Posted on 11/15/2010 3:40:15 PM PST by BigReb555
Edited on 11/15/2010 4:02:25 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
It was before the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Dixie Cups, and Diana Ross and the Supremes came on the music scene with their wonderful music.
(Excerpt) Read more at canadafreepress.com ...
This was the year: Dwight Eisenhower was President, Fats Domino sang “I found my thrill on Blueberry Hill”, Buddy Holly and the Crickets appeared at New York’s Paramount Theater and “Love Me Tender” starring Richard Egan, Debra Paget and introducing Elvis Presley premiered at the Paramount Theater that is located at 43rd Street and Broadway in New York’s Time Square Theater District.
It was before the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Dixie Cups, and Diana Ross and the Supremes came on the music scene with their wonderful music.
It was when: Henry J automobiles, Woolworths Department Stores, Drive-in theaters, Colonial Stores and Jacobs Drug Stores, where Coca Cola was first sold, thrived, and….
It was 54 years ago when fans of Elvis Presley gathered at New York’s Paramount Theater under a huge 40 foot cut-out of the King of rock and roll, on Thursday, November 15, 1956, to see the premiere of “Love Me Tender”, a wide screen, “Cinemascope” motion picture. Some called the Cinemascope process, 3-D without glasses.
In 1956, Coke was still a nickel, popcorn a quarter and a movie just a quarter.
Elvis Presley appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1956 and performed “Love Me Tender” for the first time....And, because of the unprecedented advance sale of over a million copies of that RCA recording, making it a “Gold Record” before it was even released; the producers for the movie changed the title from The Reno Brothers to Love Me. Tender.
Love Me Tender was a hit for Twentieth Century-Fox, despite a few negative reviews. Many more, however, gave it thumbs-up saying “Elvis can act.” Young ladies, Elvis’ true fans, could not control their excitement and screamed for joy throughout the movie.
If you could hear the movie you were treated to a story…..
about a Mother’s love for her family and the love triangle within a Southern-Texas family who were recovering from four years of terrible war. To make things more complicated, the Reno Brothers and others held on to money that they took during a raid on a Union gold shipment. They did not know the war had ended when they took the money.
What a movie, with Elvis Presley singing 4 songs, a wonderful musical score by Lionel Newman and the great movie direction by Robert D. Webb who also directed: The Proud Ones and On the Threshold of Space during the same year.
The song “Love Me Tender” came from a War Between the States era song “Aura Lee.”
The movie also starred veteran actors Neville Brand, Robert Middleton, James Drury, William Campbell and a very credible and heart-warming performance by Mildred Dunnock as the Mother of the Reno Brothers.
Elvis Presley attended a private screening of the movie on November 20th at the Loews State Theater in Memphis, Tennessee prior to its nationwide release on November 21st. During the screening Elvis’s Mother, Gladys Presley cried at the death of her son’s character at the end. Elvis Presley would insist that his characters would not die again on the screen. The death scene, however, would become famous as many people, young and old, wept at the movies ending that highlighted Elvis’ character singing Love Me Tender as the family walked away from his grave. What an ending to a great movie!
America and the world will never forget Elvis Presley!
I was 3 years old.
In 1954, when I was a sophomore in high school in Beaumont TX, that I saw Elvis live for the first and only time.
He was singing in a nightclub out on the Silsbee Highway. The nightclub was called Daddy Longlegs. LOL!
BTW, if anyone ever wants to visit Graceland, my suggestion is to do it the day AFTER his birthday. We did that one time, and there weren’t more than a dozen people there at the time, but there had been thousands the day before.
I was asked the other day if I’d ever seen Elvis. I had, twice. In 1955 (when I was 5) at the National Guard Armory in Jackson, AL, and again in 1956 in Tampa, FL. I remember asking my mother why all these women were screaming and falling in the floor....LOL
Humorist Allan Sherman is supposed to have done a version of Aura Lea, also.
“Every time you take vaccine, take it Aura Lee
As you know the other way is more painfully!”
A long, long time ago...
I can still remember
How that music used to make me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And, maybe, they’d be happy for a while.
But february made me shiver
With every paper I’d deliver.
Bad news on the doorstep;
I couldn’t take one more step.
I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride,
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died.
So bye-bye, miss american pie.
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
And them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
Singin’, “this’ll be the day that I die.
“this’ll be the day that I die.”
Did you write the book of love,
And do you have faith in God above,
If the Bible tells you so?
Do you believe in rock ’n roll,
Can music save your mortal soul,
And can you teach me how to dance real slow?
Well, I know that you’re in love with him
`cause I saw you dancin’ in the gym.
You both kicked off your shoes.
Man, I dig those rhythm and blues.
I was a lonely teenage broncin’ buck
With a pink carnation and a pickup truck,
But I knew I was out of luck
The day the music died.
I started singin’,
“bye-bye, miss american pie.”
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
And singin’, “this’ll be the day that I die.
“this’ll be the day that I die.”
Now for ten years we’ve been on our own
And moss grows fat on a rollin’ stone,
But that’s not how it used to be.
When the jester sang for the king and queen,
In a coat he borrowed from james dean
And a voice that came from you and me,
Oh, and while the king was looking down,
The jester stole his thorny crown.
The courtroom was adjourned;
No verdict was returned.
And while lennon read a book of marx,
The quartet practiced in the park,
And we sang dirges in the dark
The day the music died.
We were singing,
“bye-bye, miss american pie.”
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
And singin’, “this’ll be the day that I die.
“this’ll be the day that I die.”
Helter skelter in a summer swelter.
The birds flew off with a fallout shelter,
Eight miles high and falling fast.
It landed foul on the grass.
The players tried for a forward pass,
With the jester on the sidelines in a cast.
Now the half-time air was sweet perfume
While the sergeants played a marching tune.
We all got up to dance,
Oh, but we never got the chance!
`cause the players tried to take the field;
The marching band refused to yield.
Do you recall what was revealed
The day the music died?
We started singing,
“bye-bye, miss american pie.”
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
And singin’, “this’ll be the day that I die.
“this’ll be the day that I die.”
Oh, and there we were all in one place,
A generation lost in space
With no time left to start again.
So come on: jack be nimble, jack be quick!
Jack flash sat on a candlestick
Cause fire is the devil’s only friend.
Oh, and as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage.
No angel born in hell
Could break that satan’s spell.
And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite,
I saw satan laughing with delight
The day the music died
He was singing,
“bye-bye, miss american pie.”
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
And singin’, “this’ll be the day that I die.
“this’ll be the day that I die.”
I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news,
But she just smiled and turned away.
I went down to the sacred store
Where I’d heard the music years before,
But the man there said the music wouldn’t play.
And in the streets: the children screamed,
The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed.
But not a word was spoken;
The church bells all were broken.
And the three men I admire most:
The father, son, and the holy ghost,
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died.
And they were singing,
“bye-bye, miss american pie.”
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
And them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
Singin’, “this’ll be the day that I die.
“this’ll be the day that I die.”
They were singing,
“bye-bye, miss american pie.”
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
Singin’, “this’ll be the day that I die.”
Elvis is Everywhere - Mojo Nixon
When I look out into your eyes out there,
When I look out into your faces,
You know what I see?
I see a little bit of Elvis
In each and every one of you out there.
Lemme tell ya...
Weeeeeeeeeellllllll...
Elvis is everywhere
Elvis is everything
Elvis is everybody
Elvis is still the king
Man o man
What I want you to see
Is that the big E’s
Inside of you and me
Elvis is everywhere, man!
He’s in everything.
He’s in everybody...
Elvis is in your jeans.
He’s in your cheesburgers
Elvis is in Nutty Buddies!
Elvis is in your mom!
He’s in everybody.
He’s in the young, the old,
the fat, the skinny,
the white, the black
the brown and the blue
people got Elvis in ‘em too
Elvis is in everybody out there.
Everybody’s got Elvis in them!
Everybody except one person that is...
Yeah, one person!
The evil opposite of Elvis.
The Anti-Elvis
Anti-Elvis got no Elvis in ‘em,
lemme tell ya.
Michael J. Fox has no Elvis in him.
And Elvis is in Joan Rivers
but he’s trying to get out, man!
He’s trying to get out!
Listen up Joanie Baby!
Elvis is everywhere
Elvis is everything
Elvis is everybody
Elvis is still the king
Man o man
What I want you to see
Is that the big E’s
Inside of you and me
Man, there’s a lot of unexplained phenomenon
out there in the world.
Lot of things people say
What the heck’s going on?
Let me tell ya!
Who built the pyramids?
ELVIS!
Who built Stonehenge?
ELVIS!
Yeah, man you see guys
walking down the street
pushing shopping carts
and you think they’re talking to allah,
they’re talking to themself.
Man, no they’re talking to ELVIS!
ELVIS! ELVIS!
You know whats going on in that Bermuda Triangle?
Down in the Bermuda Traingle
Elvis needs boats.
Elvis needs boats.
Elvis Elvis Elvis
Elvis Elvis Elvis
Elvis needs boats.
Aahh! The Sailing Elvis!
Captain Elvis!
Commodore Elvis it is.
Yeah man, you know people from outer space,
people from outer space they come up to me.
They don’t look like like Doctor Spock.
They don’t look like Klingons,
all that Star Trek jive.
They look like Elvis.
ELVIS!
Everybody in outer space looks like Elvis.
Cause Elvis is a perfect being.
We are all moving in perfect peace and harmony towards Elvisness
Soon all will become Elvis.
Everything everywhere will be Elvis.
Why do you think they call it evolution anyway?
It’s really Elvislution!
Elvislution!
Elvis is everywhere
Elvis is everything
Elvis is everybody
Elvis is still the king
Man o man
What I want you to see
Is that the big E’s
Inside of you and me
That’s right ladies and gentlemen,
The time has come!
Time has come to talk
To that little bit of Elvis inside of you.
Talk to it!
Call it up!
Say “Elvis, heal me!”
“Save me, Elvis!”
“Make me be born again
in the perfect Elvis light”
That’s right!
You’ve got that Elvis inside of ya
and he’s talkin to ya
He says he wants you to sing!
Everybody’s got to sing like the king!
Like the king
Get that leg going now
Get your lip too.
Not no fool Billy Idol lip either
Everybody!
Yeah, we’re rockin now!
Elvis is with us.
He’s with us and he’s speaking to us.
He says “Peoples!”
“Peoples!”
“Everybody!”
“Everybody got to sing!”
Elvis is everywhere
Elvis is everything
Elvis is everybody
Elvis is still the king
Man o man
What I want you to see
Is that the big E’s
Inside of you and me
Elvis is everywhere
Elvis is everything
Elvis is everybody
Elvis is still the king
Man o man
What I want you to see
Is that the big E’s
Inside of you and me
For about a year starting in 1955, I published a small neighborhood newspaper with a group of friends: The West Side Weekly. Cribbing from various sources, we printed it out on an old mimeograph machine my dad had liberated from work.
When it came time for Junior High School in the fall of '56, it seemed logical to parlay my journalistic experience into work on the school paper. They were holding 'auditions' that consisted of writing an essay on a subject that would be given at the audition.
I walked into the room a little late, and saw the theme written on the blackboard. It said, "Write an essay on the E. P. phenomenon."
"Okay," sez I to myself, "What the hell is the E. P. phenomenon?" After sitting at one of the student desks for a couple of minutes musing over this conundrum, I finally got up and walked up close to the upperclassman who was proctoring the session. Quietly, I asked him "So, ummm, what's 'E. P.?' He gave me a queer look (you could say that in those days) and said, "Elvis Presley."
Oh. My heart sank. What the heck did I know from Elvis Presley already? I racked my brain. I racked it some more. Time passed. The clock hands moved, perceptibly. Finally, in desperation, I wrote
"The Elvis Presley phenomenon is one of today's great mysteries. Why teenage girls get hysterical and try to tear his clothes off is beyond me." End of essay.
Turned it in, walked out, and never gave another serious thought to a life in print journalism. I took up radio instead.
Epilog. One of the kids in that room, who was destined to be a buddy for the next 7 or 8 years, would one day win a Pulitzer prize as a columnist for the Washington Post.
While at a Walmart the other day I found a DVD of Elvis in “Jailhouse Rock” (1957) and bought it. It was the movie that I went to with my first date (I can still remember her first and last name). Watching it brought back some pleasant memories.
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