Wow, he was kick butt drummer too. RIP. Elvis was never as good as when he was with those original guys at the start, DJ, Bill Black and Scotty Moore. Well DJ came a little later but those early live recordings, his voice was absolutely unbelievable, like a freight train. And then the illegal alien came along and ruined everything, broke up the group and turned Elvis into his own personal ATM machine. I read once Scotty said if you put all the times he played with Elvis, the live shows, the recordings and added up all the money he was paid, he said the total probably wouldn’t add up to more than $5000 thanks to the illegal alien Andreas van Kuijk. That’s Elvis fault as well, he could have spoke up and demanded they get paid more but I guess he was just a naive kid like they all were. Elvis didn’t even need a manager, by the time the illegal alien discovered him he was already popular. His own father could have managed him, he was a hot commodity and it was just a matter of making deals on money.
Hitler,Stalin,col.Parker!
“Elvis: The Sun Sessions” is an essential part of any rock and roll record collection. With all due respect to Ike Turner and some of the early rockers recorded by Sam Phillips, Elvis in the Sun studios is the rock equivalent of cold fusion, the moment everything came together and everything changed forever.
It’s ironic, because Scotty Moore and Bill Black weren’t initially impressed by Elvis and neither was Sam Phillips. Sam was about ready to call it quits—for good—when Elvis began riffing on “That’s All Right Mama;” Moore and Black joined in, and Phillips knew he had stumbled across something completely unique and original in the music world.
Your comments about the illegal alien are spot-on. The money offered by European promoters for concert tours on the continent were jaw-dropping for that era, and there’s no doubt Elvis would have drawn huge crowds. But the illegal alien was afraid his unlawful entry would be discovered when he applied for a passport, so Elvis missed out on millions in potential European earnings.