30th March 1957, Saturday

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https://www.journalgazette.net/living/s ... 06e5a.html

Screams greet Elvis at Coliseum in 1957
The King spoke to reporters before entertaining crowd

Corey McMaken Sep 26, 2019 Updated Jun 6, 2022

Memorial Coliseum was filled with 10,000 people when Elvis Presley stepped on stage March 30, 1957.

Presley's “Heartbreak Hotel” had turned out to be a No. 1 hit a year earlier, but he'd been on the rock 'n' roll scene a couple years at this point. Long enough for his pelvis-rocking style to gain criticism during his tours. The day before the local show, City Councilman John Robinson called it a “one-man burlesque” and wondered if it should be stopped.

The singer disagreed.

“I don't intend it to be like burlesque,” Presley told members of the media gathered backstage before his show. “It's the way I express a song. You have to give the people a show or they'll go to sleep.”

Presley touched on a variety of subjects during his conversation with reporters. His leer? “I always have smiled that way.” His rumored $25,000 suit of gold? It actually cost “about $4,000.” His plans to join the Army? “I'm not gonna ask for anything. I'll do what they want me to do.”

In The Journal Gazette the following morning, reporter William Disbro described the King as “A nice guy with a likable personality, who murders even Americanized English, but who has a money-making gimmick and is riding it for all it's worth.”

Presley, who had bought the now-famous Graceland only a couple weeks prior, said he was enjoying his success while it lasted. “I won't go to pieces,” he said on the possibility his fame might come to an end.

But there weren't any signs of it ending when he bounded out onto the Coliseum stage.

Clad in the coat from that famous gold suit, black pants (with a small hole in the knee) and gold-embroidered shoes, Presley was greeted by shrieks that lasted for about five minutes, according to a Journal Gazette story by Jerry Kelly.

The roaring continued until he was finally able to announce his first song, “I Was the One.” Then the roar began again and barely died down as he belted out more than a dozen tunes. At one point, an announcement over the Coliseum's speakers called for a doctor. Perhaps an excited fan fainted?

At the end of the show, one girl clutched her hand and sobbed, “He kissed it, he kissed it.”

Not everyone was as impressed during the show; some members of the audience seemed embarrassed, and others got up and left.

After the tour, Presley was off to Hollywood to film his third movie, “Jailhouse Rock.” He was drafted into the Army in early 1958. While serving in Germany, he met his future wife, Priscilla. He died in 1977.





“Presley's A Nice Guy: Enjoying Popularity While It Lasts,” William Disbro (March 31, 1957)

He was 30 minutes later, but there he was. Elvis.

We were a small band of news hawks and hens, there to play a game of “This Is Your Life” with the hottest thing in the entertainment field today.

He bounded into the room with a hearty Hi! No one squealed. He squinted his catlike eyes, shifted the gum in his mouth, jumped on the table to rest his pelvis for the grueling ordeal ahead, and smiled broadly.

If any objective conclusion could be reached after 40 minutes with the King of Rock and Roll, the best simple summary might be: A nice guy with a likable personality, who murders even Americanized English, but who has a money-making gimmick and is riding it for all it's worth.

He entered in anything by sartorial splendor. he did have on his gold embroidered shoes with the rhinestones in the frazzled laces. “$100.” His coat was a two-tone brown stripe. Tan socks. Black trousers. Small hole in knee.

The questioning wandered from Memphis to suggestiveness, but basically these are the highlights.

Mr. Presley, how did you get here?

The former Tennessee teamster made his first public appearance about two and a half years ago before a barn dance crowd in Memphis. He used his patented style. “They were screaming and liked it,” Elvis said, “so I kept it up. I make my own arrangements.” Ad libs? “Those, too.”

One young questioner wished to know how he developed what his publicist terms a “romantic leer.” This is when he drops his eyelids to halfmast and raises the corner of his mouth. It twitches. He pushed at his cheek with a finger and said, “I always have smiled that way.”

Elvis definitely doesn't think he's “suggestive.” Quizzed about Fort Wayne councilman John Robinson's statement that last night might be the time to stop this “one-man burlesque” type of show, “the Pelvis” sobered. “I don't intend it to be like burlesque. It's the way I express a song. You have to give the people a show or they'll go to sleep.”

Mr. Presley, do you think you're a lasting type of entertainer?

“I'm enjoying it while it lasts. If the people lose interest in me, I'll understand. I won't go to pieces.”

The wealth?

“The government gets most of it.” Of his eight cars, Elvis prefers his white Continental. His suit of gold, he said, cost him “about $4,000,” rumors of $25,000 notwithstanding.

The future:

Elvis explained that after the present tour, which will net him $75,000, he will go to Hollywood for a prison picture and then to the Army. Hollywood barbers will get the honor of clipping his made, he said. Prisons don't allow three-inch hair-do's. On the Army, he becomes slightly philosophic. “I'm not gonna ask for anything. I'll do what they want me to do.”

Late in the interview he expressed a new angle on his critics, to wit: “They was people who didn't like Jesus Christ. And they killed Him.”

The interview's end came with a series of poses for the photogs. Elivs, always ready to please, matched pancake makeup with several beauties. It was part of the job.

In several minutes he was again bounding. This time it was onto the stage amidst sounds heretofore heard only at hog ringings. He had about $2,000 worth of gold jacket on. He was a new man.

The reaction was altogether different than at the press conference. One distaff worshiper of the golden idol followed the entry of “the pelvis” with egg-shaped eyes – so wild, so hopeful, so hungry. It was the look of an Arabian washer woman asking King Saud for a palace position.

Elvis wriggled, twisted and bent his knees.

He still had on the trousers with the tiny hole in the knee.

--

Elvis (Shriek!) Wows 'Em, Fells 'Em (Young Ones, Anyway) In Coliseum,” Jerry Kelly (March 31, 1957)

A hip-swinging, guitar-strumming hurricane blew through the Coliseum last night and practically leveled rock-'n'-roll hipsters from as close up as section 72 and as far out as the upper balcony: Hurricane Elvis.

The storm gathered in Memphis and picked up momentum in stopovers in New York and Hollywood. From the time the first forecasts were sounded you could tell then it would be one of the most ferocious and cause much damage until it finally wore itself out.

Well, the readings were right: Elvis was a pretty stiff wind to have to wait out, but like all other hurricanes that blow with such twisting velocity, we're certain it won't take too long.

Before a mixed crowd of followers and curious observers that numbered more than 10,000, Elvis, who makes a cool living by attracting more adolescent attention than the PTA, gave a wild performance that will long be remembered. If not for the quality of the performance than for the sheer dynamics it demonstrated.

Long before Elvis appeared, the crowd warmed up in it seats with small twists, nail-biting, voice-clearing and a sort of apprehension.

With the first indication of his appearance, wide-eyed teenage girls gripped the edge of their chairs, stamped their feet in passionate furor and started clutching each other for emotional support.

So help me, the kid in the gold coat could only manage a silly giggle for the first three minutes he was on the sage, so great was the din. About two minutes later he was able to mumble: “Ladies and genneman.” So terrific was the roar, you would have thought he'd announced everyone in the crowd had hit uranium.

Hoosier hysteria, notwithstanding, this had to be youth's finest hour in the Coliseum. And certainly, the Coliseum's finest moment in history came when Elvis skipped to the rear of the stage during a number to gently kiss the fingertips of a couple of his swooning admirers.

When Elvis announced his first number, “I Was the One,” a long, loud, agonizing screach arose from the audience. After many attempts to begin, he finally succeeded in getting through.

An ominous announcement went out over the speakers for Doctor 2327.

“Don't be Cruel,” one of the Memphis meteor's more popular exercises, came next and caused one girl in the back of us some pretty anxious moments. We were certain that at the end of the number a torn seam sounded its shrill note.

Elvis executed these first two with just a few mild taunts at his fans – a hip here, a leer there. By the time he was in to the third number, we thought that his music was beginning to get to him; his eyes gave that spooky look that let us all know that we were really in for something.

Equipped with some very special props – a pair of uncut sideburns, an autographed Gibson guitar and the top half of the famous gold $2,500 suit – Elvis launched out into “No Good Woman.”

All through his performance from here on it was a demonstration of gyrations, arm-flailing and mike lugging.

He carried the microphone, which gave him some initial trouble because it refused to stay attached to the rod supporting it, from one end of the stage to the other. At times he would pause at the far end and taunt young girls by directing his attention and lyrics to their group.

Elvis, doing a back-breaking number appropriately titled “I'm All Shook Up,” drifted to the other side of the stage and literally coaxed another teenager out of her chair with his fracturing cooings.

The members of the small band playing in back of Presley made noises similar to those of a raided Chinese crap game and we wondered how Doctor 2327 was making out.

The hero of most of these numbers is a frustrated creature who just goes his way trying to get along. He has a sense of aesthetics – “When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold;” fond memories are his treasure – “One Night;” a good sense of values – “You Ain't Nothing but a Hound Dog.”

They said Presley would sing 14 of his hit songs. Maybe, he did, but with shrieks of ecstasy and the thud of fainting bodies, it was hard to tell where one number left off and another began.

The end to all this drama came unexpectedly. Elvis mumbled the last of “Hound Dog,” shook his hips a couple of times and suddenly beat a retreat from the stage like a scared jackrabbit.

So he left them in tears on his farewell tour before entering the army.

Well, he'll probably make a good soldier, anyway.

The rest of the show was a pretty well-put together group, made up mostly of comedians. The one we liked most was a young Texan named Red Marlowe. The Jordanaires, a vocal quartet that made records with the star, rendered some examples of their talents and got a very fine reception.

The lead act was a Irish tenor, Frankie Connors, who looked and sang a lot like Frank Parker.

[ColinB]

[Private Presley]

little less cropped

[Private Presley]

Bob Chase interviews Elvis

Transcribed interview between Bob Chase and Elvis Presley:

Bob: We’ll take it right from there with Mr. Presley to mix one up and do the talkin’.

Elvis: I was listening to you or somebody was talking about you because I heard Bob Chase about four or five times on the radio today.

Bob: While you were traveling?

Elvis: While I was on my way out here.

Bob: You might’ve picked it up throughout the area. We’re nationwide…

Elvis: Yeah.

Bob: How do you feel sitting backstage before a performance now?

Elvis: Well I enjoy talking to people and everything and meeting a lot of these people. And too I can straighten a lot of rumors out because people always hear things and they want to get straightened out.

Bob: Any particular amount of nervousness at all?

Elvis: Yes sir. Quite a bit. I haven’t gotten to the point, yet, where I’m completely at ease. When I first walk on stage that’s when I’m very nervous…

Bob: That’s your maximum point right there?

Elvis: Yeah.

Bob: As far as records are concerned, what do you have happening, anything at all? New releases? “All Shook Up” is going great right now.

Elvis: “All Shook Up” and uh…

Bob: Nothing new in the immediate future coming?

Elvis: Not any time soon, no.

Bob: One thing I’d like to ask you as far as this particular area is concerned… what is your religious denomination?

Elvis: Well… well all my life I was Assembly of God.

Bob: I see… Church of God. The Church of God?

Elvis: Yes.

Bob: And do you currently attend? Of course, you’re pretty busy…

Elvis: Well I’m usually gone, I’m never home. Whenever I get some free time I do.

Bob: And what kind of traveling do you do? Train, bus or car?

Elvis: I go by train most of the time.

Bob: That’s your preferred way of going?

Elvis: Well if I can get a drawing room albeit or something. It’s much better for me.

Bob: When you first got started, as far as your career is concerned, was the music called rock-n-roll at that time or was it more of a country western?

Elvis: It was… mine was more or less classed as country western I guess at the time. As I went along, it got more rock-n-roll. That’s what they tell me, I don’t know the difference.

Bob: Yeah but as far as your starting you probably developed more or less with rock-n-roll. What what, the 2 and a half years you’ve been at it?

Elvis: Yeah.

Bob: Any particular highlights that you’ve had so far that stand out from all the rest of your experiences?

Elvis: Well I’ve had quite a few highlights…I mean, I guess you’re talking in terms of exciting things happening to ya…

Bob: Yeah when you’re on the road or..

Elvis: Yeah I’ve had quite a bit. I must say, it’s been a heck of a lot of fun, everything.

Bob: And we know too that you take more than periodic tannings from a variety of groups… and a variety of people and parents. How does that affect you?

Elvis: All of that is part of the business, there’s people that like you there’s people that don’t like you regardless of what you do… I mean… If everybody liked the same thing, we’d all be driving the same car and married to the same woman. You know? Well that wouldn’t work out… And there’ll be people that like you… there’s people that didn’t like Jesus Christ. They killed him and he was a perfect man.

Bob: That’s a pretty good answer right there, as far as your comparison of Christ. Where do you go from here now?

Elvis: I go to Detroit.

Bob: And you’re touring through the Midwest, Buffalo, Detroit…?

Elvis: I go to Detroit, Buffalo, Toronto, and Ottawa.

Bob: That finish your tour?

Elvis: No I come back to Philadelphia for two days.

Bob: When’s your movie start?

Elvis: First of May.

Bob: First of May, yes. Well we wish you an awful lot of success, it’s been a real pleasure having an opportunity to speak with you. And we hope to see you again sometime in the future.

Elvis: Well thank you very much.

Bob: Okay thanks so much, goodbye.

https://www.wowo.com/wowo-exclusive-bob ... s-presley/

[Private Presley]