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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on

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Speaker 1: iHeart Radio and welcome back to Coast to Coast. George

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Speaker 1: Norri with you, I bore Davis with us. I've or

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Speaker 1: when you met Elvis? Did you like him? He? Did

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Speaker 1: he have that explosive chemistry? Um? Well, before I answer

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Speaker 1: that question, George, i'm I can tell you you've made

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Speaker 1: my year because I can't wait to see George Norri

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Speaker 1: sings Elvis Presley October the eighth. Anyway, you know, the

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Speaker 1: interesting thing is when I first met Elvis on the

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Speaker 1: film set, it was before well actually it was after

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Speaker 1: I went with him to meet the Beatles, and he

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Speaker 1: was charming. He was a gentleman. He kept calling me sir,

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Speaker 1: although I was two or three years younger than him,

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Speaker 1: and I felt he was He was an interesting guy.

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Speaker 1: He did not appear explosive. He was in the middle

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Speaker 1: of shooting. And the funny story that I happened was

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Speaker 1: that after we chatted for fifteen minutes and he was

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Speaker 1: talking about his leading lady called Donna Douglas, and how

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Speaker 1: they got along so well because they actually read the

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Speaker 1: Bible together during lunch breaks. He after fifteen minutes of

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Speaker 1: general chit chat, nothink of great importance. Somebody came in

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Speaker 1: and said, ell they need you on the film set.

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Speaker 1: So I said, well, maybe I could come and watch

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Speaker 1: Elvis shoot the film. And the guy said, who was

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Speaker 1: one of his Memphis Matthis, Oh, Elvis doesn't really like

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Speaker 1: people coming in. It's a close set. So I said, goodbye, Elvis,

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Speaker 1: A pleasure to meet you. I went, and as I

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Speaker 1: left the studio at Paramount, I heard a shouting, noisy

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Speaker 1: group of guys playing football in the parking lot and

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Speaker 1: there was Elvis throwing the football around among his his

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Speaker 1: Memphis Matthia baddies. So that was my second encounter with Elvis,

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Speaker 1: which much I'd be very happy to tell you about

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Speaker 1: my first encounter with Elvis, as I was the fly

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Speaker 1: on the wall when the Beatles went along to see

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Speaker 1: him in nineteen sixty five. It was August sixty five.

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Speaker 1: They really wanted to meet him, didn't they. They wanted

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Speaker 1: to meet him. But in retrospect, and when you know

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Speaker 1: the moment, you just absorb it when it happens. What

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Speaker 1: happened was John was a great fan of Elvis, and

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Speaker 1: I believe in retrospect that it was Colonel Tom Parker,

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Speaker 1: who decided that this would be a great idea to

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Speaker 1: put Elvis together with the Beatles in Elvis's house. So

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Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty four they never quite made it. The

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Speaker 1: Beatles were on tours criss crossing the country, Elvis was

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Speaker 1: making another movie, and then in nineteen sixty five, Elvis

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Speaker 1: and Brian Epstein, the Beatles manager, got together at the

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Speaker 1: Beverly Hills Hotel said let's make it happen now. The

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Speaker 1: problem was for Colonel Parker in a way that Brian

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Speaker 1: said later on, we don't want any press there. We

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Speaker 1: don't want to make this an extravaganza. So no press,

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Speaker 1: no tape recorders, no photographers, I mean, can you believe

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Speaker 1: no photographers for historic meeting. And when they finally met,

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Speaker 1: it took a long time for them to kind of

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Speaker 1: gel and and then again in retrospect. I didn't know

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Speaker 1: at the time, but Elvis was jealous of the Beatles.

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Speaker 1: First of all, they'd knocked him off the purchase a

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Speaker 1: number one hit Parade Guy, and then number two. Well,

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Speaker 1: Elvis had not appeared live anywhere, and then four days

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Speaker 1: before they met at Elvis's house, the Beatles appeared at

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Speaker 1: Shays Stadium in New York and played to an ecstatic

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Speaker 1: crowd of fifty five sold out crowd, sold out crowd,

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Speaker 1: and Elvis had seen this, and so you know, there

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Speaker 1: was a certain resentment. Elvis had been in the army,

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Speaker 1: he'd come out. He was struggling with making these movies,

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Speaker 1: which were kind of copycup movies with different songs, mainly

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Speaker 1: to sell to sell the songs. So he wasn't too

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Speaker 1: warm towards him. He was he wasn't bending over backwards

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Speaker 1: to meet them. And for the first ten minutes it

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Speaker 1: was a very awkward situation. I saw Elvis fiddling with

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Speaker 1: the remote control. The Beatles saddle around, and nobody introduced them.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's saying it. I mean, it's amazing to

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Speaker 1: think of it. Nobody introduced the Beatles to Elvis. Finally, Elvis,

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Speaker 1: in the silence, listening what the sides of the jukebox

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Speaker 1: was going, the television was playing, he jumped up and said, hey,

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Speaker 1: you guys, I'm going to bed unless you came here

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Speaker 1: to jam. And of course that broke the ice, and

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Speaker 1: they got on a bit better after that, and then

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Speaker 1: they said they would meet each other again, but they

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Speaker 1: never did. And then if you want to flash forward,

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Speaker 1: and what aggravated the Beatles about Elvis was that several

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Speaker 1: years later, Elvis went to the White House to meet

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Speaker 1: Richard Nixon. And Elvis decided that he was going to

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Speaker 1: get Nixon young voters. So he persuaded the Nixon White

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Speaker 1: House to let him meet to Nixon. And I saw

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Speaker 1: the letter that Elvis wrote, and it was kind of

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Speaker 1: a rambling letter because Elvis was high when he flew

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Speaker 1: in from Palm Springs to Washington, DC. Anyway, the Nixon

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Speaker 1: White House had come along Elvis. Elvis showed up, and

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Speaker 1: I think people have seen that picture. Elvis presented Richard

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Speaker 1: Nixon with a sort of an antique gun, and Richard

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Speaker 1: Nixon gave Elvis his federal agent's drug enforcement badge. Kind

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Speaker 1: of ironic really, because Elvis wanted that, I suppose because

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Speaker 1: he ever got picked up riding along in the streets

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Speaker 1: of wherever, and he could flash his federal badge at

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Speaker 1: the police and they would wave him on his way.

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Speaker 1: So that was it. And one other thing, if I

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Speaker 1: might add George, at the time that Elvis met Nixon,

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Speaker 1: he said to Nixon, the Beatles are terrible guys. They

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Speaker 1: earn all this money in America, they go back to

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Speaker 1: England and they bad mouth America. Well, that honestly was

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Speaker 1: never the case. So by that time, the Beatles were

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Speaker 1: totally unhappy with Elvis, and you know, Elvis went on

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Speaker 1: to you know what, and to the tragic end. Absolutely.

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Speaker 1: Now he was thirty three years old, Ibar when he

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Speaker 1: came back from his comeback in nineteen sixty eight. Wow, yeah, yes,

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Speaker 1: are you talking about George when he came back from

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Speaker 1: the military or when he did his comeback concert in

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight sixty eight? Okay, Well, that's another interesting story,

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Speaker 1: which I'm sure you know about because it's featured very

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Speaker 1: heavily in the in the movie by Baz Luhrman. But

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Speaker 1: the other day I had a long conversation with a

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Speaker 1: guy called Steve Binder, and Steve Binder was the director

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Speaker 1: of the Elvis comeback concert, and he said to me.

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Speaker 1: Binder said to me that Nelvis, Elvis was very nervous

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Speaker 1: about doing a live comeback concert. He was he'd been

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Speaker 1: away for so long. Go ahead, George, wouldn't you know?

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Speaker 1: You're right, he was very nervous when he came back.

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Speaker 1: And he even told the crowd, and once again they

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Speaker 1: all cheered him. Yes he did, and that was being

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Speaker 1: so honest. But the interesting story I felt about the

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Speaker 1: background to the story was as Steve Binder told me

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Speaker 1: that Elvis had come to him and said, look, I've

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Speaker 1: been away, what do you think of my career, Steve,

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Speaker 1: And Steve was a young producer director who really didn't

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Speaker 1: care what he said. He said, Elvis, your career is

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Speaker 1: in the toilet, and Elvis smiled and said, well, nobody's

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Speaker 1: ever told me that. Thank you, And Binder said he

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Speaker 1: kind of nurse made him through the comeback spashal and

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Speaker 1: if anybody's seen the Comeback Special, and anybody's seen the

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Speaker 1: recreation of the Comeback Special on the Baslerman movie Elvis,

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Speaker 1: we'll see Elvis was magnificent in his black leather outfit

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Speaker 1: with a live audience. It was quite a sensational show

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Speaker 1: and Elvis. It saved Elvis's life until, of course, he

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Speaker 1: got back onto the drugs and then as you described him,

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Speaker 1: he was forgetting his lyrics and the slide downhill continued

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Speaker 1: until the end. During the eight months before he died

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy seven, his doctor had prescribed him ten

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Speaker 1: thousand dulces of sedatives, meth amphetamines and narcotics ten thousand ivore.

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Speaker 1: That is so I mean, when you put it that way, George,

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Speaker 1: it is stunning. It's criminal almost, isn't it. Because the

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Speaker 1: doctor was his awful enabler. And I mean, no human

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Speaker 1: being could survive that now, surely, absolutely not. And that's

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Speaker 1: so tragic. At forty two, he adored his mother, didn't he.

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Speaker 1: He adored his mother his father in the movie, and

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Speaker 1: I didn't know his father. Vernon in the movie comes

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Speaker 1: across as a bit of a hay seed. His mother

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Speaker 1: comes across as somebody who was crazy about a son,

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Speaker 1: of course, and he was crazy about her. And when

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Speaker 1: she died, of course, he was shattered, not surprisingly, and um,

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Speaker 1: you know, Vernon moved in with with Missus with his

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Speaker 1: wife and into into Gracelands after they'd lived a fairly

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Speaker 1: you know, a lot of poverty stricken life, if you like.

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Speaker 1: And Graceland, well, that was quite a it's quite a museum,

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Speaker 1: isn't it. What God Elvis on the charts, he watch

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Speaker 1: into Sam Phillips record shop called Sun Records with producer

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Speaker 1: Sam Phillips, and they wanted in African American music to

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Speaker 1: a wider audience, didn't they They did? And look, the

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Speaker 1: interesting background story is that Elvis was influenced by Black

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Speaker 1: American music, as were believing or not in the early

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Speaker 1: days of Beatles. Paul McCartney always talks about what Elvis

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Speaker 1: talks about, how he loved Long, Tall Sally and roll

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Speaker 1: Over Beethoven, which were which were done by black entertainer

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Speaker 1: of the period. And Elvis he loved Chuck Berry, didn't he. Oh,

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Speaker 1: he loved Chuck Berry, of course absolutely, And chuck Berry

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Speaker 1: is shown in the movie. Elvis loved that music. And

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Speaker 1: when Colonel Parker saw Elvis or heard her, was for

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Speaker 1: the first time he thought he was a black singer,

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Speaker 1: and then he discovered he wasn't. And the film actually

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Speaker 1: of Elvis shows how, you know, it was sort of

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Speaker 1: metamorphosis into Elvis the King, which is rather than an

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Speaker 1: intriguing element of the film. I felt, which I didn't

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Speaker 1: know that much about. I knew Chuck Berry because he

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Speaker 1: was from the Saint Louis area and I had a

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Speaker 1: little company that produced video programs and he came in

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Speaker 1: one day stumbling around. Nobody knew who he was, and

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Speaker 1: he was trying to get dubs of all these videotapes

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Speaker 1: he had in his hand, and he just walked right in.

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Speaker 1: He didn't even stop at the reception desk, and I

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Speaker 1: had to go and get him because you know who

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Speaker 1: who's this guy turned to run? It's Chuck Berry. I said, oh,

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Speaker 1: mister Barry, what do you need? And he said, I

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Speaker 1: want some dubs of these and I said, well we can't.

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Speaker 1: There's there are movies and you were not allowed to

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Speaker 1: and he went oh. He took him in left. Well,

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Speaker 1: George was Chuck Berry, the Chuck. Was he the star

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Speaker 1: at that time of Oh? Yeah, yeah he was. He

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Speaker 1: was big time star. It was probably toward the last

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Speaker 1: three fourths of his career when I were an end

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Speaker 1: to him. Yes, well, that's an interesting story. I've never

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Speaker 1: heard you know before, But certainly it goes to the

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Speaker 1: roots of rock and roll, isn't it? In a way

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Speaker 1: the history of rock and rolls? Absolutely. This kid who

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Speaker 1: played the Elvis in this movie did a pretty good job. Oh,

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Speaker 1: I mean Austin Butler is his name, and he's a

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Speaker 1: kid from Orange County, California. And he apparently as soon

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Speaker 1: as he knew he was in line for Elvis. He

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Speaker 1: buried himself for months and months in Elvis Mania or

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Speaker 1: Elvis everything, and it showed because I think, you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe you and I can talk next year when the

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Speaker 1: Oscars come out, because I think Austin will get a nomination. Now,

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Speaker 1: whether he wins or not, I don't know. Great and

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Speaker 1: I think even Tom Hanks as the Best Supporting Actor nomination. Again,

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Speaker 1: I don't know whether he will win, but Hollywood and

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Speaker 1: the Academy do like actors who dress up in outfits

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Speaker 1: that makes them look totally different, and Tom Hanks certainly

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Speaker 1: certainly did that. Let me ask you something if I may,

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I know it's your show. But did you

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Speaker 1: ever run into Colonel Tom Parker? No? I never did,

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Speaker 1: did not know him, did not run into him at all.

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Speaker 1: But did he was he the one that truly made

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Speaker 1: Elvis the superstar that he became? Well, I know, I

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Speaker 1: mean Elvis had the talent obviously, but absolutely. I think

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Speaker 1: it's an interesting question. And you can you can cut

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Speaker 1: the nation in half or in quarters on this one.

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Speaker 1: I think Tom Hanks I saw called Tom Parker a

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Speaker 1: diabolical genius or but he was he a con man? Yes?

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Speaker 1: He was? Was he a carnival man, yes he was,

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Speaker 1: but he did nurse Elvis through the early periods and

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Speaker 1: he loved making money off of Elvis. Right, Oh, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: I think there's no doubt whatsoever, because Parker was a

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Speaker 1: very much a money man. I mean, the story that

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Speaker 1: Barbara Steizen told me when I when I went on

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Speaker 1: The Star Is Born was that they wanted Elvis to

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Speaker 1: play the rock star. And Elvis was dying to play

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Speaker 1: the rock star. And he went along and spoke to

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Speaker 1: John Peters who was the producer, and Barbara streisand and

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Speaker 1: was and they wanted him, but Colonel Parker said no.

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Speaker 1: And I think the reason Colonel Parker said no to

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Speaker 1: that was number one, Barbara Streisand would have got star billing,

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Speaker 1: and number two, Elvis would have been playing a washed out,

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Speaker 1: drunken rock star. And Parker didn't want to take any chances.

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Speaker 1: He didn't want to let him do it because some

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Speaker 1: people might think that Elvis was like that. Now, when

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Speaker 1: Elvis was on the Ed Sullivan Show, is it a

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Speaker 1: true story that they were? They were the technicians the

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Speaker 1: camera people were told, do not shoot below the belt.

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Speaker 1: We don't want to see him wiggling. I think I

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Speaker 1: think to some extent that was true. I mean Ed

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Speaker 1: Sullivan was pretty in a strange way, was very straight laced,

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Speaker 1: and so I think maybe I mean he told the

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Speaker 1: girls when the beetles showed up not to scream. But

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Speaker 1: so I think there's a certain element of truth to that.

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Speaker 1: And don't forget at the time, and I remember I

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Speaker 1: was in England. People said Elvis to Pelvis, I mean

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Speaker 1: his lewd and ascivious, which is kind of ridiculous when

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Speaker 1: you think of it, But so would I would concur

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Speaker 1: with what you just said that Ed Sullivan said to

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Speaker 1: the camera crew, you know, play careful. We have a

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Speaker 1: Middle American audience and we don't want to offend them. Well,

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Speaker 1: I think when Sullivan had the doors on and they

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Speaker 1: were singing Light by Fire, there was that version that says, girl,

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Speaker 1: we you know, couldn't get much higher or something we

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Speaker 1: whatever that was he didn't want. He didn't want that

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Speaker 1: phrase in there. No, No, I think so. And you know,

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Speaker 1: I don't know where you were, you know how young

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Speaker 1: you were at the time of the Ed Sullivan Show,

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Speaker 1: but it was must watching every Sunday night. I think

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Speaker 1: it was Sunday night and millions I mean seventy four

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Speaker 1: million people tuned into the Beatles, and maybe the same

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Speaker 1: amount or less for Elvis. Listen to more Coast to

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Speaker 1: Coast AM every weeknight at one am Eastern and go

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Speaker 1: to Coast to Coast am dot com for more