Elvis Ignited Read online

  As in Axton’s interaction with the young would-be king, to this day an aging legion of fans up and down the peninsula cherish the time they shared with Presley during his rise to stardom. Presley burst into their predictable lives like a Technicolor Romeo and left an indelible impression; they hold onto those memories with fierce devotion. Before Presley became a prisoner of fame he performed for them; talked, danced, and played with them; took them in his arms and kissed them. Those teens of long ago keep close the photographs and memories, in purses and wallets, and even on tee shirts; Presley’s autograph is framed alongside family keepsakes. It’s as if they need a constant reminder; proof to themselves and others, that the time they shared with pre-iconic Elvis was indeed real. He was real.

  In fifteen months from May 7, 1955, to August 11, 1956, Presley played fifty-nine Florida shows in a dozen cities; sometimes three or four concerts a day. In 1956, his most crucial and transformative year, Presley and his underappreciated and underpaid bandmates played forty-one Florida concerts, more than in any other state; more than in Texas, Mississippi, and Tennessee combined. Before any of his historic appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show, where most Americans first became aware of him, Presley’s barnstorming days in Florida were already over.

  While most young people his age matriculated in colleges and universities, Presley honed his talents by way of Florida back roads; his home away from home. From Pensacola to Jacksonville up north, Daytona Beach and West Palm Beach to the east, Fort Myers, Sarasota, St. Pete, and Tampa to the west, and Ocala, Orlando, and Lakeland in the center south to Miami’s beaches, in 1955 and ’56 Elvis, Scotty, and Bill were everywhere.

  “I don’t think there was a better time and place to be a teenager than in Florida in the 1950s,” said former Florida governor and United States senator Bob Graham. “It was such a magical place. Elvis is part of what contributed to that excitement.”

  By 1961 the most controversial figure in Presley’s career, his Svengali-esque manager Tom Parker, transformed the shy kid from Memphis into the biggest star in the world; rich beyond his wildest dreams. But that mountain of cash came at a steep price; Parker maintained a vicelike grip on Presley, controlling his personal life, limiting his career choices, squelching again and again his ambition to tour outside North America and tackle more challenging acting roles. Thanks to his star-maker turned puppeteer, Presley never performed live shows east of the Atlantic Ocean or west of Hawaii; he never played Europe’s grand halls, never had a chance to perform before record crowds in Japan and the Far East, to thrill throngs of devoted Aussies. Other than performing just a few shows over the border in Canada, Presley was trapped stateside. The waves he found so awe-inspiring might as well have been prison walls.

  Parker, the former Tampa dogcatcher and carnival confidence man kept a deep secret from Presley and the world. To allow Presley access to his fans outside North America would have brought with it the risk of exposing that secret. Ever the chameleon, Parker had the wit, work ethic, and cast-iron will to transform himself; and he had the ego and audacity to wear the honorary title Colonel like the decorated military officer he never was.

  His true record showed Parker to be a military misfit who saw his share of real prison walls then was drummed out of the service. Despite Parker’s overbearing, controlling ways and a penchant to think of his client as a mere commodity, Presley felt he owed his success and undying loyalty to Parker, whom he considered a father figure.

  “I knew he wanted to go out and climb new mountains; there were no new mountains to climb—the Colonel squashed everything,” said Steve Binder, the producer and director behind Presley’s acclaimed 1968 television special. Presley’s longtime bodyguard Red West, who wrote a controversial tell-all book and was fired shortly before Presley’s death, said of Tom Parker: “The Colonel got him where he was, but he also put him where he is.” Nevertheless, during Presley’s launch to stardom, Parker was instrumental in getting him there.

  In Tampa a local photographer hired by Parker to shoot an early Presley concert snapped a photo that through the decades has become emblematic of the essence of the young, iconic Presley (see chapter 8) and the soul-shouting rock and roll rebellion he represented.

  Fortunately, for history’s sake, a group of early female Florida journalists eschewed preconceived notions of most of their male counterparts and filed far more detailed and compelling reportage about young Elvis. Had it not been for their ability to see Presley more like their young fans did, and his openness to them, the picture of his barnstorming days in Florida would be far less complete. This journey is also a celebration of their work and legacies.

  Axton too, played a role much larger in Presley’s career than merely serving as a PR person. In the living room of her unremarkable and forgotten single-story block house just west of downtown Jacksonville, the kind as ubiquitous as palm trees throughout Florida’s sundrenched landscape, Axton and a pair of journeymen musicians made music history, cementing their own place in rock and roll lore, writing and recording for Presley the single that changed everything. Presley’s association with Axton resulted from Parker’s shrewd assessment in 1955 that his young star needed some PR help in Florida, where Sun’s distribution was limited and his music was not yet well known.

  After that first show in Daytona Beach, Presley’s Jacksonville connections furthered his career and lit the flame of what would become a nationwide controversy over his live performances. In 1956 Presley spirited his young girlfriend along on his most heated and controversial Florida tour. Her bittersweet memories of being in the eye of it all give us an uncommonly intimate account of Presley’s response to the tribulations as well as the overwhelming success.

  In Miami, after Presley’s return from the army in 1960, Frank Sinatra himself, formerly one of rock and roll’s most vocal detractors, kicked off the next stage in Presley’s career as a matinee crooner. By then it was clear that Presley’s rock and roll days were over. In 1961 Presley the twenty-six-year-old actor spent six weeks in Crystal River and the surrounding area filming Follow That Dream, leaving an indelible impression on locals like “little” Tommy Petty. This extended residency gave Presley the chance to charm and disarm adults who five years previously had likened the singer and his gyrations to the devil himself.

  Presley’s co-star in the film, Anne Helm, saw the early stages of his long descent into prescription-drug dependency. It all started as what they both considered a bit of innocent pill popping here and there for nighttime carousing and to prop them up for early morning shoots. Helm’s memories of their off-screen relationship in the sleepy Florida back country while making the film remain vivid.

  In May 1955 triumphs, adulation, and mountains of cash all awaited, the likes of which no one had ever experienced: more than one hundred top-forty hits, including eighteen number 1 singles in his lifetime; the money to buy and hand out jewelry, cars, and guitars like Santa Claus; the ability to choose any woman he wanted in the crowd. Mothers and their daughters flocked to him.

  In this minimally educated man-child, legions would come to feel an enduring and genuine sense of love and devotion. Presley did more than just entertain and seduce fans; his humility and charm led them to believe he was theirs. Elvis Presley belonged to them. Long term, who could survive and thrive in such a fishbowl? Who else could understand the price of losing any semblance of privacy? How could anyone, much less an unsophisticated but uber-ambitious country boy, be prepared for such an onslaught?

  At that beachside railing on May 7, 1955, Elvis Presley stood alone at ground zero, a tsunami of fame and riches barreling right down on him.

  2

  May 7–9

  Daytona Beach, Tampa, Fort Myers

  At his first-ever Florida concert, Elvis Presley made fifty dollars as a warm-up act for headliner Hank Snow. In newspaper ads, promoters billed the 8:15 p.m. show at the Peabody Auditorium as “The Biggest Jamboree of the Year.” Presley along with Scotty and Bill were listed far do
wn the bill as “Special Added Attractions.” In some ads, they weren’t listed at all.

  Snow, nicknamed “the singing ranger,” had fourteen straight topten hits on the Billboard country charts. At that point Presley, who would go on to sell more than a billion records worldwide, had none. The Daytona Beach jamboree boasted a cavalcade of Grand Ole Opry stars, but for Presley that billing was a stretch. In 1954 during his first and only appearance at the Opry, the proving ground and mother church of country music, Presley bombed. Opry bigwigs suggested he consider a return to truck driving.

  Even if he was developing a buzz throughout the South for his electric live performances and more successful appearances on the Louisiana Hayride radio and TV show, Presley’s lack of major hits meant no star billing; for most supporting acts that meant a couple of songs, polite applause, then get off quick and make way for the headliners.

  The country performers like Snow dressed in typical Nudie Cohn–inspired Western wear—bright colors and rhinestones—but not the “Hillbilly Cat.” Presley hit the stage in a red-sequined dinner jacket contrasting with his white shirt and dark pants. His hair, slicked with a pomade ducktail in back, pompadour in front, gave off a greasy sheen. Dressed in a white dinner jacket and dark pants himself, teenage usher Holmes Davis, stationed close to the performers, witnessed the early stages of Presley’s emergence as a star and the crowd’s reaction: “The way he sort of bounced around on stage,” Davis recalled. “Even the old people, they were all standing up and clapping and going with him.”

  Mature country audiences like the people who had given him such a tepid response at the Opry in Nashville less than a year before were starting to see something in this young albeit oddball performer. Contrasting with Snow’s ballads like “Hello, Love,” Presley performed pulsating rockabilly rhythm and blues, making the most of his short time on stage. Young girls in the audience responded to his sex appeal and boundless energy. Not knowing what to make of him, offstage some of the performers kept their distance from Presley.

  “I was there to see him,” remembered Davis’s Mainland High classmate Doris Tharp-Gurley, “I had heard him on the radio.” Gurley grew up in a conservative Volusia County household where the notion of a male performer radiating sex appeal was taboo to her parents. They were convinced their daughter was going to the Peabody to see wholesome entertainers like the Carter Sisters from the first family of country music, known for singles like “Wildwood Flower” and “Keep on the Sunny Side.”

  Even Gurley, who was forced to watch Presley from a much greater distance than Holmes Davis, had a hard time understanding what she was seeing. It was such a contrast to the other performers. “Everybody there was speechless,” Gurley declared, the sense of wonder still evident in her voice. “They’d never seen anything like it.”

  While Presley bounced and strummed, Bill Black slapped and twirled the stand-up bass, punctuating the music with a hoot or holler. In contrast to his frenetic cohorts, on stage Scotty Moore was a handsome, zenlike presence plucking measured lead guitar licks. A former navy man, Moore managed Presley for a short time and promised Gladys Presley he would take care of her boy. The trio was having fun, barely making ends meet, hungry and ambitious for whatever the road had in store.

  As quickly as it started, Presley’s part of the show was over. Audience members disagree on whether he played two songs or just one. Most of the trio’s early performances included “That’s All Right,” the song recorded by Sam Phillips that started Presley on his trip to the stratosphere. His revved-up version of “Blue Moon of Kentucky” was another oft-played number. Presley didn’t have enough time onstage to create the kind of fan frenzy that many have come to associate with this iconic era. Still, by the middle of Presley’s first week in Florida, much more established and sedate country performers got tired of trying to follow him onstage.

  After Presley finished performing, there was plenty of concert left. In a move that now seems unimaginable, he slipped out into the audience to watch. Sitting just a few seats away from Davis, all by himself, was the young man who would soon by mobbed by fans everywhere he went. Between acts Davis thought nothing of striking up a conversation: “How do you think things are going?” Davis asked. “Do you think you’re gonna make it?” Presley responded with an understated confidence, “Things seem to be goin’ pretty good.” For Davis it would have been a brief, forgettable conversation from a fleeting night in his youth, had it not been with the future king of rock and roll.

  After concerts it was common for Presley to hang around outside the venue, talk with fans, and sign an autograph for anybody who wanted one. With female fans who met his fancy, Presley would sign an autograph and try to get a kiss or a date in return. The lucky girl that night was Mainland High sophomore Marsha Connelly, whose photo with Presley from that evening ended up in the school yearbook. The night before, Presley had taken his own teenage girlfriend Dixie Locke to her junior prom in Memphis.

  “He was kind of innocent at the time. He was very quiet. He was a nice guy. I can’t say a thing bad about him,” Connelly reflected. “He was very mannerly, very much a southern gentleman. It never escalated into anything. There was never a romance. He took my girlfriend and [me] home after the show. He kissed me, and then my mother came out.” Doris Gurley wasn’t so lucky. She witnessed Presley’s performance from a distance, which left her unsatisfied and wanting more. She and her friend hatched a plan to see Presley again and next time get much closer to the object of their schoolgirl crushes.

  Thanks to months of touring small southern towns and venues, by the time the trio made it to Florida, Elvis, Scotty, and Bill were already seasoned performers. With one-nighters at places like Porky’s Rooftop Club in Newport, Arkansas, the Big Creek High School Gym in Big Creek, Mississippi, and Cook’s Hoedown Club in Houston, Texas, no venue was too small; no stretch of overnight miles too long. Thanks to their performances on the Louisiana Hayride, originating from the Shreveport Municipal Auditorium, Elvis, Scotty, and Bill were building a regional following.

  In outlying areas like Florida, where Sun’s distribution could best be described as hit-and-miss, Presley’s music had only begun to reach local radio stations. Decades before live-streaming on the internet, radio stations were the crucial lynchpin for performers intent on getting their music to young listeners; there was no other way. Like any other musician-on-the-rise, Presley lived for his brief time in front of audiences, traveling the long miles in between, the thankless grunt work that occupied the lion’s share of his time, just to get there.

  Their ritual was always the same. After the show the boys loaded their meager instruments into a four-door sedan. In early ’55 Presley made enough money to buy his first Cadillac, a ’54 model spray-painted pink. Black’s bass was strapped to the rack on top. Moore tucked his amplifier in the trunk, padded it with foam rubber, and placed his guitar in the car. His years in the military showed: “I didn’t pack the car with reckless abandon and I didn’t play guitar with reckless abandon,” Moore declared. “I packed and played with purpose.”

  On Sunday, May 8, the trio was booked for matinee and evening performances at Tampa’s Homer Hesterly Armory, an already historic military depot where in 1898 Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders camped on the grounds before heading off to Cuba to fight in the Spanish-American War. Presley played nine shows here over the next fifteen months. In the history of young Elvis in Florida, Tampa’s armory is hallowed ground. No other venue in the state hosted Presley more often during his four barnstorming Florida tours encompassing his transition from unknown to megastar.

  In 1955 there was no Interstate 4 to provide a fast, straight shot on a divided highway between Daytona Beach and Tampa. The boys set off on US 92 until it converged with US 17; highways that brought travelers through, not around, quaint downtowns in Deland, DeBary, and Sanford. The ghost of young Elvis and his pink Cadillac screams through the humid Florida night on these lesser-traveled byways; largely ghost roads of th
e 1950s now, they remain evocative of the period.

  The Tampa shows proved every bit as electric as Presley’s Daytona Beach performance. “I was amazed at the reaction of the crowd,” remembered Bill Hipp, just fifteen at the time. “He sang ‘That’s All Right,’ gyrated over the stage with great enthusiasm with his legs whirling around. The girls started standing and screaming. I was flabbergasted at their reaction to Elvis. My Dad, who took me to the concert, was a country music fan, and even more surprised.”

  One of the evening’s headliners, Faron Young—whose hit “Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young” embodied the youthful rebellion Presley personified on stage—nonetheless tried to calm him down. “I used to tell him not to shake his hips,” Young recalled. “I said, ‘Don’t do that. That’s real dirty. You shouldn’t do that. He said, ‘Well it’s goin’ over and until it stops, I’m gonna keep doin’ it.’ He was right and I was wrong. I thought it was a fad. Everybody thought he was gonna be a fad.” Some young men in the audience, not too happy that this Johnny-come-lately was getting all the girls’ attention, openly mocked Presley.

  From small town to small town Presley was winning over the most important voices of the emerging rock and roll era: radio disc jockeys. Their enthusiasm carried over from town to town, drawing more teens to his live shows, creating stronger and stronger reaction to the newest phenomenon in what was still being called hillbilly music.

  On Monday, May 9, Presley visited the studios of concert sponsor WMYR radio in Fort Myers, the southernmost stop on his Florida tour. Disc jockey Brad Lacey, who went on to have a long, distinguished career in southwest Florida radio and television, liked to tell a story of loaning Presley a pair of pants that were too big, prompting Presley to gyrate all the more on stage, just to keep them up.

  Whether the story is true or not, fans like Bill Gilmore who saw Presley’s performance that night at the City Auditorium in Fort Myers agree: “He did steal the show from all the other performers.” The bigger stars forced to follow with their country songs of heartache and lost love had had enough. “I said I don’t wanna follow him, ’cause he was tearin’ ’em up,” Young remembered. “But see, they didn’t let him have but maybe 10 minutes and that wasn’t enough for ’em.” Presley needed an advocate who could get him better billing.