Elvis the Pelvis!

awww bless ‘im!

Hopeless closet case crooner!

 SO gay! 😏

Remembering Sam Phillips (January 5, 1923 – July 30, 2003)

Photo: Rosco Gordon & Sam Phillips

"If you know one thing about Sam Phillips — and you probably do, if you grew up on rock ’n’ roll — it’s that he discovered Elvis Presley. But award-winning author Peter Guralnick, who talks about his new biography of Phillips, says that even though Phillips was justifiably proud of that achievement, he routinely steered conversations about Presley back to the blues artists who preceded him.

“He never failed to bring the conversation around to Howlin’ Wolf,” said Guralnick. Phillips believed that Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and other rock and country musicians he made famous were great musical artists

— “but never above Little Junior Parker or Howlin’ Wolf,” Guralnick said.

From the very beginning, said Guralnick, Phillips had an inclusive, “Whitmanesque” vision of a music that would break down racial barriers, giving voice not only to African Americans, but to poor whites as well — a visceral, rhythmic, straightforward music that spoke of pain and promise, joy and despair. In other words, what we came to know as rock ’n’ roll."

By Paul de Barros / Seatle Times 

Don's Tunes

Now I love Sam Phillips for this and his roots were absolutely engrained in black music; the blues and R ’n’ B of Black America. The discovery of Elvis speaks to many (all? ED) but that he was listening and recording everyone from the area without any segregation, no prejudice and just hanging on the music speak volumes about the man is far more interesting to me than the promotion of one man no matter what you think of him!

 

Roscoe Gordon “Chicken in The Rough” 1957 Film “Rock Baby Rock It” 

This is to be, in my opinion, the best documentary on SAM PHILLIPS. This is a A&E Biography Channel UK Documentary of the man who changed the world of music. Profiling Sam Phillips, founder of Sun Records in Memphis, TN., who discovered Elvis Presley and who has been called the "Father of Rock and Roll." Included: archival footage and comments from Ike Turner and Jerry Lee Lewis. Host: Billy Bob Thornton.

Part One

Part Two

Birthdays | Remembering Scotty Moore (December 27, 1931 – June 28, 2016)

Long before there was rock ‘n’ roll, Scotty Moore was a rock ‘n’ roll guitar player.

As Elvis Presley's first guitarist, every note the young man played – including such groundbreaking classics as "Hound Dog,“ "Don't Be Cruel“ and “Heartbreak Hotel" – was memorized by countless budding guitar players (many of whom have gone on to become legends themselves.)

Moore was among the handful of musicians in the early ‘50s of whom it can be said, “They invented rock ‘n’ roll.“

How did you get a rock ‘n’ roll sound out of a hollowbody?

That's hard to say, because there wasn't any rock ‘n’ roll before. So that was it! We couldn't get the highs or bend the strings as far as many players do now, because we didn‘t use light gauge. We just had to work harder.

The Gretsch Chet Atkins strings were the only ones that would hold up on that particular guitar.

On a couple of earlier guitars, I'd used different ones though. I still use the same Atkins strings now by today's standards they‘re like rope, they‘re so big.

Interview August 1974 Guitar Player

Photo: Michael Ochs Archives

Big Mama Thornton and that song - Leiber and Stoller ‘HOUND DOG’ 1952/3

MORE ABOUT BIG MAMA 

Big Mama Thornton and T-Bone Walker at the 1969 Ann Arbor Blues Festival 

Photo by Willa Davis

"The recording of “Hound Dog” became one of the many legends, rumours, about Big Mama Thornton’s career when, by 1956, the rock ‘n’ roll age was already universal. Elvis Presley recorded “Hound Dog” to international acclaim. The Presley record spurred a number of lawsuits over publishing rights, and Big Mama Thornton would, for the rest of her life, tell how Elvis got rich and famous with “her” song. But to set it straight, Mike Stoller and Jerry Lieber wrote “Hound Dog” especially for Big Mama. 

Jerry Lieber remembers:

Absolutely, the afternoon we saw her, Johnny Otis told us to come down to his garage in the back of his house, where he used to rehearse. He wanted us to listen to his people and see if we could write some tunes for them. We saw Big Mama and she knocked me cold. She looked like the biggest, baddest, saltiest chick you would ever see. And she was mean, a “lady bear” as they used to call ‘em. She must have been 350 pounds and she had all these scars all over her face. 

I had to write a song for her that basically said “Go f--k yourself” but how do you do it without actually saying it?

And how to do it telling a story? I couldn’t just have a song full of expletives, hence

the “Hound Dog.” 

Mike Stoller adds, “’Right, ‘You ain’t nothing but a motherf----er.’ She was a wonderful blues singer with a great moaning style, but it was as much her appearance as her blues style that influenced the writing of ‘Hound Dog’ and the idea that we wanted her to growl it, which she rejected at first, her thing was ‘Don’t tell me how to sing no song.”

from an essay by Michael Sporke 

and of course it gives me the opportunity to play my favourite version from film of the day (as ever check the line up on the band!)

Willie Mae Thornton (December 11, 1926 – July 25, 1984), She was the first to record Leiber and Stoller's "Hound Dog", in 1952, which became her biggest hit, staying seven weeks at number one on the Billboard R&B chart in 1953 and selling almost two million copies. Thornton's other recordings included the original version of "Ball and Chain", which she wrote. Her recording of "Hound Dog", written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller in 1952, and later recorded by Elvis Presley, reached Number 1 on the Rhythm & Blues Records chart. According to Maureen Mahon, a music professor at New York University, "the song is seen as an important beginning of rock-and-roll, especially in its use of the guitar as the key instrument

Riley Keough :: Daisy Jones and The Six (2023)

 ELVIS’ GRANDDAUGHTER!

I somehow never thought I would live to see Elvis’ granddaughter looking like this and starring in TV films . . . . . . . . . .we like her don’t we? I think we do . . . . . . . . 

Danielle Riley Keough

daisy jones & the six (2023)

Riley too

Willie Mae 'Big Mama' Thornton - Hound Dog (Lieber and Stoller)

 

Hound Dog and  Down Home Shakedown 

Big Mama Thornton performing at the Berkeley Folk Music Festival,  1970

Mike Stoller: Johnny Otis said, 

“Are you familiar with Willie Mae Thornton?” I said, no. 

He said, “Well, I gotta do a session with her, so you better get Jerry and come over to my place and listen to it, because I’m gonna need some songs.” 

So we went over, and she knocked us out. We went back to my house and, in about 10 or 15 minutes, we wrote “Hound Dog” and took it back. When it was just written lyrics on a piece of paper, she started to croon it. So then we had to perform it for her, as I played the piano and Jerry sang. The band was cracking up, to hear Jerry singing as if he were a blues singer, let’s put it that way. But she got it.

The next day we went into the studio to record, at Radio Recorders Annex (in Hollywood), and as we were walking in, Jerry said, 

“You know, she ought to growl it.” And I said, “Yeah… Why don’t you tell her?” And he said, “Why don’t you tell her?” [Laughs.] 

Anyway, one of us said, “Uh, Big Mama, you know, you could growl it,” and she said, “Don’t be telling me how to sing the blues!” 

[The version Leiber and Stoller relay in their memoir has a little more lewdness to the response.] But the first take was great. The second take was perfect. She growled it both times.

While Stoller came to admire Presley’s talents, he never was all that fond of his take on “Hound Dog.” 

“It didn’t have the groove that Big Mama’s record had, which was fantastic,” says Stoller. 

Neither Leiber and Stoller nor Thornton ever got paid much for her version of the song, and Stoller acknowledges that as a tragedy, along with the general lack of cultural recognition for her. 

“That’s true of not only Big Mama, but of many black performers and songwriters,” he says, noting that he and Leiber “did, on occasion, send her some funds.”

- Variety

It's Only Rock 'N' Roll . . . . . . . . 

class act of course

Sam Giancana with Frank

“My only deep sorrow is the unrelenting insistence of recording and motion picture companies upon purveying the most brutal, ugly, degenerate, vicious form of expression it has been my displeasure to hear—naturally I refer to the bulk of rock ‘n’ roll. It fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people. It smells phoney and false. It is sung, played and written for the most part by cretinous goons and by means of its almost imbecilic reiterations and sly, lewd—in plain fact dirty—lyrics, and as I said before, it manages to be the martial music of every side-burned delinquent on the face of the earth. This rancid smelling aphrodisiac I deplore. But, in spite of it, the contribution of American music to the world could be said to have one of the healthiest effects of all our contributions.” – Frank Sinatra QI has located an Associated Press article from October 1957 that reprinted an excerpt from a magazine called “Western World” published in Paris. Sinatra denounced rock music and musicians using hyperbolic language

early on with mobsters the Fischetti brothers

say no more . . . . . . . .

“It’s the greatest music ever, and it will continue to be so. I like it, and I’m sure many other persons feel the same way. I also admit it’s the only thing I can do. He has a right to his opinion, but I can’t see him knocking my music for no good reason. I admire him as a performer and an actor, but I think he’s badly mistaken about this. If I remember correctly he was also part of a trend. I don’t see how he can call the youth of today immoral and delinquent.” – Elvis Presley

ELVIS THE PELVIS!

On this day in music history: June 5, 1956 - Elvis Presley appears on comedian Milton Berle’s “Texaco Star Theater” variety show on NBC performing his then current hit single “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You”, and the about to be released follow up “Hound Dog”. It is Presley’s performance of the latter that thrusts the singer into controversy. Backed by his band featuring Scotty Moore (guitar), Bill Black (bass) and D.J. Fontana (drums), Elvis sings the song with it seguing into a slow grinding tempo while he gyrates and thrusts his hips. Television critics and most adult viewers react with complete shock and outrage calling Presley’s performance “vulgar” and “obscene”. The appearance earns Elvis the infamous “Elvis The Pelvis” nickname much to his annoyance and displeasure. However, the program draws such high ratings that Elvis is immediately booked to play “The Steve Allen Show” (also on NBC) a month later on July 1, 1956. Presley again performs “Hound Dog”, but in a much tamer performance with the singer wearing a white and black tails while singing the song to a basset hound in a bow tie and top hat. The footage of Elvis performing “Hound Dog” on Milton Berle’s show is featured in the documentary feature “This Is Elvis” and in the film “Forrest Gump”. 

Help support Jeff Harris' wonderful 'Behind The Grooves' music blog with a donation by clicking on the link at: PayPal.Me/jharris1228

I have discussed the Elvis thing earlier and I own one Elvis Album - 'The Sun Sessions' from which this track comes. . . . . . . . . it shook me! Of course! I'm not deaf! Scotty Moore and a slap bass from Billy Black will get me every time . . . . it's called Rockabilly now

On this day in music history: July 5, 1954 - Elvis Presley records “That’s All Right” at Sun Studios in Memphis, TN.  Presley is signed to Sun Records by label owner Sam Phillips, after the then eighteen year old truck driver visits the studio in August of 1953 to record an acetate disc as a birthday gift for his mother. Believing that Elvis has the potential to become a major star, they struggle for several months to find the right song for his debut release. Paired with guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, they are in the studio again going over material when during a break, Elvis begins singing the rhythm and blues number “That’s All Right”. Moore and Black immediately fall in behind Presley, and all realize that  they are on to something. “That’s All Right” is written and originally recorded by Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup in 1946, a Mississippi born laborer and sharecropper turned musician. Elvis records the released version of the song in just a few takes. The single is backed by a cover version of bluegrass legend Bill Monroe’s “Blue Moon Of Kentucky”, recorded two days later on July 7, 1954. Released as Sun 209 on July 19, 1954, it quickly becomes a local hit in Memphis . Local Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips at WHBQ (no relation to Sam Phillips), immediately begins playing the record, spinning it fourteen times in one evening. Though the record does not chart nationally, it is a sizeable regional hit, selling over 20,000 copies, and marks the beginning of Elvis Presley’s iconic career. “That’s All Right” and “Blue Moon Of Kentucky” are reissued as a limited edition 7" in April of 2010 for Record Store Day, packaging it in a picture sleeve, and including a free mp3 download of both tracks.  "That’s All Right" is inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame" in 1998.
with thanks to the most excellent Behind The Grooves by Jeff Harris

The House of Music II

Mississippi

Mississippi John Hurt Museum

I found this picture the other day and am happy to report that Mississippi John Hurt's home has long been a museum dedicated to all that is truly tribute to him . . . . . . 

Needs some music . . . . . . 

and I have been banging on about where Lovin' Spoonful got their name and this was one of the first songs I heard John play thanks to my brother Steve as he loved him . . . . . 

this brought up the issue of the American term Shotgun Shack which I never knew what it meant until seeing these and Elvis' birthplace. The family allegedly only stayed here for a few years and had to move out when Elvis was still a toddler as his parents could not keep up the payments which really begs the question what on earth did they move into then!? 

Elvis Presley's birthplace Tupelo, Mississippi 

if you own the copyright of either of these images please let me know and I will credit you or remove

Never been much of an Elvis fan (Presley not Costello!) but there are the remixes . . . . . this clip is as camp as it got . . . . . . . closeted for good!

This is what it should have sounded like . . . . . . . experts stuff

TURN IT UP!

 *The term shotgun shack means that if one shot a gun through the front door it would go straight through and out the back! Trust America to name a type of building after what happens when you shoot it!