Gates of Graceland Ep. 1 - Peter Guralnick - Elvis in Vegas

hi Elvis fans I'm Tom Brown and you've probably seen me at Elvis Week conducting conversations interviews well we're gonna be having one now online for you to see very excited to have with us here and the first time I've gotten to meet him and the first time obviously then I've gotten to talk to him but the author of this book last train to Memphis and also careless love which came out in the 90s and are pretty much still considered to be the Bible of Elvis history and I think it's no more important for any of us Elvis fans you have to get this book and careless love Peter Guralnick thank you so much it's great to meet you I was just telling you before we started when last train came out in 94 I read it for righteously and went back and read it again and I read it many times because it took five years for careless love to come out and now we can read both those books and be excited by having them in our library but it's it's been interesting to go back and kind of look at the book now and to read the stories and to hear the voices of the people you got to interview you really had an opportunity in the 90s and probably long before the 90s to really get to know people in the Elvis world yeah no I think that really the genesis of the book or the genesis of the biography goes back into the 70s when I met people like Scotty Moore I met Jack Clement I met a whole bunch of people and they were really the key to going on I'm not I'm terrible at the cold call I mean I hate calling up and saying I'm I forget my name and you know and I'm here to do you know I what I want but people like Scotty were so gracious in introducing me to others to someone like Chet Atkins for instance Jerry shilling once I met him which wasn't until I think about 89 but he introduced me to so many people who were the key figures in in careless love and Colonel Parker was unbelievably generous not so much in making calls for me but in introducing me to his 80th in inviting me to his 80th birthday party and when I went to thank him afterwards you know I said hi colonel Peter Guralnick I just wanted to thank you he says I put you on the list and that's a gruff guttural voice and I said no no I know thanks so much I really appreciate it he says no I put you on the list and I said no that's really great and finally it struck me you know what he was saying but I put you on the list it gradually dawned on me and it became evident when I then contacted so many of the people like Tom Hewlett for example who was the person in charge of you know put Elvis on tour and and really ran the tours and yeah I don't think he ever would have spoken to me if Colonel hadn't put me on the list seal of approval yeah well kind of yeah I mean not to do not in any official way but but so I mean it was that kind of thing that and that's really to me it's it's it's a matter of trust it's not that I'm going in and I'm saying I'm gonna write something that's gonna make you look like you know st. Bernard or something well one of the interesting parts of careless love which is kind of the part 2 after army on into the 60s and 70s so really specifically today focus on Elvis in Vegas and then Elvis coming to Vegas and how important that was for his next step I mean the 60s consist of movies then there's the singer special and the 68 comeback special everybody calls it in December of 68 and then it's the following summer of 69 when Elvis is at the International Hotel and comes to Vegas live performances and that kind of launches the second part of the 60s for him what were your feelings in in your research and looking at the the careers of all those people of what was it that got Elvis to Vegas what was the impetus in wanting him there well Colonel got Elvis to Vegas because he made a deal in the way it like every other deal he made he made a great deal for Elvis and one of the sent one of those principal impetuses for it was that the movies had just run out I mean Elvis continued to have contracts and they were very of contracts but but really both the interest as Jerry Schilling would say you know the it would tell you the interest had run out on Elvis's part whatever spark it existed but beyond that the the business element was more and more difficult but the other thing was that I think that you know the 68 special had sparked such a hunger on Elvis's part to return to life performing something that was almost as if he had forgotten it and he had got involved in his spiritual studies with Larry Keller and that had occupied him for two and a half three years almost exclusively in the mid-60s but I think that that performing in front of a live audience for that television special and just throwing himself into it and rediscovering the passion for the music that he had expressed in many ways in the studio was something that that really motivated Elvis but the interesting thing was that the real ambition and I think most people miss this because you know it's easy to reduce anything to caricature on people's they think of the jumpsuits or you know they I mean it's funny because Elvis wore a lot of different things but but they think of it as a particular stereotype but what what god elvis going was the idea of putting together what sam phillips called a kickass rhythm section putting together you know a rhythm section that wasn't going to quit but also bringing together all the strands of American music which had influenced much will by no means just blues or country or gospel music which was the thread that ran all through his life but every element could be Frank Sinatra could be Tony Bennett could be the Andrews Sisters could be symphony and he had in mind very explicitly going in that he was going to bring together all the sounds and all the traditions which had gone into the making of his music or not to make thing just a making of his music the making of American music and with an orchestra and with to back up you know to back up groups used not just the gospel but the pop sound the white sound the black sound and bring it all together in a way that that would recapture the kind of experience that he had had going out to Overton Park as a kid and hearing the um you know hearing the Memphis Symphony play on the Sunday afternoon with a conductor just leading them with just his baton and this was something that always stayed with Elvis no it's it's interesting because you watch the the films of Elvis in concert and and Jerry shilling has mentioned this a couple of times I've seen in interviews there weren't many rock stars of the 60s and 70s in the middle of their rock show going and doing a full gospel there were a lot of people on stage singing backup with Elvis gospel quartets you know R&B with the with the Suites onstage with him that voice as Ellen voice with that 11 or 12 voices yeah there were a lot of voices onstage with him and him in Vegas especially that those first shows in in August of 69 I mean you read in your book careless love you read about him forming that band and forming that core unit and the songs they learned and really the structure of the set and how to be really have a performance yeah I know and it was an energy I think in those early shows it almost couldn't be contained and something that he well I think that he found a motive a form for that expression in his early movies the movies he made before before going into the army and he really threw himself into those four movies but but this life this experience of live performing was something that I think there was almost no substitute for it and and one of the things about Elvis was that he spoke from the beginning of his career he spoke of the fans as not just giving him his grounding but giving him his inspiration and he had more contact with the fans then is often given its due and but I think he saw that as a regenerative another thing and I would say that it ran out after a certain point it ran out in Vegas he went on the road I remember seeing him in Boston in 71 on what was I think the first full-length tour and it was an exciting spectacle it was an exciting sort of tableau but again I think that ran out after a while but but at the beginning he had the the greatest of ambitions and and Joe Guercio I think served that served that he got a big kick out of Joe and Joe he gave the kind of you know with the 2001 introduction I mean Joe Joe gave that additional that additional spirit that Elvis was looking for but in some ways I mean you wish that it's kind of like in in Elvis's spiritual studies if I could give Elvis one gift it would have been a a course in comparative religions at UCLA or something I mean I think he had that degree of that hunger for it and I think with the music it it would have been great if he was he was as great an ethnomusicologist as anyone who's gone through college crappiness to his or her degree I mean done all of that but I think but he didn't do do that and I think that had he had the tools for arranging the kind of kind of music that he was actually envisioned I think they would have given an even greater satisfaction he would have been teaching that class probably in a year yeah with with the way he took in and information and seeking out he was curious from from talking to people and reading about him he wanted to learn more he wanted to spend and he rose to a challenge and the movies he rose to that challenge he rose to the challenge of the army he rose to the challenge of that 68 special then there's the challenge in Vegas Hawaii every time there was something huge up ahead he really worked toward that I've always been interested in that's the way it is I've always said that's the way it is is elvis ism is a documentary about elvis in Vegas and it's Colonel Parker's commercial Elvis's in Vegas come see him right and then Elvis on tour is the commercial Elvis is coming to your town I come see him yeah I mean it was very smart the way those two documentaries the threat of what they achieved and what they were wanted what colonel wanted them to achieve I think in that message well as interesting I mean the the original version of that's the way it is whom would you say that was I mean who dictated the way that was with its emphasis on the fans and more you know more so as opposed to the revised version I mean was that an advertised with the advertisement occur that Colonel wanted I'm not sure it was you know it may have been a satirical take you know by was it Dennis Sanders Sanders Yeah right right one of the reasons we're talking about Vegas too is that after 40 years a Elvis's returning to Las Vegas and to the old International Hotel the old Las Vegas Hilton and now the Westgate Resort and very excited about what they've got planned what Graceland is going to be doing there's a new facility going in there at Westgate in this call I want to get the name right Elvis the exhibition the show the experience artifacts from Graceland that are going to be on display there at the West Gate that have never been on display you know I was reading it said haven't been on display outside of Graceland was reading there's actually a lot that's going to be there that's actually coming back to the hotel because it's a lot of outfits Elvis wore at the hotel so they're you know they're making a return there's a lot of great plans with Elvis returning to the building in Las Vegas and that's why we've been talking a little bit about Las Vegas and in in seeing and reintroducing myself to Elvis in Vegas I think one of the most brilliant strokes of Colonel Parker was Elvis was offered to open the showroom and Colonel said no that will be second and and the reason why well let's let them work the bugs out you know let the bugs become very old before we go in there right right you never want to be first there's always sound problems there's always echo problem yeah now no Colonel is very shrewd and he was very much looking out for you know for Elvis's interesting with you for the interests of his act which I think it was often misunderstood I when he turned down when Elvis turned down the star is born I don't think that would have been a good movie for him I don't think it was a at a time when he could have done well by it but if you look at the correspondence between Elvis and the company and you know the points that he brings up or the points that any good manager would bring up it it had to do with publishing it had to do with whether John Peters would never directed anything and was Barbra Streisand's boyfriend whether this represented that you know whether Elvis would get a fair shake in this weather and you know and I would say that the negotiations it was negotiated quite you know honestly quite directly and quite smoothly and in the end as as I see it you know Elvis had every reason to turn it down but I know as the guys see it Colonel Parker had had robbed Elvis of an opportunity to do something that might have might regained his interest you talk about they really had a marriage they really had a relationship of you know working together and I think for all us Elvis fans reading your books and kind of reliving those moments very excited about what's coming to Vegas and and to be in that room you know to experience Elvis I was too young at the time to make it to Las Vegas to see them myself so I think it'll be it'll be fun and thank you so much for joining us to talk about you know Elvis and and and talk about Las Vegas and what they've got planned what Graceland has planned there at the at the the West Gate and Peter Guralnick thank you so much thank you for taking time out to come here to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum we're in Nashville at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum thank you for for this conversation and I look forward to some more well thanks thank you later you

Channel: Graceland

Views: 58,869

Keywords: Elvis Presley's Graceland, Graceland Memphis, Elvis Presley (Celebrity), elvis, presley, graceland, peter guralnick, last train to memphis, elvis book

Id: j1tmtbE0oeg

Length: 15min 27sec (927 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 10 2015