10th February 1956, Friday

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From the late, great, Brian Petersen's website...
      

ELVIS PRESLEY        Singing Star To Appear Here              Elvis Presley, the new singing star who has skyrocketed to fame in the space of several short weeks, will appear on the Carolina Theater stage Friday.       Theater Manager Kermit High said the singer will make appear-ances on shows beginning at 2:30, 4:15, 7:20 and 9:30 p.m.       Now on a tour of the South, the show includes the Blue Moon Boys, Justin Tubb, the Louvin Brothers, the Carter Sisters and Benny Mar-tin, all of whom are well known radio and recording artists.       Presley, a 20 - year - old Lousi-ianan, sings both hillbilly and pop-ular music and has been described as the man who mixes country music with bop. He is now a guest performer on the Jackie Gleason TV show and it is under-stood he will be on the program for several more weeks.                         Charlotte News, Feb. 3, 1956

Charlotte Observer, Feb. 5, 1956                                           Charlotte Observer, Feb. 10, 1956

Charlotte Observer, Feb. 7, 1956                                                                Carolina Theatre, Charlotte, N.C. February 10, 1956.

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ELVIS PRESLEY . . . Shakes, rattles; audience rolls.        Presley Plucks Rhythmic Response From His Fans        By BARBARA BRAWLEY Observer Staff Writer              Elvis Presley shook, rattled and almost rolled on stage while a large teen-age audience shrilled its approval Friday.              Tabbed "number one new sing-er in the nation" by Billboard and other trade magazines, the 21-year-old six footer is adding the rhythm of the blues to western music.       Elvis Presley shook, rattled and almost rolled on stage while a large teen-age audience shrilled its approval Friday.              Tabbed "number one new sing-er in the nation" by Billboard and other trade magazines, the 21-year-old six footer is adding the rhythm of the blues to western music.               Teen-agers with school books in their laps chewed gum rhy-thmically as Presley combined the facial solemnity of Bo Did-dley with the physical zest of LaVern Baker in "Blue Suede Shoes" and "Maybelline."              The fame of the versatile sing-er and guitarist whose best selling recording, "I Forgot to Remember" is as western as Ed-die Arnold, has mushroomed since his appearance on Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey's television show last week.       Currently appearing on the Jackie Gleason show, the former Memphis High School football              player, got his start when he made a record company listen to his home recording. He was called a year and a half later, while he was studying to be an electrician, to make his first record, "That's All right, Mama."              His music seems to be all right with the teen-agers too, who perched on their seats and clapped in time to "Rock Around the Clock" as the Bran-do-like singer took a rubber-leg stance and sent 'em with his new musical style.              Noted to his fans for his pink Cadillac and his "mop" of dark hair with sideburns, Presley is moving on to new fields. Within the next few months he'll study acting in New York with the hopes of entering the movies "in any kind of role they give me." He'll do that in addition to making new platters with his recording com-panies.       Presley made four appearances at Carolina Theater Friday while on a southern tour with Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters of "Grand Ole Opry."                          Charlotte Observer - February 12, 1956

Our Gals Go Ga-Ga Over Elvis        By Emery Wister Charlotte News Staff Writer                     When one of the country‘s big-gest record companies toted up the sales score last week it found that the voice of a rela-tively unknown young man was one of the hottest things on wax.       In one day alone there were orders for 29,000 of his records. The weekly total for all his discs passed the 100,000 mark.       This young man, name of El-vis Presley, was also the hot-test thing in Charlotte yester-day.       Some 6,000 persons, mostly teen-agers, poured into the Car-olina Theater to see the four shows he presented on the thea-ter stage.              A thousand or so were turned away. The ticket line for the 9 p.m. show extended from the box office up Tyron to the 5th St. intersection and down 5th St. to College.       There was also another line leading from the box office to 6th and down 6th halfway to College. These were people who wanted to buy tickets but were held up until the management was sure there was enough room for them. Some of them got in.       Presley is a rock and roll sing- er with a style all his own. The squeals of delight from the young female members of his audience were reminiscent of the welcome bobby soxers gave Frank Sinatra during the war. Some people call him a hill-billy rock and roll artist. Pres-ley is the first to disagree.       "No, don't call me that," he said backstage between shows. "Hillbilly isn't doing so good now. I don't know what style I have. I never could answer that question."       But whatever style he had, it was pleasing to Charlotte audi-ences. Girls jumped up in their seats, waved their arms to at-tract attention. One cut a flip on the floor in front of the stage.

One or two decided they want-ed to go backstage and 50 or 60 followed suit, all ganging up on the entrance at the right front exit.       The extra policemen on duty asked them to return to their seats.              Many more ganged up on him as he walked out on the street. Said one frustrated girl who was denied permission to go back-stage:              "I'll just die if I don't shake his hand."       To all his admirers Presley was courteous, s o m e t i m e s shaking his head in bewilder-ment.       "It's amazing. I just can't be-lieve this myself."       Presley left here early this morning for New York where he will appear on the Jackie Glea- son TV show tonight. Yesterday it was announced he has signed for two more appearances on this show later this spring.              Twenty years old, Presley stands six feet, weighs 180 pounds. He has blue eyes, and brown hair which he wears rath-er long. He also wears a sleepy-eyed look when he walks on stage, because, as he told one interviewer, “People expect me to look that way, so I do."              It all started for Presley in 1953, when he happened to pass a recording studio in his home city of Memphis.       He went in and recorded a song which he gave his mother.       Somehow, someone heard the song. A year and a half later The Sun Record Co. called him in and offered him a contract.       One of the songs, "Blue Moon Of Kentucky" sounded pretty good to Col. Tom Parker. Col. Parker, a showman who helped build Eddie Arnold into one of the nation‘s favorites, took Pres-ley under his wing.       Parker changed his style, helping Presley make the switch from a ballad to a rock and roll singer. Now the boy whacks his guitar with such gusto he some-times breaks a dozen strings a night.       He sings something in the style of Johnny Ray, with a little of Frankie Laine thrown in.                         Charlotte News - February 11, 1956

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There he stood with his eyes closed and not much expression on his face.       He held a guitar in his arms and he was trying to sing.       Part of his long blond hair was pushed up high in front and some of it had begun to sloop down over his sweaty forehead.       Elvis Presley was his name. He´s a cat.       He appeared several times on "Stage Show" a 30-minute CBS-TV feature and also in a Char-lotte theater.       He wore a white shirt with a loud necktie fashioned into an oversized knot. A light color-ed, loosely fitting sport coat draped over his lanky frame and his pants were dark with a silk stripe down each side. A touch of something western was in his walk, but not in his music.       You see, folks, Elvis claims to be a folk singer.       Only thing I detected in his style that smacked of being folksy was "thank you very much," when he quit.       Elvis not only sings, but he adds a much-emphasized swing, a sway and a shake of the head

to boot. While doing "Little Girl I Want To Play House With You," he got more motion than Sally Rand ever did. He weaved and rattled his head and did an-other thing that he said every-body would recognize called "Tutti Frutti." The chorus of this thing ended up with an un-coherent chant that sounded to me like: Oooh loo ba lop, a zim, bam boo.              And, every tune Elvis kicked off touched off screams among the girls in the audience like someone had pinched them on the rump.       There were no steely stabs piercing the air as you might expect. But Elvis had three oth-er cats backing him up.       One was a gum-chewing bass fiddle player who grinned and showed his pearly whites throughout the act. Another gui-tar player beat his instrument like it was a glutton for punish-ment. In the center was a drummer. This tubman was racking so many rim shots off the skins that it sounded like a wild range war. And the more he hit, the more Elvis liked it.

Elvis finally worked himself into a pretty good frenzy where he dipped first one end of the guitar and then the other. All the time he shuffled some sort of dance step.       This went on for five or six choruses and Elvis got right wet from his work and almost had his fingers bleeding from the way he plunked that five string-er. When his hair got real torn up and that bass man had chewed all the life from his gum, they quit. They ended in a sort of relaxed way you would imagine a coal miner stepping from the pit after eight hours under.       Now, I don´t want to sound like I´m venting my wrath on Elvis. Be it far from me to criti-cize a guy who´s ventured out like he has. My only point is this: If anybody can tell me when Elvis is coming on TV again I´ll turn mine off. After watching his act twice, I feel worse than the guitar he played so violently.        -BY BOB HALLMAN- (Guest Columnist)

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[Private Presley]