 0 8 M Y S T E RY T R A I N
and bitterly disappointed with his parents. He felt like they just didn't
understand, but he had no choice other than to accept the Colonel's assurances
that they would come around. There was nothing to worry about,
the Colonel intoned without the slightest hint of doubt, they had made a
fine beginning. It would all work out in the end.
He played Camden, Arkansas, the following night and then on August 5
returned to Memphis in a triumphant homecoming concert at the Overton
Park Shell, the site of his initial unpremeditated triumph as the misspelled
bottom of a bill starring Slim Whitman and Billy Walker. This time he was
second headliner (beneath Webb Pierce and the Wondering Boys) of a
twenty-two-act bill that marked the finale of "the eighth annual Bob Neal
Country jamboree series," and the story in the Press-Scimitar the next day
had images of hometown heroes Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash superimposed
on a shirtsleeved crowd of four thousand that jammed the shell
while "several hundred had to be turned away." Marion Keisker attended
the show, the first time she had seen Elvis perform since the Opry appearince
nearly a year before, and described how she "heard someone screaming,
and I'm really a very restrained person publicly, but all of a sudden I
realized, 'It's me!' This staid mother of a young son - I'd lost my total stupid
mind." It didn't altogether surprise her in a way. She adored Elvis, and
she was experiencing the most bittersweet feelings of dread, regret, and a
measure of anticipation as she watched the drama play itself out.
For the first time since she had known him, Sam simply didn't seem to
know what to do. It would clearly be to their advantage for Parker to peddle
the contract, and it would probably be to Elvis' advantage at this point,
too. Somehow, though, it was as if Sam simply could not commit himself
to the bargain he knew he had to make. "Of course I never actually met the
Colonel until the [RCA] contract signing, but I felt that Sam had a great
deal of contempt for him. I don't know if I ever heard Sam actually say anything
pejorative, but I felt that other than Sam's self-interest, he didn't feel it
was in Elvis' best interest to go with Colonel Parker even at that point. I
think it was the only thing Elvis ever did against Sam's adVice, though Sam
might deny it. He didn't think it would be a wise thing, but since it seemed
inevitable, he didn't fight it. And Elvis was so innately ingenuous. It's when
you lie and digress that you get into trouble, but I don't think he ever said a
wrong thing into a microphone or camera his whole life."
The day after the concert the new single came out, to be greeted with a
J U N E-AU G U S T 1 95 5 n... 209
Billboard "Spotlight" review that declared it "a splendid coupling" and a
"Best Buy" write-up three weeks later that said, "With each release Presley
has been coming more and more to the forefront. His current record has
wasted no time in establishing itself. Already it appears on the Memphis
and Houston territorial charts. It is also reported selling well in Richmond,
Atlanta, Durham, Nashville and Dallas."
Meanwhile, the Colonel pulled out all the stops. In the immediate aftermath
of the Little Rock meeting, he bypassed Bob Neal altogether, making
direct contact with Vernon and Gladys and conveying some of his impatience
with what he considered to be Neal's "inefficient" method of doing
business. Knowing the Presleys' high regard for Hank Snow, he had Snow,
too, make a number of telephone calls. "I think Colonel would have used
anybody to influence them," said Jimmie Rodgers Snow, "because they
were slow and he was smart enough to realize that he could not directly
influence them himself. But I'll tell you what, I think they probably signed
not so much because of Parker and what he'd do, but because they liked
my dad."
On August 15 they all met once again, in Memphis, and Elvis proudly
affixed his signature at the top of a document that named "Col. Thomas A.
Parker" as "special adviser to Elvis Presley ['artist'] and Bob Neal ['manager']
for the period of one year and two one-year options for the sum of
two thousand, five hundred dollars per year, payable in five payments of
five hundred dollars each, to negotiate and assist in any way possible the
build-up of Elvis Presley as an artist. Col. Parker will be reimbursed for any
out-of-pocket expenses for travelling, promotion, advertising as approved
by Elvis Presley and his manager."
The Colonel retained exclusive rights to one hundred appearances over
the course of the next year, for which the artist would be paid $200 each,
"including his musicians." In addition, in the event that "negotiations come
to a complete standstill and Elvis Presley and his manager and associates
decide to freelance," the Colonel would be reimbursed for his expenses
and, "at the special rate of one hundred seventy five dollars per day for
the first appearance and two hundred fifty dollars for the second appearance
and three hundred fifty dollars [for the third]," the Colonel
retained exclusive territorial rights to "San Antonio, EI Paso, Phoenix,
Tucson, Albuquerque, Oklahoma City, Denver, Wichita Falls, Wichita,
New Orleans, Mobile, Jacksonville, Pensacola, Tampa, Miami, Orlando,
2 1 0 '" M Y S T E RY T R A I N
Charleston, Greenville, Spartanburg, Asheville, Knoxville, Roanoke, Richmond,
Norfolk, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Newark, New York,
Pittsburgh, Chicago, Omaha, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Des
Moines, Los Angeles, Amarillo, Houston, Galveston, Corpus Christi, Las
Vegas, Reno, Cleveland, Dayton, Akron, and Columbus.
"Colonel Parker," the agreement concluded, "is to negotiate all
renewals on existing contracts."
With that Elvis was back on tour, only now as an official member of
Hank Snow's Jamboree Attractions. On the surface nothing had really
changed, unless it was to embolden the trio to add a permanent fourth
member. Going back into Texarkana at the end of the month for the
fourth or fifth time in less than a year, Bob and Elvis, Scotty, and Bill
made a promotional spot in so casual and disarming a manner that it
might have been taking place in someone's living room. "We want to invite
everybody out to the show," said Scotty. "And they've all been asking
about the drummer who we had up there last time [four months earlier],
D. J. Fontana. He's going to be with us. He's a regular member of
our band now..." "Tell you what," says Bob, "before we call over some
other folks here to talk, Elvis Presley, how you doin'?"
"Fine, Bobert," says a relaxed young voice. "How you gettin' along?"
"Oh, doin' grand," says Bob without so much as a blink. "I know all
the folks down at Texarkana been raising such a whoop and a holler for
you to come down and whoop and holler at 'em that they got this great
big double show scheduled for Friday night at the auditorium down
there. What do you think about it?" And they engage in an extended colloquy
on the subject before Bob introduces " one of the noisiest guys in all
this outfit... Bill Black, who pumps on the bass and occasionally tells a
story or two, and just in general messes things up. Bill, come over and say
howdy to your fans in Texarkana."
For a moment we hear the warm molasses drawl of the man that
Scotty said "never met a stranger." "Bob, I just wanted to say one thing,"
he says. "Friday night we'll be down there, and I'll have a brand spanking
new pose of Elvis for a picture, and they'll be selling at the same old price
of only a quarter. And I'll have about four or five million of them. If anybody
would like to have just one, why, I'll have plenty of 'em, before the
show, during intermission, after the show - the fact is, I may sell them
out there all night long. That's all I got to say."
J U N E -A U G U S T 1 9 5 5 2 1 1
It is all so relaxed and homespun, it's hard to believe that Elvis Presley
is poised on the brink of something - stardom, success, a precipice so
steep that it must be at least as fearsome as it is inviting. "I would like to
invite everybody out Friday night to see our big show," he declares, at
Bob Neal's urging, to promote a crowd. "Because I don't know when
we'll be coming back that way.... It'll probably be a pretty long while
before we can come back to Texarkana," he concludes, with no way of
knowing, and not really caring, when that might be.
C O L O N E L P A R K E R, G L A D Y S, E LV I S, A N D V E R N O N P R E S L E Y:
R C A S I G N I N G C E R E M O N Y, S U N S T U D I O, N O V E M B E R 2 1, 1 9 5 5 ·
(C O U RT E S Y O F G A R Y H A R D Y, S U N S T U D I O)
THE PI E D PIPE RS
T
HE C O L O N E L Q V I C KL Y consolidated his position. When Arnold
Shaw, the newly named general professional manager of
the E. B. Marks publishing company, visited him in Madison in
August, the Colonel could talk of nothing but Presley.
"What's your interest, Colonel?" Shaw asked him. With something less
than full disclosure of the facts but utter candor nonetheless, the Colonel
said, "This kid is now managed by Bob Neal of Memphis. But I'll have
him when Neal's contract finishes in less than a year." Even Bob seemed
to recognize the inevitability of the conclusion and ceded most of his authority
to the Colonel while still terming it "a partnership deal." He did
renegotiate the Hayride contract with Horace Logan, at the beginning of
September, so that when the first year came to an end on November 12,
1955, the Hayride would pick up its option at $200 an appearance, a considerable
increase from the $18 union scale that Elvis had been getting up till
then. The pretext, according to Logan, was for Elvis to be able to carry a
drummer on a regular basis, but the reality was that he was "the hottest
thing in show business." The contract stipulated that "artist is given the
right to miss I Saturday's performance during each 60 [day] period," but
Logan added a side agreement penalizing him $400 for every additional
show that he missed. Unbeknownst to Neal, evidently, the Colonel urged
Vernon not to sign the agreement. He wanted the elder Presleys to withhold
their signatures as guardians until he had a better idea of where
things stood with a new record deal - but Vernon went ahead and signed
anyway.
Neal also had the unpleasant task of telling Scotty and Bill that they
were about to go on a fixed salary. What made it even worse was that it
was Scotty and Bill who had finally persuaded Elvis to add OJ on drums
by agreeing to share the cost of his $Ioo-a-week salary among them Elvis
wanted a drummer, but he kept saying he couldn't afford it until the
other musicians indicated their willingness to pitch in. According to Neal:
2 I 4 '" T H E P I E D P I P E RS
"The eventual basic decision [to put the band on salary] went back to
Elvis. We talked about it quite a few times, talked about it with his parents,
and finally decided that it had to be done. I had to handle that, and I
remember that there was quite a bit of unhappiness at that time plus
threats that maybe they would quit, but as it worked out they went ahead
in that particular situation." Scotty and Bill were inclined to put it down
to the Colonel's interference, though Bob was certainly prepared to take
the heat. He knew that the worst thing in the world would have been for
them to blame Elvis, and he did everything he could to insulate the boy,
but it turned out he didn't have to do much. Elvis had a habit of sliding
out from under things on his own, and in this case he seemed to do it
without any outside help.
For the first time, though, Bob Neal was beginning to wonder about
his own role: what exactly was he supposed to do? Despite the smoothing
over of tempers and the affable addition of OJ., there remained an undercurrent
of ill feeling and suspiciousness that had never been present
before. There was a sense of uncertainty about what was going to happen
next - at one point the Colonel had even suggested that Elvis leave
Scotty and Bill and OJ. behind and use Hank Snow's band on an upcoming
tour. Bob squelched that before it even got to Elvis, but you could
never tell how far that kind of thinking permeated the general atmosphere.
Snow's band knew of the rumor, and if they did, how much further
did it have to go to get to Scotty and Bill?
It was as if the Colonel were trying to throw everyone into some degree
of turmoil - and doing a pretty good job of it, too. Even Sam was
edgy about just what was going on. He seemed nervous about business in
general: his lawsuit with Duke Records owner Don Robey over Robey's
alleged theft of his artist Little Junior Parker was rapidly coming to a boil;
he had a radio station that he was about to open up in the brand-new Holiday
Inn downtown (the third in a brand-new chain owned by Sam's
friend Kemmons Wilson); he had a number of new artists in whom he
had faith but whom he had not yet been able to break; and he was obviously
feeling the pinch of various unnamed financial pressures. But most
of all he seemed thrown into uncharacteristic confusion by the Colonel he
dearly wanted what the Colonel had to offer, which was the promise
of some sort of financial security, and he just as dearly feared it, too.
There was a single abortive Sun session that fall to try to get a B side
for "Trying to Get to You." Sam once again had Johnny Bernero on
S E P T E M B E R-N O V E M B E R 1 9 5 5 '" 2 1 5
drums, and they worked on the Billy Emerson blues "When I t Rains, It
Really Pours," which had been a favorite of Elvis' since it first came out in
January. The mood was edgy, though, the playing tentative, and the session
quickly broke up without any of the good feeling or unflagging optimism
that had characterized every other recording date. At one point
they took a break, Bemero recalled to Sun historian Colin Escott, "when
Elvis went up into the control room with Sam. They were up there about
thirty minutes. We were just sitting around on the studio floor chewing
the fat. Then Elvis came back down and came over to me and said, 'John,
we're not going to finish this session, but I really appreciate you coming
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