26th September 1956, Wednesday

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Graeme
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26th September 1956, Wednesday

Post by Graeme » Sun Nov 29, 2015 9:14 pm

Day number 7933Site Date Map
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Sidney Fields of the New York Daily Mirror had interviewed Galdys and Vernon a few weeks earlier and today, the fourth of five daily articles appeared.
The interview was syndicated and appeared in other publications later on, one of which was the Canadian newspaper the Winnipeg Free Press, a copy of the page is available in small format on the respective pubication day of 27th November 1956, Tuesday
Sidney Fields wrote:
The Real Story Of Elvis Presley
Shy Boy Cuts First Disc And Is On Way To Fame
Chapter 4
By SIDNEY FIELDS
      
      
When his horizon was limited to an ushering job at a local movie house in Memphis, Tenn., or driving a truck, Elvis Presley liked singing when someone else sang.

"Back in those days he had to be coaxed to sing," said his mother, Gladys Love Presley, during my visit to her fashionable home in Memphis. "Elvis was afraid to sing for fear of being laughed at. He never thought he was good." Many people still think he isn't and never will be; many more are convinced his wild and uninhibited wiggling is a menace to the morals of the nation's youth. But youth follows his singing, his habits of dress and speech, with a passionate adoration never given any singer before. His success has still to be measured. All we know now is that it hasn't reached its peak.

VERNON ELVIS Presley, his father, recalls the sleepless nights of his son when he was 18: "Lying there, wondering where he was going. He knesw he wasn't going to drive a truck all his life. There was always a lot of drive in him." I like these people. They're simple, neighborly, unaffected by the fame and fortune of their son, or the furor he has created. As they tell it, Elvis learned a few chords on the cheap guitar they bought him when he was 12, then threw it aside. During his brooding, when he reached 18, he picked it up again, and one day found a recording studio in the phone book and called it. "He asked how much it would cost to make a record," his mother said. "The man there, Sam Phillips, told him it would cost three dollars for one side and four dollars for two, and Elvis wanted to know if anyone would be in the studio when he made the record. If there was, he wouldn't have gone."

PHILLIPS, WHO ran The Sun Record company, cut Elvis a private disk. He marked "good ballad" on an index card, filed it away, and told the boy he had an unusual voice and might some day cut a commercial record with him. "Elvis thought Sam was pulling his leg," his father said. "And it took more'n year before Phillips called him. He had'a guitar player, Scotty Moore, and a bass fiddler, Bill Black, there and they kept rehearsin' day after day, but couldn't get a song. Once, while they stopped for coffee one night, Elvis began strummin' and hummin' 'That's All Right' and Bill and Scotty who liked the song, began to hit it up and Phillips got very excited and made a record of it." Phillips brought the record to a local disk jockey on Station WHBQ, who promised to play it. After some urging he fixed a night for its debut, and Elvis was so apprehensive he tuned the radio at home to the station, "then ran off to a movie."

"HE WAS TOO nervous to listen to it," said his mother. "But an hour" after it was played, the station "phoned us and asked for Elvis. Every- body was callin' the station askin' who is Elvis Presley? His father and I went to the movie to find him, and when he saw us he turned pale white, but I told him it was all fine." Phillips made at least a dozen other songs with Elvis, which got him his first real professional appearance in July, 1954, at Overton Park in Memphis, where Elvis shared billing with five other performers and faced a crowd of 2,000. A man named Bob Neal sensed his appeal at Overton and became his manager. Neal got him on the Grand Ole Opry and Louisiana Hayride shows, and into any night clubs that would take him. A year later, Tom Parker, a very shrewd man who knew what to do with that appeal, became Elvis' manager when the boy was earning raves on the road.

WHILE DRIVING around Nashville, Steve Sholes, then head of RCA-Victor's Country and Western Music, heard Elvis on his car radio and promptly went after him. Col. Parker got Sholes and Victor to agree to a five percent royalty instead of the three given all top singers, and Victor had to pay Phillips and Sun for his contract, which included the dozen songs Elvis had recorded. Victor also gave Elvis spending money, which he used to buy his first Cadillac. Within a year Elvis had made six major TV appearances, with the Dorsey Brothers, Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle and Steve Allen, and refused a offer for 13 weeks with Berle. Ed Sullivan, who said he wouldn't have Presley at any price, reversed himself and gave him $50,000 for three appearances.

"And you know," his father said, "back in March, 1955, Elvis first went to New York and got an audition with Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. They listened to him and told him he'd hear from them, but he never did." "He's grown better all the while," Mrs. Presley said. "Everything he undertakes he keeps at it. Sometimes that frightens me 'cause he burns himself up." "But that's the way he is," his father added. "When he was usherin' he was all set to be head usher, he was so good at it. But some other boy told the manager the ushers were sittin' in the balcony, and Elvis got mad at the boy for tellin' tales and hit him. The manager fired the whole bunch of 'em."

IN AMERICA, where sudden and enormous success is not uncommon, Elvis Presley's rise to gold and glory is incredible. He will be 22 next January 8, and this year his income will be well over $1,000,000. Less than five years ago, his parents hardly had enough lunch money for him. Now a personal appearance brings him $2,500 per show and up, plus a percentage of the gate. More than a million of his records will be sold before the first year of his contract is up with RCA. Elvis Presley Enterprises is turning out by the thousands T-shirts, hats, trinkets, and costume jewelry all bearing his name, and a variety of gyrating poses. His father proudly showed me samples, and his mother was wearing one of the lockets with his picture on it.

Movie producer Hal Wallis signed Elvis as the fury started for a sizeable percentage of each picture which he will not reveal, but it can be gauged by what he is earning with 20th Century Fox. For "Love Me Tender," Elvis' first movie, he receives $100,000 and an option for more with 20th Century if he condescends to do so. He will be paid $150,000 for the second and $200,000 for the third. "When Elvis phones us he tells us about the story," his father said. "He does some plowin' in it with mules. He never saw a plow in his life before that. But he says he is enjoying it."

AFTER HE SANG the title song of the movie only once on a TV show, RCA Victor received advance orders of close to a million copies. For his parents the only shadows are Elvis' 1A draft status and his long absences. "Of course we worry about the draft," his mother said. "But thousands of other sons go, and Elvis will when he's called. That's the right thing to do." "The only thing is bein' away from home," his father said. "I hope he'll like the Army. But he always fits into things."

There's another distressing note for them: Since Elvis started the frenzy of success, he hasn't been to church once. "But prayin' is a matter of habit with him," Mrs. Presley said. "He prays every night before he goes to sleep, and I know he feels real guilty if he doesn't."

Graeme
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Re: 26th September 1956, Wednesday

Post by Graeme » Tue Jul 25, 2017 6:57 pm

      

      

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Re: 26th September 1956, Wednesday

Post by silverwings » Thu Aug 27, 2020 5:13 pm

Afternoon Show (in color, with original sound)
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