Speaker 1: March twenty fourth, nineteen fifty eight. The press dubbed it
Speaker 1: Black Monday. The tempo is HUT two three four for
Speaker 1: Private Presley, the King of rock and Roll will be
Speaker 1: keeping time to non hip bugle calls. That day, Elvis
Speaker 1: Presley reported for duty in the U. S. Army and
Speaker 1: for a hair cut at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, along with
Speaker 1: about seventy reporters and photographers. A gyrating guitarist departure from
Speaker 1: the public eye left his blue jeans fans all shook up,
Speaker 1: so we hear, but Albus doesn't seem to mind at all.
Speaker 1: An army barber shaved off the King's rebellious sideburns and
Speaker 1: dark locks as the cameras flashed. Elvis joked as his
Speaker 1: hair fell to the floor. Well, here today, gone tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I'm Sean Braswell. Welcome to another bonus episode of flashback
Speaker 1: on a fateful moment from history. Black Monday marked the
Speaker 1: start of a two year military hiatus for the most
Speaker 1: famous person on the planet. It was a day that
Speaker 1: changed the course of Elvis's life and career, but it
Speaker 1: would do even more than that. In nineteen fifty eight,
Speaker 1: the twenty three year old sex symbol was at the
Speaker 1: very peak of his era defining powers, and the loss
Speaker 1: of that famous hair and his temporary disappearance from the
Speaker 1: public eye would impact the course of American music and
Speaker 1: pop culture for years to come. Here he is singing
Speaker 1: sensation all over the country, Elvis pres Where you ain't
Speaker 1: what I said? The young, hip, thrusting Elvis Presley exploded
Speaker 1: out of almost every television set in America in nineteen fifty.
Speaker 1: The cocky, handsome singer was an instant icon, one that
Speaker 1: threatened the very conformity at the heart of nineteen fifties America.
Speaker 1: To watch Elvis gyrate on the Milton Borough Show seems
Speaker 1: rather tame to us today, but during the King's three
Speaker 1: minute performance of hound Dog, you can almost feel American
Speaker 1: culture shifting in real time before your very eyes. The
Speaker 1: blowback against Pressley's animal magnetism was equally potent. Music critics
Speaker 1: were quick to condemn Pelvis Pressley as a sexhibitionist. A
Speaker 1: convention of high school principles voted to band blue jeans
Speaker 1: and Pressley's signature ducktail hairstyle. A judge in Florida even
Speaker 1: threatened to arrest him, and talking heads took to the
Speaker 1: airwaves to warn the nation about him. I suspect that
Speaker 1: some of you are going to be surprised at the
Speaker 1: subject of this telecast. This is political journalist Drew Pearson.
Speaker 1: On the nineteen fifties news pro Graham he hosted, called
Speaker 1: the Washington Merry Go Round because today I want to
Speaker 1: relax a that and reports some inside facts about a
Speaker 1: young man who has become the rage of millions of teenagers,
Speaker 1: and who has some of our experts on juvenile delinquent say,
Speaker 1: just about as worried as the teenagers are crazy. I'd
Speaker 1: refer to Elvis Presley. Drew Pearson was a renegade journalist,
Speaker 1: one who also reported gossip and rumors and innuendo, kind
Speaker 1: of the TMZ of his time. He'd taken on powerful figures,
Speaker 1: from General Patton to Joseph McCarthy, whose actions he thought
Speaker 1: pose threats to the country, and in nineteen fifty six
Speaker 1: he put aside the political theater and turned his attention
Speaker 1: to America's latest and greatest threat. If you look back,
Speaker 1: you recall the famed Matinee Idols who preceded Presley worked
Speaker 1: hard for their success. But Elvis Presley was a truck
Speaker 1: driver who still can't read music and whose main appeal
Speaker 1: appears to be frankly sex. Pearson predicted that if parents
Speaker 1: ignored Elvis, their teenagers would too, and of Presley finally
Speaker 1: learned that vulgarity is not the way to permit success.
Speaker 1: And if it works hard, which he's never done before,
Speaker 1: I further predict he'll find a less spectacular but steadier
Speaker 1: place in our entertainment world. If he does not, then
Speaker 1: I predict Elvis Presley star will fall as rapidly as
Speaker 1: it rose. And on January seven, Elvis's twenty second birthday,
Speaker 1: Pearson got his wish. The Memphis Draft Board announced that
Speaker 1: Presley would serve two years in the U. S. Military.
Speaker 1: A year later, he reported for duty. Elvis was on
Speaker 1: his way to a less spectacular and steadier place in
Speaker 1: the entertainment world, just as Pearson had predicted, and nothing
Speaker 1: would ever quite be the same. The news of Elvis
Speaker 1: being drafted raised many questions. James, how could the most
Speaker 1: popular man in America serve his country best? Should he
Speaker 1: entertain the troops instead of serving alongside them, And perhaps
Speaker 1: most importantly, what did it mean for his hair? Hundreds
Speaker 1: of concerned female citizens wrote letters to President Dwight D.
Speaker 1: Eisenhower to plea for clemency before it went under the knife.
Speaker 1: One U S. Senator even petitioned for the king to
Speaker 1: get an exemption from the standard g I buzz cut.
Speaker 1: Elvis tried neither to escape his service nor the mandatory haircut,
Speaker 1: and so America Sampson was publicly short of his potent locked,
Speaker 1: even if, as Time magazine reported afterward, the haircut left
Speaker 1: him still looking much too dreamy for the army. Elvis
Speaker 1: assigned to a base in West Germany, where he drove
Speaker 1: a truck, drew an eighty two dollar paycheck, and remained
Speaker 1: relatively inconspicuous. Elvis, do the other soldiers give you a
Speaker 1: rough time because you're a famous not, sir? I was
Speaker 1: very surprised. I've never met a better group of war
Speaker 1: was in my life. Elvis also encountered two other things
Speaker 1: in Germany that would change his life. One was his
Speaker 1: future wife, Priscilla, the teenage daughter of a U. S.
Speaker 1: Army colonel. The second the amphetamines shared with him by
Speaker 1: a fellow soldier, which started a battle with drug addiction
Speaker 1: that would last for years. Elvis Presley was honorably discharged
Speaker 1: from active duty on March five, add Fort Dix, New Jersey,
Speaker 1: and newsreels TV, the Press, the Lot told the world
Speaker 1: how Elvis came marching home for seventeen interminable months. The
Speaker 1: cats hadn't seen him. What a price to pay for
Speaker 1: national events. So bring Army life? Changed your mind about
Speaker 1: rock and roll? So bring Army life? Uh No, it hasn't.
Speaker 1: It hasn't. It hasn't changed my mind because I was
Speaker 1: in tanks for a long time to see and they
Speaker 1: rock and roll quite a bit. Elvis might not have
Speaker 1: changed his mind about rock and roll that rock and
Speaker 1: roll changed rapidly while he was away. Not only was
Speaker 1: the King out of commission, that rockers Chuck Berry and
Speaker 1: Jerry Lee Lewis also fell from grace thanks to scandals
Speaker 1: tied the teenage girls and then we interrupt this program
Speaker 1: from Especial News Bulletin. Three young singers who soared to
Speaker 1: the heights of shore business on the current rock and
Speaker 1: roll craze were killed today in the crash of a
Speaker 1: light plane in an iowasn flurry. The deaths of Buddy Holly,
Speaker 1: the Big Bopper and Richie Vallen's in a ninety nine
Speaker 1: plane crash sent the music world and the country into shock.
Speaker 1: It was a bleak time for rock and roll, but
Speaker 1: many held out hope that the return of the King
Speaker 1: to his throne would change all that. They were soon disappointed.
Speaker 1: He's the Star Wars Show. Elvis's first televised performance after
Speaker 1: returning State Side was much different than the ones that
Speaker 1: electrified the country just four years earlier. The King's hair
Speaker 1: had grown back out, but without his trademark sideburns. Dressed
Speaker 1: in a tuxedo, he sang mild duets with the aging
Speaker 1: crooner Frank Sinatra beat Tender Lovely que never let Me Go,
Speaker 1: You have made my life to break, and I love
Speaker 1: you so Inger, Come given stand my very lovely. Elvis
Speaker 1: looks rusty, distant, out of place. He sounds like he's
Speaker 1: trying to sing in a foreign language. He even screws
Speaker 1: up the lyrics to Witchcraft I Always Will. It was
Speaker 1: clear to many observers that Elvis had lost more than
Speaker 1: his sideburns and his pelvic thrusts. He lost his edge,
Speaker 1: his own witchcraft, and worse, he'd gone mainstream. As a
Speaker 1: New York Times critic put it, Elvis's recent liberation from
Speaker 1: the army to co star with Sinatra was one of
Speaker 1: the most irritating events since the invention of itching powder.
Speaker 1: Elvis still had hits left in him like Are You
Speaker 1: Lonesome Tonight in the years ahead, but he was not
Speaker 1: the same barrier breaking performer. He descended further into drug addiction. Eventually,
Speaker 1: he quit touring entirely for eight years to focus on
Speaker 1: Hollywood and other projects before his untimely death from a
Speaker 1: heart attack at age two thousands a day. Still in
Speaker 1: shock over the death of singer Elvis Presley, President Carter
Speaker 1: today called him a symbol of the vitality, rebelliousness, and
Speaker 1: good humor of this country, and said that his death
Speaker 1: deprives our country of a part of itself. Elvis had
Speaker 1: a remarkable career and millions of devoted fans, But it's
Speaker 1: hard not to wonder what if. What if he'd never
Speaker 1: lost two years of his prime to the army. What
Speaker 1: if he'd never become addicted to drugs? How might the
Speaker 1: landscapes of rock and roll in American culture have been altered?
Speaker 1: With the countercultural revolution that came later in the nineteen
Speaker 1: sixties have happened much sooner, We'll never really know. Don
Speaker 1: McClean famously called the airplane crash that killed Buddy Holly
Speaker 1: the Big Bopper and Richie Vallen's the Day of the
Speaker 1: Music Died and his song American Pie, but some music
Speaker 1: historians instead date that moment to an earlier day, the
Speaker 1: morning when Elvis turned up for his haircut at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas.
Speaker 1: That government issued haircut and the two years of service
Speaker 1: that followed it not only blunted the sex appeal of
Speaker 1: the nation's biggest bubble, but shifted his mindset as well.
Speaker 1: The norm busting, hip thrusting singer who had unleashed teenage
Speaker 1: riots was eager not to stand out in Germany, to
Speaker 1: serve just like any other soldier. They had the same
Speaker 1: haircut as everyone else, and when he returned home, Elvis
Speaker 1: was also ready to fit in. That was like, the
Speaker 1: music has changed since you've been out of the service,
Speaker 1: I mean since you've brought in the service. Possibly, yes,
Speaker 1: I can't say I haven't been here long enough, even
Speaker 1: though the only thing I can say is it if
Speaker 1: it has changed, well, I would be foolish not too
Speaker 1: try to change with it him. Flashback has written and
Speaker 1: hosted by me Sean Braswell, senior writer and executive producer
Speaker 1: at Ozzy. He was edited by Maybe mcgarren and produced
Speaker 1: by Tracy Moran and Negorio Didus. Chris Hoff engineered our show.
Speaker 1: Make sure to subscribe to Flashback on the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, or listen wherever you get your podcasts m