14th December 1956, Friday

[Graeme]

Day number 8012Site Date Map

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[Private Presley]

Elvis, Scotty and Bill, together with Hal Kanter were on their way to Shreveport, LA when they stopped in Pine Bluff, Arkansas and dined with Jim Ed, Maxine, and Bonnie Brown.

...and a rarer photo below

[Alan]

Thanks for the photos and info PP.

I think I have a problem in that the first photo is wrongly under another date on here - but I can't recall which one.

[Private Presley]

December 14, 1956

Maxine Brown was a singer-songwriter and along with her brother - Jim Ed - and sister - Bonnie, were already regulars at the Louisiana Hayride with hits such as 'I Take the Chance', 'Scarlet Ribbons', 'The Old Lamplighter' and, most significantly, 'The Three Bells', which topped both the country and pop charts for weeks and even ascended to the Top 10 of the R&B rankings.

They met Elvis Presley for the first time in 1954, and Maxine would recall: “The first time I met Elvis, I told him my mother had predicted he'd be a big star. He just laughed shyly. In those days, he truly had no idea of how big he would become. I don't think he ever had a big head or even gave fame a second thought. He was too busy having fun and being young. I believe he would have been content to sing the way he did on the Hayride. His favorite music, by far, was old-time gospel. Many a night, we'd all sit up late and sing the old hymns. Elvis was the last to want to quit. He often said that his big dream was to make it as a gospel artist. That's what his mother wanted for him, too.”

Elvis’ manager at that time, Bob Neal, contacted the Brown’s booking agent, Tom Perryman, who then packaged the two acts together -- along with Presley's backup players, bassist Bill Black and guitarist Scotty Moore -- for a 15-day tour. The Browns played the Hayride and worked the road with Presley for the remainder of 1954, all through 1955 and into 1956 before their careers diverged.

The Browns lived in Pine Bluff, Arkansas which was almost half way between Memphis and Shreveport, so it was a place Elvis would stop on his way to the Louisiana Hayride in Shreveport and back home to Memphis. There were many nights when Elvis would stay at Pine Bluff with the Browns. In due course, according to Maxine, Bonnie and Elvis fell “moony-eyed” in love with each other. Bonnie told her sister that one night Elvis proposed to her and that they planned to marry eventually. But that kind of talk soon ended. “I think she realized even then that life with Elvis, or with any other music star, would have more valleys than peaks,” wrote Maxine of her sister. “So it was Bonnie herself who broke it off with Elvis. I think it hurt him too. He moped around some on the last part of our Texas tour.”

Toward the end of 1955 - early 1956, Elvis and The Browns went their separate ways when Jim Ed got drafted into the Army. The next time they met was on December 14, 1956, when Elvis stopped at Pine Bluff on his way to Shreveport for his last appearance on the Louisiana Hayride. Elvis walked into the Brown family’s Trio Club restaurant that evening. “We all knew why he had come by,” Maxine remembers. “He wanted to see my Momma and sit around her kitchen like old times, maybe store up some home feelings before he took off to change his life forever.”

Maxine continues: “Elvis was the perfect gentleman and we had a lot of fun together. I remember when we got top billing over Elvis, but that didn't last long. He was a superstar.”