1
00:00:08,600 --> 00:00:12,840
Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Weftsetts Podcast. My

2
00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:16,280
Speaker 1: guest today is Peter Garralman, who has a new book,

3
00:00:16,400 --> 00:00:20,119
Speaker 1: The Colonel and the King, Tom Parker, Elvis Presley and

4
00:00:20,200 --> 00:00:21,960
Speaker 1: the Partnership that Rocked the World.

5
00:00:22,480 --> 00:00:24,720
Speaker 2: Peter, why this book? Why? Now?

6
00:00:26,520 --> 00:00:29,360
Speaker 3: Well, it's been thirty years. It's been it's almost exactly

7
00:00:29,440 --> 00:00:32,680
Speaker 3: thirty years from the time I first got access to

8
00:00:32,720 --> 00:00:35,880
Speaker 3: the Colonel's archives in nineteen ninety five. And although I

9
00:00:35,880 --> 00:00:38,240
Speaker 3: had known Colonel at that point for almost ten years,

10
00:00:38,280 --> 00:00:41,280
Speaker 3: and I'd had engaged in a considerable amount of correspondence

11
00:00:41,320 --> 00:00:43,479
Speaker 3: with him. This and I had done a great deal

12
00:00:43,520 --> 00:00:47,000
Speaker 3: of research for my Elvis biography, this opened up an

13
00:00:47,159 --> 00:00:50,880
Speaker 3: entirely different picture of the Colonel than I had ever

14
00:00:50,920 --> 00:00:54,920
Speaker 3: had before. And really, from that moment I wanted to

15
00:00:54,960 --> 00:00:56,760
Speaker 3: do a book that I mean, I just thought, we've

16
00:00:56,760 --> 00:00:59,480
Speaker 3: got to do a collection of Colonel's letters. Well, that

17
00:00:59,520 --> 00:01:03,440
Speaker 3: didn't happen, and a lot of things intervened, and here

18
00:01:03,480 --> 00:01:04,640
Speaker 3: we are thirty years later.

19
00:01:05,280 --> 00:01:06,840
Speaker 2: So what made it happen.

20
00:01:09,520 --> 00:01:13,120
Speaker 3: What made it happen was it was just I stayed

21
00:01:13,160 --> 00:01:15,120
Speaker 3: at it. You know, this is the same. This is

22
00:01:15,120 --> 00:01:18,640
Speaker 3: a good example of the little engine that could you know,

23
00:01:19,160 --> 00:01:20,800
Speaker 3: the tiny engine that could not. I mean, I just

24
00:01:20,800 --> 00:01:22,759
Speaker 3: stayed with it. It was something that I wanted to do.

25
00:01:23,560 --> 00:01:25,760
Speaker 3: But by the time I finally got around to it

26
00:01:25,800 --> 00:01:28,520
Speaker 3: and I started working on it six or seven years

27
00:01:28,560 --> 00:01:33,680
Speaker 3: ago by then. Colonel's widow, lo Anne Parker, actually quite

28
00:01:33,760 --> 00:01:37,800
Speaker 3: some time before that, and I had known her for

29
00:01:37,840 --> 00:01:39,600
Speaker 3: a while. I talked to her about the book I

30
00:01:39,680 --> 00:01:42,160
Speaker 3: was doing, this book of letters that I wanted to do.

31
00:01:42,280 --> 00:01:44,800
Speaker 3: She said, can I help, well? Who knows where that where?

32
00:01:44,800 --> 00:01:46,559
Speaker 3: A thing like that can lead? But I said, sure,

33
00:01:46,600 --> 00:01:49,840
Speaker 3: you know, I figured why not? That led to so

34
00:01:49,920 --> 00:01:53,920
Speaker 3: many revelations beyond the letters themselves, which for me were

35
00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:57,160
Speaker 3: a window into a world that Colonel had never revealed

36
00:01:57,680 --> 00:02:00,559
Speaker 3: in public. He didn't reveal it in interviews, and reveal

37
00:02:00,560 --> 00:02:04,400
Speaker 3: it in his letters, which were great playful things in

38
00:02:04,480 --> 00:02:09,520
Speaker 3: which no matter what I put out in my letter,

39
00:02:09,240 --> 00:02:11,440
Speaker 3: he taught me every time. It was like I was

40
00:02:11,480 --> 00:02:13,400
Speaker 3: playing checkers and he was playing. He was a grand

41
00:02:13,440 --> 00:02:16,919
Speaker 3: master at chess. But in the letters themselves he revealed himself.

42
00:02:16,919 --> 00:02:21,040
Speaker 3: Then when I started talking to Loeanne, she began to

43
00:02:21,080 --> 00:02:24,280
Speaker 3: tell me all the stories he had told her about

44
00:02:24,280 --> 00:02:28,839
Speaker 3: growing up in Holland, and also about his vulnerabilities, his weaknesses,

45
00:02:28,880 --> 00:02:31,799
Speaker 3: his sensitivities, things that I just never could have gotten.

46
00:02:31,840 --> 00:02:33,960
Speaker 3: So that at that point I realized I can't just

47
00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:36,040
Speaker 3: do the book of letters. I've got to do something

48
00:02:36,080 --> 00:02:39,000
Speaker 3: which includes at least a biographical portrait. And I started

49
00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:42,280
Speaker 3: doing interviews for that, and you know, books take a

50
00:02:42,320 --> 00:02:44,080
Speaker 3: long time, but that's where it began.

51
00:02:44,760 --> 00:02:50,600
Speaker 2: Okay, Historically, Colonel Tom Parker has not had a good

52
00:02:50,720 --> 00:02:55,120
Speaker 2: image in the public. Ay when you first started with

53
00:02:55,200 --> 00:02:59,560
Speaker 2: Colonel Tom Parker, what was your perception of him? And

54
00:02:59,720 --> 00:03:02,679
Speaker 2: what is your perception of him now? And what does

55
00:03:02,720 --> 00:03:04,200
Speaker 2: the public get wrong or right?

56
00:03:05,760 --> 00:03:07,880
Speaker 3: Well, I mean there are a number of things about

57
00:03:07,880 --> 00:03:12,480
Speaker 3: Colonel's image. You've got to remember that, at least up

58
00:03:12,560 --> 00:03:16,760
Speaker 3: until nineteen seventy, Colonel was considered the most brilliant manager

59
00:03:16,760 --> 00:03:19,520
Speaker 3: in the business. All of the things which have attached

60
00:03:19,560 --> 00:03:22,760
Speaker 3: to him since Elvis's death were simply not applied to him.

61
00:03:22,800 --> 00:03:26,120
Speaker 3: And if Brian Epstein wanted to find out about the business,

62
00:03:26,400 --> 00:03:30,160
Speaker 3: he went to Colonel Parker. If Brian Epstein beatles manager,

63
00:03:30,600 --> 00:03:34,239
Speaker 3: If George Hamilton, who's newly arrived in Hollywood and made

64
00:03:34,400 --> 00:03:36,680
Speaker 3: home from the Hill, if he wanted advice about how

65
00:03:36,680 --> 00:03:39,000
Speaker 3: to proceed with his career. This is in nineteen sixty

66
00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:42,760
Speaker 3: one or so. He sought out Colonel Parker because Colonel

67
00:03:42,840 --> 00:03:47,240
Speaker 3: was considered the canniest, the smartest, the funniest, the most animated.

68
00:03:47,400 --> 00:03:50,240
Speaker 3: It it's nothing like what the image is of now.

69
00:03:50,640 --> 00:03:53,040
Speaker 3: I'm well aware of what the image is of him now,

70
00:03:53,040 --> 00:03:55,120
Speaker 3: But it wasn't the image that I started out with.

71
00:03:56,160 --> 00:03:58,480
Speaker 3: When I I mean, in other words, I did not

72
00:03:58,600 --> 00:04:02,720
Speaker 3: have a negative image when I wrote Last Trained of

73
00:04:02,720 --> 00:04:08,960
Speaker 3: Mephic and Careless Love back in ninety four ninety nine,

74
00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:12,200
Speaker 3: my two volume biography of Elvis, I had an image,

75
00:04:12,200 --> 00:04:16,560
Speaker 3: in a sense of somebody who, as Jack soon Ceo

76
00:04:16,920 --> 00:04:21,719
Speaker 3: at Graceland, as Jack Soten said, a lovable rascal. I

77
00:04:21,839 --> 00:04:23,680
Speaker 3: thought of him if you look, if you read the

78
00:04:24,560 --> 00:04:28,279
Speaker 3: portrait of him in Careless Love, he plays almost a

79
00:04:28,320 --> 00:04:32,200
Speaker 3: Falstaffian role, sort of a comic role, a grand master role,

80
00:04:32,600 --> 00:04:36,400
Speaker 3: but not a villainous role at all. Now again, I

81
00:04:36,480 --> 00:04:40,599
Speaker 3: recognize that through a combination of circumstances, particularly in the

82
00:04:40,600 --> 00:04:44,960
Speaker 3: wake of Elvis' death, but really even more so recently,

83
00:04:45,640 --> 00:04:48,600
Speaker 3: he has been cast in a role that he never occupied.

84
00:04:48,640 --> 00:04:53,400
Speaker 3: In this villainous role, but that's not the way I

85
00:04:53,440 --> 00:04:53,920
Speaker 3: ever saw.

86
00:04:55,320 --> 00:05:01,520
Speaker 2: Okay, historically people believe that it was a fift fifty partnership.

87
00:05:01,960 --> 00:05:05,320
Speaker 2: In your book, you go through a lot of details

88
00:05:05,880 --> 00:05:10,840
Speaker 2: that every deal was different in that live was one thing,

89
00:05:11,440 --> 00:05:15,000
Speaker 2: recordings were another. But also there was this concept of

90
00:05:15,040 --> 00:05:20,120
Speaker 2: special projects. What was really going on here because you

91
00:05:20,240 --> 00:05:23,640
Speaker 2: make the point that he had a rationalization for all

92
00:05:23,640 --> 00:05:27,720
Speaker 2: these different numbers, but in reality, was he self dealing?

93
00:05:30,480 --> 00:05:32,480
Speaker 3: He was. You know, I would say everybody in the

94
00:05:32,560 --> 00:05:35,040
Speaker 3: music business is self dealing up to a certain point,

95
00:05:35,320 --> 00:05:37,320
Speaker 3: that's what the music business is based on. But no,

96
00:05:37,440 --> 00:05:40,640
Speaker 3: he wasn't. And in fact, for the first ten years,

97
00:05:41,160 --> 00:05:44,160
Speaker 3: the first nine years of his management of Elvis, he

98
00:05:44,279 --> 00:05:47,680
Speaker 3: was operating on a twenty five percent managerial basis, straight

99
00:05:47,720 --> 00:05:51,480
Speaker 3: twenty five percent, no special deals, no bonuses, no nothing

100
00:05:51,600 --> 00:05:54,720
Speaker 3: like that. And this is a person who was not

101
00:05:54,839 --> 00:05:57,760
Speaker 3: just the manager. He was also the pr man. He

102
00:05:57,839 --> 00:06:00,840
Speaker 3: did all the advertising, he did the promotion of all

103
00:06:00,880 --> 00:06:02,760
Speaker 3: the shows, he did the promotion of all the records.

104
00:06:02,800 --> 00:06:05,920
Speaker 3: He even designed the record the record covers got nominated

105
00:06:05,960 --> 00:06:09,880
Speaker 3: for Grammy. I don't know why, but he did. So.

106
00:06:10,680 --> 00:06:14,680
Speaker 3: He was not only a one artist manager, he was

107
00:06:14,839 --> 00:06:18,400
Speaker 3: a one man operation. He had virtually no overhead. He

108
00:06:18,480 --> 00:06:21,480
Speaker 3: paid all of his expenses out of his twenty five percent,

109
00:06:22,400 --> 00:06:26,960
Speaker 3: out of his twenty five percent commission as manager, and

110
00:06:28,160 --> 00:06:33,400
Speaker 3: he was providing a service and all purpose service. It changed,

111
00:06:33,440 --> 00:06:38,000
Speaker 3: as you say, as you've indicated in nineteen sixty seven,

112
00:06:38,160 --> 00:06:40,200
Speaker 3: and there were a number of reasons that changed. One

113
00:06:40,240 --> 00:06:42,560
Speaker 3: was that Elvis by then had become a lot more

114
00:06:42,560 --> 00:06:46,120
Speaker 3: difficult to manage. Elvis was encountering problems of his own.

115
00:06:47,160 --> 00:06:50,159
Speaker 3: He had, but his biggest problem and it was one

116
00:06:50,160 --> 00:06:51,960
Speaker 3: that stayed with him all his life. And I'm not

117
00:06:52,520 --> 00:06:55,240
Speaker 3: saying this is a criticism of just describing what happened.

118
00:06:55,720 --> 00:07:00,400
Speaker 3: He simply spent, not just more than what he made.

119
00:07:00,400 --> 00:07:02,400
Speaker 3: And he was making two million dollars a year, which

120
00:07:02,400 --> 00:07:05,080
Speaker 3: is the equivalent of twenty million today. He was making

121
00:07:05,120 --> 00:07:07,560
Speaker 3: four million dollars a year, which is the equivalent of

122
00:07:07,600 --> 00:07:12,720
Speaker 3: double that. He If he made two million, he spent

123
00:07:12,880 --> 00:07:15,760
Speaker 3: three million. And this is born out in the letters

124
00:07:15,920 --> 00:07:20,680
Speaker 3: that Elvis's father, Vernon Presley, the only other person in

125
00:07:20,720 --> 00:07:23,560
Speaker 3: the world other than Colonel and Elvis who knew what

126
00:07:23,720 --> 00:07:26,760
Speaker 3: the business in the room was. Vernon was part of everything.

127
00:07:27,160 --> 00:07:30,360
Speaker 3: Vernon and Elvis Presley were part of every business conversation

128
00:07:30,480 --> 00:07:35,200
Speaker 3: with colonel. But Vernon wrote not letter after letter, only

129
00:07:35,240 --> 00:07:36,760
Speaker 3: a few of which I have in the book, But

130
00:07:36,760 --> 00:07:38,720
Speaker 3: he wrote letter after letter to colonel, You've got to

131
00:07:38,760 --> 00:07:42,160
Speaker 3: help out. We're on the verge of losing graceland. We

132
00:07:42,200 --> 00:07:45,520
Speaker 3: can't pay our taxes, we can't pay our IRS bill.

133
00:07:45,560 --> 00:07:48,280
Speaker 3: You've got to come up with more money. That began,

134
00:07:48,640 --> 00:07:51,720
Speaker 3: that became more and more of a problem as time

135
00:07:51,760 --> 00:07:54,720
Speaker 3: went on. And so Colonel's explanation, and you can call

136
00:07:54,760 --> 00:07:57,160
Speaker 3: it a rationalization, you can call it an explanation, is

137
00:07:57,240 --> 00:08:00,200
Speaker 3: he simply had to take or he felt he was

138
00:08:00,360 --> 00:08:03,880
Speaker 3: entitled to take a greater piece of the pie. And

139
00:08:04,000 --> 00:08:06,040
Speaker 3: with the deal that he made with Elvis in nineteen

140
00:08:06,080 --> 00:08:11,120
Speaker 3: sixty seven, he entered into a limited joint venture agreement.

141
00:08:11,280 --> 00:08:14,320
Speaker 3: Joint venture is like a partnership, as you know, and

142
00:08:14,680 --> 00:08:22,480
Speaker 3: that the partnership, the twenty five percent commission remained on

143
00:08:22,680 --> 00:08:29,200
Speaker 3: things like movies, on publishing royalties, on just about everything.

144
00:08:29,880 --> 00:08:34,520
Speaker 3: But they split everything that colonel, every bonus payment that

145
00:08:34,600 --> 00:08:38,600
Speaker 3: Colonel got beyond the contracted amount fifty to fifty. Now,

146
00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:42,680
Speaker 3: anybody could understand that the temptation in that kind of

147
00:08:42,679 --> 00:08:47,800
Speaker 3: a deal is to have less and less, less and

148
00:08:47,880 --> 00:08:50,720
Speaker 3: less money in the actual contract, and more and more

149
00:08:50,800 --> 00:08:55,920
Speaker 3: put into bonus situations. And that basically is what happened

150
00:08:55,960 --> 00:08:58,280
Speaker 3: to a degree, not completely, but to a degree, over

151
00:08:58,280 --> 00:09:03,120
Speaker 3: the next five or six years. Nineteen seventy three, Elvis

152
00:09:03,200 --> 00:09:06,120
Speaker 3: and Colonel entered into what I think can fairly be

153
00:09:06,160 --> 00:09:09,480
Speaker 3: called a partnership, except as you say, there were several

154
00:09:09,480 --> 00:09:14,200
Speaker 3: things that were exempted. Publishing was exempted, the personal appearances

155
00:09:14,240 --> 00:09:16,760
Speaker 3: were on a two thirds one third basis. But it

156
00:09:16,800 --> 00:09:21,040
Speaker 3: was entered into so gladly on Elvis's part. It basically

157
00:09:21,520 --> 00:09:25,480
Speaker 3: comprised six different contracts, all of which Colonel and his

158
00:09:25,559 --> 00:09:30,880
Speaker 3: assistant Tom Diskott went over in great detail with Elvis

159
00:09:30,880 --> 00:09:36,280
Speaker 3: and Vernon at Elvis's Hollywood home, and when everything was signed,

160
00:09:36,880 --> 00:09:40,800
Speaker 3: Elvis announced there were many things involved in this agreement.

161
00:09:41,240 --> 00:09:44,520
Speaker 3: But when everything was signed, Elvis announced to the guys

162
00:09:44,559 --> 00:09:47,400
Speaker 3: around him, and he rarely told them about business. As

163
00:09:47,520 --> 00:09:50,400
Speaker 3: much as they put out the I mean it, as

164
00:09:50,480 --> 00:09:53,199
Speaker 3: much as they had ideas about what his business was.

165
00:09:53,200 --> 00:09:55,240
Speaker 3: Was they honest, they really didn't know, and I'm not

166
00:09:55,240 --> 00:09:58,360
Speaker 3: putting them down, but they didn't. But Elvis announced to

167
00:09:58,400 --> 00:10:00,440
Speaker 3: them what a great deal he had made with colonel,

168
00:10:00,840 --> 00:10:03,240
Speaker 3: so you can say, well, Elvis was foolish, he hadn't

169
00:10:03,280 --> 00:10:05,720
Speaker 3: made such a great deal. On the other hand, I

170
00:10:05,720 --> 00:10:08,960
Speaker 3: would say there was nobody else in the world who

171
00:10:09,040 --> 00:10:12,199
Speaker 3: could have made the money for Elvis that Colonel Parker did.

172
00:10:12,240 --> 00:10:14,559
Speaker 3: There was no manager Moore Kenny, and there was no

173
00:10:14,600 --> 00:10:19,560
Speaker 3: one more who was better at both manipulating the record

174
00:10:19,600 --> 00:10:26,600
Speaker 3: company in particular and turning a chore into something which

175
00:10:26,679 --> 00:10:30,880
Speaker 3: generated so much money it almost met Elvis's expenses.

176
00:10:31,840 --> 00:10:34,280
Speaker 2: Let's flip the story over, as I say, if you

177
00:10:34,360 --> 00:10:38,760
Speaker 2: read the book, Parker looks pretty good. He is someone

178
00:10:38,840 --> 00:10:44,320
Speaker 2: you knew you subsequently interacted with the widow and the letters.

179
00:10:46,080 --> 00:10:48,959
Speaker 2: What are some negative feelings you feel towards Parker.

180
00:10:50,360 --> 00:10:53,360
Speaker 3: The simplest negative feeling and the biggest revelation to me

181
00:10:53,480 --> 00:10:55,280
Speaker 3: in the book, and the place where I really was

182
00:10:55,360 --> 00:11:01,120
Speaker 3: unhappy to end up with, was that his gambling predilection,

183
00:11:01,760 --> 00:11:04,280
Speaker 3: which was something again I think I mentioned to you

184
00:11:04,800 --> 00:11:07,800
Speaker 3: I saw him as this, let's call him a lovable

185
00:11:07,880 --> 00:11:11,200
Speaker 3: rascal if in my view, and you can read what

186
00:11:11,240 --> 00:11:13,360
Speaker 3: I wrote previously, and I'm not trying to disown it,

187
00:11:13,360 --> 00:11:17,280
Speaker 3: It's just represented my best understanding of the situation. But

188
00:11:17,720 --> 00:11:21,000
Speaker 3: my understanding of him over the years was simply that

189
00:11:21,080 --> 00:11:24,680
Speaker 3: if he lost a million dollars at the gaming table,

190
00:11:24,720 --> 00:11:27,160
Speaker 3: which he didn't, I think eight hundred thousand may have

191
00:11:27,200 --> 00:11:29,200
Speaker 3: been the most. It was the most I could ever document.

192
00:11:29,240 --> 00:11:32,640
Speaker 3: But he did lose that much that he could walk

193
00:11:32,679 --> 00:11:35,480
Speaker 3: away from that and just shrug his shoulders and not

194
00:11:35,600 --> 00:11:38,360
Speaker 3: care at all. Now I was write in one respect,

195
00:11:38,480 --> 00:11:40,400
Speaker 3: he didn't care about the money. He didn't care about

196
00:11:40,400 --> 00:11:42,559
Speaker 3: the money anymore than Elvis did. Neither one of them

197
00:11:42,559 --> 00:11:44,760
Speaker 3: cared the least bit about money. They weren't interested in

198
00:11:44,840 --> 00:11:49,520
Speaker 3: accumulating money. They weren't interested in accumulating in the state

199
00:11:50,080 --> 00:11:53,800
Speaker 3: that meant nothing to them. But from talking to lo Aanne,

200
00:11:53,880 --> 00:11:56,600
Speaker 3: and from having her document from her journals and diary,

201
00:11:56,720 --> 00:11:59,480
Speaker 3: something I want to say one thing about lo Anne.

202
00:12:00,120 --> 00:12:02,400
Speaker 3: No one could have been a more loving wife than

203
00:12:02,440 --> 00:12:06,079
Speaker 3: Loe Anne was. She adored Colonel She absolutely adored it.

204
00:12:06,480 --> 00:12:09,800
Speaker 3: And as much as she adored him, she admired him.

205
00:12:10,200 --> 00:12:12,720
Speaker 3: Maybe she admired him even more. I mean, to him,

206
00:12:12,800 --> 00:12:15,160
Speaker 3: she was the greatest person in the world. And I'm

207
00:12:15,160 --> 00:12:19,440
Speaker 3: not knocking that. But and yet when we started, when

208
00:12:19,600 --> 00:12:22,440
Speaker 3: I started on the book, and she started helping me

209
00:12:22,480 --> 00:12:25,160
Speaker 3: out with it. She was committed to telling the truth,

210
00:12:25,200 --> 00:12:29,120
Speaker 3: and she said to me at one point after we've

211
00:12:29,120 --> 00:12:31,120
Speaker 3: been tied, and I can only imagine how painful it

212
00:12:31,280 --> 00:12:34,960
Speaker 3: was for her to say this. Colonel was a gambling addict,

213
00:12:35,280 --> 00:12:39,359
Speaker 3: and she could document that from her journals and her diaries,

214
00:12:39,720 --> 00:12:43,360
Speaker 3: and you know, and say, no matter how difficult it

215
00:12:43,440 --> 00:12:45,719
Speaker 3: was for her to say this, and say there were

216
00:12:45,880 --> 00:12:49,920
Speaker 3: times when he would spend three days in the strait

217
00:12:50,200 --> 00:12:52,520
Speaker 3: in the casino, not come back to the room until

218
00:12:52,520 --> 00:12:55,800
Speaker 3: the fourth day, and then just collapse. He was no

219
00:12:55,880 --> 00:12:58,560
Speaker 3: good for anything. And she said, there's no other word

220
00:12:58,600 --> 00:13:00,840
Speaker 3: for Peter, He's a gambling addict. So I ended up

221
00:13:00,880 --> 00:13:03,320
Speaker 3: with a picture which I had not at all expected

222
00:13:03,360 --> 00:13:05,920
Speaker 3: to end up with, in which you have two people

223
00:13:06,000 --> 00:13:09,320
Speaker 3: addicted to two different things. Elvis to his pharmaceuticals has

224
00:13:09,360 --> 00:13:14,600
Speaker 3: prescribed medications, Colonel to gambling, and neither one of them

225
00:13:14,760 --> 00:13:17,959
Speaker 3: able to address the matter with the other because if

226
00:13:18,000 --> 00:13:20,960
Speaker 3: one said, hey, you're doing this, the other would say, hey,

227
00:13:21,000 --> 00:13:24,240
Speaker 3: what about you? And they literally they avoided it. For

228
00:13:24,280 --> 00:13:27,360
Speaker 3: the most part, Colonel did everything he could for Elvis.

229
00:13:27,400 --> 00:13:29,240
Speaker 3: There are many letters in here where he's trying to

230
00:13:29,320 --> 00:13:33,000
Speaker 3: keep Elvis off the road, despite all the prevailing opinion.

231
00:13:33,280 --> 00:13:35,600
Speaker 3: There are many letters in which he shares his concerns

232
00:13:35,600 --> 00:13:37,760
Speaker 3: about Elvis with others. There are many letters in which

233
00:13:37,760 --> 00:13:41,760
Speaker 3: he attempts to motivate Elvis to do better and to

234
00:13:41,840 --> 00:13:44,720
Speaker 3: say that, you know, Elvis is the greatest entertainer he's

235
00:13:44,720 --> 00:13:47,720
Speaker 3: ever known, and he Elvis alone can fix these problems.

236
00:13:47,960 --> 00:13:51,439
Speaker 3: But nonetheless, neither one of them could confront the other's problems.

237
00:13:51,720 --> 00:13:54,840
Speaker 3: And that was the revelation for me, and it's an

238
00:13:54,880 --> 00:13:59,000
Speaker 3: unhappy revelation for me. And it doesn't undercut Colonel's genius.

239
00:13:59,080 --> 00:14:02,280
Speaker 3: Is you know, Chuad de Vivra, his great sense of

240
00:14:02,600 --> 00:14:04,880
Speaker 3: his embrace of life. I mean, he was just a

241
00:14:04,960 --> 00:14:07,840
Speaker 3: true He was one of the most vital people I've

242
00:14:07,840 --> 00:14:11,880
Speaker 3: ever known. And he exemplified that spirit of vitality and

243
00:14:11,920 --> 00:14:15,199
Speaker 3: inventedness and sourcefulness all of his life. But that still

244
00:14:15,200 --> 00:14:18,000
Speaker 3: doesn't take you wanted to know what I saw is

245
00:14:18,280 --> 00:14:21,280
Speaker 3: his greatest weakness. Well, his other greatest weakness was a

246
00:14:21,800 --> 00:14:24,920
Speaker 3: trauma that he carried with him from childhood. He was

247
00:14:25,000 --> 00:14:29,960
Speaker 3: so mistrustful that it took a great deal for him

248
00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:34,000
Speaker 3: to give himself to other people, to demonstrate love, to

249
00:14:34,080 --> 00:14:37,640
Speaker 3: show his you know, to show his concern. But when

250
00:14:37,640 --> 00:14:39,880
Speaker 3: he did, he gave it all out. And that's another

251
00:14:39,960 --> 00:14:42,120
Speaker 3: thing in the book which surprised me, because I found

252
00:14:42,200 --> 00:14:45,600
Speaker 3: all these extended families which he formed in the absence

253
00:14:45,640 --> 00:14:56,280
Speaker 3: of the family he had left behind in Holland, Okay.

254
00:14:58,440 --> 00:15:03,640
Speaker 2: Eldest dies in sevent According to the book, the recording

255
00:15:03,720 --> 00:15:07,320
Speaker 2: rights were all sold to RCA before to help Elvis

256
00:15:07,320 --> 00:15:16,080
Speaker 2: out financially. Elvis dies in seventy seven. From Elvis, does

257
00:15:16,360 --> 00:15:19,800
Speaker 2: the colonel continue to make money after his death or

258
00:15:19,880 --> 00:15:21,280
Speaker 2: is it pretty much stopped there?

259
00:15:22,240 --> 00:15:24,360
Speaker 3: No, No, he made a great deal of money for

260
00:15:25,200 --> 00:15:29,960
Speaker 3: himself and for the estate. He again generated more money

261
00:15:29,960 --> 00:15:32,000
Speaker 3: I think than any other manager could have, and it

262
00:15:32,120 --> 00:15:34,240
Speaker 3: was an enormous amount of money for the estate. And

263
00:15:34,280 --> 00:15:39,400
Speaker 3: he found ingenious ways of getting RCA to pay more

264
00:15:39,440 --> 00:15:43,080
Speaker 3: money than they would have otherwise, to advance money. And

265
00:15:43,160 --> 00:15:48,400
Speaker 3: he made deals for the showings, basically with Colonel Parker,

266
00:15:49,640 --> 00:15:54,360
Speaker 3: just as with you know, most good businessman. Ownership was everything,

267
00:15:55,000 --> 00:15:59,200
Speaker 3: and the television specials that Elvis did the estate came

268
00:15:59,240 --> 00:16:02,560
Speaker 3: to all And so he made deals after Elvis died

269
00:16:02,600 --> 00:16:06,120
Speaker 3: for the reshowings of the very lucrative deals for the

270
00:16:06,120 --> 00:16:09,280
Speaker 3: reshowings of the television specials that Elvis had, so he

271
00:16:09,320 --> 00:16:11,720
Speaker 3: made a great deal of money for the estate, and

272
00:16:13,080 --> 00:16:18,200
Speaker 3: both Vernon Presley and Priscilla Presley were very at Priscilla

273
00:16:18,240 --> 00:16:20,680
Speaker 3: Presley wasn't part of the estate, but she was involved

274
00:16:20,760 --> 00:16:25,680
Speaker 3: as the mother of Elvis's heir, Lisa Marie, and they

275
00:16:25,680 --> 00:16:29,680
Speaker 3: were very happy with it. But when Vernon died, the

276
00:16:29,720 --> 00:16:31,640
Speaker 3: court came in and I think it was the Chancery

277
00:16:31,680 --> 00:16:36,000
Speaker 3: Court of Memphis, and they ordered that there'd be an

278
00:16:36,040 --> 00:16:42,120
Speaker 3: adlita attorney to take up the interests of the miner

279
00:16:42,360 --> 00:16:46,960
Speaker 3: who was now the sole heir of Elvis' estate. This

280
00:16:47,120 --> 00:16:49,520
Speaker 3: was Lisa Marie and she was at this point, I

281
00:16:49,520 --> 00:16:56,200
Speaker 3: think twelve years old. And the court ordered that the

282
00:16:56,320 --> 00:17:00,080
Speaker 3: estate sued the colonel. The estate did not want to

283
00:17:00,200 --> 00:17:01,960
Speaker 3: so the colonel and it ended up being a money

284
00:17:02,040 --> 00:17:04,960
Speaker 3: drained for everybody, but they were ordered by the court

285
00:17:05,000 --> 00:17:08,280
Speaker 3: to do it. The ad Leadam attorney made a report

286
00:17:08,359 --> 00:17:12,040
Speaker 3: which and you asked earlier what the source of Elvis's

287
00:17:12,080 --> 00:17:14,639
Speaker 3: bad reputation is, it was primarily, I would say, the

288
00:17:14,640 --> 00:17:21,120
Speaker 3: odd Leadam report, which involves involved a considerable misunderstanding by

289
00:17:21,119 --> 00:17:25,200
Speaker 3: someone who really did not know much about show business

290
00:17:25,320 --> 00:17:28,600
Speaker 3: or the entertainment world of many of the deals Colonel

291
00:17:28,600 --> 00:17:32,760
Speaker 3: had made by for simple example, he upbraided Colonel. Well,

292
00:17:32,760 --> 00:17:35,280
Speaker 3: first of all, one thing was he saw Colonel is

293
00:17:35,320 --> 00:17:37,880
Speaker 3: taking fifty percent of everything, which from the beginning, which

294
00:17:37,960 --> 00:17:41,000
Speaker 3: wasn't true. But the main thing that I think he misunderstood,

295
00:17:41,000 --> 00:17:44,600
Speaker 3: he just misunderstood the terms of the deals. And for example,

296
00:17:44,720 --> 00:17:51,440
Speaker 3: he upbraided Colonel for having maintained for having let Elvis

297
00:17:51,480 --> 00:17:55,120
Speaker 3: continue to collect a five percent royalty on his records

298
00:17:55,119 --> 00:17:58,800
Speaker 3: at a time when other artists were making a great

299
00:17:58,840 --> 00:18:01,639
Speaker 3: deal more. That was not what the contract called for.

300
00:18:01,720 --> 00:18:05,040
Speaker 3: The contract was improved every year. The first year, the

301
00:18:05,119 --> 00:18:08,600
Speaker 3: first year of the contract RCA in fifty six, eleven

302
00:18:08,640 --> 00:18:11,119
Speaker 3: months after the initial signing, it was improved by a

303
00:18:11,160 --> 00:18:14,320
Speaker 3: million dollars. It continued to be improved. The royalties continued

304
00:18:14,359 --> 00:18:17,760
Speaker 3: to be improved. But because of and I don't know

305
00:18:17,880 --> 00:18:20,600
Speaker 3: you want to hear all this, but because of the

306
00:18:20,680 --> 00:18:27,760
Speaker 3: most Favored Nations agreements, which everybody knows. You know, every

307
00:18:27,840 --> 00:18:30,440
Speaker 3: any manager worth assault is going to get the most

308
00:18:30,480 --> 00:18:34,560
Speaker 3: Favored Nations agreement for his artist if the artist is

309
00:18:34,840 --> 00:18:37,360
Speaker 3: enough of a start. That means that you know, if

310
00:18:37,400 --> 00:18:40,320
Speaker 3: you get one hundred and ten dollars, I get one

311
00:18:40,400 --> 00:18:42,439
Speaker 3: hundred and ten dollars even if I signed for ninety.

312
00:18:43,040 --> 00:18:44,959
Speaker 3: So the problem was that if Elvis got more than

313
00:18:45,040 --> 00:18:48,000
Speaker 3: five percent, which was a top royalty rate that RCA

314
00:18:48,160 --> 00:18:49,960
Speaker 3: was paying, that would mean a lot of other people

315
00:18:49,960 --> 00:18:52,720
Speaker 3: would get more than five percent. Well, Elvis got a

316
00:18:52,760 --> 00:18:55,520
Speaker 3: lot more than five percent, but it wasn't written in

317
00:18:55,560 --> 00:18:59,199
Speaker 3: the contract. It was part of an unwritten agreement of

318
00:18:59,240 --> 00:19:03,439
Speaker 3: the recon agreements which were attached to every contract that

319
00:19:03,760 --> 00:19:06,000
Speaker 3: he went on from nineteen fifty six on.

320
00:19:06,600 --> 00:19:10,160
Speaker 2: Okay to put a bow on it. Because Elvis dies

321
00:19:10,200 --> 00:19:13,679
Speaker 2: in seventy seven, it's a very different circumstance. And today

322
00:19:13,720 --> 00:19:17,960
Speaker 2: with streaming, where all the music of the deceased artists

323
00:19:18,000 --> 00:19:20,480
Speaker 2: at a fingertip, they have to produce albums, they get

324
00:19:20,480 --> 00:19:23,520
Speaker 2: all the factories, et cetera. The word at the time

325
00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:27,840
Speaker 2: was that all of these rights had been sold to

326
00:19:28,080 --> 00:19:32,600
Speaker 2: RCA and Elvis and Elvis's estate Elvis' is obviously deceased,

327
00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:36,560
Speaker 2: did not get another penny from the sale of the records.

328
00:19:36,720 --> 00:19:38,960
Speaker 2: Is that true? No?

329
00:19:39,680 --> 00:19:44,520
Speaker 3: I mean what was sold Elvis and Vernon's demand in

330
00:19:44,640 --> 00:19:50,080
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy three were future royalties on recordings made before

331
00:19:50,240 --> 00:19:55,120
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy three, that's royalties. The RCA, the record company

332
00:19:55,280 --> 00:19:57,880
Speaker 3: owned the masters, as every record company at the time,

333
00:19:57,920 --> 00:20:03,600
Speaker 3: didn continue to get royalties on everything that he recorded.

334
00:20:03,640 --> 00:20:08,720
Speaker 3: After nineteen seventy three, Colonel continued to put in bonus points.

335
00:20:09,880 --> 00:20:12,440
Speaker 3: I don't know how best to describe it, but for example,

336
00:20:12,480 --> 00:20:16,359
Speaker 3: one of the things that Colonel ensured was that if

337
00:20:16,560 --> 00:20:20,840
Speaker 3: pre nineteen seventy three recordings were released, post nineteen seventy

338
00:20:20,880 --> 00:20:24,880
Speaker 3: three recordings were included on the same album. Therefore the

339
00:20:25,000 --> 00:20:28,359
Speaker 3: Elvis Elvis estate would get royalties. I mean, it's a

340
00:20:28,480 --> 00:20:32,639
Speaker 3: very complicated thing, but he got concessions. Having made one deal,

341
00:20:33,359 --> 00:20:36,480
Speaker 3: he got concessions out of URCA, first for Elvis and

342
00:20:36,520 --> 00:20:40,239
Speaker 3: then for the estate, so that Elvis would continue to

343
00:20:40,280 --> 00:20:44,280
Speaker 3: make and the estate continued to make extraordinary amounts of money.

344
00:20:46,080 --> 00:20:49,439
Speaker 3: You know, I don't have all this my fingertips, But

345
00:20:49,480 --> 00:20:56,920
Speaker 3: for example, let's say, in order for the Colonel owned

346
00:20:56,960 --> 00:21:01,040
Speaker 3: all the photographs, and it was within in RCA's power

347
00:21:01,320 --> 00:21:04,800
Speaker 3: to pay a great deal more for photographs to Colonel

348
00:21:04,840 --> 00:21:07,760
Speaker 3: and into the estate than they would have otherwise. But

349
00:21:08,520 --> 00:21:13,720
Speaker 3: the income stream never stopped, and Elvis in the immediate

350
00:21:13,760 --> 00:21:18,120
Speaker 3: aftermath of his death was the Elvis estate was making

351
00:21:18,160 --> 00:21:20,240
Speaker 3: a great deal of money. One of the ways they

352
00:21:20,280 --> 00:21:23,120
Speaker 3: were making the money was it was the Colonel's greatest

353
00:21:23,160 --> 00:21:27,240
Speaker 3: concern and I think people who are concerned with intellectual

354
00:21:27,280 --> 00:21:30,760
Speaker 3: property today, which is you know, the word on the street,

355
00:21:30,960 --> 00:21:36,680
Speaker 3: the word everywhere is IP intellectual property. Colonel was concerned

356
00:21:36,680 --> 00:21:40,080
Speaker 3: in the immediate from the day of Elvis's death on

357
00:21:40,760 --> 00:21:44,320
Speaker 3: that what he called vultures would come in, swoop in

358
00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:49,359
Speaker 3: and basically they would merchandise. They would sell merchandise, making

359
00:21:49,440 --> 00:21:52,879
Speaker 3: money off of Elvis's name and likeness. There was no

360
00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:55,280
Speaker 3: law at that time that prevented them from doing that.

361
00:21:55,920 --> 00:21:58,480
Speaker 3: There was no lot exactly the prevented them. There was

362
00:21:58,520 --> 00:22:03,560
Speaker 3: eventually an Elvis Law which people in Hollywood, stars in

363
00:22:03,600 --> 00:22:06,560
Speaker 3: Hollywood were able to take advantage of. It was the

364
00:22:06,600 --> 00:22:10,200
Speaker 3: first law was in Tennessee, but that was in the future.

365
00:22:10,600 --> 00:22:12,920
Speaker 3: But Colonel set up a Then he made a deal

366
00:22:12,960 --> 00:22:17,359
Speaker 3: with a company called Factors Incorporated, which had represented I

367
00:22:17,359 --> 00:22:20,359
Speaker 3: think Faara Facet Majors and made a huge amount of

368
00:22:20,400 --> 00:22:23,840
Speaker 3: money off of merchandise in her stuff. And he made

369
00:22:23,840 --> 00:22:25,760
Speaker 3: a deal which brought a great deal into the estate.

370
00:22:26,200 --> 00:22:29,240
Speaker 3: Factors actually ended up losing money, because what they guaranteed

371
00:22:29,760 --> 00:22:34,800
Speaker 3: was to go after every malefactor who attempted to make

372
00:22:34,880 --> 00:22:40,240
Speaker 3: money off of Elvis's name and likeness. And so you know, again,

373
00:22:40,280 --> 00:22:42,520
Speaker 3: I'm not saying this is a perfect thing. I don't

374
00:22:42,560 --> 00:22:45,679
Speaker 3: know what the perfect thing would have been. But Colonel

375
00:22:45,720 --> 00:22:50,680
Speaker 3: took an extremely proactive role. And if you look at

376
00:22:50,720 --> 00:22:53,320
Speaker 3: the I don't have this in front of me right now,

377
00:22:53,359 --> 00:22:55,000
Speaker 3: but if you were to look at I have all

378
00:22:55,040 --> 00:22:58,240
Speaker 3: the you know, all the information. And if you were

379
00:22:58,240 --> 00:23:00,600
Speaker 3: to look at the income there was general for the

380
00:23:00,760 --> 00:23:06,080
Speaker 3: estate in the three years between Elvis's death and Vernon's death,

381
00:23:06,400 --> 00:23:08,600
Speaker 3: the estate made a great deal of money.

382
00:23:09,520 --> 00:23:13,359
Speaker 2: If this lead deep if RCA, if a song is

383
00:23:13,480 --> 00:23:17,119
Speaker 2: stream or a songness sould, does the eldest estique get

384
00:23:17,160 --> 00:23:17,720
Speaker 2: any money?

385
00:23:21,400 --> 00:23:25,359
Speaker 3: One of the things Colonel insisted on. And again, anybody

386
00:23:25,359 --> 00:23:29,640
Speaker 3: in the music business would understand this. Most people outside

387
00:23:29,680 --> 00:23:34,119
Speaker 3: of music business wouldn't. Where is the money situated in

388
00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:37,720
Speaker 3: the music business. It's in publishing. It's all very well.

389
00:23:38,280 --> 00:23:41,639
Speaker 3: If let's say let's let's say I put out a

390
00:23:41,640 --> 00:23:44,040
Speaker 3: record and I have a hit. That's great. I'll make

391
00:23:44,080 --> 00:23:46,920
Speaker 3: a certain amount of money. Maybe I make five percent royalty,

392
00:23:46,920 --> 00:23:49,280
Speaker 3: maybe at this point, I'll make twelve percent. I don't

393
00:23:49,280 --> 00:23:51,840
Speaker 3: know what I'll make. But when the record is done,

394
00:23:51,920 --> 00:23:55,680
Speaker 3: it's done. However you may go on. You may cover

395
00:23:55,720 --> 00:23:59,000
Speaker 3: that record. There may be a polka band that covers it.

396
00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:01,080
Speaker 3: It may be come back as he hit twenty five

397
00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:03,800
Speaker 3: years from now. The person who owns the publisher is

398
00:24:03,840 --> 00:24:06,840
Speaker 3: the person who makes the money. The thing that Colonel

399
00:24:06,920 --> 00:24:11,680
Speaker 3: set up from the beginning was a partnership with for Elvis,

400
00:24:11,800 --> 00:24:14,560
Speaker 3: with Hill and Range, which is one of the pioneer

401
00:24:14,640 --> 00:24:19,399
Speaker 3: and BMI, which was the you know, the rebel rights group.

402
00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:24,120
Speaker 3: I mean they set up against ASCAP back in I'm

403
00:24:24,119 --> 00:24:26,240
Speaker 3: trying to think when I think, probably in the early forties,

404
00:24:26,280 --> 00:24:29,360
Speaker 3: but they didn't come really come into their own. BMI

405
00:24:29,440 --> 00:24:31,760
Speaker 3: and Hill and Range is one of the leading publishers

406
00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:37,560
Speaker 3: until the late forties, and they essentially represented those groups

407
00:24:37,560 --> 00:24:40,639
Speaker 3: which had not BMI represented those groups which hadn't been

408
00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:46,560
Speaker 3: represented before, which was primarily hillbilly and black music. Elvis

409
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:51,080
Speaker 3: had a partnership with Hill and Range, so that virtually

410
00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:53,760
Speaker 3: every song that he recorded, at least for the ten years,

411
00:24:53,760 --> 00:24:58,000
Speaker 3: the songs that formed the basis for the Elvis Library,

412
00:24:58,040 --> 00:25:02,359
Speaker 3: the Elvis Archive. He was a fifty to fifty partner

413
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:05,560
Speaker 3: with Hill and Range in the publishing, so he continues

414
00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:09,440
Speaker 3: to make to this day. Elvis, by the way, would

415
00:25:09,440 --> 00:25:12,800
Speaker 3: not participate in the more common practice of putting his

416
00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:15,959
Speaker 3: name on a song. He did that with three songs

417
00:25:15,960 --> 00:25:17,760
Speaker 3: at the beginning. One of them was Don't Be Cruel,

418
00:25:17,760 --> 00:25:19,560
Speaker 3: one was Love Me Tender, and he said, I've never

419
00:25:19,560 --> 00:25:21,199
Speaker 3: written a song. I don't want to do this, and

420
00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:23,080
Speaker 3: he dropped out. Hill and Range wanted him to do

421
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:26,280
Speaker 3: it because it was a clearer it was a clearer

422
00:25:26,640 --> 00:25:29,960
Speaker 3: right of property. I think I read an argument about it,

423
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:33,440
Speaker 3: and I can't recapitulate it. But Elvis wouldn't do it anyway.

424
00:25:33,760 --> 00:25:36,240
Speaker 3: But he did have the publishing, and he had the

425
00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:38,879
Speaker 3: publishing it because Colonel. There are several letters in the

426
00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:43,400
Speaker 3: book in which Colonel tells him, you know you've got

427
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:46,040
Speaker 3: lots of friends. Your friends may come to you and

428
00:25:46,040 --> 00:25:49,080
Speaker 3: they'll say, Elvis, I have the most wonderful song for you.

429
00:25:49,119 --> 00:25:52,040
Speaker 3: It's going to make you more money, but I'm going

430
00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:54,000
Speaker 3: to keep the publishing. And Colonel said, those are not

431
00:25:54,160 --> 00:25:54,720
Speaker 3: your friends.

432
00:25:55,280 --> 00:25:55,560
Speaker 2: You know.

433
00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 3: If they are your friends, they'll want to see you

434
00:25:58,200 --> 00:26:02,280
Speaker 3: make money too. And it is that by owning the

435
00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:05,560
Speaker 3: by calling the publishing on all of his songs. As

436
00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:07,680
Speaker 3: Colonel wrote to me, he says, you will have income

437
00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:11,119
Speaker 3: coming to you long after you have ceased performing. And

438
00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:13,160
Speaker 3: to a degree that's true. To another degree it may

439
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:17,280
Speaker 3: not be true because the problem I think with Elvis

440
00:26:17,280 --> 00:26:22,320
Speaker 3: owning the publishing and not having the co writing is

441
00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:25,040
Speaker 3: that once Elvis recorded a song on the hits anyway,

442
00:26:25,119 --> 00:26:28,200
Speaker 3: he put such a stamp on the song that I'm

443
00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:30,800
Speaker 3: not sure how many covers a lot of those songs got.

444
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:32,960
Speaker 3: I mean, they continue to be recorded, but I don't

445
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:35,080
Speaker 3: know how many hits. I don't know how many people

446
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:38,560
Speaker 3: have re recorded Jailhouse Rock and had a hit with it,

447
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:40,760
Speaker 3: or don't be cruel or that kind of thing.

448
00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:46,320
Speaker 2: Okay, So definitively, at this point in time, the estate

449
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:48,600
Speaker 2: still gets publishing income.

450
00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:52,960
Speaker 3: As far as I knows, unless they change the deal.

451
00:26:53,040 --> 00:26:55,600
Speaker 3: But yes, okay to the destory.

452
00:26:55,640 --> 00:26:59,120
Speaker 2: And although it is a smaller amount than publishing income,

453
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:03,000
Speaker 2: does the estate still get recording royalties?

454
00:27:05,280 --> 00:27:10,040
Speaker 3: No, they get recording recording royalties. They tried to reverse

455
00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:15,520
Speaker 3: the deal in more recent times, but the deal was

456
00:27:15,560 --> 00:27:19,960
Speaker 3: pretty much irreversible. They get recording. They get royalties from

457
00:27:19,960 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 3: the records that were cut after nineteen from nineteen seventy

458
00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:27,600
Speaker 3: three on, and that's a considerable number of records, and

459
00:27:27,640 --> 00:27:30,439
Speaker 3: they continue to be repackaged, so they do get those,

460
00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:34,360
Speaker 3: and they will also get and I mean if albums

461
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:39,000
Speaker 3: still sell, and that's a big if they would continue

462
00:27:39,080 --> 00:27:44,359
Speaker 3: to get income from albums which include not only songs

463
00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:48,000
Speaker 3: recorded before seventy three, but signs recorded after nineteen seventy three,

464
00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:53,640
Speaker 3: which was something that Colonel insisted on during his tenure.

465
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:58,800
Speaker 2: Okay, back to the kernel. Elvis was the first big

466
00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:03,240
Speaker 2: rock star, organic rock star prior to the Beatles. Conventional

467
00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:06,760
Speaker 2: wisdom at this point in time is Brian Epstein was

468
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:10,879
Speaker 2: great in promoting the Beatles, not so great financially. Brian

469
00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:14,600
Speaker 2: Epstein dies in the late sixties. A lot of things

470
00:28:14,760 --> 00:28:19,080
Speaker 2: change in the music business in the seventies. First and foremost,

471
00:28:19,160 --> 00:28:22,720
Speaker 2: the record companies end up being owned by larger conglomerates, etc.

472
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:27,560
Speaker 2: But you get this era of supermanagers. You know, there're

473
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:30,520
Speaker 2: a lot from Jerry Weintraub who worked with Elvis, to

474
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:37,440
Speaker 2: David Geffen to Irving as Off, etc. Was the Colonel

475
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:39,960
Speaker 2: just as good as them. It was a different era,

476
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:45,960
Speaker 2: or was he superseded by a later generation of managers, a.

477
00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:48,520
Speaker 3: Lot of exempt Jerry Wintrop, I don't, I mean Jay,

478
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:54,280
Speaker 3: but leaving that outside, I think he was just as good.

479
00:28:54,320 --> 00:28:57,400
Speaker 3: I mean he The biggest thing was, as he said,

480
00:28:57,520 --> 00:29:00,760
Speaker 3: he says, I'm not a polo lounge manager. I don't

481
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:03,600
Speaker 3: just sit back and collect my money. I don't have

482
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:08,840
Speaker 3: a stable of artists, each of whom pay me my money,

483
00:29:08,880 --> 00:29:12,040
Speaker 3: and none of whom I fully support. I am out

484
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:15,040
Speaker 3: there with my artist, and I am out there one

485
00:29:15,120 --> 00:29:17,800
Speaker 3: hundred percent. And I'm not just out I'm out there

486
00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 3: on tour with them. I'm involved in every aspect of

487
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:24,120
Speaker 3: their business, of his business. I mean, you're talking about one,

488
00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 3: one artist manager of so this is it's a very

489
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:30,960
Speaker 3: different kind of situation. You would You wouldn't have this

490
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:36,400
Speaker 3: degree of dedication, devotion or just pure I would call

491
00:29:36,520 --> 00:29:39,280
Speaker 3: love and admiration for the artist. You you don't see

492
00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:42,640
Speaker 3: that kind of thing to that extent. The other thing

493
00:29:42,760 --> 00:29:47,240
Speaker 3: is that Elvis's and Colonel's business was entirely separate. When

494
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 3: Elvis's money came to Elvis directly, there was no pass through,

495
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:55,160
Speaker 3: there wasn't anything. I mean, Colonel got his twenty five

496
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 3: percent in one check, Elvis got his seventy five percent

497
00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:01,200
Speaker 3: in another check. Whether it was from RCA or you know,

498
00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:04,000
Speaker 3: the promoter or anybody else, but the biggest thing, and

499
00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:06,920
Speaker 3: I honestly think that this is a huge difference, and

500
00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:09,920
Speaker 3: it's what was revolutionary. Well, Colonel did I I can't

501
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:12,720
Speaker 3: you know the name. I know all the names that

502
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:15,800
Speaker 3: you mentioned, but the only name that I would say

503
00:30:16,280 --> 00:30:19,240
Speaker 3: was comparable to colonel and I know a lot of

504
00:30:19,280 --> 00:30:21,920
Speaker 3: people would dismiss this would be Alan Klein. And the

505
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:25,240
Speaker 3: biggest difference between Colonel and Allen and Alan Klein. I'll

506
00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 3: say I knew Alan Klein very well. I would say,

507
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 3: against what most people would want me to say, he

508
00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:35,160
Speaker 3: was a very good friend, but perhaps the most difficult

509
00:30:35,200 --> 00:30:39,280
Speaker 3: friend you could ever have. But Alan Klein essentially did

510
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:42,120
Speaker 3: attempted to do the same thing. I mean, if you

511
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:45,200
Speaker 3: were to look at the situation that the Rolling Stones

512
00:30:45,280 --> 00:30:49,120
Speaker 3: were in through Andrew Andrew lou Goldham's management when Alan

513
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:51,840
Speaker 3: Klein took over. I know that Mick Jagger hates him.

514
00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 3: I know Jack Keith Richards likes I don't want to

515
00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:57,080
Speaker 3: make it personal, and I know that Keith and that

516
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:00,160
Speaker 3: this is not the way MC Jagger sees it. Keyth

517
00:31:00,360 --> 00:31:03,560
Speaker 3: Richards was always close to Alan. But the point is

518
00:31:03,760 --> 00:31:07,880
Speaker 3: what Alan did in terms of allowing them to be

519
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 3: in charge of their business well at the same time

520
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:13,280
Speaker 3: taking control of all the publishing, which will be a

521
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:17,040
Speaker 3: source of conflict to this day. But that was what

522
00:31:17,240 --> 00:31:22,040
Speaker 3: Colonel did for Alan. By the way, the huge, biggest difference,

523
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 3: a huge difference between Alan Klein and Colonel Parker was

524
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:27,680
Speaker 3: that Alan didn't have a sense of humor. Colonel had

525
00:31:27,720 --> 00:31:30,240
Speaker 3: a great sense of humor. It was what kept him going.

526
00:31:30,720 --> 00:31:33,320
Speaker 3: But the thing that with Colonel, and I think that

527
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:35,760
Speaker 3: has to be taken into account, and the thing that

528
00:31:35,800 --> 00:31:38,800
Speaker 3: sets him apart from virtually every other manager you can name.

529
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:43,480
Speaker 3: He loved his artist. He signed his artist, the greatest,

530
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:48,880
Speaker 3: the greatest entertainer, the greatest singer, the greatest visionary that

531
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:52,440
Speaker 3: he had ever known. He believed in him one hundred percent,

532
00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:54,840
Speaker 3: and he did everything from the very beginning. And this

533
00:31:54,920 --> 00:31:57,400
Speaker 3: is I mean, I call one of the early chapters

534
00:31:57,800 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 3: about his association with Elvis, and there's a lot of

535
00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:04,440
Speaker 3: story before Elvis and Colonel's career with Eddie Arnold mirrors

536
00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:08,080
Speaker 3: what he did with Elvis almost exactly and made out

537
00:32:08,200 --> 00:32:11,240
Speaker 3: Eddie Arnold into a superstar such as country music did

538
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:15,720
Speaker 3: never saw again until Garth Brooks. But with Elvis, I

539
00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:19,480
Speaker 3: call the chapter defending Elvis, and he defended Elvis at

540
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:22,840
Speaker 3: every turn, and most of all, he defended his artist

541
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 3: artistic choices. And no matter who came at him, whether

542
00:32:26,760 --> 00:32:30,040
Speaker 3: RCA came at him, whether William Barris said, look, the

543
00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:33,640
Speaker 3: way he's appearing on television is terrible, whether the movies

544
00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:38,320
Speaker 3: or television or anybody else asked him to change his

545
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:41,680
Speaker 3: artist approach or change his approach to promoting his arts,

546
00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:44,520
Speaker 3: he says, you know, my artist knows what he's doing.

547
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:47,680
Speaker 3: He knows his business. I stand behind him one hundred percent.

548
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:50,240
Speaker 3: And that's something I don't think he's ever gotten credit for.

549
00:32:50,320 --> 00:32:53,040
Speaker 3: And yet I think it's incontrovertible if you look at

550
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:56,680
Speaker 3: the effects.

551
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:06,760
Speaker 2: Okay, you have all these letters, and some of them

552
00:33:06,800 --> 00:33:10,760
Speaker 2: are very lengthy. Needless to say, we don't live in

553
00:33:10,800 --> 00:33:15,280
Speaker 2: the same era now, we live in a text email world.

554
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:21,480
Speaker 2: But certainly when Elvis is the star, there is the telephone.

555
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 2: Do you find that he would write letters when other

556
00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:29,280
Speaker 2: people did not, or it was just a different era

557
00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 2: and everybody wrote letters.

558
00:33:32,160 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 3: I think it was a different era, you know. And

559
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:36,320
Speaker 3: you mentioned the differences. Short attention span might be the

560
00:33:36,320 --> 00:33:40,360
Speaker 3: biggest difference of all. I mean, try writing an email

561
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:43,440
Speaker 3: that people can will actually read. I mean, I'm told

562
00:33:43,480 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 3: by by kiss you've got to keep your email, show

563
00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:50,200
Speaker 3: one one topic to the email. But I'm not convinced

564
00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:53,479
Speaker 3: that even that will work. But no, I mean looking,

565
00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:56,560
Speaker 3: I mean looking at the correspondence. And I went through

566
00:33:56,640 --> 00:34:00,719
Speaker 3: thousands and thousands of letters, and they weren't just those letters.

567
00:34:01,040 --> 00:34:04,720
Speaker 3: Everybody wrote letters. The thing that was most entertaining was

568
00:34:04,760 --> 00:34:09,759
Speaker 3: that everybody that Colonel liked, all of Colonel's pals in

569
00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:12,360
Speaker 3: a sense, tried to top each other even in the

570
00:34:12,400 --> 00:34:16,880
Speaker 3: midst of doing business with jokes with you know, just

571
00:34:17,040 --> 00:34:21,520
Speaker 3: it was a kind of a generation. It was a

572
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:25,120
Speaker 3: generation that prized kid in as much as anything else,

573
00:34:25,480 --> 00:34:28,120
Speaker 3: and you get each of them that in the way.

574
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:30,239
Speaker 3: Was one of the things that was so wonderful was

575
00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:32,919
Speaker 3: to see the extent to which they engaged with each other,

576
00:34:34,160 --> 00:34:36,960
Speaker 3: and engage with each other even in business on a

577
00:34:37,040 --> 00:34:40,400
Speaker 3: kind of amicable basis, but definitely on a basis to

578
00:34:40,400 --> 00:34:43,080
Speaker 3: try to get the best deal possible in the Colonel's case,

579
00:34:43,120 --> 00:34:43,360
Speaker 3: for his.

580
00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:48,919
Speaker 2: Artists, when one reads the letters. To use the vernacular,

581
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:53,480
Speaker 2: the Colonel's kissing a lot of butt. You're so great,

582
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:56,360
Speaker 2: You're so great. I may not be aware of what's

583
00:34:56,440 --> 00:35:01,920
Speaker 2: going on, Okay, was his style in general.

584
00:35:03,200 --> 00:35:05,239
Speaker 3: I wouldn't call it kissing, but I think that he

585
00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:08,680
Speaker 3: is having a He's having a laugh at their expensiveness.

586
00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:12,000
Speaker 3: He's recognizes that nobody is going to take them seriously

587
00:35:12,040 --> 00:35:15,040
Speaker 3: when he says that, I mean, this is a very

588
00:35:15,160 --> 00:35:18,640
Speaker 3: very canny person. He's dealing with people, he's dealing with

589
00:35:18,680 --> 00:35:20,919
Speaker 3: Ivy Lee. I mean, one of one of the things.

590
00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:24,799
Speaker 3: This is a class revolution on both his part and Elvis's.

591
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:28,440
Speaker 3: When they came to Hollywood, everybody looked at them and

592
00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:30,640
Speaker 3: they said, oh, look at those roofs, look at those

593
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:37,520
Speaker 3: country bumpkins. And he and Elvis proved, you know, all

594
00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:41,279
Speaker 3: these sophisticated people may have gone to Cornell, might have

595
00:35:41,280 --> 00:35:43,200
Speaker 3: gone to Kolgi, might have gone to Harvard, might have

596
00:35:43,239 --> 00:35:47,319
Speaker 3: gone to well wherever, And they proved them wrong. And

597
00:35:47,719 --> 00:35:51,839
Speaker 3: within within two or three months. And I think one

598
00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:55,360
Speaker 3: of the great jokes that Elvis and Colonel shared was

599
00:35:56,280 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 3: to look at each other to recognize that Elvis had

600
00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:04,520
Speaker 3: overcome the doubters with his talent. Colonel had overcome, you know,

601
00:36:04,600 --> 00:36:10,160
Speaker 3: the doubters with his call it his brilliance, his sophistication

602
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:17,160
Speaker 3: while playing the part of the country roup. And they

603
00:36:17,160 --> 00:36:18,960
Speaker 3: could look He and Elvis could look at each other

604
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:20,799
Speaker 3: because they shared a sense of humor and they shared

605
00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:24,440
Speaker 3: an appreciation, I think for the way the world was

606
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:27,480
Speaker 3: and for the way the world looked down upon people

607
00:36:27,560 --> 00:36:31,000
Speaker 3: of a lower class, I mean, of a lower economic class,

608
00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:33,080
Speaker 3: And they could look at each other and say, who's

609
00:36:33,120 --> 00:36:37,600
Speaker 3: the room now. But I know, I think that there

610
00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:43,879
Speaker 3: is an engagement in the letters occasionally, and they were

611
00:36:43,920 --> 00:36:47,480
Speaker 3: also there are so many letters in which Colonel just

612
00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:52,479
Speaker 3: upbraids when he is not writing to a friend and says,

613
00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:54,359
Speaker 3: how could you do this? How could you release the

614
00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:58,680
Speaker 3: movie follow That Dream as just another Elvis movie Following

615
00:36:58,680 --> 00:37:00,319
Speaker 3: a Dream? Actually, I think is one of them better

616
00:37:00,360 --> 00:37:02,880
Speaker 3: movies that Elvis made after I'm not a big advocate

617
00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:06,400
Speaker 3: of the movies, but but it was intended as a

618
00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:09,400
Speaker 3: different kind of comedy, almost an Andy Griffith kind of comedy.

619
00:37:09,880 --> 00:37:14,480
Speaker 3: And when it was released, Colonel wrote to the record,

620
00:37:14,600 --> 00:37:20,960
Speaker 3: to the movie company and studio and said, you know

621
00:37:21,080 --> 00:37:24,000
Speaker 3: you've released this out this record this. You've released this

622
00:37:24,160 --> 00:37:27,720
Speaker 3: movie which has its own unique tone in which Elvis

623
00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:31,000
Speaker 3: gives a good comic performance, and he released it as

624
00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:33,000
Speaker 3: if it were just another Elvis movie and people are

625
00:37:33,040 --> 00:37:35,040
Speaker 3: going to flock to it because it's another Elvis movie.

626
00:37:35,080 --> 00:37:37,600
Speaker 3: That's not the way this business works. You have to

627
00:37:37,640 --> 00:37:40,920
Speaker 3: sell what you're presented, and you had an opportunity here,

628
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:43,759
Speaker 3: or you maybe you still have an opportunity here to

629
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:46,640
Speaker 3: sell the product which you are putting out, but you're

630
00:37:46,640 --> 00:37:50,239
Speaker 3: not doing your job. So I would say he was

631
00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:55,080
Speaker 3: pretty frank where he was really frank and where he

632
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:58,400
Speaker 3: was direct and where he was in his dealings with RCA.

633
00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:04,880
Speaker 3: And very soon after the Grand High Pubas at RCA,

634
00:38:05,400 --> 00:38:10,840
Speaker 3: Bill Bullock and Steve Sholes and well variety people expressed

635
00:38:10,840 --> 00:38:14,880
Speaker 3: their disapproval and displeasure with the direction that Elvis was

636
00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:17,160
Speaker 3: taking and Colonel was taking and promoting him. In early

637
00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:22,000
Speaker 3: fifty six, very soon after that, Elvis's success and Colonel's

638
00:38:22,040 --> 00:38:27,000
Speaker 3: belief in Elvis completely disproved what the people at RCA were,

639
00:38:27,400 --> 00:38:30,680
Speaker 3: what the executives RCA were calling for, And he became

640
00:38:30,760 --> 00:38:33,600
Speaker 3: great friends with someone like Bill Bullock and they exchanged

641
00:38:33,640 --> 00:38:41,960
Speaker 3: all kinds of all kinds of joky letters, but also

642
00:38:42,080 --> 00:38:45,840
Speaker 3: letters in which they were negotiating for high stakes. And

643
00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:48,759
Speaker 3: when Bill Bullock comes to Colonel, for example, I think

644
00:38:48,800 --> 00:38:52,040
Speaker 3: around nineteen sixty and says, I've had a great idea,

645
00:38:52,480 --> 00:38:55,920
Speaker 3: we should record Elvis with a symphony orchestra. Colonel just says, look,

646
00:38:57,360 --> 00:38:59,839
Speaker 3: that's a terrific idea, but it does a disservice both

647
00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:02,680
Speaker 3: symphony orchestra into Elvis, and that's a terrible idea, and

648
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:03,960
Speaker 3: I don't think you should do it. I mean, he

649
00:39:04,280 --> 00:39:08,680
Speaker 3: wasn't hesitant about expressing his views, but always expressing his

650
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:13,719
Speaker 3: views after first after first consulting with Elvis and determining

651
00:39:13,719 --> 00:39:15,120
Speaker 3: that these were Elvis's views.

652
00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:21,319
Speaker 2: Okay, Also talking about conventional wisdom, which is debunked in

653
00:39:21,400 --> 00:39:27,040
Speaker 2: your book, A conventional wisdom is that Colonel was not

654
00:39:27,120 --> 00:39:29,920
Speaker 2: a citizen in the United States, and therefore he didn't

655
00:39:29,960 --> 00:39:34,000
Speaker 2: want Elvis playing outside the country. You debunked that. But

656
00:39:34,320 --> 00:39:39,600
Speaker 2: parallel to that in the book is ultimately the family

657
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:44,040
Speaker 2: in the Netherlands find out who he is and that

658
00:39:44,160 --> 00:39:48,880
Speaker 2: he's had success. He keeps them at arm's length.

659
00:39:50,280 --> 00:39:50,760
Speaker 3: He does.

660
00:39:50,880 --> 00:39:53,719
Speaker 2: Do you believe how much was keeping arm's length because

661
00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:57,239
Speaker 2: he was fear of being exposed. How much was he

662
00:39:57,320 --> 00:39:59,840
Speaker 2: wanted nothing to do with these people? How much is

663
00:39:59,880 --> 00:40:01,799
Speaker 2: he he hated the family? How much he feel you know,

664
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:04,680
Speaker 2: what was really going on there? Why was she really

665
00:40:04,840 --> 00:40:06,200
Speaker 2: keeping the family at arms with?

666
00:40:07,080 --> 00:40:08,719
Speaker 3: All? Right, I'm going to say yes to all of

667
00:40:08,760 --> 00:40:13,399
Speaker 3: the above, because honestly, you've touched on I mean when

668
00:40:13,440 --> 00:40:15,800
Speaker 3: you say I've debunked, I hope I haven't debunked. I

669
00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:20,560
Speaker 3: hope I've introduced issues that can continue to be discussed

670
00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:22,759
Speaker 3: and debated and in which people can make up their

671
00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:25,759
Speaker 3: own minds by both the facts that I'm presenting and

672
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:30,520
Speaker 3: sometimes the theories that I'm presenting. But this was a

673
00:40:30,640 --> 00:40:32,880
Speaker 3: very different world, and I want to be in terms

674
00:40:32,880 --> 00:40:35,680
Speaker 3: of citizenship. I want to put forward a few things,

675
00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:39,200
Speaker 3: but I want to start out by saying something terrible

676
00:40:39,360 --> 00:40:43,759
Speaker 3: must have happened to Andreas Cornelius one Kirk, the young

677
00:40:43,840 --> 00:40:47,319
Speaker 3: Colonel Drees was how he was known when he was

678
00:40:47,400 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 3: and I don't know what it was, And Colonel never

679
00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:52,240
Speaker 3: spoke of what it was. He spoke of his father

680
00:40:52,400 --> 00:40:55,799
Speaker 3: to his widow. He was a bad, bad man. He

681
00:40:55,880 --> 00:40:59,719
Speaker 3: said this several times. He loved his mother dearly. What

682
00:40:59,760 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 3: happened and what should have caused such a sense of

683
00:41:02,640 --> 00:41:06,680
Speaker 3: total dislocation and alienation. I don't know, and Colonel would

684
00:41:06,719 --> 00:41:08,719
Speaker 3: never address it, and I think that had to play

685
00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:13,919
Speaker 3: in to the sense. It was he adored his mother,

686
00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:18,800
Speaker 3: his sisters seemed to adore him, so I can't really

687
00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:21,960
Speaker 3: say what happened. But to get back to the citizenship question,

688
00:41:23,160 --> 00:41:25,600
Speaker 3: Colonel served in the Army for more than three years

689
00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:29,680
Speaker 3: the US Army as Tom Parker, a Dutch national. I mean,

690
00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:32,160
Speaker 3: the name was made up, but he did not masquerade

691
00:41:32,560 --> 00:41:33,360
Speaker 3: as an American.

692
00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:33,680
Speaker 2: He was.

693
00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:36,280
Speaker 3: He went in as he's listed as a Dutch national.

694
00:41:37,640 --> 00:41:41,839
Speaker 3: He married an American citizen, either one of which would

695
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:46,440
Speaker 3: have gotten him American citizenship had he applied. Now, I

696
00:41:47,120 --> 00:41:49,799
Speaker 3: think not everybody agrees with me that life is full

697
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:52,880
Speaker 3: of mysteries and that those mysteries cannot all be plumped.

698
00:41:53,320 --> 00:41:56,840
Speaker 3: I can't, for the life of me, understand why he

699
00:41:56,920 --> 00:41:59,960
Speaker 3: didn't simply become become an American citizen. There was even

700
00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:04,000
Speaker 3: at one point around nineteen forty or forty one, amnesty

701
00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:07,160
Speaker 3: was offered to everybody who would now be called an

702
00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:11,680
Speaker 3: illegal or whatever, who could become American citizens. He didn't,

703
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:15,600
Speaker 3: And when I spoke to LeeAnne about it. She could

704
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:19,720
Speaker 3: offer no explanation either other than Colonel didn't ask for favors.

705
00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:21,880
Speaker 3: I mean, he was friendly, he was great friends with

706
00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:24,920
Speaker 3: Lyndon Johnson. He could have asked Lindon Johnson to intercede.

707
00:42:25,080 --> 00:42:28,600
Speaker 3: I do understand why he wouldn't do that, because, as

708
00:42:28,840 --> 00:42:31,759
Speaker 3: you know, Colonel was the kind of person who might

709
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:36,960
Speaker 3: say Colonel Parker Grant's favors. He doesn't ask favors. But

710
00:42:37,160 --> 00:42:40,399
Speaker 3: there's no good explanation for it. But to go back

711
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:45,280
Speaker 3: again to the citizenship thing, the artist Will M d'cooney

712
00:42:46,160 --> 00:42:49,360
Speaker 3: came to America in nineteen twenty six, same year as Colonel,

713
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:53,680
Speaker 3: as a stowaway, same as Colonel from Rotterdale. Same as Colonel.

714
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:57,399
Speaker 3: He did not get his citizenship until nineteen sixty two.

715
00:42:58,760 --> 00:43:01,720
Speaker 3: He went to Venice in nineteen he was worried about

716
00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:05,080
Speaker 3: but he was worried about what this could mean. But

717
00:43:05,120 --> 00:43:08,719
Speaker 3: in nineteen fifty seven, as I understand it from reading

718
00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:12,200
Speaker 3: his biography, he went to Venice for celebration of his work.

719
00:43:12,600 --> 00:43:16,680
Speaker 3: Obviously he had a passport. You know, not everybody had

720
00:43:16,719 --> 00:43:20,640
Speaker 3: a birth certificate in those days. Prince, oh God, Prince

721
00:43:20,719 --> 00:43:25,560
Speaker 3: Mike Romanov a prominent Hollywood restaurateur who claimed, you know,

722
00:43:25,920 --> 00:43:29,239
Speaker 3: everything he claimed was false, but he claimed my other

723
00:43:29,280 --> 00:43:30,920
Speaker 3: things to be an air. I think he was a Lithuanian,

724
00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:33,560
Speaker 3: but Lithuanian Jew, but he claimed to be heir to

725
00:43:33,560 --> 00:43:37,520
Speaker 3: the Russian throne. He entered this country before either Bill

726
00:43:37,520 --> 00:43:40,360
Speaker 3: helmdacone nor a colonel. He got his citizenship in the

727
00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:44,080
Speaker 3: last years of the Eisenhower administration. It didn't I got

728
00:43:44,160 --> 00:43:46,320
Speaker 3: thrown out of this country several times, but he always

729
00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:49,760
Speaker 3: came back. It didn't affect his life in any way.

730
00:43:50,280 --> 00:43:53,120
Speaker 3: Colonel was planning a world tour for Elvis up until

731
00:43:53,200 --> 00:43:57,520
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty. You mentioned his brother coming over here in

732
00:43:57,640 --> 00:44:01,560
Speaker 3: sixty one. In some way way, I agree with you

733
00:44:01,920 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 3: that that was a traumatic record realization in his part.

734
00:44:05,239 --> 00:44:06,840
Speaker 3: There's a letter in the book which is the most

735
00:44:06,880 --> 00:44:11,120
Speaker 3: extraordinarily almost when I say schizophrenic, I don't mean it's

736
00:44:11,200 --> 00:44:15,080
Speaker 3: mental illness. But it's the most extraordinarily divided letter I've

737
00:44:15,120 --> 00:44:19,160
Speaker 3: ever seen, in which Colonel writes back to his brother's son,

738
00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:22,759
Speaker 3: his nephew, whom he didn't know, but writes back and

739
00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:24,759
Speaker 3: starts out in the third person as if he was

740
00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:32,279
Speaker 3: some obscure, obscure worker for this man, Colonel Parker, whom

741
00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:34,520
Speaker 3: he rarely saw. And by the end of the book,

742
00:44:34,560 --> 00:44:36,680
Speaker 3: it's almost by the end of the letter, which is

743
00:44:36,680 --> 00:44:38,719
Speaker 3: not that long a letter, it's a confessional and the

744
00:44:38,719 --> 00:44:42,960
Speaker 3: first person, somehow or that that really spooked to him

745
00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:44,880
Speaker 3: his brother coming over. There was no more talk of

746
00:44:44,880 --> 00:44:51,040
Speaker 3: a world tour after that. But what's weird if you

747
00:44:51,080 --> 00:44:52,840
Speaker 3: want to think about the differences in the world, and

748
00:44:52,920 --> 00:44:56,160
Speaker 3: we talked about reduced attention span, There's all kinds of

749
00:44:56,160 --> 00:45:00,160
Speaker 3: things we could talk about that are different the globe, well,

750
00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:05,720
Speaker 3: you know, network whatever. But everybody in Holland from nineteen

751
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:09,960
Speaker 3: sixty one on knew that Colonel Parker was Andreas van Kirk.

752
00:45:10,600 --> 00:45:13,600
Speaker 3: Nobody in this country. Nobody, I mean, I'm not saying

753
00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:15,920
Speaker 3: one or two knew. The only person in this country

754
00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:19,280
Speaker 3: who knew that Colonel was Dutch was Elvis Presley, because

755
00:45:19,320 --> 00:45:24,080
Speaker 3: Colonel introduced him to his brother. I find that virtually inexplicable,

756
00:45:24,080 --> 00:45:26,440
Speaker 3: So I'm not going to try to explain it. But

757
00:45:26,560 --> 00:45:29,760
Speaker 3: in the end, at the time when it was most

758
00:45:30,840 --> 00:45:34,680
Speaker 3: likely that Elvis would tour, in the seventies, when he

759
00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:40,040
Speaker 3: had begun making personal appearances again, and when the opportunity

760
00:45:40,520 --> 00:45:43,160
Speaker 3: seemed to the opportunity did come up, there were offers.

761
00:45:44,520 --> 00:45:48,000
Speaker 3: There were two things about this. One was when I

762
00:45:48,040 --> 00:45:51,000
Speaker 3: spoke to Brazilla Press when I was writing The Last

763
00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:54,560
Speaker 3: Trained to Memphis and Caroless Love. She said, you know,

764
00:45:54,800 --> 00:46:00,480
Speaker 3: Elvis was great for working up enthusiasm when he was

765
00:46:00,520 --> 00:46:03,000
Speaker 3: talking with the guys, the guys who worked for and

766
00:46:03,040 --> 00:46:05,000
Speaker 3: they were they all wanted to go to Europe. This

767
00:46:05,040 --> 00:46:07,799
Speaker 3: is in the sixties, and they were so excited about it,

768
00:46:08,000 --> 00:46:09,839
Speaker 3: and Elvis would be in there saying, man, that would

769
00:46:09,840 --> 00:46:12,000
Speaker 3: be the greatest thing we could ever do. Let's go

770
00:46:12,040 --> 00:46:14,440
Speaker 3: to Europe. And she said he would get back behind

771
00:46:14,480 --> 00:46:16,200
Speaker 3: closed doors. He said, I'm not going to Europe, but

772
00:46:16,400 --> 00:46:17,880
Speaker 3: I've been to Germany. Why don't I want to go

773
00:46:17,920 --> 00:46:19,759
Speaker 3: back to Europe? She said he had no win. Now,

774
00:46:19,840 --> 00:46:23,120
Speaker 3: maybe that's not just as Priscilla said, they didn't know

775
00:46:23,120 --> 00:46:24,800
Speaker 3: what he said behind the closed does with me. I

776
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:27,000
Speaker 3: didn't know what he said behind closed doors with them.

777
00:46:27,080 --> 00:46:30,560
Speaker 3: So maybe maybe that's not true, but that certainly appeared

778
00:46:30,560 --> 00:46:33,000
Speaker 3: to be the case as far as touring either Europe

779
00:46:33,080 --> 00:46:36,680
Speaker 3: or Japan in the in the seventies, and that was

780
00:46:36,719 --> 00:46:39,480
Speaker 3: born out by Tom Hewlett. You mentioned Jerry Weintraub. The

781
00:46:39,520 --> 00:46:44,000
Speaker 3: person who worked with with with Elvis was not Jerry Wintrub.

782
00:46:44,000 --> 00:46:46,640
Speaker 3: Who was Tom Hewlett, with whom Jerry Wintrub was partners

783
00:46:46,640 --> 00:46:49,200
Speaker 3: And he was a person who had pioneered in rock

784
00:46:49,440 --> 00:46:52,719
Speaker 3: in cross country rock tours with Jimmy Hendrix, with the

785
00:46:52,719 --> 00:46:55,960
Speaker 3: Creedence clear Water, with Everybody in the sixties, with concerts

786
00:46:55,960 --> 00:46:59,760
Speaker 3: West and he knew everything and he was the closest

787
00:46:59,760 --> 00:47:04,600
Speaker 3: per to Colonel. In the latter years he worked as

788
00:47:04,719 --> 00:47:07,040
Speaker 3: much as a partner. I mean, colonel had no partners.

789
00:47:08,120 --> 00:47:11,160
Speaker 3: Every people worked for him. Tom Hulett was a virtual

790
00:47:11,239 --> 00:47:13,240
Speaker 3: partner with him and they did the toys together.

791
00:47:21,280 --> 00:47:28,000
Speaker 2: Okay, everywhere the Colonel goes, he makes these friends and

792
00:47:28,040 --> 00:47:33,840
Speaker 2: he maintains the relationships. You're someone who actually knew the colonel.

793
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:36,040
Speaker 2: Too many people write books about people they never met.

794
00:47:36,440 --> 00:47:40,319
Speaker 2: You knew the guy. Is this just his personality? He

795
00:47:40,360 --> 00:47:43,120
Speaker 2: meets you, your best friend, he never forgets I realized

796
00:47:43,200 --> 00:47:45,759
Speaker 2: kept you personally at arm's length at first, but it

797
00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:49,040
Speaker 2: was a different situation. But he's in the army in Hawaii,

798
00:47:49,080 --> 00:47:52,680
Speaker 2: he meets his family, maintains the relationship for decades.

799
00:47:54,080 --> 00:47:56,600
Speaker 3: You know, no, that's I don't want to pretend. I mean,

800
00:47:56,760 --> 00:47:59,360
Speaker 3: you stated it correctly. I'm not pretending to an intimate

801
00:47:59,440 --> 00:48:02,080
Speaker 3: relationship with Colonel. I would have liked to have had one.

802
00:48:02,360 --> 00:48:05,879
Speaker 3: I've been friendly with lots of people. I could say, well, eventually,

803
00:48:06,120 --> 00:48:10,560
Speaker 3: after many years, Sam Phillips and I became true friends.

804
00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:14,319
Speaker 3: I mean not just you know, but I would never

805
00:48:14,360 --> 00:48:16,799
Speaker 3: boast about something that wasn't true. And with Colonel I

806
00:48:16,920 --> 00:48:18,719
Speaker 3: loved the relationship I had, but it was not a

807
00:48:18,960 --> 00:48:23,040
Speaker 3: you know, intimate. But I would say, you can look

808
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:25,880
Speaker 3: at Colonel's life and again this runs all through the book.

809
00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:29,080
Speaker 3: There was something missing in his life. He had left

810
00:48:29,120 --> 00:48:31,839
Speaker 3: his family behind. We don't know why he had left

811
00:48:31,840 --> 00:48:34,000
Speaker 3: his family behind. I mean, we don't know why he

812
00:48:34,080 --> 00:48:37,680
Speaker 3: never went back to it. You know, he stayed in

813
00:48:37,719 --> 00:48:40,120
Speaker 3: touch with his mother until thirty two or I think

814
00:48:40,200 --> 00:48:42,960
Speaker 3: thirty nineteen, thirty two or thirty three, and then he

815
00:48:43,000 --> 00:48:45,760
Speaker 3: was no longer in touch, although he always spoke fondly

816
00:48:45,800 --> 00:48:50,440
Speaker 3: and lovingly. But I would say he created these families,

817
00:48:50,480 --> 00:48:56,080
Speaker 3: these extended families which were too substitute for the family

818
00:48:56,120 --> 00:48:59,319
Speaker 3: he didn't have. And the Cuferrats in Hawaii, he met them,

819
00:48:59,360 --> 00:49:01,680
Speaker 3: they took him in when he was in the army

820
00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:06,200
Speaker 3: and in Hawaii station. In Hawaii, he met a man

821
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:10,400
Speaker 3: walking a Russian wolf. Found he colonel loved animals. He

822
00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:13,520
Speaker 3: was drawn to the animal he spoke to. I can't

823
00:49:13,520 --> 00:49:19,400
Speaker 3: remember what. Carl Koufrath, Papa Koufrath took him home. He

824
00:49:19,440 --> 00:49:23,520
Speaker 3: became great friends with the youngest son in the family,

825
00:49:23,600 --> 00:49:30,720
Speaker 3: and also with one of the guys who was married

826
00:49:30,719 --> 00:49:33,000
Speaker 3: to one of the daughters. Very close friends and with

827
00:49:33,040 --> 00:49:37,080
Speaker 3: the whole family. He's transferred to the mainland. He's transferred

828
00:49:37,400 --> 00:49:41,040
Speaker 3: to Fort Barancas. I think in nineteen thirty two he

829
00:49:41,120 --> 00:49:46,280
Speaker 3: leaves Hawaii. The Kufirats, who saw him virtually every weekend

830
00:49:46,320 --> 00:49:48,879
Speaker 3: spent he spent almost all of his weekend with him.

831
00:49:48,920 --> 00:49:52,520
Speaker 3: He couldn't have been closer. And they all say, we

832
00:49:52,560 --> 00:49:54,560
Speaker 3: don't know what's going to happen to our friend Tom,

833
00:49:54,680 --> 00:49:57,280
Speaker 3: the smartest, one of the smartest young man we've ever met.

834
00:49:57,560 --> 00:50:00,160
Speaker 3: But he's going to do something wonderful. They didn't here

835
00:50:00,200 --> 00:50:03,880
Speaker 3: from him again until nineteen fifty seven. He didn't have

836
00:50:03,920 --> 00:50:07,239
Speaker 3: the wherewithal to be in touch. He brings Elvis to

837
00:50:07,320 --> 00:50:11,200
Speaker 3: Hawaii in nineteen fifty seven on a bet with one

838
00:50:11,200 --> 00:50:15,759
Speaker 3: of his protegees, a promoter from Detroit who had taken

839
00:50:15,840 --> 00:50:19,080
Speaker 3: up residents in Australia, brought rock and Roll to Australia.

840
00:50:19,239 --> 00:50:22,440
Speaker 3: He's a very interesting guy and another member of this

841
00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:26,040
Speaker 3: extended family of Colonels. The members of Alvin Colonel's extended

842
00:50:26,040 --> 00:50:29,799
Speaker 3: families didn't necessarily know each other, but anyway, he supposedly

843
00:50:29,880 --> 00:50:34,600
Speaker 3: he takes Elvis to Hawaii on a bet. It takes

844
00:50:34,640 --> 00:50:36,560
Speaker 3: him to Hawaiian a bet because he can't bring him

845
00:50:36,600 --> 00:50:40,840
Speaker 3: to Australia because there wasn't time to fly there. But

846
00:50:40,880 --> 00:50:43,840
Speaker 3: the real reason they went to Hawaii, I'm convinced, is

847
00:50:43,880 --> 00:50:46,640
Speaker 3: to make contact with the Cuparrats. And the first call

848
00:50:46,719 --> 00:50:49,080
Speaker 3: he makes when he gets there is to the Kupfarrass

849
00:50:49,440 --> 00:50:52,719
Speaker 3: Old number. He finds out that Papa Cufarrat has died.

850
00:50:53,040 --> 00:50:55,160
Speaker 3: He goes the next day and places a lay on

851
00:50:55,200 --> 00:50:57,400
Speaker 3: his grave. Got a picture of that in the book.

852
00:50:57,680 --> 00:51:00,480
Speaker 3: And he remains in contact with the family until he dies,

853
00:51:00,880 --> 00:51:04,799
Speaker 3: and they were and they remain friends. I mean, it's

854
00:51:04,800 --> 00:51:07,919
Speaker 3: a very close relationship and one that means a great

855
00:51:07,920 --> 00:51:08,560
Speaker 3: deal to him.

856
00:51:10,040 --> 00:51:14,759
Speaker 2: Okay. In the book, there ends up being a tension

857
00:51:15,440 --> 00:51:20,399
Speaker 2: between the Colonel and the so called Memphis Mafia. Can

858
00:51:20,440 --> 00:51:21,920
Speaker 2: you tell my listeners about that.

859
00:51:24,320 --> 00:51:28,279
Speaker 3: Well, this is a direct correlation between Colonel's reputation and

860
00:51:28,360 --> 00:51:31,520
Speaker 3: that tension, and there's a real reason for the tension.

861
00:51:31,600 --> 00:51:35,720
Speaker 3: And I don't want to call the so called Memphis

862
00:51:35,800 --> 00:51:38,200
Speaker 3: Mafi and I try to avoid the term. I mean,

863
00:51:38,600 --> 00:51:43,920
Speaker 3: but they are the people who the men who worked

864
00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:47,040
Speaker 3: for Elvis, his closest associates in France. They were all

865
00:51:47,080 --> 00:51:50,680
Speaker 3: on the payroll. They're all quite different. Many of them

866
00:51:50,719 --> 00:51:52,880
Speaker 3: were very creative. Someone like Red West, who was a

867
00:51:52,920 --> 00:51:58,080
Speaker 3: tough guy, was a wonderful songwriter and a very good actor.

868
00:51:59,440 --> 00:52:03,640
Speaker 3: Jerry Show is entirely different from others in the group.

869
00:52:03,880 --> 00:52:06,439
Speaker 3: I mean, they're all quite different. But the one thing

870
00:52:06,680 --> 00:52:15,080
Speaker 3: that and Joe Esposito, Jerry Shelling and Joe Esposito, Alan

871
00:52:15,440 --> 00:52:21,840
Speaker 3: Fordyce nephew of Justice fortis they all were ultimately became

872
00:52:22,120 --> 00:52:25,200
Speaker 3: great I don't want to say friends of Colonel's, but

873
00:52:25,239 --> 00:52:28,560
Speaker 3: they came to admire Colonel a great deal. But Colonel

874
00:52:28,600 --> 00:52:31,280
Speaker 3: from the very beginning, from the time that Elvis, especially

875
00:52:31,320 --> 00:52:34,680
Speaker 3: from the time that Elvis came back from Germany, saw

876
00:52:35,680 --> 00:52:38,359
Speaker 3: these guys around Elvis much as they loved Elvis, much

877
00:52:38,360 --> 00:52:41,680
Speaker 3: as they were devoted to him, has not fulfilling any function,

878
00:52:42,120 --> 00:52:44,120
Speaker 3: as not carrying out their jobs. And he wrote a

879
00:52:44,160 --> 00:52:47,200
Speaker 3: number of very sharp tons letters to Elvis and to

880
00:52:47,280 --> 00:52:51,680
Speaker 3: them saying, you know it's your business, Elvis, what you

881
00:52:51,800 --> 00:52:55,439
Speaker 3: I wouldn't have these people working for me because they're

882
00:52:55,480 --> 00:52:57,440
Speaker 3: not doing their jobs. And if they are going to

883
00:52:57,480 --> 00:52:59,799
Speaker 3: continue working for you, if I were you, it's up

884
00:52:59,800 --> 00:53:02,480
Speaker 3: to you. But if I were you, I would have

885
00:53:02,560 --> 00:53:05,080
Speaker 3: them work for their money because they would then be

886
00:53:05,600 --> 00:53:08,480
Speaker 3: they would think better of themselves if they did. Vernon

887
00:53:08,560 --> 00:53:13,120
Speaker 3: Pressley had a less shaded view of them. He just

888
00:53:13,200 --> 00:53:16,520
Speaker 3: viewed them really as people who were not worth hanging around.

889
00:53:16,640 --> 00:53:19,680
Speaker 3: He really did view them as leeches. So you had

890
00:53:20,000 --> 00:53:22,640
Speaker 3: these guys who worked for Elvius who were genuinely dedicated

891
00:53:22,680 --> 00:53:25,279
Speaker 3: to Elvis in most cases in different ways. I mean,

892
00:53:25,280 --> 00:53:28,120
Speaker 3: George Klein was different from Lamar Fike would really be

893
00:53:28,160 --> 00:53:30,719
Speaker 3: doing a disservice to them to act as if they

894
00:53:30,719 --> 00:53:33,799
Speaker 3: all had the same motivations. But Vernon just would just

895
00:53:33,840 --> 00:53:35,759
Speaker 3: would just as soon have thrown them all out on

896
00:53:35,800 --> 00:53:37,960
Speaker 3: their ear. And he wrote letters also. I got one

897
00:53:38,040 --> 00:53:39,839
Speaker 3: letter in the in the book, but he wrote out

898
00:53:39,880 --> 00:53:44,680
Speaker 3: of letters, so it would It's totally understandable that they

899
00:53:44,719 --> 00:53:48,240
Speaker 3: should have had a certain resentment up to a point anyway,

900
00:53:48,280 --> 00:53:53,400
Speaker 3: and sometimes that point was exceeded of Colonel Parker and

901
00:53:53,480 --> 00:53:57,239
Speaker 3: of Vernon, who didn't think well of them. And in

902
00:53:57,280 --> 00:54:00,000
Speaker 3: the end, one of the reasons that I think Colonel's

903
00:54:00,080 --> 00:54:04,200
Speaker 3: reputation has suffered is that so many of these guys,

904
00:54:04,719 --> 00:54:08,520
Speaker 3: and maybe with the best of motives, have written about Colonel,

905
00:54:09,000 --> 00:54:13,120
Speaker 3: and sometimes their portrait of Colonel is not a negative,

906
00:54:13,560 --> 00:54:17,160
Speaker 3: but their portrait of the business dealings which they truly

907
00:54:17,239 --> 00:54:21,640
Speaker 3: knew nothing about and yet could make observations as any

908
00:54:21,640 --> 00:54:23,800
Speaker 3: of us can. If we're standing outside the room, we

909
00:54:23,880 --> 00:54:26,799
Speaker 3: can all guess what's going on inside the room. But

910
00:54:26,880 --> 00:54:31,799
Speaker 3: that is what has come to characterize Colonel's has come

911
00:54:31,840 --> 00:54:35,120
Speaker 3: to characterize Colonel to a fire greater extent than one

912
00:54:35,640 --> 00:54:38,080
Speaker 3: might have wished, and to a fire greater extent than

913
00:54:38,160 --> 00:54:42,160
Speaker 3: is merited by any of their involvement in the actual business.

914
00:54:43,440 --> 00:54:47,319
Speaker 2: The Colonel breaks through in the carnival circus world then

915
00:54:47,400 --> 00:54:51,120
Speaker 2: gets into music. Did he care about music at all

916
00:54:51,239 --> 00:54:52,480
Speaker 2: or he just liked the action?

917
00:54:54,080 --> 00:54:56,000
Speaker 3: No, I think he loved music. I mean I think

918
00:54:56,400 --> 00:54:59,799
Speaker 3: in different ways. Instance, his first musical contact was roy

919
00:54:59,840 --> 00:55:03,400
Speaker 3: A and I think struck What struck him there was

920
00:55:03,440 --> 00:55:05,640
Speaker 3: the authenticity of the music. I don't think he knew

921
00:55:05,840 --> 00:55:12,000
Speaker 3: this is way back in nineteen thirty six or so.

922
00:55:13,200 --> 00:55:15,319
Speaker 3: I may have the date run, but thirty six thirty seven,

923
00:55:15,400 --> 00:55:18,399
Speaker 3: somewhere in there, roy Acuff was the King of the Hillbillies,

924
00:55:18,800 --> 00:55:23,239
Speaker 3: and roy Acuff asked Colonel to be his manager, to

925
00:55:23,280 --> 00:55:25,319
Speaker 3: move to Nashville and be his manager, which shows the

926
00:55:25,320 --> 00:55:28,560
Speaker 3: extent to which Colonel made an impression on him. But

927
00:55:28,600 --> 00:55:31,720
Speaker 3: I think I don't think Colonel was drawn as much

928
00:55:32,400 --> 00:55:35,120
Speaker 3: to his music as to the authenticity of the music

929
00:55:35,160 --> 00:55:39,120
Speaker 3: and the way it reached its audience. What he was

930
00:55:39,200 --> 00:55:44,719
Speaker 3: drawn to was I think when he started managing Eddie

931
00:55:44,800 --> 00:55:50,680
Speaker 3: Arnold in nineteen forty four, and in the brief time

932
00:55:50,719 --> 00:55:54,440
Speaker 3: before then that he knew Eddie Arnold, I think what

933
00:55:54,560 --> 00:55:58,000
Speaker 3: he saw in Eddie Arnold was a different kind of music.

934
00:55:59,120 --> 00:56:01,400
Speaker 3: I want to back up one second. Colonel was not

935
00:56:01,600 --> 00:56:04,319
Speaker 3: on musical I mean, one of the things I have

936
00:56:04,440 --> 00:56:07,040
Speaker 3: in the book is what the story that Loanne told

937
00:56:07,080 --> 00:56:09,960
Speaker 3: me that he told her about his career as a

938
00:56:10,000 --> 00:56:14,680
Speaker 3: prepubescent opera singer. And this is the reason, because the

939
00:56:14,760 --> 00:56:19,040
Speaker 3: reason is that Colonel's mother, who was a whose whole

940
00:56:19,120 --> 00:56:25,600
Speaker 3: family were water peddlers. They traversed Holland selling all kinds

941
00:56:25,640 --> 00:56:28,440
Speaker 3: of things. Well, colonel's mother's one of Colonel's mother's sisters

942
00:56:28,480 --> 00:56:31,200
Speaker 3: was an opera singer who lived abroad, but she would

943
00:56:31,200 --> 00:56:34,640
Speaker 3: come back to Holland and Colonel and his mother and

944
00:56:34,640 --> 00:56:36,319
Speaker 3: maybe other members of the family would go to see

945
00:56:36,360 --> 00:56:40,040
Speaker 3: the operas. Colonel learned all the arias and as a

946
00:56:40,320 --> 00:56:43,560
Speaker 3: very young kid eight nine, ten would go out on

947
00:56:43,560 --> 00:56:46,080
Speaker 3: this lake where all the rich people lived outside of

948
00:56:46,080 --> 00:56:48,799
Speaker 3: Breda and seeing the arias, and they would come out

949
00:56:48,800 --> 00:56:50,480
Speaker 3: on as he told the table, they'd come out on

950
00:56:50,520 --> 00:56:54,680
Speaker 3: their porches and bravo, bravo, and maybe they would flaming,

951
00:56:56,160 --> 00:56:58,480
Speaker 3: you know, two coins at him. And he loved operating

952
00:56:58,560 --> 00:57:00,759
Speaker 3: the end of his life. But with ed Arnold, I

953
00:57:00,840 --> 00:57:04,640
Speaker 3: think he found an artist quite similar to Elvis, who

954
00:57:04,800 --> 00:57:09,000
Speaker 3: reached people with what was then called heart music, reached

955
00:57:09,000 --> 00:57:11,839
Speaker 3: them with a kind of music that truly touched them.

956
00:57:12,160 --> 00:57:14,960
Speaker 3: And I think Colonel was drawn to that music and

957
00:57:15,000 --> 00:57:17,840
Speaker 3: saw it. It wasn't It's not like you know, everybody

958
00:57:17,880 --> 00:57:21,880
Speaker 3: would want Elvis's manager should be a rock and roll fan. Well,

959
00:57:21,920 --> 00:57:25,320
Speaker 3: not even Elvis. Elvis was an everything music fan. He

960
00:57:25,880 --> 00:57:29,600
Speaker 3: loved every kind of music. Colonel definitely, it wasn't like

961
00:57:29,640 --> 00:57:34,680
Speaker 3: he was a rock and roll you know, impassioned rock

962
00:57:34,720 --> 00:57:38,200
Speaker 3: and roll fan. But first with Ddy Arnold, with Elvis,

963
00:57:38,600 --> 00:57:42,320
Speaker 3: he saw artists who had a vision that carried them

964
00:57:42,320 --> 00:57:45,640
Speaker 3: beyond the common heard, and also with a vision that

965
00:57:45,800 --> 00:57:48,560
Speaker 3: enabled them even if they couldn't articulate it, and I

966
00:57:48,600 --> 00:57:51,200
Speaker 3: don't think Elvis could at the beginning. But even if

967
00:57:51,200 --> 00:57:54,479
Speaker 3: they couldn't articulate, was going to carry them and allow

968
00:57:54,600 --> 00:57:58,200
Speaker 3: them to grow almost day by day. In Elvis's case,

969
00:57:58,240 --> 00:58:00,360
Speaker 3: from the time Colonel first met him, when he was funny,

970
00:58:01,400 --> 00:58:06,200
Speaker 3: just grow and develop and create something that had never

971
00:58:06,240 --> 00:58:09,080
Speaker 3: been created before. That's what I think he was drawn to.

972
00:58:09,200 --> 00:58:12,000
Speaker 3: He was drawn to the wonderful world of show business,

973
00:58:12,480 --> 00:58:16,600
Speaker 3: and he to him, Elvis was the pinnacle of the

974
00:58:16,600 --> 00:58:18,480
Speaker 3: wonderful world of show business.

975
00:58:19,320 --> 00:58:23,960
Speaker 2: Okay, this, of course is a theoretical question, but you

976
00:58:24,080 --> 00:58:26,640
Speaker 2: set it up in the book that Elvis is on

977
00:58:27,000 --> 00:58:31,360
Speaker 2: sun but he's on low rent tours. He's not always

978
00:58:31,800 --> 00:58:35,440
Speaker 2: performing in a way that's endearing himself to the local

979
00:58:35,520 --> 00:58:39,720
Speaker 2: authorities in the audience. What would have happened to Elvis

980
00:58:39,760 --> 00:58:41,800
Speaker 2: if he never met Colonel Tom Parker.

981
00:58:44,160 --> 00:58:47,200
Speaker 3: Well, the story of Elvis is the story of the

982
00:58:47,240 --> 00:58:50,439
Speaker 3: confluence of three of the most extraordinary people I ever.

983
00:58:50,720 --> 00:58:53,360
Speaker 3: I didn't know Elvias sciety, I don't want, but three

984
00:58:53,400 --> 00:58:56,120
Speaker 3: of the most extraordinary people I've ever encountered or known about.

985
00:58:56,520 --> 00:59:00,400
Speaker 3: The idea that Elvis should first be taken up by

986
00:59:00,480 --> 00:59:03,920
Speaker 3: Sam Phillips, and the Sam Phillips, who was a person

987
00:59:03,960 --> 00:59:08,440
Speaker 3: of the most extraordinary vision, should have let's reverse it

988
00:59:08,440 --> 00:59:10,360
Speaker 3: should have been taken up by Elvis sort of seen

989
00:59:10,400 --> 00:59:15,000
Speaker 3: in Elvis someone a talent that he had never envisioned before.

990
00:59:15,240 --> 00:59:18,280
Speaker 3: And then for Colonel Parker, a person of a completely

991
00:59:18,320 --> 00:59:22,120
Speaker 3: different type of personality and vision, but with an equal

992
00:59:22,600 --> 00:59:25,440
Speaker 3: There were no true people in the world who believed

993
00:59:25,440 --> 00:59:29,280
Speaker 3: in Elvis more than Sam Phillips and the Colonel Parker,

994
00:59:29,560 --> 00:59:31,800
Speaker 3: however little they may have had in common, and however

995
00:59:31,840 --> 00:59:34,800
Speaker 3: little they may have liked each other. But I don't

996
00:59:34,800 --> 00:59:37,560
Speaker 3: know what would have happened. I mean, Sam Phillips as

997
00:59:37,560 --> 00:59:41,080
Speaker 3: little as he liked Colonel until Colonel until they actually

998
00:59:41,240 --> 00:59:44,720
Speaker 3: finally sat down at Colonel's eightieth birthday, which was just

999
00:59:45,320 --> 00:59:48,480
Speaker 3: an amazing private event. I mean, not the birthday party.

1000
00:59:48,520 --> 00:59:52,080
Speaker 3: But the dialogue which I just happened to, I was

1001
00:59:52,080 --> 00:59:55,240
Speaker 3: trying to leave, and I happened to over here or

1002
00:59:55,360 --> 01:00:01,000
Speaker 3: listen to. But but Sam Phillips always and all the

1003
01:00:01,040 --> 01:00:04,600
Speaker 3: time that I knew that nobody could have carried Elvis

1004
01:00:05,400 --> 01:00:09,040
Speaker 3: to the heights that Elvis wanted to achieve. Elvis did

1005
01:00:09,040 --> 01:00:11,160
Speaker 3: not want it. He wanted to be a movie star.

1006
01:00:11,240 --> 01:00:13,560
Speaker 3: He wanted to be a movie star like James Dean

1007
01:00:13,600 --> 01:00:15,880
Speaker 3: and Marilon Brendo. He wanted the world to know him,

1008
01:00:16,040 --> 01:00:20,400
Speaker 3: which is similar to the ambition of another person that

1009
01:00:20,440 --> 01:00:23,520
Speaker 3: I wrote about extensively, Sam Cook. He wanted to be

1010
01:00:23,680 --> 01:00:27,680
Speaker 3: accepted and loved by everyone. Sam Phillips, first of all,

1011
01:00:28,280 --> 01:00:30,960
Speaker 3: would have gone bankrupt if he hadn't sold Elvis' contract.

1012
01:00:31,080 --> 01:00:33,440
Speaker 3: Second of all, was not equipped, as he himself said,

1013
01:00:34,840 --> 01:00:38,000
Speaker 3: to promote Elvis. And even if he happened and equipped

1014
01:00:38,000 --> 01:00:40,480
Speaker 3: to hisself, that wasn't what he wanted to do. And

1015
01:00:40,560 --> 01:00:43,840
Speaker 3: he saw in Colonel Parker someone who, as I say

1016
01:00:43,880 --> 01:00:46,840
Speaker 3: at the beginning, he loathed. He saw one of the

1017
01:00:46,840 --> 01:00:49,080
Speaker 3: few people in the world who could have taken Elvis

1018
01:00:49,080 --> 01:00:52,960
Speaker 3: to the heights to which Elvis aspired, not the artistic heights,

1019
01:00:53,400 --> 01:00:56,040
Speaker 3: Colonel had nothing to do with Elvis's music, nothing to

1020
01:00:56,040 --> 01:00:59,640
Speaker 3: do with his artistry, and I think Sam Phillips was

1021
01:00:59,680 --> 01:01:05,120
Speaker 3: well of that. But you know, again, Sam Phillips did

1022
01:01:05,120 --> 01:01:07,240
Speaker 3: not believe in coincidence. I don't know what I believe in.

1023
01:01:07,680 --> 01:01:10,080
Speaker 3: Colonel believes in the wonderful world of show business. I'm

1024
01:01:10,120 --> 01:01:13,160
Speaker 3: not prepared to state my beliefs, but I've got to

1025
01:01:13,240 --> 01:01:16,280
Speaker 3: say it's an amazing thing that the three of them

1026
01:01:16,320 --> 01:01:19,200
Speaker 3: should have interacted in that way, and that it should

1027
01:01:19,200 --> 01:01:23,640
Speaker 3: have resulted in such extraordinary achievements by all three of them.

1028
01:01:24,480 --> 01:01:29,440
Speaker 2: Okay, to get the contract to RCAA. Actually it's the

1029
01:01:29,520 --> 01:01:33,240
Speaker 2: Colonel who makes the deal, and it seems like an

1030
01:01:33,280 --> 01:01:37,560
Speaker 2: incredibly small amount of money that RCAA balks at and

1031
01:01:37,640 --> 01:01:42,560
Speaker 2: ultimately pays. What happened to Seam financially after that? Did

1032
01:01:42,600 --> 01:01:45,640
Speaker 2: he blow the money or did he manage to live

1033
01:01:45,680 --> 01:01:47,560
Speaker 2: on that money for the rest of his life?

1034
01:01:49,000 --> 01:01:54,160
Speaker 3: Neither one. I mean, Sam had enormous ambitions of his own. Again,

1035
01:01:54,320 --> 01:01:57,360
Speaker 3: I've never met anyone who's more of a musical visionary

1036
01:01:57,680 --> 01:02:01,400
Speaker 3: than Sam Phillips. He did not want to be a

1037
01:02:01,480 --> 01:02:04,320
Speaker 3: one artist label. Well, he couldn't have been. He was

1038
01:02:04,440 --> 01:02:06,760
Speaker 3: literally on the verge of losing his company because his

1039
01:02:06,800 --> 01:02:09,400
Speaker 3: brother Judd owned something like fifty percent, was about to

1040
01:02:09,440 --> 01:02:12,040
Speaker 3: turn it over to the bank. He was out of money.

1041
01:02:12,080 --> 01:02:14,880
Speaker 3: He was out of luck. With the thirty five thousand

1042
01:02:14,920 --> 01:02:20,400
Speaker 3: dollars that RCA paid for Elvis's contract, Sam was finally

1043
01:02:20,440 --> 01:02:23,960
Speaker 3: able to get his label, Son, this tiny little label.

1044
01:02:24,000 --> 01:02:25,760
Speaker 3: He was like Colonel. He was a one man operation.

1045
01:02:25,920 --> 01:02:30,280
Speaker 3: I mean, the two of them, it's an amazing parallel story.

1046
01:02:30,400 --> 01:02:34,960
Speaker 3: Is as unlike each other as they were. But Sam

1047
01:02:35,040 --> 01:02:38,720
Speaker 3: was finally able to get his label, tiny little label.

1048
01:02:38,760 --> 01:02:44,840
Speaker 3: Son was one man operation on point and with the

1049
01:02:45,240 --> 01:02:47,200
Speaker 3: first record that he made, the first record that he

1050
01:02:47,320 --> 01:02:51,560
Speaker 3: released after selling Elvis' contract was Kyle Bracon's Blue Sweede Shoes,

1051
01:02:51,600 --> 01:02:55,280
Speaker 3: which was a bigger hit at least from the start

1052
01:02:55,440 --> 01:02:59,439
Speaker 3: in Elvis's first record for Urica Heartbreak Hotel and which

1053
01:02:59,480 --> 01:03:01,880
Speaker 3: went to the up with the country R and B

1054
01:03:02,000 --> 01:03:05,600
Speaker 3: and pop charts. That was the beginning and from that

1055
01:03:05,720 --> 01:03:10,480
Speaker 3: point on, Sam had the money to operate his to

1056
01:03:10,600 --> 01:03:13,920
Speaker 3: operate his label. He had. I think Johnny Cash was

1057
01:03:13,960 --> 01:03:19,360
Speaker 3: then next person to come in, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis,

1058
01:03:20,000 --> 01:03:24,040
Speaker 3: h Kyle Prikins was the first person. Johnny Cash and

1059
01:03:24,080 --> 01:03:28,920
Speaker 3: the others Charlie Rich and he operated one of the

1060
01:03:28,920 --> 01:03:33,880
Speaker 3: most extraordinary labels, one of the most extraordinary musical presentations

1061
01:03:33,880 --> 01:03:37,520
Speaker 3: that the world has ever seen. And before Elvis, he

1062
01:03:37,560 --> 01:03:41,640
Speaker 3: had done the same thing with blues and rhythm and blues. So,

1063
01:03:41,680 --> 01:03:45,200
Speaker 3: I mean, there's an amazing story there too, But that's

1064
01:03:45,200 --> 01:03:46,200
Speaker 3: not our story today.

1065
01:03:47,240 --> 01:03:53,800
Speaker 2: Okay. Vernon is writing letters and constantly telling the colonel

1066
01:03:54,040 --> 01:04:00,360
Speaker 2: that Elvis is spending more than he's making. The press

1067
01:04:00,360 --> 01:04:03,880
Speaker 2: are portrayed a Hillbillies. It's one thing to be the

1068
01:04:03,920 --> 01:04:06,320
Speaker 2: conveyor of the message, Hey, we're in the red. We're

1069
01:04:06,360 --> 01:04:09,400
Speaker 2: in the red. Was Vernon Street smart to me, have

1070
01:04:09,400 --> 01:04:12,200
Speaker 2: any level of sophistication or was he just flipping out

1071
01:04:12,240 --> 01:04:14,600
Speaker 2: that Elvis was spending more than he was earning.

1072
01:04:16,480 --> 01:04:20,240
Speaker 3: Well, you're really you're understating the case. Elvis was making

1073
01:04:20,320 --> 01:04:23,080
Speaker 3: millions of dollars and he was spending millions of dollars more.

1074
01:04:23,600 --> 01:04:26,240
Speaker 3: And Vernon was very similar, I think to his son.

1075
01:04:27,160 --> 01:04:30,280
Speaker 3: He actually had a singing voice, very much like his sons,

1076
01:04:30,280 --> 01:04:32,000
Speaker 3: and he I think he had a dry sense of humor.

1077
01:04:32,200 --> 01:04:34,680
Speaker 3: He didn't have the talent that Elvis had, But no,

1078
01:04:34,920 --> 01:04:38,560
Speaker 3: I wouldn't I wouldn't call them hillbillies. They were people

1079
01:04:38,680 --> 01:04:43,320
Speaker 3: of limited education, like so many of the people I've

1080
01:04:43,360 --> 01:04:45,840
Speaker 3: written about, like virtually all of the people I've written about,

1081
01:04:46,280 --> 01:04:50,600
Speaker 3: but with you know, with extraordinary innate intelligence. I mean,

1082
01:04:51,560 --> 01:04:54,840
Speaker 3: the thing with Vernon was he loved his son. He

1083
01:04:55,000 --> 01:04:58,160
Speaker 3: did everything he could to protect his son. One of

1084
01:04:58,200 --> 01:05:00,880
Speaker 3: the most heartbreaking scenes that I've ever or encountered, or

1085
01:05:00,920 --> 01:05:04,680
Speaker 3: ever had to write was Vernon's reaction on Elvis's death

1086
01:05:04,760 --> 01:05:09,480
Speaker 3: in nineteen seventy seven. But nobody, absolutely nobody, I mean

1087
01:05:09,760 --> 01:05:13,680
Speaker 3: I could start up, but nobody could control Elvis's spend it.

1088
01:05:14,240 --> 01:05:18,920
Speaker 3: And everybody knows the story about Elvis going to Washington

1089
01:05:18,920 --> 01:05:23,479
Speaker 3: to get his BMDD batch, you know, his narcotics batch,

1090
01:05:24,360 --> 01:05:28,200
Speaker 3: but not everybody knows what started that. And what started

1091
01:05:28,240 --> 01:05:32,360
Speaker 3: it was Vernon and Priscilla trying to tell Elvis that

1092
01:05:32,400 --> 01:05:34,080
Speaker 3: he had this is in nineteen seventy that he had

1093
01:05:34,120 --> 01:05:36,680
Speaker 3: to limit his spending. Elvis stormed out of the house.

1094
01:05:36,720 --> 01:05:39,320
Speaker 3: Because nobody told Elvis that he had to limit his spending,

1095
01:05:39,800 --> 01:05:41,760
Speaker 3: he stormed out his house. He flew first to La

1096
01:05:42,440 --> 01:05:44,720
Speaker 3: got the idea. I think maybe he flew on the

1097
01:05:44,760 --> 01:05:46,919
Speaker 3: same plane with George Murphy I'm not sure about that.

1098
01:05:47,360 --> 01:05:51,400
Speaker 3: But turned around, came back, had a girlfriend to see,

1099
01:05:51,480 --> 01:05:54,000
Speaker 3: Joyce Bovn in Washington, d C. Someone he was very

1100
01:05:54,000 --> 01:05:56,560
Speaker 3: close to. But he also was going to get that badge.

1101
01:05:56,600 --> 01:05:59,040
Speaker 3: But it all started with someone telling him that he

1102
01:05:59,080 --> 01:06:02,040
Speaker 3: had to control the spend and nobody threw out Elvis's

1103
01:06:02,080 --> 01:06:05,160
Speaker 3: life was able to do that. But it's not because

1104
01:06:06,160 --> 01:06:08,880
Speaker 3: Elvis was definitely not a hillbilly and neither one. I mean,

1105
01:06:09,040 --> 01:06:11,600
Speaker 3: I just wouldn't talk. I mean, that's not it was

1106
01:06:11,640 --> 01:06:15,680
Speaker 3: not limitations of common sense, it wasn't limitations of vision.

1107
01:06:16,240 --> 01:06:22,040
Speaker 3: But Elvis's Elvis was a very generous person towards others,

1108
01:06:22,680 --> 01:06:25,320
Speaker 3: and he was very generous towards himself. And he just

1109
01:06:25,880 --> 01:06:30,640
Speaker 3: and he had zero interest in saving money making money.

1110
01:06:30,880 --> 01:06:33,080
Speaker 3: Look at how he had at the beginning of his career.

1111
01:06:33,840 --> 01:06:37,400
Speaker 3: Colonel set up a savings account for Elvis in the

1112
01:06:37,440 --> 01:06:40,560
Speaker 3: bank in Madison where he lived, and the president of

1113
01:06:40,600 --> 01:06:43,360
Speaker 3: the bank of the vice president wrote Elvis about what

1114
01:06:43,440 --> 01:06:45,400
Speaker 3: a lucky young man he was to have such a

1115
01:06:45,440 --> 01:06:49,920
Speaker 3: wonderful manager, Colonel. Colonel deposited twelve hundred dollars of what

1116
01:06:49,960 --> 01:06:51,840
Speaker 3: appears to have been his own money. Although I wouldn't

1117
01:06:51,840 --> 01:06:54,680
Speaker 3: bet on that. But that's that's that's what that's what

1118
01:06:54,720 --> 01:07:00,600
Speaker 3: it said Elvis. Colonel also wrote letters to Vernon Elvis

1119
01:07:00,600 --> 01:07:02,760
Speaker 3: we're talking about back at the beginning in fifty six,

1120
01:07:03,240 --> 01:07:08,280
Speaker 3: about saving money, conserving money, conserving their assets. Recognizing that

1121
01:07:08,360 --> 01:07:10,880
Speaker 3: as much money as Elvis made, the government was going

1122
01:07:10,920 --> 01:07:14,000
Speaker 3: to demand a huge share of it, they should buy

1123
01:07:14,440 --> 01:07:18,120
Speaker 3: savings bunds. He set it up for Elvis, maybe for

1124
01:07:18,240 --> 01:07:22,280
Speaker 3: RCA to purchase savings bunds for Elvis. In any case,

1125
01:07:23,000 --> 01:07:24,840
Speaker 3: there was this money in the bank, the twelve hundred

1126
01:07:24,840 --> 01:07:26,600
Speaker 3: dollars the Colonel set up in Madison, there were the

1127
01:07:26,640 --> 01:07:31,720
Speaker 3: savings buns. Within weeks, maybe months, Elvis had cashed it

1128
01:07:31,760 --> 01:07:33,760
Speaker 3: all in. There was no savings account, there were no

1129
01:07:34,000 --> 01:07:37,120
Speaker 3: you know, there were no there were no savings bonds.

1130
01:07:37,120 --> 01:07:39,360
Speaker 3: That was all gone. And this was at the very beginning.

1131
01:07:39,440 --> 01:07:42,720
Speaker 3: And again it's not because Elvis was stupid. It's not

1132
01:07:42,800 --> 01:07:45,240
Speaker 3: because it's that's Elvis did what he wanted to do,

1133
01:07:45,360 --> 01:07:48,760
Speaker 3: and he had the ultimate belief that whatever he did,

1134
01:07:49,560 --> 01:07:53,000
Speaker 3: his talent was going to be able to save the day.

1135
01:07:53,280 --> 01:07:56,360
Speaker 3: And Colonel had the ultimate belief that whatever he did,

1136
01:07:57,200 --> 01:08:01,600
Speaker 3: his brains, his intelligence, resourcefulness, would be able to save

1137
01:08:01,680 --> 01:08:03,000
Speaker 3: the day. And they were both right.

1138
01:08:10,800 --> 01:08:14,880
Speaker 2: Okay when you met earlier. But which is made repeatedly

1139
01:08:14,920 --> 01:08:20,800
Speaker 2: in the book is that the Colonel left absolutely everything

1140
01:08:21,040 --> 01:08:27,519
Speaker 2: creative musically to Elvis. Subsequent to the Elvis generation, we

1141
01:08:27,600 --> 01:08:29,599
Speaker 2: have the Beatles and the people who come after them,

1142
01:08:29,600 --> 01:08:32,599
Speaker 2: who write all their own songs and seem to be

1143
01:08:32,840 --> 01:08:36,840
Speaker 2: very in control of their musical careers. That is not

1144
01:08:37,040 --> 01:08:41,000
Speaker 2: the image of the Elvis. So what was really going on?

1145
01:08:41,520 --> 01:08:44,439
Speaker 2: You know, the Colonel was hands off, and he would

1146
01:08:44,439 --> 01:08:48,080
Speaker 2: defend Elvis, but it was Elvis really good at picking material,

1147
01:08:48,160 --> 01:08:49,840
Speaker 2: getting the songs right, et cetera.

1148
01:08:51,080 --> 01:08:53,760
Speaker 3: He was great at it was fantastic. I mean, he

1149
01:08:54,040 --> 01:08:58,080
Speaker 3: was an autodidact who probably knew more about music and

1150
01:08:58,200 --> 01:09:01,640
Speaker 3: more about different kinds of music than any PhD in

1151
01:09:01,720 --> 01:09:04,960
Speaker 3: ethno musicology you could run into. I mean, you have

1152
01:09:05,000 --> 01:09:10,120
Speaker 3: only to look at the hound Dog Don't be Cruel

1153
01:09:10,160 --> 01:09:15,000
Speaker 3: session on July second, I think nineteen fifty six, where

1154
01:09:15,040 --> 01:09:17,439
Speaker 3: Elvis for the first time becomes his own producer and

1155
01:09:17,520 --> 01:09:20,639
Speaker 3: for the rest of his life, with one exception, will

1156
01:09:20,640 --> 01:09:24,400
Speaker 3: be his own producer. And you look at him. He

1157
01:09:24,520 --> 01:09:27,479
Speaker 3: still had Steve Sholz, the RCA executive as the an

1158
01:09:27,600 --> 01:09:30,639
Speaker 3: R man. What Steve Sholz was reduced to. And I'm

1159
01:09:30,640 --> 01:09:32,800
Speaker 3: not knocking Steve Shulz. I mean Steve Sholz had been

1160
01:09:32,840 --> 01:09:34,800
Speaker 3: a great an R man for Eddie Arnold and for

1161
01:09:34,840 --> 01:09:38,240
Speaker 3: Hank Snow and was a friend of Colonel's prior to this.

1162
01:09:38,920 --> 01:09:42,120
Speaker 3: But Steve Sholz was reduced from this point on to

1163
01:09:42,320 --> 01:09:45,400
Speaker 3: essentially being a timekeeper, announcing the takes, keeping the records

1164
01:09:45,400 --> 01:09:48,599
Speaker 3: of what was going on. But what Elvis did, for example,

1165
01:09:48,640 --> 01:09:50,679
Speaker 3: with hound Dog, which was a song initially he didn't

1166
01:09:50,720 --> 01:09:54,920
Speaker 3: want to record it was the showstopper on his live show,

1167
01:09:54,920 --> 01:09:59,040
Speaker 3: and he wasn't convinced they could get that same energy

1168
01:09:59,160 --> 01:10:02,720
Speaker 3: or just explosive in the studio. And one of the

1169
01:10:02,720 --> 01:10:05,560
Speaker 3: people who encouraged him to do it was Colonel and

1170
01:10:05,640 --> 01:10:08,360
Speaker 3: other I mean not to tell him you should do this,

1171
01:10:08,479 --> 01:10:11,000
Speaker 3: but to encourage him to believe that it was something possible.

1172
01:10:11,439 --> 01:10:15,280
Speaker 3: Scotty Moore was another. But Elvis went to and I'm

1173
01:10:15,320 --> 01:10:18,120
Speaker 3: not going to remember thirty two takes thirty five takes

1174
01:10:18,160 --> 01:10:22,479
Speaker 3: way past the point that Steve Schulz was ready to

1175
01:10:22,520 --> 01:10:25,080
Speaker 3: call it a day. Early on, Steve Schulz was ready

1176
01:10:25,080 --> 01:10:26,360
Speaker 3: to call it a day because he didn't say, then

1177
01:10:26,439 --> 01:10:28,759
Speaker 3: get it. Let's say after the eighth take or something.

1178
01:10:29,240 --> 01:10:32,160
Speaker 3: But on the twenty eighth take, Steve Shows is saying Okay,

1179
01:10:32,160 --> 01:10:33,840
Speaker 3: we've got it, and Elvis saying, no, we're going to

1180
01:10:33,880 --> 01:10:35,960
Speaker 3: do more. Then he goes on to a court. Don't

1181
01:10:35,960 --> 01:10:39,599
Speaker 3: be cruel. This is one of the great greatest sessions

1182
01:10:39,640 --> 01:10:43,439
Speaker 3: just in terms of the share, success and output of it.

1183
01:10:43,800 --> 01:10:47,080
Speaker 3: But this was true of all of Elvis's sessions. The

1184
01:10:47,160 --> 01:10:53,680
Speaker 3: sense of perfectionism, the sense of everybody I'm speaking now

1185
01:10:53,680 --> 01:10:57,519
Speaker 3: against myself as a kid, I mean myself as a kid,

1186
01:10:57,520 --> 01:10:59,840
Speaker 3: would just be horrified by what I'm about to say.

1187
01:11:00,280 --> 01:11:03,000
Speaker 3: But the recordings that Elvis made after he got out

1188
01:11:03,040 --> 01:11:05,599
Speaker 3: of the army, starting with the Elvis' Back Sessions, which

1189
01:11:05,640 --> 01:11:08,360
Speaker 3: is just such a great album, but the recordings he

1190
01:11:08,439 --> 01:11:11,720
Speaker 3: made in sixty sixty one, sixty two, sixty three are

1191
01:11:11,760 --> 01:11:14,240
Speaker 3: some of the most extraordinary recordings he ever made. And

1192
01:11:14,240 --> 01:11:17,840
Speaker 3: they're all the product of his vision of himself as

1193
01:11:17,840 --> 01:11:21,080
Speaker 3: something entirely different from what the world sees. And it

1194
01:11:21,600 --> 01:11:24,000
Speaker 3: includes Sure, it includes some great rock I mean Little

1195
01:11:24,080 --> 01:11:26,840
Speaker 3: Sister or all kinds of you know, songs that rock,

1196
01:11:27,280 --> 01:11:29,639
Speaker 3: but it includes some of the most beautiful ballads you'll

1197
01:11:29,680 --> 01:11:33,120
Speaker 3: ever hear, because Elvis saw himself as that too. And also,

1198
01:11:33,760 --> 01:11:36,200
Speaker 3: and maybe this is another parallel with Colonel. He was

1199
01:11:36,280 --> 01:11:39,760
Speaker 3: drawn to Italian Aria or something like Italian area, and

1200
01:11:39,800 --> 01:11:43,320
Speaker 3: so he's recording, you know, it's now or never songs

1201
01:11:43,360 --> 01:11:46,720
Speaker 3: like that because they were his ambition. So yeah, I

1202
01:11:46,760 --> 01:11:50,120
Speaker 3: mean Elvis was the thing that if you want to

1203
01:11:50,120 --> 01:11:53,479
Speaker 3: compare him with the Beatles, say or Bob Dylan for

1204
01:11:53,520 --> 01:11:56,080
Speaker 3: that matter, I mean what they brought to it was

1205
01:11:56,120 --> 01:11:58,880
Speaker 3: they wrote all their own songs. Elvis wrote one song

1206
01:11:58,960 --> 01:12:02,840
Speaker 3: in his life about about his mother, It's a Beautiful Sign.

1207
01:12:02,880 --> 01:12:04,760
Speaker 3: But and he may have only contributed the title, but

1208
01:12:04,800 --> 01:12:07,840
Speaker 3: he took credit for that. But but but but as

1209
01:12:07,840 --> 01:12:10,639
Speaker 3: far as the business hand of it, the Beatles were

1210
01:12:11,000 --> 01:12:14,879
Speaker 3: and like the Rolling Stones, we're in a complete fountain.

1211
01:12:15,400 --> 01:12:17,840
Speaker 3: What do we what do you call it? They were

1212
01:12:17,880 --> 01:12:22,479
Speaker 3: completely lost in terms of the business, Brian Epstein, as

1213
01:12:22,520 --> 01:12:24,960
Speaker 3: you said, you know, it was not somebody who was

1214
01:12:25,000 --> 01:12:29,240
Speaker 3: in command of the business. And Elvis, through Colonel, was

1215
01:12:29,360 --> 01:12:32,240
Speaker 3: far far more in control of his business and of

1216
01:12:32,280 --> 01:12:36,759
Speaker 3: his ability to force the record company to do whatever

1217
01:12:36,800 --> 01:12:42,200
Speaker 3: he wanted, whatever he wanted to do then than any

1218
01:12:42,240 --> 01:12:43,759
Speaker 3: than any artists for many years.

1219
01:12:44,720 --> 01:12:47,760
Speaker 2: Okay, it becomes clearer that Elvis is going in the

1220
01:12:47,800 --> 01:12:52,160
Speaker 2: wrong direction with drugs, food, et cetera. But a tour

1221
01:12:52,360 --> 01:12:59,120
Speaker 2: is booked and the Colonel is in the northeast promoting

1222
01:12:59,160 --> 01:13:04,000
Speaker 2: that advance to the dates and Elvis dies. If one

1223
01:13:04,120 --> 01:13:09,599
Speaker 2: reads the book and the letters, it appears relatively cold

1224
01:13:10,080 --> 01:13:12,479
Speaker 2: that I'm talking about. On one hand, you have the

1225
01:13:12,520 --> 01:13:15,760
Speaker 2: colonel saying, I'm the manager, this is my job. We

1226
01:13:15,840 --> 01:13:18,599
Speaker 2: put one foot in front of another. On another level,

1227
01:13:18,680 --> 01:13:24,160
Speaker 2: it's very dispassionate. So I have two questions. What were

1228
01:13:25,240 --> 01:13:29,080
Speaker 2: Colonel Tom Parker's real emotions at that point? And did

1229
01:13:29,120 --> 01:13:31,519
Speaker 2: he really foresee this was going to happen or was

1230
01:13:31,560 --> 01:13:32,160
Speaker 2: he shocked?

1231
01:13:36,000 --> 01:13:38,080
Speaker 3: I got so many yes and no answers. You know,

1232
01:13:38,200 --> 01:13:41,440
Speaker 3: so this will be another one. But no, he was devastated.

1233
01:13:41,479 --> 01:13:44,679
Speaker 3: He was absolutely devastated. And the picture that I've drawn,

1234
01:13:44,920 --> 01:13:47,400
Speaker 3: and I hope it comes across, but I try to

1235
01:13:47,680 --> 01:13:51,320
Speaker 3: state things not in extreme ways, not in over the

1236
01:13:51,320 --> 01:13:56,120
Speaker 3: top ways, but you know, in flat description he was

1237
01:13:56,320 --> 01:14:01,439
Speaker 3: in shock when he was in Portland and got the

1238
01:14:01,479 --> 01:14:05,800
Speaker 3: news from Joe Esposito and then from Vernon, and the

1239
01:14:05,920 --> 01:14:09,519
Speaker 3: shot carried through. I would say for I don't think

1240
01:14:09,520 --> 01:14:11,559
Speaker 3: he was ever the same, ever the same after that.

1241
01:14:12,000 --> 01:14:16,360
Speaker 3: I mean, Elvis was the person that he apart from

1242
01:14:17,479 --> 01:14:21,519
Speaker 3: his wife, I don't know who, you know, Elvis was

1243
01:14:21,560 --> 01:14:24,360
Speaker 3: the person that he loved the most. Elvis was you

1244
01:14:24,400 --> 01:14:25,880
Speaker 3: could say he was like a son, he was like

1245
01:14:25,920 --> 01:14:29,439
Speaker 3: a brother. It doesn't matter he was, he was. He

1246
01:14:29,479 --> 01:14:33,640
Speaker 3: was absolutely from the time he first met Elvis, immediately

1247
01:14:33,680 --> 01:14:37,439
Speaker 3: it was it was like he was just totally captured

1248
01:14:37,520 --> 01:14:40,320
Speaker 3: by Elvis as well as a person. He was Elvis

1249
01:14:40,439 --> 01:14:42,920
Speaker 3: was a kid, but as a person, as an as

1250
01:14:42,920 --> 01:14:45,599
Speaker 3: an artist. But once the new he got the news,

1251
01:14:46,800 --> 01:14:51,400
Speaker 3: he was behaved almost as an automaton. And he held

1252
01:14:51,400 --> 01:14:54,920
Speaker 3: a meeting of all the people who were in Portland.

1253
01:14:55,280 --> 01:15:00,639
Speaker 3: He said, we must uh. Nobody wanted to be this dinner.

1254
01:15:00,680 --> 01:15:02,400
Speaker 3: They had this dinner that he called. But he said,

1255
01:15:02,439 --> 01:15:05,080
Speaker 3: we have to carry on. We're still working for Elvis.

1256
01:15:05,120 --> 01:15:08,080
Speaker 3: We are you know, we can't shed a tear. We

1257
01:15:08,200 --> 01:15:11,599
Speaker 3: have to carry out the business because we're still carrying

1258
01:15:11,600 --> 01:15:13,360
Speaker 3: out the business for Elvis. We want him to be

1259
01:15:13,360 --> 01:15:15,559
Speaker 3: proud of us. But it carried through, I mean to

1260
01:15:15,600 --> 01:15:20,639
Speaker 3: the point where as they flew to Memphis and Colonel's wife,

1261
01:15:20,720 --> 01:15:24,000
Speaker 3: Leanne was horrified by this. Everybody who's crying, and Colonel says,

1262
01:15:24,160 --> 01:15:27,080
Speaker 3: stop your tears. We're representing Elvis. And when they got

1263
01:15:27,120 --> 01:15:30,800
Speaker 3: to Memphis, he told them, we will dress as we

1264
01:15:30,920 --> 01:15:34,160
Speaker 3: dressed when we were working for Elvis. Nobody will wear

1265
01:15:34,439 --> 01:15:37,240
Speaker 3: a suit and type because we never He never saw

1266
01:15:37,320 --> 01:15:39,160
Speaker 3: us like this, and we're going to do now. This

1267
01:15:39,240 --> 01:15:42,640
Speaker 3: can be vastly misunderstood and you and it's easy to

1268
01:15:42,680 --> 01:15:44,920
Speaker 3: take a negative view of it. But I don't think

1269
01:15:45,240 --> 01:15:50,520
Speaker 3: he went Colonel went from from Memphis too directly to Tampa.

1270
01:15:51,000 --> 01:15:51,120
Speaker 2: Uh.

1271
01:15:51,680 --> 01:15:55,000
Speaker 3: He hold up with another one of these families that

1272
01:15:55,080 --> 01:15:57,799
Speaker 3: you mentioned, the Renaldy family who had the Reality printing.

1273
01:15:58,280 --> 01:16:02,000
Speaker 3: The father the it's the grandfather by now, who started

1274
01:16:02,040 --> 01:16:04,240
Speaker 3: in Aldi printing, had been the first person to sort

1275
01:16:04,280 --> 01:16:07,320
Speaker 3: of take give him advice in business. He gave him

1276
01:16:07,400 --> 01:16:09,280
Speaker 3: when he could. He had no business of that. When

1277
01:16:09,280 --> 01:16:11,920
Speaker 3: he met them in thirty five thirty six. He gave

1278
01:16:11,960 --> 01:16:15,080
Speaker 3: them all the business, all the Elvis business forever after.

1279
01:16:15,439 --> 01:16:19,200
Speaker 3: But he holed up with them. He could speak with

1280
01:16:19,280 --> 01:16:21,800
Speaker 3: virtually no one, and he did everything he could to

1281
01:16:21,840 --> 01:16:26,040
Speaker 3: protect Elvis in the sense that he set up the

1282
01:16:26,120 --> 01:16:32,719
Speaker 3: deal with Factors Factors, Inc. I think that he felt

1283
01:16:32,800 --> 01:16:36,400
Speaker 3: would protect Elvis's name and image and the ability to merchandise,

1284
01:16:36,439 --> 01:16:38,880
Speaker 3: which would be the only thing or the principal thing

1285
01:16:39,160 --> 01:16:42,040
Speaker 3: that would bring income to Lisa Marie. So no, I

1286
01:16:42,400 --> 01:16:45,960
Speaker 3: think that he was He was absolutely devastating, but he

1287
01:16:46,000 --> 01:16:47,599
Speaker 3: did not behave like other people.

1288
01:16:49,479 --> 01:16:55,599
Speaker 2: Okay, you came up when Elvis was the star. Did

1289
01:16:55,600 --> 01:16:59,120
Speaker 2: you always have a fascination and want to write about Elvis?

1290
01:16:59,640 --> 01:17:02,000
Speaker 2: Or it's like, well I wrote about this person, I go, well,

1291
01:17:03,040 --> 01:17:03,840
Speaker 2: next we have eld this.

1292
01:17:05,960 --> 01:17:10,599
Speaker 3: No, No, not at all, neither one. It's just no.

1293
01:17:10,920 --> 01:17:13,880
Speaker 3: I what you know, as I always wanted to be

1294
01:17:13,920 --> 01:17:16,800
Speaker 3: a writer. I mean that has been my motivation from

1295
01:17:16,800 --> 01:17:20,160
Speaker 3: the beginning. I've written ten novels. I've got a collection

1296
01:17:20,200 --> 01:17:23,200
Speaker 3: of short stories coming out next a year from now,

1297
01:17:23,880 --> 01:17:26,559
Speaker 3: which is that's what I started out with when I

1298
01:17:26,600 --> 01:17:28,439
Speaker 3: was twenty. The first book I published when I was

1299
01:17:28,479 --> 01:17:30,559
Speaker 3: twenty was a collection of short stories, and I published

1300
01:17:30,560 --> 01:17:34,120
Speaker 3: the second when I was twenty three. Fell I fell

1301
01:17:34,120 --> 01:17:37,040
Speaker 3: into the blues when I was fifteen or sixteen. I

1302
01:17:37,080 --> 01:17:40,080
Speaker 3: had never heard anything like this. I can't describe what

1303
01:17:40,200 --> 01:17:42,920
Speaker 3: it was that captivated me, but it just totally, it

1304
01:17:43,080 --> 01:17:46,280
Speaker 3: just totally turned me around. And aside from baseball. That

1305
01:17:46,400 --> 01:17:49,080
Speaker 3: was the only thing that I was, you know, that

1306
01:17:49,160 --> 01:17:53,080
Speaker 3: I was drawn to, and it was just what happened though,

1307
01:17:53,120 --> 01:17:55,000
Speaker 3: and when I had the opportunity. This is when I'm

1308
01:17:55,040 --> 01:17:58,280
Speaker 3: fifteen or sixteen. A few years later, the underground press

1309
01:17:58,320 --> 01:18:02,160
Speaker 3: started up. I knew this kid who started a magazine

1310
01:18:02,200 --> 01:18:05,920
Speaker 3: called Crawdaddy, which preceded Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone started up

1311
01:18:05,960 --> 01:18:11,240
Speaker 3: after that, the Boston Phoenix and Boston after Dark. They

1312
01:18:11,240 --> 01:18:14,240
Speaker 3: were essentially the same thing. And I knew some people

1313
01:18:14,400 --> 01:18:18,200
Speaker 3: in different ways, and I got an opportunity. A couple

1314
01:18:18,240 --> 01:18:19,600
Speaker 3: of people said to me, well, how would you like

1315
01:18:19,680 --> 01:18:21,120
Speaker 3: to write about it? Maybe they might have said, how

1316
01:18:21,120 --> 01:18:23,479
Speaker 3: would you like to write about Cream? I said no,

1317
01:18:23,520 --> 01:18:25,800
Speaker 3: but I'd like to write about Skip James. I'd like

1318
01:18:25,880 --> 01:18:28,040
Speaker 3: to write about Muddy Waters. I'd like to write about

1319
01:18:28,080 --> 01:18:31,880
Speaker 3: Lightning Hopkins. I'd like to write about Howland Wolf. There

1320
01:18:31,920 --> 01:18:34,240
Speaker 3: was no money in it, there was no This was

1321
01:18:34,280 --> 01:18:37,400
Speaker 3: not a career. This was nothing other than pure love.

1322
01:18:38,000 --> 01:18:40,559
Speaker 3: And it was the opportunity to put those names down

1323
01:18:40,640 --> 01:18:43,519
Speaker 3: in print. You just didn't see those names in print

1324
01:18:43,520 --> 01:18:46,200
Speaker 3: at that time. And to put those names down on paper,

1325
01:18:46,520 --> 01:18:49,759
Speaker 3: see them in print, and tell people about this music.

1326
01:18:49,800 --> 01:18:53,000
Speaker 3: I thought it was so great. It was absolutely thrilling

1327
01:18:53,040 --> 01:18:56,439
Speaker 3: to me now to get back to Elvis when he

1328
01:18:56,520 --> 01:18:59,960
Speaker 3: was in the Army in nineteen sixty because Colonel had

1329
01:19:00,160 --> 01:19:03,800
Speaker 3: limited the number of things, the number of songs that

1330
01:19:03,840 --> 01:19:06,280
Speaker 3: could be kept in not the catalog, but I mean,

1331
01:19:06,280 --> 01:19:09,120
Speaker 3: there was no overage and Konnel was not going to

1332
01:19:09,160 --> 01:19:12,880
Speaker 3: have ourcas issue record after record. They and they put

1333
01:19:12,920 --> 01:19:16,360
Speaker 3: out an album called A Date with Elvis in nineteen

1334
01:19:16,439 --> 01:19:18,360
Speaker 3: six I think in fifteen nine or sixty, maybe it

1335
01:19:18,400 --> 01:19:21,439
Speaker 3: was fifty nine. This is after I had discovered the blues.

1336
01:19:22,320 --> 01:19:25,880
Speaker 3: On that record, On that album Date with Elvis, there

1337
01:19:25,880 --> 01:19:28,120
Speaker 3: were a number of the Sun sides. I'd never heard

1338
01:19:28,520 --> 01:19:32,120
Speaker 3: the blues sides, Mystery Train, that's all right, maybe good

1339
01:19:32,200 --> 01:19:35,639
Speaker 3: Rocket tonight. I had heard the originals of all these

1340
01:19:36,520 --> 01:19:40,280
Speaker 3: at that time I hear Elvis's versions, I said, oh

1341
01:19:40,320 --> 01:19:43,080
Speaker 3: my god, he's a blues singer. He's a great blue singer.

1342
01:19:43,400 --> 01:19:45,160
Speaker 3: Not a great blue singer who was going to take

1343
01:19:45,280 --> 01:19:49,559
Speaker 3: the place for me of little Junior Parker who originated

1344
01:19:49,600 --> 01:19:52,920
Speaker 3: a Mystery Train, or after Crudup originated. It wasn't that

1345
01:19:52,920 --> 01:19:54,599
Speaker 3: Elvis was taking their place. He was taking the place,

1346
01:19:55,040 --> 01:19:58,160
Speaker 3: taking a place beside them. For me, that's what motivated

1347
01:19:58,200 --> 01:19:59,880
Speaker 3: me to write about Elvis, and it was the first

1348
01:20:00,160 --> 01:20:03,960
Speaker 3: I wrote about Elvis in nineteen sixty seven was when

1349
01:20:04,360 --> 01:20:08,080
Speaker 3: he put out three essentially blues singles in a row,

1350
01:20:08,760 --> 01:20:12,479
Speaker 3: and I wrote the thing, he's coming back, He's coming

1351
01:20:12,520 --> 01:20:16,040
Speaker 3: back to his first love. You know, he's rediscovering his

1352
01:20:16,120 --> 01:20:17,800
Speaker 3: love of the blues, his roots music, and that's what

1353
01:20:17,840 --> 01:20:20,960
Speaker 3: I wrote with I then reviewed the sixty eight specials

1354
01:20:21,080 --> 01:20:23,960
Speaker 3: sort of along the same lines. I was very myopic.

1355
01:20:24,520 --> 01:20:26,920
Speaker 3: I told you that my younger self would really reject

1356
01:20:26,920 --> 01:20:29,800
Speaker 3: some of the things I'm saying today. You know, for

1357
01:20:29,920 --> 01:20:35,439
Speaker 3: me at that early stage, you know, I would think

1358
01:20:35,520 --> 01:20:38,719
Speaker 3: every time Elvis sigen as On that wasn't a blues

1359
01:20:38,880 --> 01:20:42,000
Speaker 3: I would think, always selling out. I didn't recognize the

1360
01:20:42,040 --> 01:20:45,800
Speaker 3: full scope of his ambition or his talents. But what

1361
01:20:45,880 --> 01:20:48,240
Speaker 3: drew me to Elvis was the blues. And then Elvis

1362
01:20:48,400 --> 01:20:49,719
Speaker 3: educated me to a lot more.

1363
01:20:50,640 --> 01:20:52,400
Speaker 2: Okay, so you grow up where.

1364
01:20:53,720 --> 01:20:55,520
Speaker 3: Grew up in Brookline, Mass.

1365
01:20:55,760 --> 01:20:58,200
Speaker 2: Brookline, Mass. What did your appearance do for a living?

1366
01:21:00,160 --> 01:21:03,200
Speaker 3: There was an oral and Maxillo facial surgeon.

1367
01:21:04,400 --> 01:21:07,120
Speaker 2: Okay, so how many kids in the family?

1368
01:21:08,560 --> 01:21:09,479
Speaker 3: My family three?

1369
01:21:10,000 --> 01:21:12,120
Speaker 2: Okay, what happened to your two siblings. What did their

1370
01:21:12,120 --> 01:21:13,040
Speaker 2: lives turn out to be?

1371
01:21:14,920 --> 01:21:16,960
Speaker 3: They turned out to be great people, you know they

1372
01:21:17,360 --> 01:21:20,360
Speaker 3: I mean my family. I wrote quite a bit about

1373
01:21:20,360 --> 01:21:22,880
Speaker 3: my family in my last book, Looking to Get Lost.

1374
01:21:22,920 --> 01:21:26,920
Speaker 3: It's as close I had my father, my two grandfathers,

1375
01:21:27,479 --> 01:21:30,240
Speaker 3: something about other members of the family in a book

1376
01:21:30,240 --> 01:21:34,400
Speaker 3: that was primarily a book of profiles of Johnny cash

1377
01:21:34,479 --> 01:21:37,759
Speaker 3: Merle Haggard, Howland Wolf, Jerry Lee Lewis, it also includes

1378
01:21:37,800 --> 01:21:41,519
Speaker 3: profiles of people in my family. And all of them,

1379
01:21:42,080 --> 01:21:44,880
Speaker 3: you know, just each of them went his or her

1380
01:21:44,960 --> 01:21:47,040
Speaker 3: own way. My mother went back to school, got her

1381
01:21:47,160 --> 01:21:50,000
Speaker 3: master's and social work, went to work and Grove Hall

1382
01:21:50,080 --> 01:21:53,000
Speaker 3: in Roxbury and found them as satisfying, you know, work

1383
01:21:53,040 --> 01:21:59,600
Speaker 3: of her life in that. My father just you have

1384
01:21:59,640 --> 01:22:02,840
Speaker 3: to read about it, but he was just a very

1385
01:22:02,960 --> 01:22:06,479
Speaker 3: very admirable person. And my brother and sister. My brother

1386
01:22:07,600 --> 01:22:18,439
Speaker 3: became an out an outside an outside solo jazz saxophonist,

1387
01:22:18,920 --> 01:22:22,200
Speaker 3: traveled around quite a bit, now runs a performance space

1388
01:22:23,280 --> 01:22:27,200
Speaker 3: in Albuquerque which has been an incredible service to the community.

1389
01:22:27,280 --> 01:22:30,920
Speaker 3: My sister was a teacher and a counselor who you know,

1390
01:22:31,439 --> 01:22:36,040
Speaker 3: was equally notable. So I mean, I mean, none of

1391
01:22:36,120 --> 01:22:37,559
Speaker 3: us are perfect. But they were all great.

1392
01:22:37,880 --> 01:22:41,639
Speaker 2: They are. Okay, there's a couple of things. I'll get there.

1393
01:22:41,680 --> 01:22:44,240
Speaker 2: So you go to Boston University.

1394
01:22:44,479 --> 01:22:45,960
Speaker 3: I went to, I went, I went to I went

1395
01:22:45,960 --> 01:22:46,920
Speaker 3: to Columbia first.

1396
01:22:48,600 --> 01:22:51,639
Speaker 2: Then maybe I'm wrong. You went to Columbia undergrad.

1397
01:22:51,880 --> 01:22:52,719
Speaker 3: I hated Columbia.

1398
01:22:52,840 --> 01:22:55,160
Speaker 2: You went to Columbia undergrad and then you went to

1399
01:22:55,240 --> 01:22:56,880
Speaker 2: be You for graduate school.

1400
01:22:57,240 --> 01:22:59,320
Speaker 3: No, no, you, you weren't wrong. I went to Columbia

1401
01:22:59,320 --> 01:23:01,080
Speaker 3: for a year and a half, hated it, dropped out

1402
01:23:01,120 --> 01:23:04,040
Speaker 3: for two years. Then I went to Boston University. Okay,

1403
01:23:04,120 --> 01:23:04,920
Speaker 3: I'm sure you're right.

1404
01:23:06,600 --> 01:23:10,240
Speaker 2: What did you hate about Columbia and what did you

1405
01:23:10,280 --> 01:23:12,320
Speaker 2: do for those two years? This was an era when

1406
01:23:12,360 --> 01:23:14,400
Speaker 2: people didn't take time off from college.

1407
01:23:16,720 --> 01:23:19,800
Speaker 3: I felt that it was Columbia was a very closed off,

1408
01:23:20,200 --> 01:23:28,160
Speaker 3: prejudiced kind of self granddas, you know, I'm talking about

1409
01:23:28,160 --> 01:23:30,960
Speaker 3: the students there, and also the whole thing about you're

1410
01:23:31,000 --> 01:23:33,400
Speaker 3: going to learn enough so you can go to the

1411
01:23:33,439 --> 01:23:37,080
Speaker 3: cocktail of life and you can talk about any subject

1412
01:23:37,160 --> 01:23:39,759
Speaker 3: on a superficial level. This was a great books program.

1413
01:23:40,479 --> 01:23:43,800
Speaker 3: So I but you know, I was you know, I

1414
01:23:43,840 --> 01:23:46,600
Speaker 3: tell I tell my granddaughters, I say, you know, I

1415
01:23:46,640 --> 01:23:48,200
Speaker 3: was just a little asshole. I mean, yeah, I so

1416
01:23:48,360 --> 01:23:51,639
Speaker 3: don't take me seriously. I but I but I believed

1417
01:23:51,680 --> 01:23:58,400
Speaker 3: myself so but I I it was a very the

1418
01:23:58,479 --> 01:24:02,639
Speaker 3: community that I saw there was a very I felt,

1419
01:24:02,640 --> 01:24:07,240
Speaker 3: a very self serving self whatever you call proud.

1420
01:24:07,000 --> 01:24:09,480
Speaker 2: Of itself, self satisfy.

1421
01:24:10,400 --> 01:24:14,439
Speaker 3: Yeah, self satisfied community. I mean. And I had some

1422
01:24:14,479 --> 01:24:16,640
Speaker 3: friends there, but it just wasn't where I wanted to be.

1423
01:24:17,000 --> 01:24:18,800
Speaker 3: But I'd say that says more about me than it

1424
01:24:18,840 --> 01:24:21,000
Speaker 3: does about any than it does about the school.

1425
01:24:22,080 --> 01:24:23,760
Speaker 2: So what did you do for those two years? And

1426
01:24:23,800 --> 01:24:25,200
Speaker 2: then how did you decide to go to be you?

1427
01:24:27,640 --> 01:24:30,920
Speaker 3: I went to bu because it was convenient and because

1428
01:24:30,920 --> 01:24:35,960
Speaker 3: I finally I realized the advantage there would be to

1429
01:24:36,000 --> 01:24:39,000
Speaker 3: get in a degree staying out of the draft. You know,

1430
01:24:39,080 --> 01:24:42,160
Speaker 3: there were there were many aspects to it. But for

1431
01:24:42,200 --> 01:24:45,040
Speaker 3: the two years I worked for the Paperback Booksmith, mainly

1432
01:24:45,160 --> 01:24:48,000
Speaker 3: bookstore which was modeled on the Eighth Street Bookstore in

1433
01:24:48,000 --> 01:24:50,160
Speaker 3: New York, run by a guy named Marshall Smith who

1434
01:24:50,160 --> 01:24:54,280
Speaker 3: had been something like a stockbroker and then had a

1435
01:24:54,360 --> 01:24:56,519
Speaker 3: vision of paperbacks were the wave of the future and

1436
01:24:56,600 --> 01:25:00,160
Speaker 3: started a chain of stores in the Boston near He

1437
01:25:00,200 --> 01:25:02,280
Speaker 3: called the Paperback booksmith, and I worked most of them,

1438
01:25:02,320 --> 01:25:06,320
Speaker 3: and eventually I ended up driving as a kind of

1439
01:25:06,360 --> 01:25:09,760
Speaker 3: delivery driving the delivery trucked around to the various and

1440
01:25:09,800 --> 01:25:11,439
Speaker 3: I loved it. It was just great. And I love the

1441
01:25:11,439 --> 01:25:14,640
Speaker 3: people who worked there. And everybody was a dropout in

1442
01:25:14,680 --> 01:25:17,880
Speaker 3: one way or another, and everybody had a dream, and everybody,

1443
01:25:18,160 --> 01:25:21,880
Speaker 3: you know, had imagination, and they were not self satisfied.

1444
01:25:22,960 --> 01:25:25,120
Speaker 2: And how'd you get out of the draft?

1445
01:25:27,640 --> 01:25:30,559
Speaker 3: Well, I never I actually never got classified. I went

1446
01:25:30,640 --> 01:25:34,439
Speaker 3: back to school. I was two s I was married,

1447
01:25:35,560 --> 01:25:37,840
Speaker 3: so that was the second thing. And then just as

1448
01:25:37,880 --> 01:25:43,320
Speaker 3: they were started drafting married people, Alexander got pregnant, and

1449
01:25:43,400 --> 01:25:45,840
Speaker 3: so then I was a father. So all in all,

1450
01:25:45,920 --> 01:25:48,400
Speaker 3: I was just lucky. I don't know what I would

1451
01:25:48,479 --> 01:25:52,320
Speaker 3: my grandfather. My grandfather taught English at the Boston Latin School.

1452
01:25:53,320 --> 01:25:57,320
Speaker 3: He was prepared, I mean spoke seriously. I don't know

1453
01:25:57,360 --> 01:26:00,280
Speaker 3: if whatever would have happened. He was going to buy

1454
01:26:00,439 --> 01:26:02,639
Speaker 3: land in Canada and we could all go up there.

1455
01:26:03,120 --> 01:26:07,479
Speaker 3: So he was very approving of me. I mean, he

1456
01:26:07,560 --> 01:26:10,479
Speaker 3: was just he was a great grandfather, and both grandfathers

1457
01:26:10,560 --> 01:26:13,800
Speaker 3: were but he and he but what was best of all,

1458
01:26:14,680 --> 01:26:17,200
Speaker 3: even the only thing he disapproved of was my arm.

1459
01:26:17,600 --> 01:26:19,960
Speaker 3: He was a great athlete himself. He was a three

1460
01:26:20,000 --> 01:26:24,760
Speaker 3: sport athlete in college and a terrific baseball player. And

1461
01:26:26,120 --> 01:26:29,040
Speaker 3: you know, he thought I was a good hitter. I

1462
01:26:29,120 --> 01:26:31,599
Speaker 3: was a good fielder, you know, but I just didn't

1463
01:26:31,640 --> 01:26:33,920
Speaker 3: have much of an arm. I played the outfield, he said.

1464
01:26:34,000 --> 01:26:35,439
Speaker 3: I said to him. I said, well, I've got a

1465
01:26:35,479 --> 01:26:37,200
Speaker 3: quick release. He says, yeah, you got to work on

1466
01:26:37,240 --> 01:26:39,280
Speaker 3: the iron though. Other than that, though, he approved of

1467
01:26:39,280 --> 01:26:42,439
Speaker 3: everything I did, and he was talking about buying land

1468
01:26:42,479 --> 01:26:44,200
Speaker 3: in Canada so we could all go up there if

1469
01:26:44,240 --> 01:26:45,800
Speaker 3: I got drafted. But it never came to that.

1470
01:26:53,640 --> 01:26:58,920
Speaker 2: Of the three kids, where are you in the hierarchy.

1471
01:26:58,080 --> 01:26:59,800
Speaker 3: You should be able to guess you're the.

1472
01:26:59,760 --> 01:27:04,320
Speaker 2: Old obviously, right, Well I could tell that, but whatever, Okay,

1473
01:27:04,640 --> 01:27:06,839
Speaker 2: so you go back to college. Where in this story

1474
01:27:06,880 --> 01:27:07,920
Speaker 2: do you want to be a writer.

1475
01:27:10,360 --> 01:27:15,240
Speaker 3: From the time I was probably you know, eight or

1476
01:27:15,280 --> 01:27:17,120
Speaker 3: ten years old, I always wanted to be a writer.

1477
01:27:17,200 --> 01:27:18,960
Speaker 3: I wanted to be a writer and a baseball player.

1478
01:27:19,040 --> 01:27:23,120
Speaker 3: Those were my two ambitions. And I wrote and I'll

1479
01:27:23,120 --> 01:27:27,720
Speaker 3: tell you that when I was fifteen, that you know,

1480
01:27:28,560 --> 01:27:31,080
Speaker 3: seminal year. Maybe I don't know if that happened at

1481
01:27:31,120 --> 01:27:33,280
Speaker 3: exactly the same time I discovered The Blues. But I

1482
01:27:33,320 --> 01:27:38,080
Speaker 3: also read the interview with Ernest Hemingway in the Paris

1483
01:27:38,120 --> 01:27:42,760
Speaker 3: Review where he talked about his I think George Plumpton nos.

1484
01:27:43,000 --> 01:27:46,000
Speaker 3: Was it Terry Southern? No. George Plumpton conducted the interview

1485
01:27:46,439 --> 01:27:51,640
Speaker 3: and Hemingway spoke about his writing habits, and the thing was,

1486
01:27:51,720 --> 01:27:54,320
Speaker 3: no matter what you do the night before, and no

1487
01:27:54,360 --> 01:27:55,880
Speaker 3: matter what you plan to do with the rest of

1488
01:27:55,920 --> 01:27:59,120
Speaker 3: your day, you write every day, and you try to

1489
01:27:59,120 --> 01:28:01,840
Speaker 3: write a certain number of and not a specific number,

1490
01:28:01,880 --> 01:28:06,639
Speaker 3: but you and you don't stop until you you're If

1491
01:28:06,680 --> 01:28:09,000
Speaker 3: you're not satisfied with what you produced, at least you're

1492
01:28:09,000 --> 01:28:11,880
Speaker 3: satisfied you put in the effort. And I started that

1493
01:28:11,960 --> 01:28:14,519
Speaker 3: when I was fifteen, and I continued to this day.

1494
01:28:14,760 --> 01:28:16,400
Speaker 3: I mean to a degree. I mean, my life, life

1495
01:28:16,400 --> 01:28:19,160
Speaker 3: has gotten more complicated, but it's in essence, it's the

1496
01:28:19,160 --> 01:28:22,400
Speaker 3: same thing. And so all the time that I was

1497
01:28:22,560 --> 01:28:25,280
Speaker 3: in school, all the time that I was working at

1498
01:28:25,280 --> 01:28:29,760
Speaker 3: the book smith, you know, if work started at if

1499
01:28:29,960 --> 01:28:32,799
Speaker 3: classes started at eight o'clock, if work started at nine o'clock,

1500
01:28:33,560 --> 01:28:35,400
Speaker 3: I'd get up at five and I would write for

1501
01:28:35,400 --> 01:28:37,200
Speaker 3: an hour and a half before I went to work

1502
01:28:37,200 --> 01:28:39,920
Speaker 3: before and you know, it wasn't that I was. What

1503
01:28:40,000 --> 01:28:42,400
Speaker 3: I was writing was so great, And in many cases

1504
01:28:42,400 --> 01:28:45,240
Speaker 3: it was really painful because I would say, Okay, if

1505
01:28:45,240 --> 01:28:46,720
Speaker 3: he mary Way can do it. I'm not saying I've

1506
01:28:46,720 --> 01:28:48,360
Speaker 3: got the talent of him anyway, but at least I

1507
01:28:48,360 --> 01:28:50,320
Speaker 3: can put in the effort. And I would, so I

1508
01:28:50,320 --> 01:28:54,720
Speaker 3: would just force myself to I remember being at Columbia,

1509
01:28:55,120 --> 01:29:00,639
Speaker 3: just force myself to write five hundred words, some seven

1510
01:29:00,680 --> 01:29:03,719
Speaker 3: hundred words, and it just words that I might hate.

1511
01:29:04,160 --> 01:29:06,799
Speaker 3: Sometimes it was good. Then I'd go out to Tom's,

1512
01:29:06,840 --> 01:29:09,040
Speaker 3: which is the place where they filmed so much of Seinfelder.

1513
01:29:09,080 --> 01:29:12,240
Speaker 3: If they didn't film it, they they recreated it. And

1514
01:29:13,400 --> 01:29:15,719
Speaker 3: I would have French tows at times and go to class.

1515
01:29:16,040 --> 01:29:18,479
Speaker 3: But I mean, to me, it didn't matter if I

1516
01:29:18,520 --> 01:29:21,040
Speaker 3: came in at two in the morning, I was going

1517
01:29:21,080 --> 01:29:25,439
Speaker 3: to get up to write. And you know this sounds

1518
01:29:25,800 --> 01:29:30,720
Speaker 3: talk about self satisfied. You know this sounds like, oh man,

1519
01:29:30,800 --> 01:29:32,479
Speaker 3: I was so great. I mean, I'm not saying that

1520
01:29:32,520 --> 01:29:35,439
Speaker 3: I just but but I was determined to be a writer.

1521
01:29:35,520 --> 01:29:39,559
Speaker 3: And that's why, you know, when this guy in Cambridge,

1522
01:29:39,600 --> 01:29:43,760
Speaker 3: Larry Stark, decided that Cambridge in the sixties was just

1523
01:29:43,840 --> 01:29:46,120
Speaker 3: like Paris in the twenties, and said, I'm going to

1524
01:29:46,160 --> 01:29:48,719
Speaker 3: start my own press, and you called it the Larry

1525
01:29:48,840 --> 01:29:51,960
Speaker 3: Stark Press. Not surprisingly, the first book he published was

1526
01:29:51,960 --> 01:29:53,680
Speaker 3: a book of my short stories, and I think it

1527
01:29:53,720 --> 01:29:55,719
Speaker 3: was if it didn't come out the day I turned twenty,

1528
01:29:55,760 --> 01:29:58,120
Speaker 3: It came out just ye. It was supposed to come

1529
01:29:58,200 --> 01:30:00,240
Speaker 3: up before that, but came on when I it was

1530
01:30:00,680 --> 01:30:03,840
Speaker 3: just twenty, and you know it was cool.

1531
01:30:04,240 --> 01:30:10,719
Speaker 2: Okay, So you wanted to write fiction. Okay, you're writing

1532
01:30:10,800 --> 01:30:15,000
Speaker 2: these reviews and stories about blues musicians because you have

1533
01:30:15,040 --> 01:30:21,000
Speaker 2: a passion. You get out of school, what is the

1534
01:30:21,080 --> 01:30:23,960
Speaker 2: direction you take and how do you pay the bills?

1535
01:30:25,400 --> 01:30:27,960
Speaker 3: Everything I did was for the writing, to support the writing.

1536
01:30:28,760 --> 01:30:34,240
Speaker 3: You know that sounds like a an idealistic or maybe

1537
01:30:34,240 --> 01:30:36,360
Speaker 3: it sounds like a really selfish thing. I mean, you

1538
01:30:36,360 --> 01:30:39,080
Speaker 3: have to support your family, and you have to and

1539
01:30:39,439 --> 01:30:41,400
Speaker 3: the secondary thing is you had to support the writing.

1540
01:30:41,479 --> 01:30:44,200
Speaker 3: So everything I did as it happened. I fell into

1541
01:30:44,200 --> 01:30:48,719
Speaker 3: a job teaching classics at Boston University for seven years

1542
01:30:48,800 --> 01:30:51,280
Speaker 3: because it was a great guy named Charlie buy who

1543
01:30:51,400 --> 01:30:54,440
Speaker 3: ran the classics department, which is probably the most creative

1544
01:30:54,479 --> 01:31:00,320
Speaker 3: department at Boston University, and a woman who was to

1545
01:31:00,360 --> 01:31:03,559
Speaker 3: teach first year of Greek pregnant, I don't remember. She

1546
01:31:03,560 --> 01:31:05,200
Speaker 3: didn't show up, and he asked me if I would

1547
01:31:05,200 --> 01:31:07,280
Speaker 3: do it, and then I talked of for the next

1548
01:31:07,280 --> 01:31:09,960
Speaker 3: seven years, or I talked for the next seven years,

1549
01:31:09,960 --> 01:31:12,400
Speaker 3: a couple of years full time, but all of it

1550
01:31:12,479 --> 01:31:16,320
Speaker 3: was designed to support the writing, support the family, and

1551
01:31:16,360 --> 01:31:26,640
Speaker 3: support the writing. And he almost he almost. At the

1552
01:31:26,680 --> 01:31:32,080
Speaker 3: same time, my grandfather, who taught English Boston Latin School

1553
01:31:32,080 --> 01:31:35,519
Speaker 3: and to whom I was so close, ran a summer

1554
01:31:35,560 --> 01:31:39,840
Speaker 3: camp on Lake Winnipesaki, and he was kind of guy.

1555
01:31:39,880 --> 01:31:42,360
Speaker 3: He was like Colonel Parker. He didn't ask anybody's help.

1556
01:31:42,439 --> 01:31:44,400
Speaker 3: He did everything himself. And he was still running the

1557
01:31:44,400 --> 01:31:49,479
Speaker 3: camp himself, about two hundred and fifty campers in nineteen

1558
01:31:49,600 --> 01:31:55,720
Speaker 3: seventy when he was seventy eight years old, and it's

1559
01:31:55,760 --> 01:31:59,040
Speaker 3: still very vigorous, and still took his cuts once in

1560
01:31:59,040 --> 01:32:01,640
Speaker 3: a while to play. The council would throw to him.

1561
01:32:01,720 --> 01:32:03,200
Speaker 3: Was just be scared to death that he was going

1562
01:32:03,240 --> 01:32:05,960
Speaker 3: to hit him. But he would call. He would call

1563
01:32:06,040 --> 01:32:08,919
Speaker 3: his fields, you know, he would still call his fields

1564
01:32:09,080 --> 01:32:10,800
Speaker 3: right fields, centerfield where he was.

1565
01:32:10,800 --> 01:32:11,200
Speaker 2: Going to hit.

1566
01:32:11,880 --> 01:32:15,120
Speaker 3: But in seventy he asked me in the middle of

1567
01:32:15,160 --> 01:32:17,160
Speaker 3: camp if I would help him out the next year.

1568
01:32:18,160 --> 01:32:19,800
Speaker 3: This was not what I wanted to do. It's not

1569
01:32:19,880 --> 01:32:22,520
Speaker 3: what I intended to do. It was not in my thoughts.

1570
01:32:22,960 --> 01:32:25,519
Speaker 3: But I would never turn him down, and so I

1571
01:32:25,560 --> 01:32:29,680
Speaker 3: said yes. Within I think within a few days, he

1572
01:32:29,800 --> 01:32:32,559
Speaker 3: had what appeared to be a stroke. It turned out

1573
01:32:32,560 --> 01:32:35,599
Speaker 3: to be a brain tumor. But he and I ended

1574
01:32:35,680 --> 01:32:38,920
Speaker 3: up finishing out the year at camp having no idea.

1575
01:32:39,040 --> 01:32:43,760
Speaker 3: Nobody knew how camp ran. I learned quickly and I

1576
01:32:43,840 --> 01:32:46,639
Speaker 3: was like working a forty eight hour day. And then

1577
01:32:46,680 --> 01:32:49,639
Speaker 3: I kept camp going over the winter because it looked

1578
01:32:49,640 --> 01:32:52,240
Speaker 3: like he was going to get better, he was improving

1579
01:32:52,240 --> 01:32:54,479
Speaker 3: from what appeared to be the stroke. And then he

1580
01:32:54,840 --> 01:32:58,160
Speaker 3: didn't get better, he got worse. And I carried on

1581
01:32:58,640 --> 01:33:00,479
Speaker 3: and I ran the camp the twenty two years, and

1582
01:33:00,520 --> 01:33:04,840
Speaker 3: again it was a wonderful thing, an incredibly rewarding experience,

1583
01:33:06,200 --> 01:33:09,880
Speaker 3: but also something that was very very it was it

1584
01:33:10,000 --> 01:33:12,640
Speaker 3: was no selling. It was all word of mouth. I mean,

1585
01:33:12,680 --> 01:33:14,800
Speaker 3: I wasn't going to go out and you know, go

1586
01:33:14,880 --> 01:33:16,120
Speaker 3: out and sell the camp.

1587
01:33:16,200 --> 01:33:16,439
Speaker 2: I was.

1588
01:33:16,800 --> 01:33:20,280
Speaker 3: I was going to write and but the camp sustained itself.

1589
01:33:21,120 --> 01:33:24,200
Speaker 3: It remained a wonderful experience. It was a very rewarding experience.

1590
01:33:24,200 --> 01:33:25,760
Speaker 3: It was probably the best thing in the world I

1591
01:33:25,800 --> 01:33:28,200
Speaker 3: could ever have done in terms of writing, because it

1592
01:33:28,200 --> 01:33:31,720
Speaker 3: took me out of myself. It took me out of

1593
01:33:31,760 --> 01:33:33,800
Speaker 3: my If I had an ivory it wasn't so much

1594
01:33:33,800 --> 01:33:36,200
Speaker 3: an ivory tower. It's my own head, you know. And

1595
01:33:36,240 --> 01:33:38,120
Speaker 3: I had to deal with all these different people, all

1596
01:33:38,160 --> 01:33:41,040
Speaker 3: these different problems, all these different you know, and it

1597
01:33:41,080 --> 01:33:43,160
Speaker 3: was so it was great. And I ran it for

1598
01:33:43,160 --> 01:33:47,240
Speaker 3: twenty two years, and you know, so it was it was.

1599
01:33:47,680 --> 01:33:49,040
Speaker 3: It was a terrific experience.

1600
01:33:49,520 --> 01:33:51,000
Speaker 2: So what happened after twenty two.

1601
01:33:50,920 --> 01:33:56,240
Speaker 3: Years we sort of reached the end of the line.

1602
01:33:56,280 --> 01:33:58,320
Speaker 3: I mean, the last few years I think were the

1603
01:33:58,320 --> 01:34:00,760
Speaker 3: best years of camp. But I've felt like I was

1604
01:34:00,800 --> 01:34:04,320
Speaker 3: just repeating myself that I didn't want to do that

1605
01:34:04,439 --> 01:34:08,120
Speaker 3: I didn't. I mean, I think that's unfair both to yourself.

1606
01:34:08,200 --> 01:34:10,080
Speaker 3: It's unfair of the job, it's unfair of the people

1607
01:34:10,080 --> 01:34:12,559
Speaker 3: who are dependent on you. And I reached a point

1608
01:34:12,560 --> 01:34:15,880
Speaker 3: where I and also I was working on the Elvis biography,

1609
01:34:16,439 --> 01:34:22,200
Speaker 3: the writing was becoming more and more demanding, involving you know, it,

1610
01:34:23,479 --> 01:34:29,280
Speaker 3: and so I tried to find someone to take it over.

1611
01:34:29,360 --> 01:34:32,280
Speaker 3: I mean I tried and and and didn't and so

1612
01:34:33,120 --> 01:34:35,840
Speaker 3: we so we ended up I ended up closing camp.

1613
01:34:35,840 --> 01:34:38,719
Speaker 3: And two years later we were able to sell it.

1614
01:34:38,760 --> 01:34:40,680
Speaker 2: Is it still a camp or just you sold as

1615
01:34:40,680 --> 01:34:41,519
Speaker 2: a piece of property.

1616
01:34:42,640 --> 01:34:44,320
Speaker 3: I didn't sell it as a piece of property. I

1617
01:34:44,479 --> 01:34:47,200
Speaker 3: sold it to a nature conservancy thing that said they

1618
01:34:47,200 --> 01:34:49,960
Speaker 3: would never let it be sold as a piece of property,

1619
01:34:49,960 --> 01:34:55,120
Speaker 3: and then sold it as a piece of property. Okay,

1620
01:34:55,400 --> 01:34:57,479
Speaker 3: you know, you do you do the best you can.

1621
01:34:58,160 --> 01:35:01,400
Speaker 3: And as Sam Phillips said and Colonel said, you never

1622
01:35:01,439 --> 01:35:03,240
Speaker 3: looked back, because what's the point. You did the best

1623
01:35:03,280 --> 01:35:05,680
Speaker 3: you could. You looked into every aspect and you know,

1624
01:35:06,479 --> 01:35:07,200
Speaker 3: and that was it.

1625
01:35:07,640 --> 01:35:11,080
Speaker 2: Okay, subsequent to your twenty two years of camp? Did

1626
01:35:11,120 --> 01:35:13,519
Speaker 2: you ever have a so called day job after that?

1627
01:35:15,000 --> 01:35:20,280
Speaker 3: Well, you know, my life has been a series of

1628
01:35:20,840 --> 01:35:25,519
Speaker 3: somewhat of a series of fortuitous events. And in two

1629
01:35:25,640 --> 01:35:30,280
Speaker 3: thousand and five I was offered a one year appointment

1630
01:35:31,120 --> 01:35:36,200
Speaker 3: at Vanderbilt teaching teaching creative writing at Vanderbilt as a

1631
01:35:37,760 --> 01:35:41,320
Speaker 3: I can't think what the title was, and so I

1632
01:35:41,320 --> 01:35:43,240
Speaker 3: thought this would be interesting, this to be great. I

1633
01:35:43,280 --> 01:35:44,960
Speaker 3: would never do it for more than one semester. We

1634
01:35:45,000 --> 01:35:47,920
Speaker 3: camp took about three months of the year, maybe four

1635
01:35:47,920 --> 01:35:49,960
Speaker 3: months of the year, but that left me free to

1636
01:35:49,960 --> 01:35:53,760
Speaker 3: write eight months of the year. And with Vanderbilt think

1637
01:35:53,760 --> 01:35:58,320
Speaker 3: it was a one semester thing. And so I did it.

1638
01:35:59,120 --> 01:36:03,080
Speaker 3: And I wound up staying there teaching one semester a

1639
01:36:03,120 --> 01:36:06,920
Speaker 3: year until twenty sixteen. So I got twelve years out

1640
01:36:06,920 --> 01:36:09,400
Speaker 3: of it out of a one year appointment. Was pretty good.

1641
01:36:10,600 --> 01:36:15,840
Speaker 3: And that was also very rewarding. And you know, and

1642
01:36:16,120 --> 01:36:18,360
Speaker 3: for the most part, during the time that I was teaching,

1643
01:36:19,160 --> 01:36:22,920
Speaker 3: it was very difficult to write, but I recognized that

1644
01:36:23,040 --> 01:36:27,679
Speaker 3: I was being given the opportunity to support the writing

1645
01:36:28,760 --> 01:36:32,880
Speaker 3: through my commitment to this teaching for a period of

1646
01:36:32,920 --> 01:36:35,200
Speaker 3: time that was three and a half months, and the

1647
01:36:35,240 --> 01:36:37,920
Speaker 3: rest of the year I had free So that worked

1648
01:36:37,920 --> 01:36:39,720
Speaker 3: out great. It wouldn't have worked out great if I

1649
01:36:39,760 --> 01:36:43,080
Speaker 3: hadn't found it, but you know, so rewarding, and I

1650
01:36:43,080 --> 01:36:46,160
Speaker 3: hadn't enjoyed the teaching and enjoy it. I'd say I

1651
01:36:46,280 --> 01:36:51,400
Speaker 3: enjoyed the kids I taught, both undergraduates and MFAs. I'm

1652
01:36:51,439 --> 01:36:54,920
Speaker 3: not sure that I enjoyed the faculty aspect. I didn't

1653
01:36:54,960 --> 01:36:57,360
Speaker 3: have any faculty aspect. I wasn't interested in it, but

1654
01:36:57,840 --> 01:37:00,200
Speaker 3: that would not have been something I would have enjoyed.

1655
01:37:00,040 --> 01:37:03,640
Speaker 2: It as a lifelong writer, someone wanted to be a

1656
01:37:03,680 --> 01:37:06,800
Speaker 2: writer as a young age. How do you feel that

1657
01:37:06,960 --> 01:37:09,920
Speaker 2: you're mostly known for your non fiction as opposed to

1658
01:37:09,960 --> 01:37:10,439
Speaker 2: your fiction.

1659
01:37:13,360 --> 01:37:16,240
Speaker 3: That's a question I ask myself all the time. But

1660
01:37:16,439 --> 01:37:19,760
Speaker 3: you know, I've never been asked that on Zoom. I

1661
01:37:19,840 --> 01:37:26,519
Speaker 3: know we're not on Zoom. We're whatever we're on. But I,

1662
01:37:26,600 --> 01:37:31,080
Speaker 3: you know, I sometimes I think that, you know, maybe

1663
01:37:31,080 --> 01:37:33,640
Speaker 3: it just turned out that I was better at the

1664
01:37:33,680 --> 01:37:36,320
Speaker 3: non fiction and the fiction. But say, I've never stopped

1665
01:37:36,320 --> 01:37:39,960
Speaker 3: writing the fiction. I'm working on a novel that I

1666
01:37:40,080 --> 01:37:46,040
Speaker 3: broke off at one point while I was writing the

1667
01:37:46,080 --> 01:37:49,960
Speaker 3: Elvis biography because it became so all consuming. The biographies

1668
01:37:50,000 --> 01:37:54,760
Speaker 3: are just a matter of total immersion. But I've worked

1669
01:37:54,760 --> 01:37:57,040
Speaker 3: on it off and on since then, and I'm working

1670
01:37:57,040 --> 01:37:59,160
Speaker 3: on that again now. I've worked on these short stories

1671
01:37:59,160 --> 01:38:02,200
Speaker 3: which are coming up next year. If the world doesn't

1672
01:38:02,200 --> 01:38:06,080
Speaker 3: come to an end, you know, or I don't come

1673
01:38:06,080 --> 01:38:09,360
Speaker 3: to an end, but some work. I've been working on

1674
01:38:09,400 --> 01:38:11,200
Speaker 3: these short stories over the year, so I never gave

1675
01:38:11,280 --> 01:38:13,640
Speaker 3: up the fiction, but it has occurred to me that

1676
01:38:14,160 --> 01:38:17,439
Speaker 3: maybe I was just better. But the other thing, and

1677
01:38:17,479 --> 01:38:21,120
Speaker 3: this was really the great revelation to me, was when

1678
01:38:21,120 --> 01:38:24,160
Speaker 3: I was working on the Elvis, it suddenly occurred to me,

1679
01:38:24,920 --> 01:38:28,400
Speaker 3: this really is a novel. This is a novel on

1680
01:38:28,479 --> 01:38:31,760
Speaker 3: a grand scale. I mean, it's not that everything is

1681
01:38:33,320 --> 01:38:36,320
Speaker 3: nothing is made up, everything is factual, everything is based

1682
01:38:36,360 --> 01:38:40,360
Speaker 3: on research. But it's developing. It's a great story with

1683
01:38:40,520 --> 01:38:46,000
Speaker 3: great characters on a landscape that maybe I couldn't imagine

1684
01:38:46,320 --> 01:38:51,519
Speaker 3: in terms of fiction. I probably couldn't. And so that

1685
01:38:51,680 --> 01:38:55,360
Speaker 3: was all of this was satisfied. Writting about Solomon Burke,

1686
01:38:55,439 --> 01:38:58,519
Speaker 3: watting about Dick Curlis, writing about Muddy Waters, all of

1687
01:38:58,560 --> 01:39:03,600
Speaker 3: those were satisfying, particularly when I started working writing Profiles,

1688
01:39:03,640 --> 01:39:07,040
Speaker 3: which was my first couple of books from books of Profiles,

1689
01:39:07,560 --> 01:39:09,880
Speaker 3: and they were like short stories in a sense, but

1690
01:39:09,920 --> 01:39:13,640
Speaker 3: not in quite the way that the Elvis biography and

1691
01:39:13,680 --> 01:39:16,559
Speaker 3: then the Sam Cook and the Sam Phillips were. These

1692
01:39:17,479 --> 01:39:21,360
Speaker 3: they were they were like novels to me, and to me,

1693
01:39:21,479 --> 01:39:24,719
Speaker 3: the whole thing it was all about telling the story,

1694
01:39:25,000 --> 01:39:30,080
Speaker 3: developing the characters, and always making sure that you moved

1695
01:39:30,120 --> 01:39:36,880
Speaker 3: forward and that you didn't introduce either anecdotes or you

1696
01:39:36,920 --> 01:39:40,360
Speaker 3: didn't repeat the same thing over and over again. You

1697
01:39:40,479 --> 01:39:43,200
Speaker 3: tried to have a sense of development of the How

1698
01:39:43,240 --> 01:39:46,639
Speaker 3: did the characters, each character, whether it was Dewey Phillips

1699
01:39:46,760 --> 01:39:48,880
Speaker 3: or it was you know, Sam Phillips, or it was

1700
01:39:51,320 --> 01:39:54,920
Speaker 3: Sam Cook or J. W. Alexander, how did they develop

1701
01:39:55,040 --> 01:39:56,760
Speaker 3: over the course of the time of writing about them,

1702
01:39:56,800 --> 01:39:59,439
Speaker 3: and how does the story proceed. So in a way,

1703
01:39:59,479 --> 01:40:02,000
Speaker 3: it became very much like writing novels. So I don't know.

1704
01:40:02,479 --> 01:40:04,080
Speaker 3: I mean, that's not a very good answer. That's the

1705
01:40:04,120 --> 01:40:04,679
Speaker 3: best I've.

1706
01:40:04,560 --> 01:40:09,360
Speaker 2: Got, Okay, In terms of other than assemblage of previously

1707
01:40:09,360 --> 01:40:14,439
Speaker 2: written pieces. Prior to the Elvis books, you did one

1708
01:40:14,479 --> 01:40:19,320
Speaker 2: on Robert Johnson, and what else was a book from

1709
01:40:19,360 --> 01:40:22,799
Speaker 2: scratch prior to Elvis.

1710
01:40:23,000 --> 01:40:25,080
Speaker 3: Well, the first book Feel Like Going Home. Those were

1711
01:40:25,080 --> 01:40:29,080
Speaker 3: not previously published pieces. The most recent book, Looking to

1712
01:40:29,080 --> 01:40:31,880
Speaker 3: Get Lost, although it's a collection of profiles, two thirds

1713
01:40:31,880 --> 01:40:35,400
Speaker 3: of it is new to you know in its form,

1714
01:40:36,680 --> 01:40:41,759
Speaker 3: Lost Highway probably comes closest to being previously published pieces.

1715
01:40:41,760 --> 01:40:44,800
Speaker 3: But given that every single piece I've written has come

1716
01:40:44,840 --> 01:40:48,040
Speaker 3: out of my personal commitment, I've never written anything on assignment,

1717
01:40:48,400 --> 01:40:49,840
Speaker 3: which is not a good way to make a living.

1718
01:40:50,120 --> 01:40:54,360
Speaker 3: I should say if we have any you know, kids

1719
01:40:54,400 --> 01:40:57,400
Speaker 3: listening out there, any writing students don't do what I did,

1720
01:40:57,800 --> 01:41:01,000
Speaker 3: but because you know, it's probably smart to take the

1721
01:41:01,040 --> 01:41:03,040
Speaker 3: assignments you've give them, But I didn't. I never did.

1722
01:41:03,439 --> 01:41:06,479
Speaker 3: Every single story I've ever done has come out of

1723
01:41:06,479 --> 01:41:09,719
Speaker 3: personal commitment, So even Lost Highway, which in some ways

1724
01:41:09,760 --> 01:41:12,519
Speaker 3: is as personal as any of the books, although I

1725
01:41:12,560 --> 01:41:14,639
Speaker 3: think in that case each of the stories had been

1726
01:41:14,880 --> 01:41:21,960
Speaker 3: published elsewhere. It's written as a book with interpolated passages

1727
01:41:22,479 --> 01:41:28,000
Speaker 3: and with you know, with the profiles rewritten to fit

1728
01:41:28,040 --> 01:41:31,679
Speaker 3: a format and not to include and chosen. I guess

1729
01:41:31,680 --> 01:41:35,000
Speaker 3: that's the thing most of all, chosen to represent a

1730
01:41:37,160 --> 01:41:41,160
Speaker 3: progression within this book, rather than this be random pieces.

1731
01:41:41,680 --> 01:41:45,320
Speaker 3: So I none of them were collections per se.

1732
01:41:45,880 --> 01:41:49,719
Speaker 2: Okay, And you had these ideas you started writing before

1733
01:41:49,760 --> 01:41:52,479
Speaker 2: you had a publishing deal on these books.

1734
01:41:54,160 --> 01:41:58,679
Speaker 3: No, the well, yeah, I mean I feel like going

1735
01:41:58,720 --> 01:42:04,080
Speaker 3: Home came about. This is a sad story, Is that? Okay?

1736
01:42:04,120 --> 01:42:07,120
Speaker 2: With you?

1737
01:42:08,040 --> 01:42:09,920
Speaker 3: I can see you've got a tissue there, so you

1738
01:42:09,920 --> 01:42:14,720
Speaker 3: know you're ready for No. I knew this editor who

1739
01:42:14,760 --> 01:42:17,559
Speaker 3: was sort of the enfantiable of publishing at the time,

1740
01:42:18,040 --> 01:42:20,439
Speaker 3: and he had turned down two or three of my novels,

1741
01:42:21,040 --> 01:42:24,360
Speaker 3: and he told me the next novel you write, which

1742
01:42:24,360 --> 01:42:27,599
Speaker 3: I think was called improvised people. He says, I'm positive

1743
01:42:27,640 --> 01:42:30,479
Speaker 3: I'll publishing. He was, he was doing pretty well in publishing,

1744
01:42:30,520 --> 01:42:33,120
Speaker 3: and he was the good guy and everything. So I

1745
01:42:33,200 --> 01:42:36,519
Speaker 3: sent it to him, and you know, he couldn't. He

1746
01:42:37,200 --> 01:42:39,680
Speaker 3: rejected it. He just and maybe he was right. You know,

1747
01:42:39,720 --> 01:42:41,840
Speaker 3: I'm not going to argue with him, but I think

1748
01:42:41,840 --> 01:42:44,000
Speaker 3: he felt badly about it because he had promised me

1749
01:42:44,040 --> 01:42:46,240
Speaker 3: that he was going to take the next one. So

1750
01:42:46,439 --> 01:42:48,400
Speaker 3: and this is this is a whether this is a

1751
01:42:48,439 --> 01:42:51,400
Speaker 3: sad story or cynical story. Somebody had come to him,

1752
01:42:52,479 --> 01:42:55,240
Speaker 3: let's call it an agent with the idea of doing

1753
01:42:55,240 --> 01:42:58,920
Speaker 3: a history of the Blues. Now I know editors never

1754
01:42:59,000 --> 01:43:01,680
Speaker 3: do this, publishers never do this. Agents never do this.

1755
01:43:02,160 --> 01:43:03,759
Speaker 3: But he came to me and he said, look, somebody

1756
01:43:03,760 --> 01:43:05,200
Speaker 3: wants to write a history of the Blues. Why don't

1757
01:43:05,240 --> 01:43:08,040
Speaker 3: you write a history of the Blues? And I said,

1758
01:43:08,080 --> 01:43:09,679
Speaker 3: I don't want to write a history of the books.

1759
01:43:10,320 --> 01:43:13,519
Speaker 3: And then I proposed I did the book that I wrote,

1760
01:43:13,560 --> 01:43:16,800
Speaker 3: Feel Like Going Home, which was a progression of profiles

1761
01:43:16,920 --> 01:43:20,120
Speaker 3: telling a story that I wanted to tell. So that

1762
01:43:20,760 --> 01:43:22,840
Speaker 3: was how I got How I got that, and I

1763
01:43:22,880 --> 01:43:26,920
Speaker 3: brought the Last Highway I put together. I wrote it,

1764
01:43:29,200 --> 01:43:32,240
Speaker 3: and I brought it to David Godean, who's the head

1765
01:43:32,240 --> 01:43:36,479
Speaker 3: of Godean in seventy nine started publishing house, and who

1766
01:43:36,479 --> 01:43:39,320
Speaker 3: are going to publish. David Godean is no longer at Godean,

1767
01:43:39,360 --> 01:43:41,760
Speaker 3: but Godan is going to publish the Short Stories, my

1768
01:43:41,840 --> 01:43:43,679
Speaker 3: collection Short Stories next fall.

1769
01:43:45,040 --> 01:43:49,200
Speaker 2: Just to be clear, Lost Highway, you wrote it before

1770
01:43:49,240 --> 01:43:51,639
Speaker 2: you made the publishing deal, or you made a deal

1771
01:43:51,640 --> 01:43:52,400
Speaker 2: and then wrote it.

1772
01:43:54,960 --> 01:43:59,519
Speaker 3: I had feel like going home, I wrote after I

1773
01:43:59,560 --> 01:44:04,680
Speaker 3: made the publishing deal, but it basically was you know.

1774
01:44:04,760 --> 01:44:07,479
Speaker 3: For instance, I did a story on Muddy Waters, first

1775
01:44:07,520 --> 01:44:09,080
Speaker 3: time I ever got on an airplane. I never thought

1776
01:44:09,080 --> 01:44:10,880
Speaker 3: I'd get in an airplane in my life, only for

1777
01:44:10,960 --> 01:44:13,439
Speaker 3: Muddy Waters, you know, to write that story. So I

1778
01:44:13,479 --> 01:44:18,479
Speaker 3: was very excited. But the Last Highway I had in

1779
01:44:18,520 --> 01:44:22,360
Speaker 3: my mind to do a book that sort of covered

1780
01:44:22,400 --> 01:44:27,439
Speaker 3: the range of American music, country or roots music, the

1781
01:44:27,520 --> 01:44:34,120
Speaker 3: music that I loved. And so I was writing stories

1782
01:44:34,160 --> 01:44:39,320
Speaker 3: for various periodicals, stories which I initiated. In many cases

1783
01:44:39,760 --> 01:44:43,559
Speaker 3: I had to figure out ingenious ways of financing them

1784
01:44:43,600 --> 01:44:48,519
Speaker 3: because nobody was going to pay me to go to

1785
01:44:48,560 --> 01:44:51,599
Speaker 3: Memphis to write a story on Rufus Thomas or Charlie Feathers,

1786
01:44:51,680 --> 01:44:57,519
Speaker 3: let's say. And so I put together on my own,

1787
01:44:57,600 --> 01:45:04,559
Speaker 3: I put together a sequence, a kind of itinerary in

1788
01:45:04,640 --> 01:45:07,240
Speaker 3: which one publication might put up a certain amount of

1789
01:45:07,280 --> 01:45:08,800
Speaker 3: money another and another. But it was all to do

1790
01:45:08,840 --> 01:45:10,760
Speaker 3: the work that I wanted to do. And it was

1791
01:45:10,800 --> 01:45:14,080
Speaker 3: all with this aim of what else wanted to do

1792
01:45:14,080 --> 01:45:16,519
Speaker 3: in Las Vegas, bring all the various strands of his

1793
01:45:16,640 --> 01:45:19,880
Speaker 3: music together and present them in one thing. And that's

1794
01:45:19,880 --> 01:45:22,320
Speaker 3: what I wanted to do with Last Highway. So having

1795
01:45:22,360 --> 01:45:24,720
Speaker 3: written these stories, all of which, as I say, were

1796
01:45:24,760 --> 01:45:27,759
Speaker 3: self initiated, whether it was Charlie rich Or as Charlie

1797
01:45:27,800 --> 01:45:32,479
Speaker 3: Feathers or howld Wolf or it was, and I put

1798
01:45:32,479 --> 01:45:36,320
Speaker 3: them together to otis span Big Joe Turner. And so

1799
01:45:36,400 --> 01:45:41,280
Speaker 3: I put them together, rewrote them, wrote them so that

1800
01:45:41,360 --> 01:45:44,040
Speaker 3: they would they could be presented both in a sequence

1801
01:45:44,080 --> 01:45:46,880
Speaker 3: and in a way that sort of made them into

1802
01:45:46,920 --> 01:45:49,800
Speaker 3: what I thought of as a book. And that's what

1803
01:45:49,840 --> 01:45:53,080
Speaker 3: I brought to God in So it's somewhere in between

1804
01:45:53,120 --> 01:45:53,959
Speaker 3: what you said.

1805
01:46:01,720 --> 01:46:07,240
Speaker 2: The Robert Johnson book. There was the double CD set

1806
01:46:07,560 --> 01:46:09,760
Speaker 2: around the turn of the decade from the eighties to

1807
01:46:09,840 --> 01:46:13,719
Speaker 2: the nineties. Your Robert Johnson book comes out in eighty nine.

1808
01:46:14,200 --> 01:46:18,360
Speaker 2: Certainly people are aware of Robert Johnson, certainly all the

1809
01:46:18,400 --> 01:46:24,400
Speaker 2: English blues musicians. I'm not sophisticated enough to know. Was

1810
01:46:24,439 --> 01:46:27,160
Speaker 2: it your book that really broke it wide open? Were

1811
01:46:27,200 --> 01:46:31,280
Speaker 2: you really pushing the envelope further? Was there something before?

1812
01:46:31,400 --> 01:46:32,800
Speaker 2: What was the experience there?

1813
01:46:35,760 --> 01:46:37,960
Speaker 3: I would never claim that kind of credit. I mean

1814
01:46:38,000 --> 01:46:40,400
Speaker 3: I was fortunate in the sense the book came out,

1815
01:46:40,400 --> 01:46:42,639
Speaker 3: as you said, in eighty nine, the box set came

1816
01:46:42,680 --> 01:46:45,720
Speaker 3: out in ninety. The book achieved a certain amount of

1817
01:46:45,760 --> 01:46:52,760
Speaker 3: success and reached a niche audience, as we say. But

1818
01:46:52,880 --> 01:46:58,960
Speaker 3: then when the box set came out, although Columbia, I

1819
01:46:58,960 --> 01:47:01,400
Speaker 3: mean nobody was aware, the publisher was not aware of

1820
01:47:01,400 --> 01:47:02,800
Speaker 3: the box set. In the box that may not have

1821
01:47:02,800 --> 01:47:04,599
Speaker 3: been aware of the book, but they got placed together

1822
01:47:04,640 --> 01:47:08,479
Speaker 3: in tower. But you know, I wouldn't call it a

1823
01:47:08,520 --> 01:47:12,200
Speaker 3: great popular success, but I think it reached a lot

1824
01:47:12,240 --> 01:47:15,400
Speaker 3: of people. And the point about the book was that

1825
01:47:16,760 --> 01:47:18,280
Speaker 3: one of the things I write about in the book,

1826
01:47:18,280 --> 01:47:22,519
Speaker 3: which is more like a biographical essay, a personal biographical essay,

1827
01:47:23,600 --> 01:47:26,759
Speaker 3: is that there were all these people around the world.

1828
01:47:26,800 --> 01:47:29,120
Speaker 3: I mean, who discovered Robert Johnson at the same time,

1829
01:47:29,160 --> 01:47:32,200
Speaker 3: But they weren't that many, so that Mick Jagger or

1830
01:47:32,320 --> 01:47:36,400
Speaker 3: Keith Richards or Eric Clapton and I were all discovering

1831
01:47:36,439 --> 01:47:39,000
Speaker 3: the music and equally moved by it and equally passionate

1832
01:47:39,000 --> 01:47:42,759
Speaker 3: about it, let's say, in nineteen sixty one, all discovered

1833
01:47:42,800 --> 01:47:44,880
Speaker 3: at the same time, and yet Robert Johnson did not

1834
01:47:45,320 --> 01:47:49,439
Speaker 3: certainly become a household name in any way. And much

1835
01:47:49,600 --> 01:47:51,759
Speaker 3: like the early writing that I had done about Howland

1836
01:47:51,800 --> 01:47:55,479
Speaker 3: Wolfer Muddy Waters, the opportunity to write about Robert Johnson

1837
01:47:56,400 --> 01:47:58,920
Speaker 3: was a thrill for me. But what it came out

1838
01:47:58,960 --> 01:48:03,719
Speaker 3: of was entirely out of going to Texas, going to Houston,

1839
01:48:03,760 --> 01:48:06,000
Speaker 3: going to Otaga Street. That's one of the things I

1840
01:48:06,040 --> 01:48:09,960
Speaker 3: can remember a few things still to talk to interview

1841
01:48:10,120 --> 01:48:14,120
Speaker 3: Mack McCormick, who had done all this incredible research about

1842
01:48:14,160 --> 01:48:18,240
Speaker 3: Robert Johnson. This was back in Oh God, I'm gonna

1843
01:48:20,200 --> 01:48:24,920
Speaker 3: I'm thinking it was. Could it have been seventy two.

1844
01:48:25,880 --> 01:48:31,559
Speaker 3: I'm not getting the right date on this. I just can't. No,

1845
01:48:31,800 --> 01:48:34,200
Speaker 3: it's seventy six, I'm sorry, right, it was around Jimmy

1846
01:48:34,200 --> 01:48:37,840
Speaker 3: Carter's inauguration. But so I went there because he was

1847
01:48:37,880 --> 01:48:43,000
Speaker 3: in a dispute with Columbia about who owned the photographs

1848
01:48:43,040 --> 01:48:44,960
Speaker 3: of Robert Johnson. Columbia was going to put out that

1849
01:48:45,400 --> 01:48:48,400
Speaker 3: Blox cent it would have been a series of three

1850
01:48:48,520 --> 01:48:53,200
Speaker 3: LPs at the time, and Mack McCormick was disputing their

1851
01:48:53,280 --> 01:48:56,440
Speaker 3: right to use the photographs. And in the end the

1852
01:48:56,840 --> 01:48:59,880
Speaker 3: Block Center the collection got held up for fourteen years.

1853
01:49:00,240 --> 01:49:03,479
Speaker 3: But so I interview mac McCormick, who had written a

1854
01:49:03,520 --> 01:49:06,599
Speaker 3: book called Biography of Phantom. He'd finished it at that time.

1855
01:49:07,680 --> 01:49:10,519
Speaker 3: It didn't come out until two years ago, I guess.

1856
01:49:11,080 --> 01:49:15,240
Speaker 3: But and he was very generous in the time he

1857
01:49:15,280 --> 01:49:17,200
Speaker 3: spent with me, and he told me a great deal,

1858
01:49:17,240 --> 01:49:19,519
Speaker 3: and he shared some of his research. And I wrote

1859
01:49:19,520 --> 01:49:21,840
Speaker 3: an article in Rolling Stone about this great work Mike

1860
01:49:21,960 --> 01:49:24,519
Speaker 3: McCormick had done and how his book, Biography of a

1861
01:49:24,520 --> 01:49:27,439
Speaker 3: Phantom would be coming out any day. Well, it didn't

1862
01:49:27,439 --> 01:49:29,840
Speaker 3: come out, and it didn't come out, and I think

1863
01:49:29,880 --> 01:49:36,439
Speaker 3: after five or six years I wrote to him and

1864
01:49:36,439 --> 01:49:39,840
Speaker 3: I said, would you mind if I wrote about Robert

1865
01:49:39,920 --> 01:49:42,960
Speaker 3: Johnson using some of them beyond the Rolling Stone article,

1866
01:49:43,040 --> 01:49:45,760
Speaker 3: using some of the material that you spoke to me

1867
01:49:45,800 --> 01:49:48,960
Speaker 3: about crediting you for your research, and he said, no, no,

1868
01:49:49,000 --> 01:49:51,280
Speaker 3: I wouldn't mind at all, go right ahead. I mean

1869
01:49:51,320 --> 01:49:54,200
Speaker 3: his book, like I say, he had a lot of

1870
01:49:57,000 --> 01:50:02,160
Speaker 3: problems with completion. I think he was a really great guy,

1871
01:50:02,240 --> 01:50:06,320
Speaker 3: but parts of them maybe weren't that great or whatever.

1872
01:50:06,400 --> 01:50:11,040
Speaker 3: He had problems and he didn't and so so I wrote,

1873
01:50:11,960 --> 01:50:14,080
Speaker 3: I wrote this essay and it came out and Living

1874
01:50:14,160 --> 01:50:18,120
Speaker 3: Blues I think in eighty two, which again talking about

1875
01:50:18,160 --> 01:50:21,240
Speaker 3: making money. There's no money in that. It was it

1876
01:50:21,360 --> 01:50:24,200
Speaker 3: was a great opportunity to get the word out about

1877
01:50:24,280 --> 01:50:27,639
Speaker 3: something I was passionate about. And then a guy named

1878
01:50:27,680 --> 01:50:30,240
Speaker 3: Toby Byron came along and had the idea of packaging

1879
01:50:30,280 --> 01:50:35,240
Speaker 3: it and you know, as the book that stood alone,

1880
01:50:35,320 --> 01:50:37,960
Speaker 3: and and I did it with Susan myershes designed all

1881
01:50:38,000 --> 01:50:41,360
Speaker 3: my books, and it came out in eighty nine.

1882
01:50:41,840 --> 01:50:47,040
Speaker 2: So how did the Elvis Journey begin? Which which which

1883
01:50:47,080 --> 01:50:49,479
Speaker 2: party were you end up writing the first book of

1884
01:50:49,520 --> 01:50:52,200
Speaker 2: the trilogy? How did that come to be?

1885
01:50:55,040 --> 01:50:58,240
Speaker 3: It was, well, I'll tell you exactly how. I mean,

1886
01:50:58,400 --> 01:51:05,120
Speaker 3: I had retained I'd written about Elvis considerably over the years,

1887
01:51:05,720 --> 01:51:09,360
Speaker 3: but always from the outside. I mean, I wrote the

1888
01:51:09,479 --> 01:51:12,280
Speaker 3: chapter on Elvis and the Rolling Stone Illustrated History, which

1889
01:51:12,720 --> 01:51:15,400
Speaker 3: is the same as the chapter on Elvis in Last Highway.

1890
01:51:15,520 --> 01:51:18,240
Speaker 3: It's the longest chapter in the Rolling Stone Illustrated History.

1891
01:51:18,720 --> 01:51:21,439
Speaker 3: And that had been after I had reviewed from Elvis

1892
01:51:21,439 --> 01:51:26,439
Speaker 3: in Memphis, which was such a revolutionary album in Rolling Stone,

1893
01:51:26,439 --> 01:51:28,719
Speaker 3: and I had written about him in The Phoenix and whatever.

1894
01:51:29,560 --> 01:51:41,840
Speaker 3: So at a certain point a filmmaker, to a pair

1895
01:51:41,920 --> 01:51:45,600
Speaker 3: of filmmakers came to me about writing the script for

1896
01:51:47,320 --> 01:51:51,320
Speaker 3: a documentary called Elvis fifty six, which is going to

1897
01:51:51,320 --> 01:51:56,599
Speaker 3: be based on al Werthheimer's just incredible photographs. And they

1898
01:51:56,600 --> 01:52:00,000
Speaker 3: have formed a partnership or made a deal without work

1899
01:52:00,080 --> 01:52:03,360
Speaker 3: time whom I met at that time and saw six

1900
01:52:03,400 --> 01:52:07,840
Speaker 3: thousand whatever you come up negative six thousand contacts, you know,

1901
01:52:08,160 --> 01:52:12,360
Speaker 3: contact sheats with six represented six thousand negatives, something like that.

1902
01:52:13,320 --> 01:52:15,360
Speaker 3: But in the course of writing the script, and I

1903
01:52:15,400 --> 01:52:20,520
Speaker 3: dropped out of this after a while because our visions,

1904
01:52:21,560 --> 01:52:26,320
Speaker 3: our visions clashed. But I mean I wrote a couple

1905
01:52:26,720 --> 01:52:28,880
Speaker 3: I wrote a draft of the script, or maybe a

1906
01:52:28,920 --> 01:52:31,519
Speaker 3: couple of drafts. But in the course of doing it,

1907
01:52:31,600 --> 01:52:33,960
Speaker 3: I got access. And you remember this is in the

1908
01:52:34,040 --> 01:52:36,679
Speaker 3: days before the internet. You remember those days before the internet,

1909
01:52:37,320 --> 01:52:42,240
Speaker 3: yea and so, and I got access to all the

1910
01:52:42,240 --> 01:52:47,760
Speaker 3: interviews that Elvis had done prior in fifty five fifty six,

1911
01:52:47,840 --> 01:52:52,040
Speaker 3: actually a coupled from sixteen sixty two, but mainly, I

1912
01:52:52,040 --> 01:52:54,800
Speaker 3: think mainly fifty five fifty six. And I listened to them.

1913
01:52:54,800 --> 01:52:58,040
Speaker 3: I'd never heard them before. They weren't available, and I said,

1914
01:52:58,080 --> 01:53:01,519
Speaker 3: oh my god, he can speak for himself. And that

1915
01:53:01,680 --> 01:53:04,680
Speaker 3: was when I sort of had his vision, which was reinforced.

1916
01:53:05,080 --> 01:53:08,639
Speaker 3: I was driving around Memphis with a friend of mine

1917
01:53:08,720 --> 01:53:11,320
Speaker 3: named Rose Clayton while I was writing Sweet Soul Music,

1918
01:53:12,479 --> 01:53:16,640
Speaker 3: which was another book that was from inception to I

1919
01:53:16,640 --> 01:53:20,680
Speaker 3: mean it just it was self generated entirely. But I

1920
01:53:20,840 --> 01:53:23,000
Speaker 3: was driving around Memphis with Rose Clayton, who was a

1921
01:53:23,080 --> 01:53:27,920
Speaker 3: native of South Memphis, and we drove by the drug

1922
01:53:27,960 --> 01:53:32,599
Speaker 3: store where Elvis's cousin Jean had worked. It was all

1923
01:53:32,640 --> 01:53:36,680
Speaker 3: boarded up, and she described how Elvis would come in

1924
01:53:36,760 --> 01:53:39,280
Speaker 3: to wait for Jean and sit at the counter and

1925
01:53:39,400 --> 01:53:41,640
Speaker 3: his face was sort of all pimply, and he was

1926
01:53:41,720 --> 01:53:46,200
Speaker 3: just all he was beautiful, but pimply, but he and

1927
01:53:46,240 --> 01:53:51,919
Speaker 3: he was just you know, he would tap his fingers

1928
01:53:51,960 --> 01:53:56,080
Speaker 3: on the countertop and stuff. And she said, Rose said,

1929
01:53:56,479 --> 01:53:59,960
Speaker 3: poor baby, and that was really that was the thing

1930
01:54:00,160 --> 01:54:03,599
Speaker 3: that crystallized everything for me. It was just like Elvis

1931
01:54:03,640 --> 01:54:06,400
Speaker 3: poor maybe. And it was right after that that I

1932
01:54:06,439 --> 01:54:10,200
Speaker 3: wrote a proposal for the Elvis, which I didn't think

1933
01:54:10,240 --> 01:54:14,880
Speaker 3: anybody would take because nobody took Elvis seriously. And it

1934
01:54:14,920 --> 01:54:16,200
Speaker 3: turned out I was wrong, and I'm glad.

1935
01:54:16,200 --> 01:54:25,040
Speaker 2: I was. Okay, you've written books previously, you write about Elvis,

1936
01:54:25,520 --> 01:54:29,600
Speaker 2: it becomes a phenomenon, it makes your name. What was

1937
01:54:29,640 --> 01:54:30,400
Speaker 2: it like for you?

1938
01:54:33,840 --> 01:54:35,880
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't think you know. It was

1939
01:54:35,920 --> 01:54:38,320
Speaker 3: an opportunity. I mean, the point is the next book

1940
01:54:38,360 --> 01:54:41,320
Speaker 3: I wrote was Sam Cook, and I didn't have an

1941
01:54:41,360 --> 01:54:42,920
Speaker 3: agent at that point. I don't have an agent. I've

1942
01:54:42,920 --> 01:54:45,560
Speaker 3: been agenting myself for twenty five years now, but I

1943
01:54:45,600 --> 01:54:50,400
Speaker 3: was looking for an agent at that time, and so

1944
01:54:50,640 --> 01:54:54,400
Speaker 3: I I wanted to do this book on Sam Cook

1945
01:54:54,440 --> 01:54:56,920
Speaker 3: because I had interviewed Sam Cook's business partner J. W.

1946
01:54:57,120 --> 01:54:59,320
Speaker 3: Alexander and eighty two and from that moment I knew

1947
01:54:59,360 --> 01:55:01,680
Speaker 3: I wanted to do book on Sam Cook. So I

1948
01:55:01,720 --> 01:55:04,400
Speaker 3: go around and I met a lot of agents I

1949
01:55:04,400 --> 01:55:09,000
Speaker 3: think it was seventeen or eighteen, and they all said

1950
01:55:09,040 --> 01:55:11,040
Speaker 3: they wanted to work with me. I mean I didn't

1951
01:55:11,040 --> 01:55:13,800
Speaker 3: test the proposition, so maybe they didn't, but they said

1952
01:55:13,840 --> 01:55:17,000
Speaker 3: they did. And many of them said, hey, listen, I

1953
01:55:17,000 --> 01:55:20,120
Speaker 3: can get you a seven figure advance if you do

1954
01:55:20,200 --> 01:55:24,160
Speaker 3: a book on the Rolling Stones, on Bob Dylan, on whatever,

1955
01:55:24,320 --> 01:55:26,840
Speaker 3: Eric Clapton, and I said no, no, I'm doing a book

1956
01:55:26,880 --> 01:55:30,280
Speaker 3: on Sam Cook. And they all made a face and

1957
01:55:30,400 --> 01:55:34,600
Speaker 3: walked away, until finally I ran into someone, David Gurnett,

1958
01:55:35,000 --> 01:55:36,640
Speaker 3: who said, what a great idea to do a book

1959
01:55:36,640 --> 01:55:39,040
Speaker 3: on Sam Cook. Well, the book on Sam Cook I

1960
01:55:39,080 --> 01:55:41,600
Speaker 3: got a third of the advance that I've gotten for Elvis,

1961
01:55:41,640 --> 01:55:44,280
Speaker 3: as opposed to the seven figure advance that these guys.

1962
01:55:44,760 --> 01:55:47,480
Speaker 3: So that's not what I'm in it for. I mean,

1963
01:55:47,480 --> 01:55:50,400
Speaker 3: it means as much to me to write about Dick Curlis,

1964
01:55:50,400 --> 01:55:54,760
Speaker 3: who's the centerpiece of Looking to Get Lost, my last book,

1965
01:55:55,160 --> 01:55:59,080
Speaker 3: as it does to write about Elvis. Not to denigrate

1966
01:55:59,160 --> 01:56:03,880
Speaker 3: Elvis in any way, but just because it's Stony Edwards.

1967
01:56:04,480 --> 01:56:08,000
Speaker 3: You know, these are people that I care about. Charlie Rich,

1968
01:56:08,040 --> 01:56:10,680
Speaker 3: I mean, what did I I met Charlie and Margaret

1969
01:56:10,720 --> 01:56:14,680
Speaker 3: an Rich at the Vapors in nineteen seventy out by

1970
01:56:14,720 --> 01:56:16,800
Speaker 3: the airport, where they had a tea dance that went on.

1971
01:56:17,160 --> 01:56:19,240
Speaker 3: They had three acts and they all did about five

1972
01:56:19,320 --> 01:56:22,560
Speaker 3: or six sets, and I talked to Charlie and his

1973
01:56:22,600 --> 01:56:27,040
Speaker 3: wife Margaret in between sets, and I've never I just

1974
01:56:27,080 --> 01:56:29,120
Speaker 3: fell in love with him. I've never liked anybody more.

1975
01:56:29,160 --> 01:56:34,920
Speaker 3: And the music was great and it was something. And

1976
01:56:34,960 --> 01:56:37,840
Speaker 3: I wrote about him and feel like going home, and

1977
01:56:37,920 --> 01:56:39,920
Speaker 3: I thought he'll never talk to me again, because he

1978
01:56:39,960 --> 01:56:43,480
Speaker 3: had spoken about the guilt that he felt over being

1979
01:56:43,800 --> 01:56:50,160
Speaker 3: from a fundamentalist background and also being an alcoholic. And

1980
01:56:50,200 --> 01:56:54,560
Speaker 3: he was also a what do you call it, somebody

1981
01:56:54,800 --> 01:56:59,520
Speaker 3: who hates crowds. It's a great it's a Latin word. Anyway,

1982
01:57:00,040 --> 01:57:02,160
Speaker 3: didn't like to be out among people, which is a

1983
01:57:02,160 --> 01:57:05,080
Speaker 3: difficult situation for entertainer. But I write about him like

1984
01:57:05,120 --> 01:57:07,520
Speaker 3: this because it was honest. And I wrote about how

1985
01:57:07,600 --> 01:57:09,840
Speaker 3: much I loved his music and how much admired him.

1986
01:57:09,840 --> 01:57:11,400
Speaker 3: But I thought I'll never see him again. I liked

1987
01:57:11,440 --> 01:57:14,600
Speaker 3: him so much. Then he ordered thirty I got a

1988
01:57:14,600 --> 01:57:18,520
Speaker 3: call from the secretary at the publisher who said, well,

1989
01:57:18,600 --> 01:57:21,360
Speaker 3: Charlie Riches called and ordered thirty books. And afterwards he

1990
01:57:21,400 --> 01:57:23,440
Speaker 3: said to me, he said, well, it was painful, but

1991
01:57:23,480 --> 01:57:25,360
Speaker 3: it was honest, and that's what's important. And I was

1992
01:57:26,040 --> 01:57:29,400
Speaker 3: very close to him till till the end of his life.

1993
01:57:29,800 --> 01:57:32,720
Speaker 3: But these are the things that matter. It doesn't matter

1994
01:57:32,720 --> 01:57:33,560
Speaker 3: what people think of you.

1995
01:57:34,760 --> 01:57:39,200
Speaker 2: So who deserves a book? Who doesn't have one?

1996
01:57:39,960 --> 01:57:43,840
Speaker 3: So many people, so many people. I mean I always

1997
01:57:43,880 --> 01:57:49,800
Speaker 3: said that after I'd finished Sam Cooke Sam Phillips biography

1998
01:57:49,880 --> 01:57:54,080
Speaker 3: in twenty fifteen, and that began with first meeting Sam

1999
01:57:54,200 --> 01:57:57,320
Speaker 3: seventy nine. But after I finished that, I said, I'm

2000
01:57:57,320 --> 01:58:00,680
Speaker 3: never going to do another biography because it just it

2001
01:58:00,800 --> 01:58:03,240
Speaker 3: takes too much out of you. I mean, I've done it,

2002
01:58:03,280 --> 01:58:06,240
Speaker 3: I've been doing it. This is twenty fifteen. I'd started

2003
01:58:06,280 --> 01:58:10,560
Speaker 3: the Elvis in eighty eight, so this is now in

2004
01:58:10,600 --> 01:58:13,320
Speaker 3: twenty seven years. You know, I figured I've done my time,

2005
01:58:13,760 --> 01:58:16,960
Speaker 3: I said, but I will. The only thing that would

2006
01:58:17,000 --> 01:58:19,120
Speaker 3: change that. There were two things that would change it.

2007
01:58:19,560 --> 01:58:21,240
Speaker 3: One was I would have loved to have done a

2008
01:58:21,280 --> 01:58:23,440
Speaker 3: book with Solomon Burke, and he would have loved to

2009
01:58:23,600 --> 01:58:26,160
Speaker 3: have done a book with me. But you know, he

2010
01:58:26,280 --> 01:58:28,760
Speaker 3: wasn't the kind of guy. If he said I'll fly

2011
01:58:28,840 --> 01:58:30,440
Speaker 3: you out to la well, that would be the first

2012
01:58:30,440 --> 01:58:35,480
Speaker 3: stumbling book. Never accept an airline ticket from Solomon, because

2013
01:58:35,520 --> 01:58:38,760
Speaker 3: you just don't know where that airline ticket has come from.

2014
01:58:39,040 --> 01:58:43,040
Speaker 2: But more than that, you don't wait wait, what does

2015
01:58:43,080 --> 01:58:45,120
Speaker 2: that mean? You don't know where the airline ticket has

2016
01:58:45,160 --> 01:58:45,720
Speaker 2: come from?

2017
01:58:46,280 --> 01:58:48,160
Speaker 3: Actually, it doesn't mean. What it means is how much

2018
01:58:48,280 --> 01:58:49,320
Speaker 3: the cost if it's free?

2019
01:58:49,520 --> 01:58:51,400
Speaker 2: Oh okay, just want to make sure. But I don't

2020
01:58:51,400 --> 01:58:53,919
Speaker 2: know whether you were speaking of his financial situation.

2021
01:58:54,040 --> 01:58:56,800
Speaker 3: Okay, No, no, no, no, not at all. No, It's

2022
01:58:56,840 --> 01:58:59,800
Speaker 3: just Solomon was a man. He was a great fabulous

2023
01:58:59,840 --> 01:59:03,400
Speaker 3: to a great dreamer. But I never felt that I

2024
01:59:03,400 --> 01:59:05,880
Speaker 3: could count on the fact that if I would fly,

2025
01:59:06,000 --> 01:59:07,720
Speaker 3: if I was going to fly out to LA, would

2026
01:59:07,880 --> 01:59:10,600
Speaker 3: I would fly out under my own I mean, on

2027
01:59:10,640 --> 01:59:13,520
Speaker 3: my own money. But but I couldn't be certain that

2028
01:59:13,560 --> 01:59:15,400
Speaker 3: you would be in LA. So it's just as much

2029
01:59:15,400 --> 01:59:17,200
Speaker 3: as we talked about it, and we talked about it

2030
01:59:17,240 --> 01:59:20,000
Speaker 3: a lot. But the other thing was, I said, the

2031
01:59:20,040 --> 01:59:22,280
Speaker 3: only thing that would cause me to write another biography

2032
01:59:22,880 --> 01:59:25,560
Speaker 3: would be if Merle Haggart called, and if he said,

2033
01:59:25,560 --> 01:59:28,320
Speaker 3: you know, Pete, i've been reading some of the stuff

2034
01:59:28,320 --> 01:59:31,800
Speaker 3: you've written, and it's not too bad. You know, I

2035
01:59:31,800 --> 01:59:34,440
Speaker 3: think maybe we could do something together. And I know

2036
01:59:34,600 --> 01:59:38,080
Speaker 3: that I knew that this would have been not a

2037
01:59:38,080 --> 01:59:41,160
Speaker 3: disaster would have been very, very difficult to do, and

2038
01:59:41,240 --> 01:59:44,120
Speaker 3: yet I would have felt compelled to do it. So

2039
01:59:44,120 --> 01:59:45,840
Speaker 3: that's the kind of person that I mean. There's so

2040
01:59:45,880 --> 01:59:50,400
Speaker 3: many people that that that you know, deserve a real

2041
01:59:50,480 --> 01:59:56,920
Speaker 3: biography or just telling that story, just you know, giving it.

2042
01:59:57,360 --> 01:59:59,960
Speaker 3: It's not so much that it has to be defined

2043
02:00:00,040 --> 02:00:04,840
Speaker 3: into something. I mean, you know, biography is a biography,

2044
02:00:04,880 --> 02:00:06,480
Speaker 3: but it could just it could be a book, it

2045
02:00:06,480 --> 02:00:08,960
Speaker 3: could be a voice. It couldn't. Solomon's book would have

2046
02:00:08,960 --> 02:00:11,200
Speaker 3: been in his voice and it would have been incredible,

2047
02:00:11,760 --> 02:00:15,320
Speaker 3: but I couldn't get him to commit to it enough

2048
02:00:15,480 --> 02:00:17,600
Speaker 3: to make me believe that it was going to happen.

2049
02:00:19,480 --> 02:00:22,280
Speaker 2: Can you name a couple of music biographies that you

2050
02:00:22,440 --> 02:00:25,920
Speaker 2: feel strongly positive about that you didn't write, If there

2051
02:00:25,920 --> 02:00:26,560
Speaker 2: are any.

2052
02:00:27,800 --> 02:00:31,120
Speaker 3: I tell you I don't read much nonfiction, so it's

2053
02:00:31,880 --> 02:00:38,080
Speaker 3: I don't. I just read a wonderful book by Paul Birch,

2054
02:00:38,120 --> 02:00:41,240
Speaker 3: a musician named Paul Birch, called Ridy and Rising, which

2055
02:00:41,320 --> 02:00:45,440
Speaker 3: is a fictional biography of Jimmy Rodgers, and it's it's

2056
02:00:45,520 --> 02:00:51,000
Speaker 3: really uh uh in rapturing or it's just it's just

2057
02:00:51,360 --> 02:00:53,760
Speaker 3: a wonderful book. I know there are books I'm not

2058
02:00:53,880 --> 02:00:57,160
Speaker 3: thinking very We've been talking a long time, and I

2059
02:00:57,160 --> 02:00:59,120
Speaker 3: don't want to do an injustice to books.

2060
02:00:59,480 --> 02:01:02,320
Speaker 2: Well, let me shift the gears here. We only had

2061
02:01:02,360 --> 02:01:05,640
Speaker 2: a couple of minutes left. But since you're a reader

2062
02:01:05,680 --> 02:01:10,280
Speaker 2: of fiction, what are two of your favorite fiction books?

2063
02:01:13,600 --> 02:01:17,160
Speaker 3: Were two of my favorite writers? My favorite writer of

2064
02:01:17,200 --> 02:01:21,080
Speaker 3: alved I guess Chekhov would be up near the top,

2065
02:01:21,120 --> 02:01:25,680
Speaker 3: But of contemporary writers, Aliceman Rowe was for years and

2066
02:01:25,800 --> 02:01:31,000
Speaker 3: years my absolute favorite. And I would tell all the

2067
02:01:31,040 --> 02:01:34,520
Speaker 3: classes of the writing classes at Vanderbilt that she would

2068
02:01:34,520 --> 02:01:37,880
Speaker 3: never win a Nobel Prize, first because she was a woman,

2069
02:01:37,880 --> 02:01:41,120
Speaker 3: and second because she was a Canadian. But of course

2070
02:01:41,160 --> 02:01:45,480
Speaker 3: I was wrong. I have not gone back to her,

2071
02:01:45,760 --> 02:01:50,360
Speaker 3: to reading her since all these you know, the writing

2072
02:01:50,400 --> 02:01:53,120
Speaker 3: about her has come out, and that's not a fair thing.

2073
02:01:53,160 --> 02:01:55,280
Speaker 3: None of us are perfect, none of us. But it's

2074
02:01:55,320 --> 02:01:59,600
Speaker 3: just it's such an awful story, and it's my own failing.

2075
02:01:59,600 --> 02:02:02,760
Speaker 3: Perhaps I haven't gone, but she Another writer that I've

2076
02:02:03,440 --> 02:02:09,800
Speaker 3: read my enormously is Grace Paley, and she's somebody whom

2077
02:02:09,840 --> 02:02:14,120
Speaker 3: I knew very slightly, very slightly, but the voice that

2078
02:02:14,200 --> 02:02:19,000
Speaker 3: she achieves and the surprises that come from that voice

2079
02:02:20,000 --> 02:02:22,960
Speaker 3: and she wrote a fair amount of nonfiction towards the

2080
02:02:23,000 --> 02:02:27,880
Speaker 3: end of her life, and also very politically socially committed writing.

2081
02:02:28,400 --> 02:02:32,040
Speaker 3: And those were as good as but the little diservances

2082
02:02:32,080 --> 02:02:34,360
Speaker 3: a man enormous changes at the last minute. It's just

2083
02:02:34,560 --> 02:02:38,360
Speaker 3: fantastic books. There are so many. I really feel terrible

2084
02:02:38,400 --> 02:02:40,000
Speaker 3: and I'm not thinking of all these great books.

2085
02:02:40,080 --> 02:02:42,120
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, that's good. There's a lot of great stuff.

2086
02:02:42,240 --> 02:02:47,400
Speaker 2: Let's wrap it up here. Elvis, Okay, Elvis dies in

2087
02:02:47,520 --> 02:02:52,160
Speaker 2: seventy seven. Certainly, for at least the first decade, all

2088
02:02:52,200 --> 02:02:56,400
Speaker 2: the tabloids are He's still alive, He's you know, somewhere whatever.

2089
02:02:56,880 --> 02:03:00,560
Speaker 2: They have the eldest character in Honeymoon in Vegas. Still

2090
02:03:00,560 --> 02:03:08,120
Speaker 2: have Elvis impersonators in Vegas. However, the audience that remembers

2091
02:03:08,200 --> 02:03:12,440
Speaker 2: the heyday of Elvis is dying off. And my understanding

2092
02:03:12,800 --> 02:03:17,600
Speaker 2: is that actually Elvis business is off. Memorabilia prices have dropped.

2093
02:03:18,120 --> 02:03:23,280
Speaker 2: What is the future of Elvis in Tom Parker in

2094
02:03:23,320 --> 02:03:26,520
Speaker 2: the national consciousness, will be a moment in time or

2095
02:03:26,600 --> 02:03:27,240
Speaker 2: is it forever?

2096
02:03:29,440 --> 02:03:31,880
Speaker 3: I don't know about merchandising. You'd have to talk to

2097
02:03:31,960 --> 02:03:35,360
Speaker 3: Colonel about that. That just doesn't enter into my into

2098
02:03:35,400 --> 02:03:41,720
Speaker 3: my consciousness. But you know, I would say that Elvis,

2099
02:03:42,320 --> 02:03:47,080
Speaker 3: Colonel Parker, Sam Phillips, Sam Cook there there, they're they're

2100
02:03:47,120 --> 02:03:50,200
Speaker 3: in eternity. I mean, they're as long as people care

2101
02:03:50,320 --> 02:03:54,640
Speaker 3: about music and or aren't. It doesn't you know, it's

2102
02:03:54,680 --> 02:03:58,680
Speaker 3: like talking about writers. I mean they you can go

2103
02:03:58,800 --> 02:04:03,840
Speaker 3: in or out of fashion. That really is not Robert

2104
02:04:03,880 --> 02:04:09,280
Speaker 3: Johnson took he died in thirty eight. He became an

2105
02:04:09,280 --> 02:04:12,280
Speaker 3: international icon in ninety. Look at John Donne, it took

2106
02:04:12,320 --> 02:04:14,760
Speaker 3: him three hundred years. Look at her in Melville. It

2107
02:04:14,880 --> 02:04:18,160
Speaker 3: just doesn't matter what the state of acceptance of somebody

2108
02:04:18,280 --> 02:04:22,800
Speaker 3: is at any given moment. I think that the impact

2109
02:04:22,920 --> 02:04:28,080
Speaker 3: of Elvis's voice, let's just talk about Elvis, is the

2110
02:04:28,160 --> 02:04:33,560
Speaker 3: same today in his best work as it was when

2111
02:04:33,600 --> 02:04:36,240
Speaker 3: he first arrived on the scene in nineteen fifty four,

2112
02:04:36,360 --> 02:04:39,800
Speaker 3: nineteen fifty five. It just there's no way to describe

2113
02:04:39,840 --> 02:04:43,480
Speaker 3: it exactly. Somebody like Jake Hess, the great lead singer

2114
02:04:43,480 --> 02:04:47,280
Speaker 3: for The Statesman, one of Elvis's idols, whom Elvis News

2115
02:04:47,320 --> 02:04:48,920
Speaker 3: from the time he was a little kid said about,

2116
02:04:49,000 --> 02:04:53,120
Speaker 3: and he's a much technically, he's a virtuosic singer, and

2117
02:04:53,160 --> 02:04:56,320
Speaker 3: he's a better singer in many ways than Elvis. But

2118
02:04:56,360 --> 02:04:59,320
Speaker 3: he said Elvis had something. It just reached people in

2119
02:04:59,360 --> 02:05:02,080
Speaker 3: a way that you simply can't define. And I would

2120
02:05:02,120 --> 02:05:05,600
Speaker 3: say that's what you know, Elvis fans today are going

2121
02:05:05,680 --> 02:05:10,720
Speaker 3: to have very different tastes. I mean, individuals always are

2122
02:05:10,720 --> 02:05:12,400
Speaker 3: going to have different tastes. If I tell you that

2123
02:05:12,440 --> 02:05:14,880
Speaker 3: one of my favorite songs is I need Somebody to

2124
02:05:14,960 --> 02:05:17,120
Speaker 3: lean on that, it's a sign that just kills me.

2125
02:05:17,160 --> 02:05:19,360
Speaker 3: Every time we're trying to get to you. That might

2126
02:05:19,400 --> 02:05:21,480
Speaker 3: not be what you know. Maybe somebody else is going

2127
02:05:21,520 --> 02:05:23,680
Speaker 3: to tell you it's burning love. But there is that

2128
02:05:24,040 --> 02:05:30,200
Speaker 3: direct impact, emotional conveyance that existed in Elvis's voice from

2129
02:05:30,200 --> 02:05:33,360
Speaker 3: the start, long before he developed his voice. I mean

2130
02:05:33,480 --> 02:05:36,760
Speaker 3: just from the start, and say, I think Sam Cook

2131
02:05:36,960 --> 02:05:38,600
Speaker 3: there are very few people who have that. I mean

2132
02:05:38,640 --> 02:05:41,800
Speaker 3: Sam Cook had it, whereas somebody like Johnny Taylor, who

2133
02:05:41,840 --> 02:05:44,840
Speaker 3: sounded just like Sam Cook didn't. And I think that's

2134
02:05:44,880 --> 02:05:47,520
Speaker 3: what continues to make the impact. And I just think

2135
02:05:47,640 --> 02:05:51,240
Speaker 3: art exists, you know, whether it's music or writing or

2136
02:05:52,240 --> 02:05:56,040
Speaker 3: theater or film, it exists in a realm outside of

2137
02:05:56,080 --> 02:05:59,880
Speaker 3: time if it's good enough, and the sales just don't

2138
02:05:59,880 --> 02:06:03,360
Speaker 3: anything to do whether it's continuing relevance.

2139
02:06:04,400 --> 02:06:08,120
Speaker 2: We've been talking to Peter Geroalnick his new book about

2140
02:06:08,240 --> 02:06:14,000
Speaker 2: Colonel Tom Parker. I have to say, generally speaking, to

2141
02:06:14,040 --> 02:06:16,360
Speaker 2: be a little bit extreme, but not much. I have

2142
02:06:16,440 --> 02:06:19,960
Speaker 2: no interest in Elvis because if you're a person of

2143
02:06:20,000 --> 02:06:23,800
Speaker 2: the Beatles of my age Boomer, Elvis was the enemy.

2144
02:06:23,840 --> 02:06:29,200
Speaker 2: Elvis was already you know in Hollywood, the Beatles come along, etc.

2145
02:06:30,280 --> 02:06:33,320
Speaker 2: Then of course we do get suspicious minds in the ghetto,

2146
02:06:33,480 --> 02:06:36,480
Speaker 2: which are good Top forty tracks. Then we have Elvis

2147
02:06:36,480 --> 02:06:41,680
Speaker 2: in Vegas. So ay, I went to Memphis, which is

2148
02:06:41,720 --> 02:06:45,520
Speaker 2: so different from Nashville, and I went to Graceland blew

2149
02:06:45,600 --> 02:06:49,080
Speaker 2: my mind. And without making a whole speech about that,

2150
02:06:49,680 --> 02:06:52,960
Speaker 2: I got your book, and I have to say two things.

2151
02:06:53,560 --> 02:06:57,800
Speaker 2: I am trying to read this very well reviewed biography

2152
02:06:57,840 --> 02:07:03,120
Speaker 2: of Robert Crumb. The information is there, but it's not

2153
02:07:03,280 --> 02:07:08,120
Speaker 2: an easy book to read. You are a good writer

2154
02:07:08,440 --> 02:07:13,240
Speaker 2: because the book is easy to read on the subject

2155
02:07:13,280 --> 02:07:16,120
Speaker 2: and it calls out you want to read it more

2156
02:07:16,600 --> 02:07:19,760
Speaker 2: certainly for those of us interested in music business. Just

2157
02:07:19,800 --> 02:07:24,320
Speaker 2: the managerial style of Colonel Tom Parker was amazing. And

2158
02:07:24,360 --> 02:07:28,800
Speaker 2: I had not read the first two books, and needless

2159
02:07:28,800 --> 02:07:31,800
Speaker 2: to say they're on my list because you go so

2160
02:07:32,120 --> 02:07:35,520
Speaker 2: deep and you make these characters come alive. In in addition,

2161
02:07:35,560 --> 02:07:38,720
Speaker 2: as a student of the game, you know you're peeling

2162
02:07:38,760 --> 02:07:43,800
Speaker 2: back the layers, revealing truth that were previously unknown because

2163
02:07:43,800 --> 02:07:46,600
Speaker 2: you've done this level of research. So this is not

2164
02:07:46,680 --> 02:07:50,760
Speaker 2: blowing smoke. I mean really, I was stunned, how interested

2165
02:07:51,280 --> 02:07:55,520
Speaker 2: and how fascinating the book was. I really have to

2166
02:07:55,560 --> 02:07:57,880
Speaker 2: give you credit, and I want to thank you Peter

2167
02:07:58,000 --> 02:08:01,800
Speaker 2: for taking this time to speak with my audi. Well.

2168
02:08:01,840 --> 02:08:05,400
Speaker 3: Thanks, I've really enjoyed it, and we certainly ranged Firefield

2169
02:08:05,560 --> 02:08:09,480
Speaker 3: to areas that I have rarely spoken about in an interview,

2170
02:08:09,600 --> 02:08:13,080
Speaker 3: although in real life I may have. But it's been fun.

2171
02:08:13,120 --> 02:08:13,960
Speaker 3: It's really been fun.

2172
02:08:14,160 --> 02:08:15,880
Speaker 2: Well, you know, you want to know where somebody is

2173
02:08:15,920 --> 02:08:20,400
Speaker 2: coming from informs what they do. Any event, till next time.

2174
02:08:20,720 --> 02:08:22,240
Speaker 2: This is Bob left Sex