April 20, 2007, The first time I saw Elvis, By Lou Christine

It’s said music is one of the three great pleasures. At age nine, back in 1956, you couldn’t have sold me on that premise. I hated music. To me it was a mush of blaring horns and boring singers.

Yet Grandmom listened to Arthur Godfrey on the radio every morning. How many times does a kid want to hear Eddie Fisher singing “Oh, My Papa” or listen to an insipid line-up of Perry Comos or Julius La Rosas?

So it was summertime and Saturday night. The weekly Jackie Gleason Show was on vacation. Tommy Dorsey and his band subbed for Gleason with a variety show.

Grandmom tuned into Tommy Dorsey. I wasn’t so enthused about a trombone-fest but television was television.

Without any fanfare Dorsey introduced a new entertainer. When Tommy Dorsey announced the name Elvis, that got my attention! Up ‘til then I had never heard of anyone named Elvis. (The Ed Sullivan appearances wouldn’t come until the following winter. This was Elvis’ national TV debut.)

The moment came. The curtain rose. There’s still an indelible image implanted in my brain. He was something the likes of which I had never seen: A guitar player, with a high-and-mighty pompadour, cheek-hugging side burns, dressed in pegged-pants portraying himself as an eclectic mix of hillbilly hip and street-corner slick.

That was nothing ‘cause when Elvis started singing with a riveting voice that would become one of the most distinct and shameless of voices, and turned up the heat as he brazenly flashed gyrating moves more apt for a voodoo ritual than TV, I became absolutely mesmerized. I shelved my yummy Twinkie as Elvis cried out and yelped, “You Ain’t Nothing But A Hound Dog,” while pulling off a knocked-out, white-boy, slide-shoe shuffle, having his feet going in every direction at once at what seemed like warp speed. (James Brown and Michael Jackson have nothing on the guy).

Up to that point I had never seen or heard anything like Elvis. He was primal, unleashed and making sudden impact.

Later, Elvis sang a second song. “Don’t Be Cruel,” was more serene yet substantiated Elvis’ range. Even so, Elvis punctuated his style with seductive vocals and quivering of the upper-lip with shoulders shimmying all at the same time. This Elvis was a full package and far from a one-trick pony.

Soon enough, with the back-up of hordes of gah-gah, screaming girls, Elvis took the rest of the world by storm. Elvis Presley was crowned, canonized and anointed as the undisputed “King of Rock and Roll.”

Since that moment almost every other rocker has stood on Elvis’ shoulders, just the way the baseball world rode out its own legacy on Babe Ruth’s shoulders.

Near the end of the show Tommy Dorsey announced that Elvis would make an encore performance the following Saturday. Like some converting evangelist I must have called every one of my 36 cousins. I harped on them that this phenomenon named Elvis was a “must see” the upcoming Saturday.

That very week, with my paper-route money and savings, I bought my first 45-rpm record player along with a copy of “Hound Dog” with “Don’t Be Cruel” on the flip side. I snatched up Elvis’ then newest release, “I’m All Shook Up.” I was hooked. I wanted to hear more of Elvis, see more Elvis, look like Elvis, act like Elvis! With broomstick in hand and alone in front of Grandmom’s full-length bedroom mirror, I mimicked those patented, kinetic moves.

Elvis alone jump-started my love for modern music. From that moment I followed the Doo-Wop recording artists, ala Frankie Lyman and a host of others, yet there was just one Elvis. Motown came along and the Beatles further upped the rage, yet no one could deny Elvis’ perpetual place in the annals of Rock. The man set the stage.

We all know the rest of the story as Elvis’ popularity wilted with the influx of hippies and with the King himself losing focus by going from a hip-shaking, cool guy to a tawdry, rhinestone-laden Vegas showboat, donned in goofy white-bellbottoms.

Elvis’ on-stage karate kicks came up empty compared to what was once fresh and exhilarating. Who would have predicted? At 42, while bloated and weighing in excess of 250 pounds, the King of Rock and Roll died on the throne, a porcelain throne that wasn’t bejeweled, a sad lullaby proving that idols do have clay feet.

With the state of today’s music one might ask: What happened to modern music?

Remember when there was at least one snappy tune seemingly coming off everybody’s lips? Remember when the hits kept on coming? Remember when music painted vivid pictures that were both compelling and inspiring? There seemed to be an infinite songfest that had us snapping our fingers or tapping our feet. Sorry to say, it ain’t no more! So much of our pasts are attached to certain tunes, to where we were, and what we were doing! So what the hell happened?

I’ve been doing some polling amongst peers and even with younger people. Hardly anyone can remember what was the last big hit.

Going as far back as World War II an assortment of bands, along with lyricists, were cranking out popular tunes. Things were swell. The jitterbug generation followed, and then came Elvis, to be followed by group-after-group and star-after-star. Fabulous musicianship and burgeoning technology had popular music rising to high-water marks of epic proportions and popularity. Who would have guessed that in a span of 50 years most have been reduced to Oldies but Goodies?

During popular music’s heyday in the mid ‘70s, I was listening to a progressive radio station. A fabulous tune had just ended and the DJ, in a typical, deadpan, FM-DJ fashion, boasted, and at the same time warned, we were living in a golden age. But the DJ then had the audacity to predict that one day it would come to an end!

“Bull!” I thought, “The Who” was coming out with a new album, as was Steely Dan, as was Boston and a myriad of others. Rock & Roll would never die. Little did I know.

Well, sad to say, popular music has bit the dust. There are pockets very much alive on college campuses or by listening to NPR or on the Internet, but they are no longer on the popular scene.

Music motivated me, took me to certain heights, having me envision my own illusions of grandeur. Even when one’s heart may have been stabbed by mean, ole Mr. Heartbreak, those cry-in-your-beer brays offered a certain soothing or doses of torture that went hand-in-hand with waning love as a melancholy serenade of woulda, coulda and shouldas.

When I look at modern music’s demise in a forensic sort of way, there seem to be distinct culprits who have conspired to assassinate it. Suspects are apparent. One anonymous witness testified, in song, that “Video Killed The Radio Star.” How ironic! Elvis became an unknowing conspirator while making what’s credited as Rock’s first video, “Jail House Rock.” Yet modern music’s cutthroats didn’t just knock off music with videos. Other forces chomped at the bit to do in Rock. The CD aced the LP. Then “the suits” muscled in for profit over quality. It was and is a crime!

During its eulogy it could have been said that modern music was the delicious combination of “the beat” teamed up with untamed melodies and fabulous orchestrations, a magic ensemble that created sumptuous scenes which also lent visual interpretations. Once the video hit the screen, with a distorted slant, perhaps provided by some maniacal Hollywood director, the deal was done. Rock had been hijacked. Our playland of imagination was kidnapped. Our own innocent and original interpretations lay dead.

Then came the dizzying camera work with a pedal-to-the-metal focus, not permitting viewers time enough to train eyes on anything for more than a few seconds, a lame method custom-made for weak attention spans. Without consideration, rock videos have become nothing more than cheap vignettes consisting of cut to, and cut to, and cut to...Forget about it!

Greed, too, was one of the perpetrators: LPs were selling for $4.99, $5.99 or $6.99, maybe a sawbuck for a double LP. CD costs soared to the teens, a rip-off and bunk. The fidelity was no better and you had to buy a CD player. There were no more album covers to scan over. Cheap, flimsy jackets broke and made for a plastic mess. CDs were daintier than Christmas ornaments and they also skipped. Music lovers weren’t given a choice. LPs and turntables were on the hit list, a list neither wanted to be on, a hit list that may as well been filled out by Chicago mobsters.

Then the “suits” got into the act, acting more like ghouls, more interested in a bottom line than love for music. Less and less, groups were afforded exposure. Radio station program directors crammed in shorter tunes with more commercials, playing less compelling music while shoving the dreck down our throats. Incredible, Rock mainstays such as Eric Clapton’s “Layla” or Led Zepplin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” or even The Beatles, “Hey Jude,” in today’s listening world, would never be allotted that sort of air time. Patience is no longer viable.

Consider what we now have, Rap!

I hate sounding like an old fogey but Rap mostly sucks. It’s got bad attitude. It’s redundant. It’s a one-beat behemoth. It’s demeaning, with continuous and pulsating vile lyrics—lyrics that should only be voiced in public when the hometown quarterback throws an interception or while whispering erotic passages toward a like-minded lover while in between the sheets.

Looking back I’m fortunate, man! I am way luckier than the kids of today. I witnessed a defining moment during that Saturday night long, long ago. In a world of copycats there is no one like Elvis, there was no one like Elvis before him and the likelihood of an Elvis-alike seems highly unlikely. He was genuine and original. After God made him, God may have broken the mold.

So, the world may be waiting for a new Messiah with a vision and outlook that will have all awestruck whether it be in music, education or world affairs. LOL. looking around I am not counting on it. Shoots! Why should I even bother?

Hey, Baby, I saw Elvis the first time he was on national TV. What more could an aging rockster want? So, as the song goes: “Rock and Roll will never die (I can) dig it 'til the end.”

When I think about it music-wise, life’s complete! Long live Rock and Roll!