knew what he was there for, what else could he be there for with his guitar
and that desperate look of need in his eyes? She told him how much it
would cost to make a two-sided acetate - $3.98 plus tax, for another dollar
you could have a tape copy as well, but he chose the less expensive
option. While he sat there waiting, Marion told Jerry Hopkins in a 1970
interview, "we had a conversation, which I had reason to remember for
many, many years afterwards, having gone through it with every editor
that I tried to talk to during the time that I was promoting him for Sun.
He said, "If you know anyone that needs a singer...."
And I said, "What kind of a singer are you?"
He said, "I sing all kinds."
I said, "Who do you sound like?"
"I don't sound like nobody."
I thought, Oh yeah, one of those.... "What do you sing, hillbilly?"
"I sing hillbilly."
"Well, who do you sound like in hillbilly?"
"I don't sound like nobody."
6 4 '" " M Y H A P P I N E S S "
The truth, Marion discovered, was not that far removed from the
boy's improbable self-description. From the first quavering notes of the
first song that he sang, it was obvious that there was something different
about him, something unique - you could detect his influences, but he
didn't sound like anyone else. There is a quality of unutterable plaintiveness
as Elvis sings "My Happiness," a 1948 pop hit for Jon and Sandra
Steele that he had performed over and over in the Courts, a sentimental
ballad that couldn't have been further from anyone's imagining of rock 'n'
roll, past or present, without a hint of foreshadowing or any black influence
other than the clear tenor of Bill Kenny of the Ink Spots - it is just a
pure, yearning, almost desperately pleading solo voice reaching for effect,
a crying note alternating with a crooning fullness of tone that in tum
yields to a sharp nasality betraying its possessor's intentions. The guitar,
Elvis said, "sounded like somebody beating on a bucket lid," and the record
represents almost exactly what the boys and girls in the Courts must
have heard over the last several years, with an added factor of nervousness
that Elvis must surely have felt. But even that is not particularly detectable
- there is a strange sense of calm, an almost unsettling stillness
in the midst of great drama, the kind of poise that comes as both a surprise
and a revelation. When he finished the one song, he embarked upon
"That's When Your Heartaches Begin," a smooth pop ballad that the Ink
Spots had originally cut in 1941, with a deep spoken part for their baritone
singer, Hoppy Jones. Here he was not so successful in his rendition, running
out of time, or inspiration, and simply declaring "That's the end" at
the conclusion of the song. The boy looked up expectantly at the man in
the control booth. Mr. Phillips nodded and said politely that he was an
"interesting" singer. "We might give you a call sometime." He even had
Miss Keisker make a note of the boy's name, which she misspelled and
then editorialized beside it: "Good ballad singer. Hold."
When it was all over, he sat in the outer lobby while Miss Keisker
typed out the label copy on the blank sides of a Prisonaires label ("Softly
and Tenderly," Sun 189). The singer's name was typed underneath the
title on each side. Mr. Phillips never came out front, though the boy hung
around for a while talking with the woman. He was disappointed that he
didn't have a chance to say good-bye. But he walked out of the studio
with his acetate and with the conviction that something was going to
happen.
Nothing did. Nothing happened for the longest time. All through the
J U L Y 1 9 53-J A N U A RY 1 9 5 4 '" 6 5
fall he would stop by the studio, park the old Lincoln precisely by the
curb, tum his collar up, pat down his hair, and manfully stride in the door.
Miss Keisker was always very nice, Miss Keisker never failed to recognize
him. He would try to make small talk, he would ask if, possibly, she had
run into a band that was looking for a singer - he conveyed an impression
oflonging, of neediness, that always stayed with her. Sometimes Mr.
Phillips might be present, but he didn't have time for small talk, he was
always busy, he was making records. That was what Elvis wanted to do that
was what he wanted to do more than anytg else in the world, but
he didn't know how to go about it, other than to put himself in the way of
it at the only place he knew to do so. Each time he entered the waiting
room it was with a somewhat heavier step and somewhat lowered expectations,
but he forced himself, he didn't know anything else to do. Gradually
he began to doubt that anything would ever happen, and his visits
became less frequent. He tried to appear indifferent, but his need showed
through. In January 1954 he went in again and cut another little record Joni
James' ''I'll Never Stand in Your Way" and an old Jimmy Wakely
tune, "It Wouldn't Be the Same Without You," but his lack of confidence
betrayed him, and he sounds more abrupt, more insecure, this time than
he did the first. He was at an impasse - unlike the hero in comic books
and fairy tales, he had not yet been discovered in his true guise, underneath
his outer rags. And yet, Marion felt, almost maternally, he was a
child who was clearly marked for success of some kind. "He was," she
said, "so ingenuous there was no way he could go wrong."
W I T H D I X I E L O C K E, S O U T H S I D E J U N I O R P R O M, 1 9 5 5. (M I C H A EL O C H S A R C H I V E S)
IIW I T H OUT YOU"
IN J A N U A RY 1 95 4 he started attending church regularly for the first
time since the family had left Tupelo. Vernon and Gladys occasionally
went to a service at one of the nearby churches or missions, but
for the most part they were content to remain at home, secure in
their belief if not in their observance. Vernon was out of work more and
more with a bad back; at forty-two - though she admitted to only thirtyeight
- Gladys had put on a considerable amount of weight, and Elvis
told employers and fellow workers alike that all he wanted to do was to
make enough money to buy his mama and daddy a house. For her part,
Gladys simply wanted to see her son married, she wanted grandkids, she
wanted to know he was happy and settled before she died.
She was pleased, then, when he started going to the Assembly of God
Church at 1084 McLemore in South Memphis. The Assembly of God in
Memphis had started out in a tent and later moved to a storefront location
on South Third and finally into a church on McLemore in 1948. In
1954 Pastor james Hamill, a well-educated, fire-and-brimstone preacher
who denounced movies and dancing from the pulpit and encouraged ecstatic
demonstrations of faith (such as speaking in tongues) in his church,
had been minister for ten years. Over that time membership had grown
to close to two thousand, three buses were dispatched each Sunday to
pick up congregants without automobiles (one of the stops was at Winchester
and Third, just outside the Presleys' door), and since 1950 the famous
Blackwood Brothers Quartet and their families had been prominent
members of the congregation. When they were in town, the Blackwoods
performed frequently at a church service that was renowned for its music
(the hundred-voice church choir was well known throughout Memphis),
and only recently Cecil Blackwood, a newly married resident of Lauderdale
Courts and a nephew of founding member and leader james Blackwood,
had started a kind of junior quartet, the Songfellows, with Pastor
Hamill's son, jimmy, a student at Memphis State. They were also mem-
6 8 " W I T H O U T Y O U "
bers of the Bible study class that met each Sunday at 9:30 A. M. as broader
members of a Young Men's Christian group called the Christ Ambassadors.
That was where Dixie Locke first saw Elvis Presley. She had not seen
him before, though she and her family were faithful members of the
church since its days on South Third, not far from where they lived. Dixie
was fifteen and a sophomore at South Side High. Her father worked for
Railway Express, and she and her three sisters shared a single bedroom,
while her parents slept in the living room. Ifher father went to bed at 8:00
because he had to go to work early, that was when everyone went to bed.
She had a boyfriend at the time, but it wasn't anything really special.
She was bright, attractive, and with two older sisters - one of whom had
eloped at fourteen and was now back home - was alert to a world whose
existence she could barely have glimpsed. In the half hour before the boys
and girls split off into their respective classes, she noticed the new boy,
dressed so oddly in pink and black, with his long greasy hair and fidgety
manner, as he sought so desperately to become a part of the group. The
other kids all laughed at him a little, they made fun of him, but strictly for
his appearance - he appeared to be serious about his Bible studies. The
other girls thought he was peculiar: "He was just so different, all the other
guys were like replicas of their dads." And yet to Dixie he was different in
another way. "To watch him you would think, even then, he was really
shy. What was so strange was that he would do anything to call attention
to himself, but I really think he was doing it to prove something to himself
more than to the people around him. Inside, even then, I think he
knew that he was different. I knew the first time I met him that he was
not like other people."
Dixie and her girlfriends went out nearly every weekend to the Rainbow
Rollerdrome, east on Lamar (Highway 78 to Tupelo), just beyond
the city limits. They rode the bus in their skating skirts; Dixie had one of
black corduroy with white satin lining, and she wore white tights underneath.
The Rainbow was a big teenage hangout, with a snack bar and a
jukebox, an organist who played the "Grand March" for the skaters, and a
swimming pool next door. There were dance contests on the floor and
generally, on a weekend night, up to six or seven hundred kids, who
could gather without any fear of trouble or any concern that they might
be getting in with a bad crowd. One Sunday at church, at the end ofJanuary,
Dixie started talking with some girlfriends about her plans for the upJ
A N UARY-J U LY 1 9 5 4 '" 6 9
coming weekend. She spoke loudly enough s o that the boys i n the groups
next to them might overhear, and particularly so that the new boy, who
was pretending not to be paying any attention, would know. She wasn't
sure that he would come, she thought it almost brazen of herself to be
doing this, but she wanted very badly to see him. When she arrived at the
rink on Saturday night with her girlfriends, she noticed with a little start
that he was there, but she ignored him, pretending to herself that she
hadn't seen him until one of her friends said, "Did you know that boy,
Elvis Presley, was here?" She said, "Yeah, I saw him, " kind of casually,
and then watched for a while to see what he was going to do. He was
standing by the rail with his skates on, wearing a kind of bolero outfit,
short black bullfighter's jacket, ruffled shirt, black pegged pants with a
pale pink stripe down the legs. He was leaning up against the rail all by
himself, trying to look detached, nonchalantly surveying the floor aswirl
with activity, and after a while Dixie realized he couldn't skate. She took
pity on him at last, went up and introduced herself. He said, "Yeah, I
know, " and hung his head down, then tossed back his hair. Finally he
asked Dixie if she wanted to go get a Coke, "and I said yes, and we went
to the snack area, and I don't think we ever went back out to the skating
floor the whole night." They talked and talked and talked; it was almost
as if he had been waiting to unburden himself all his life. He talked about
how he wanted to join the Songfellows, how he had spoken with Cecil
and Jimmy Hamill about it and maybe they were going to give him a tryout.
It was as if "he had a plan, he knew that he had a talent, there was
something for his life that he was supposed to do. It was like from that
moment on there was nobody else there. "
The first session was over at 10:00 P. M., and Dixie was supposed to go
home with her friends, but she told them to leave without her. Elvis asked
if she could stay for the second session, and while he was standing there,
she pretended to call her mother from the pay phone, but she dialed a
number at random (she wouldn't have wanted to admit that she didn't
have a phone but had to call her uncle and aunt next door anyway) and
gabbled on at length about the nice boy from church that she happened to
have run into and how they were going to stay for the second session but
she would be home right after midnight. She had never done anything
like this before, but she didn't think twice about it. In the end they didn't
even stay. After she made the call, he suggested that they go to a drive-in;
why didn't they go to K's on Crump Boulevard, where they could get a
7 0 " W I T H O U T Y O U "
hamburger and a milk shake? They kept talking as they finally unlaced
their skates. He opened the door of the Lincoln for her and was careful to
explain that it wasn't his (he wanted to see if she would still go out with
him, he explained afterward, if he didn't have a car), and they drove west
into town on Lamar until it ran into Crump, talking the whole way.
She sat close to him on the front seat, closer than you ever would on a
normal first date, and at K's she kissed him sitting in the parking lot. It was
a chaste kiss, a loving kiss - Dixie wasn't planning to keep this a secret
for long, even from her mother. She was so swept up in it, he was, too, it
was like nothing that had ever happened to either one of them before.
When he dropped her off at her door, he whispered that he would call her
next week, Wednesday or Thursday probably, about going out on the
weekend - there was never any question that they would see each other
again, and again. She tiptoed in the door, knowing she was late, even for
the late session - she was bound to wake up her parents, her father was
going to kill her, but she didn't care, not really, she was truly in love.
HE C A L L E D T H E N E X T D A Y. Her aunt called over to her from next
door, just as the family was sitting down to a Sunday dinner of fried
chicken. When she hadn't seen him at church that morning, her heart
sank a little, but she never doubted that she would hear from him. And
now he couldn't even wait a day.
They went out that night to the movies, and then again on Wednesday
night. She still hadn't let him meet her parents, inventing one excuse
or another, for him and for them, but then on Saturday, just a week from
the night they had truly met, he came to pick her up at the house and she
brought him inside to meet her family, as much because he wanted to as
because she knew she had to. She had tried to prepare everyone, but she
found when she met him at the door that she was scarcely prepared herself:
she had forgotten how difef rent he looked, she had forgotten about
his hair and his dress, she hadn't thought about the effect it might have on
others. At night in bed she had whispered to her sisters about him, and
she had confided to her diary that she had at last found her one true love.
She had even told her mother what she had done when she called from
the skating rink, but she had emphasized that he came from a good family
(which she didn't really know - he acted like she was some kind of royalty
because she was from South Memphis, though they were as poor as
J A N U ARY-J U L Y 1 95 4 '" 7 1
Job's turkey) and that she had met him in church. Now as her father addressed
him gravely, and Elvis mumbled his replies, tossing his head back
whenever he said, "Yes, sir," and "No, sir," and presenting the gravest,
most respectful mien, she wasn't so sure, she knew that she loved him,
but she saw him for the first time as her father must see him. There was
no way of telling what her father was thinking, he never gave any clue -
he gave his full attention without ever saying much of anything. All the
boys she and her sisters had ever brought to the house were scared of Mr.
Locke, big (six foot two), impassive, but if he ever made up his mind
about something he didn't hesitate to let you, or anyone else, know about
it, and you just did it, regardless. Her mother was calling her - she didn't
want to leave Elvis alone with her father, but she felt she had no choice.
In the kitchen, "my mother read me the riot act: 'How can you go out
with a boy like that?' - that kind of thing. I was saying, 'Mother, you
can't go by the way... J ust because his hair is long, or he's not dressed
like everybody else....' I was really defending him, telling her what a nice
boy he was - I had met him at church, after all. And meanwhile I was
afraid they would say something that would hurt his feelings and he
would just leave."
Eventually they escaped - her sister met him briefly, she was perfectly
nice to him to his face, but behind his back she raised her eyebrows
so Dixie could see what she really thought. The next day her uncle offered
Dixie $2 for the boy if he would just get a haircut. It didn't matter, none of
it mattered; that night he gave her his ring, that meant they were going
steady, neither of them would see anybody else - ever.
Two weeks later she met his parents. It was a weekday night, cool for
February, when he picked her up and drove her back to Alabama Street.
She was amazed to discover that even though neither parent was working
(Mr. Presley was out of work at the moment with a bad back, and Mrs.
Presley's employment at St. Joseph's had evidently stopped) and Elvis' salary
at Precision could scarcely have amounted to more than $50 a week,
they had a piano, a piano and a television set, and he was calling her "high
class"! She wanted so badly to like his mother, but Mrs. Presley seemed
suspicious at first, she seemed nervous and apprehensive, she had a hundred
questions for Dixie - where her father worked, how big a family she
came from, where she and Elvis had met, how long they had been going
out, what school she attended. Mr. Presley was polite, attentive, but he
had nothing much to say, "it was almost like he was an outsider, not part
72 " W I T H O U T Y O U "
of the group." Eventually Mrs. Presley shooed Elvis and his dad to one
side to pursue the questioning on her own. Elvis was pacing back and
forth, he would come in and out of the room and touch her on the shoulder,
as if to say it was all right, then disappear again. He was clearly beside
himself, just waiting to get out of there, but it went on and on. And after
an hour or two a number of relatives came over - his cousin Gene,
whom she had already met, a bunch of other cousins (it seemed like his
only friends were his family), and they all sat around and played Monopoly.
She was embarrassed and self-conscious, and aware that Elvis would
be mad at her if she acted all "prim and proper," if she wasn't just herself.
Finally they were able to leave: "He was so relieved, I think he couldn't
wait to take me home, so he could come back and say, 'What do you
think?' to his mom. You know, they had such a strong love and respect for
each other, she was just totally devoted to him, it was like this mutual
admiration. A day or two later, I said something like 'I wonder what your
mother thinks..: or 'I hope... " something like that, and he said, 'Oh,
you don't have to worry about that, she thinks you're neat: I knew I had
her stamp of approval then."
They went out almost every night, even weeknights. If they didn't,
they spoke on the phone, long heartfelt conversations, until her uncle and
aunt got mad about her monopolizing the line. At one point her dad put a
halt to their seeing each other for a few days, but her family soon came
"to love him almost as much as I did. They saw that I was serious, and he
was always so polite, and they knew it was a very honest relationship,
they trusted us together as far as our conduct was concerned. Within a
very short time he was just part of the family. "
Mrs. Presley, t o Dixie, was almost like a second mother, and the Presley
house on Alabama became like a second home to her. Some days Mr.
Presley would come and pick her up at her house on Lucy after school so
she could meet Elvis the moment he got home from work. Sometimes, if
Mr. Presley didn't feel like driving, she would ride the bus. "Which was
very unusual for those days - that was another one of those things that
my mom and dad were not at all in favor of- but I didn't think there was
anything wrong with it for me. " Not infrequently she visited Mrs. Presley
on her own - one time they went to a Stanley Products party together,
often they just sat and talked. There was one subject they had in common
about which each had an inexhaustible curiosity, but they shared a number
of other interests as well. Mrs. Presley showed Dixie her recipes, and
J A N U A RY-J U L Y 1 95 4 '" 73
occasionally they would go shopping together, maybe even pick out a surprise
for Elvis. Dixie found Mrs. Presley to be one of the warmest, most
wonderful, and genuine people she had ever met. "In no time we were
just great friends. We could call and talk to each other and enjoy each
other - whether Elvis was there or not. We could just laugh and have a
good time together." But even at fifteen Dixie soon realized that the Presleys
were different from her own family in at least two significant respects.
One was the role that Vernon played. Perhaps because it was in
such sharp contrast to her own father's role and behavior ("I had seen my
dad go to work with a brace on his back for years, and he had a very physically
demanding job"), his passivity struck her particularly forcefully. "I
never saw him be unkind. I never saw him drink or be unruly, I'm sure he
was a very loving husband and devoted to his family, and it probably had
to do with his self-esteem - but it was like he was an outsider, really, he
wasn't really part of Elvis and Mrs. Presley's group. I mean, it sounds
weird, but they had such a strong love and respect for each other, and I
don't think there was a lot of respect for him during that time. It was almost
like Elvis was the father and his dad was just the little boy."
The other striking difference was their view of the outside world. The
Lockes regarded the world at large comfortably, as a friendly, for the
most part unthreatening sort of place. Coming from a big family herself,
having an even larger extended family through the church and all the
church activities in which she took part, Dixie was accustomed to a large
circle of acquaintances, a constant whirl of social activity, and an opendoor
policy at home, where friends and family were likely to drop in without
notice (they had to - there was no telephone!). The Presleys, by contrast,
she felt, regarded the world with suspicion. They had few close
friends outside of family; apart from his cousins, Dixie never met any of
Elvis' friends. In fact "he just came into our crowd completely, there was
nobody he went to school with, nobody from the neighborhood that he
palled around with at that point particularly.
"Mrs. Presley was a very humble person, and it was almost like she
felt inferior around people where she didn't feel like she quite fit in maybe
she didn't have the right hairdo or the right dress to wear. She had
a couple of lady friends from Lauderdale Courts, and one of them had a
daughter who really thought Elvis was for her. One night we were all sitting
on the porch, and this girl came over - as I remember it she was a
very attractive girl - and when she came in, it was as if she belonged
7 4 '" " WI T H O U T Y O U "
there, it was like she was so comfortable with being in the house and
being with Elvis that she made me feel uncomfortable. So 1 just set back
and was just kind of reserved and quiet, and Mrs. Presley said, 'Let's have
a glass of iced tea' or something. Normally 1 just would have gotten up
and gotten it, but before 1 could say anything, the other girl said, 'Oh, I'll
go fix it.' When she left, I'll never forget, Mrs. Presley got onto me good.
She said, 'I could just pinch you. Why did you just set there and let her
take over?' She said, 'Don't you ever do that again. You know you're just
as at home here as Elvis is. You get up and do something next time, just
like you would if you were in your own home.'
"She and 1 were just so close, sometimes Elvis would talk to me and
say things that normally he would reserve for his mother, little pet names
and gestures, put his face almost in your face and talk like they talked,
how sweet you looked today, that kind of thing, just the way he always
talked with his mother. And 1 would think, 'Oh, don't do that in front of
her.' 'Cause that was just for her."
They saw each other all the time. When the weather turned warm,
they sat out on the front porch, either at Dixie's house or on the long
brick-pillared porch on Alabama - they would sit on the swing and Elvis
would sing to her sometimes: "Tomorrow Night," "My Happiness,"
sweet, tender little ballads. He was slightly inhibited and didn't sing very
loud if he thought her family was around. Often they would walk down
to the corner and get a purple cow or a milk shake at the Dairy Queen,
then go and sit on a bench in Gaston Park, just a few blocks from Dixie's
house. A big date was going to the movies at the Suzore NO. 2 on North
Main, fifty cents' worth of gas, fifty cents for the movies, and a dollar for
something to eat at K's or Leonard's afterward. They loved each other,
they were committed to remaining "pure" until marriage, they shared everything
with each other, there were no secrets. One time there was a crisis
at work; Elvis was told if he didn't get a haircut he would be fired. He
was so embarrassed by the haircut he got that he didn't want anyone to
see him, and it didn't help when Dixie's uncle, who had been telling him
to get a haircut all along, kidded him about it. He was so sensitive Dixie
had never met anyone as sensitive as him. One time early in their
relationship he got upset with her at a drive-in, about something that she
had said in front of his cousin, and he got out of the car and was going to
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