| Revision as of 08:58, 18 May 2007 editRikstar (talk | contribs)Pending changes reviewers5,261 edits →Elvis's Ed Sullivan appearances← Previous edit | Revision as of 16:51, 18 May 2007 edit undoSteve Pastor (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers7,362 edits →Elvis's Ed Sullivan appearancesNext edit → | ||
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| :This is interesting stuff and I've got more like it on my book shelves. I'm just not sure what bits you think are significant for inclusion and what can be added without over-extending the TV appearances section. ] 08:58, 18 May 2007 (UTC) | :This is interesting stuff and I've got more like it on my book shelves. I'm just not sure what bits you think are significant for inclusion and what can be added without over-extending the TV appearances section. ] 08:58, 18 May 2007 (UTC) | ||
| ::I think we need to keep in mind that many of the people who wrote about Elvis were writing books. Much of what they write is opinion and doesn't need to be repeated here. I would like to see us concentrate on what happened, not an interpretation of it. For instance, we can hear the young women giggling, laughing, etc, when Elvis "gyrates". What does it mean? Someone should write a book where they are free to guess. There is plenty to add about Elvis's breakthrough year 1956. Elvis at the New Frontier in Vegas is coming soon. I agree that we don't want to bloat things up too much. There is an article on the Ed Sullivan Show that is pretty short. Maybe there? ] 16:51, 18 May 2007 (UTC) | |||
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Aware of article's length
This article is becoming to long, especially the section 1969-1977 - Elvis's final years. The whole section can exist as an article itself. I estimate the readable prose of the article must be approximately 100KB. I suggest some division. AW 03:03, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- Being formely involved in a project to improve this page without much in the way of results - I've been thinking the same myself. This page should include a biography in general terms with seperate articles on "Elvis and relationships", "Elvis and race" etc. being made independent and linked here and there here. So I second your motion. --Northmeister 04:05, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- Details concerning Elvis's "Top 10 Gold hits" and the selling of his many records in the section, "1969-1977 - Elvis's final years" may be condensed and perhaps put into a table. I do not think that it is necessary to create more separate articles. Onefortyone 04:20, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- Being formely involved in a project to improve this page without much in the way of results - I've been thinking the same myself. This page should include a biography in general terms with seperate articles on "Elvis and relationships", "Elvis and race" etc. being made independent and linked here and there here. So I second your motion. --Northmeister 04:05, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
In light of the above discussion and due to requests to reduce length to enyclopedic levels together with requests to clean-up various sections I've decided to BE BOLD and lieu of Misplaced Pages:Article size guidlines and went ahead with an entire re-format of the article in line with other Featured article's. In the course of re-format I've created these other pages:
- Elvis Presley phenomenon
- Elvis Presley's relationships
- Elvis Presley's political beliefs
- Elvis Presley's cultural impact
in the vain of Memphis Mafia which was already created - to facilatate a break-up of article as requested leaving principle biography, discography, and legacy in-tact as is the standard in F.A. articles. There is still much more to be done with what is remaining in the main article and to be debated here as to what can be improved further with syntax, grammar, etc. along with material inclusions. I welcome all comments on the new pages created and all help in sorting this out to a workable arrangement. --Northmeister 02:28, 6 May 2007 (UTC) -Pertaining to the above, I've continued with clean-up, reformating, and additions relevant to encyclopedic article. The four articles created earlier contain much of the information that has been removed; per suggestion - and need help reformating as well. There is still more to do. The Biography (in line with other article approved as Featured articles - which I used as a model for cleanup) is redundant and long on the final years and the 1970s. I left much criticism of Elvis within the text wherever I could if it was well sourced and relevant. Much has been reorganized as well and moved around for chronological reasons. I welcome all constructive help in this regards and any constructive criticism. My hope is for a clean page ready to be featured. --Northmeister 02:05, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
What has happened to the Elvis article?
To my dismay, I have now seen what has happened to the Elvis Presley article a few days ago. User:Northmeister has removed several paragraphs from the article in order to cut it from a very biased point of view. He himself states on his user page, "I've been a lifelong fan of Elvis Presley." Therefore, he removed most material that included some critical remarks concerning the singer's life. The article now reads as if it has been chiefly written by Elvis fans.
There are still expressions in the article that clearly show the dominance of biased fan views:
- "He remains a pop icon thirty years after his death..."
- Query: is this really true? In an article entitled "Getting today's teens all shook up over Elvis", Woody Baird says, "Teenagers in the 1950s and '60s went wild over Elvis Presley, much to the consternation of their parents, but kids in the new millennium aren't so stirred by rock 'n' roll's original rebel. 'I can't try to sell somebody Elvis who doesn't know who he is . . . that he's not just some guy who's been gone for 30 years,' said Paul Jankowski, chief of marketing for Elvis Presley Enterprises Inc." Therefore, "the multimillion dollar Elvis business will try to connect with a new generation of teenage fans." They endeavor to show up more film clips, photos and other material from the vast Presley archives online. 'We will take our MySpace page and we will focus on expanding our number of friends on MySpace, that kind of thing,' Jankowski said..." However, Baird concludes, "Moving Elvis content online should be easy; making Elvis cool again will be more difficult. After all, for most kids, Elvis is the music of their parents' - or grandparents' - generation." See
- "In a musical career of over two decades, Presley set numerous records including, concert attendance, television ratings, and records sales, while became one of the best-selling artists in music history."
- "His shows in Vegas were known for their highly energetic performances—both vocally and physically—and his trademark jump-suits and capes, which added to the drama. His concert performances were staggering in quantity, numbering 1,145 in the eight years from 1969 to 1977. He continued to perform to sold-out auditoriums around the U.S. until his sudden death in 1977."
- "By 1957 Presley was the most famous entertainer in the world."
Further changes suggest that fans now dominate the article:
- A new section entitled "Southern star" has been created.
- The section concerning the influence of his manager Colonel Tom Parker which was correctly entitled Presley and his manager "Colonel" Tom Parker has been renamed and some critical passages have been removed. For inexplicable reasons, the section is now entitled "American icon".
- There are now two different sections in the article stressing Elvis being a US mega star: "American idol" and "American icon".
- On the other hand, more critical paragraphs such as A danger to American culture?, Political beliefs and The Elvis cult and its critics have been deleted.
- The Death and burial section has been removed.
- The Elvis lives? section is still in the article.
- etc. etc.
Several well-sourced details have been totally removed from the older version of the article, for instance:
- from the Early life section:
- "Vernon Presley is described as "taciturn to the point of sullenness" and as "a weakling, a malingerer, always averse to work and responsibility," whereas his mother, Gladys, was "voluble, lively, full of spunk." Priscilla Presley describes her as "a surreptitious drinker and alcoholic. When she was angry, "she cussed like a sailor.""
- "Neither Gladys nor Vernon had finished elementary school. The result was one "menial job after another. One run-down apartment after the next, barely enough money to put food on the table for a family of three."
- The little boy "grew up a loved and precious child. He was, everyone agreed, unusually close to his mother." "Much has been written about the unusually close relationship between Elvis and his mother, often with the suggestion of something unhealthy afoot," because "Elvis, sole survivor of a pair of twins delivered by Gladys, would reap the love and attention normally given two boys." His mother "worshipped him," said a neighbor, "from the day he was born." Elvis himself said, "My mama never let me out of her sight. I couldn't go down to the creek with the other kids."
- Interestingly, the following passage is still to be found in the article: "On the evening of April 5, 1936, the Presley's survived the fourth deadliest tornado in US history that took 233 lives."
- from the Death and burial section (which has now been totally removed):
- On August 16, 1977, at his Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee, Presley was found lying on the floor of his bedroom's bathroom by his fiancee, Ginger Alden, who had been asleep. A stain on the bathroom carpeting was found that indicated "where Elvis had thrown up after being stricken, apparently while seated on the toilet. It looked to the medical investigator as if he had 'stumbled or crawled several feet before he died'." (This is now part of another section.)
In the section concerning the influence of Elvis's manager Colonel Parker, which was correctly entitled Presley and his manager "Colonel" Tom Parker but is now wrongly entitled American icon, these well-sourced critical remarks have been removed:
- Parker's success led to Presley expanding the "Colonel's" management contract to an even 50/50 split. Over the years, much has been written about "Colonel" Parker, most of it critical. "Endlessly deferring to his manager," says John Harris, the singer "watched his own career dive first into B-movie schmaltz and thence towards the dead-end that was Las Vegas." Marty Lacker, a lifelong friend and a member of the Memphis Mafia, says he thought of Parker as a "hustler and scam artist" who abused Presley's reliance on him. Priscilla Presley admits that "Elvis detested the business side of his career. He would sign a contract without even reading it." This would explain the strong influence the Colonel had on Presley. Nonetheless, Lacker acknowledged that Parker was a master promoter.
The last passage now reads:
- On September 9, 1956, at his first of three appearances on the Sullivan show, Presley drew an estimated 82.5% percent of the television audience, calculated at between 55-60 million viewers. On his third and final appearance (January 6, 1957) on the The Ed Sullivan Show, Sullivan, apparently very impressed by Presley, pointed to him and told the audience "This is a real decent, fine boy. We've never had a pleasanter experience on our show with a big name than we've had with you ... You're thoroughly all right."
Significantly, this additional remark has been omitted:
- However, it has also been said that Presley's manager orchestrated the compliment in exchange for permitting Presley to appear, after Sullivan had earlier publicly stated his refusal to allow Presley on his program.
- I also removed this unreferenced statement that is completely contrary to Sullivan's enthusiastic reactions to Presley during the two of three shows he hosted when Elvis was on the show. My edit was undo with no justification. Steve Pastor 14:43, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
The Drug abuse section is now part of the Controversy surrounding death section, despite the fact that there is no controversy about this abuse of drugs which took place during the singer's lifetime.
References to Elvis's relationships and the Memphis Mafia have been excluded from the text, and the sections on The Elvis cult and its critics and the FBI files on Elvis have been totally removed. This is not acceptable. Onefortyone 23:03, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
- Couldn't agree more about the fan element having too much influence in this article. It is however a little ironic, Onefortyone, that some of the contributions you have proposed, like those questioning Presley's sexuality, would cause people like me to ask: "What has happened to this article?" I've read a lot of justifications about contributions being based on recognised publishings or sources, as if this means any such contributions should be included. But I just don't get the bi/homosexuality thing with Elvis. Rock Hudson, Montgomery Clift, etc., OK. But Bill Dakota, Albert Goldman, FBI files, etc. just aren't enough to seriously question his sexuality, especially when one can call into question the motivation of those making such claims. I don't give a damn whether he was gay or not, but I do care about this article having an encyclopedic format and content. Some original research by some authors may allude to homosexuality, so let them publish it, but this article isn't the place for relatively unsubstantiated material. I do stress that I agree with you about this looking a bit like a fan site in places at the moment, and I'm glad there is some detail regarding his long-term drug misuse.Rikstar 04:48, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
- I wasn't talking about Elvis's possible bisexuality, as this was not even mentioned in the long version of the article. I was talking about several other well-sourced paragraphs which have now been removed from the article, for instance, the section on the "Elvis cult and its critics", etc. And why is the material about Elvis's drug abuse now part of a "Controversy" section at the end of the article? As some few of the new edits indeed make sense, I won't touch the article at the moment and just have a look what is going wrong. However, you can be sure that I will return later with several changes. Onefortyone 23:51, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
- By the way, why did you delete this quote which was added by Northmeister? Here is Robert Pattison, The Triumph of Vulgarity: Rock Music in the Mirror of Romanticism (Oxford University Press 1987), p.113: "Elvis explained rock's energetic sexuality in defending himself against his refined detractors: 'They all think I'm a sex maniac. They're just frustrated old types, anyway. ...' " Onefortyone 01:01, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
- Onefortyone, I was referring to the Bill Dakota stuff you referenced in this talk page, in which you specifically and unequivocally refer to Presley's possible bisexuality, 'closeness' to Nick Adams, etc. As for deleting this quote which was added by Northmeister - I didn't. Editing the main article is a bit like walking on egg shells; I now wouldn't dare change/delete anything significant without proposing it in the talk pages. I probably won't bother anyway - I think editing should be enjoyable, but the main Elvis article and discussion have been heavy going for a long time.Rikstar 03:42, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
- "To my dismay, I have now seen what has happened to the Elvis Presley article a few days ago. User:Northmeister has removed several paragraphs from the article in order to cut it from a very biased point of view. He himself states on his user page, "I've been a lifelong fan of Elvis Presley." Therefore, he removed most material that included some critical remarks concerning the singer's life. The article now reads as if it has been chiefly written by Elvis fans."
Well I've just looked at the main article again. It does, as I agreed before, have a fan site element to it. But in terms of format and headings, It is better in that it has a more encyclopedic feel to it. Gone are whole sections that emphasised aspects that encyclopedias would not detail or even mention at all. But granted it needs work. There is nothing wrong with this article being chiefly written by Elvis fans, or even looking as if it has, so long as NPOV is maintained. And there is every indication that some editors who happen to be fans are making every effort to recognise their own potential for bias and to seek support in achieving a NPOV. What this article does NOT need is contributions that take it outside of an encyclopedic framework and which do so as if there is a sustained and deliberate attempt to inject a dubious and rather unsavoury negativity disguised as an attempt to restore a NPOV. If all editors had the insight to recognise their own potential for bias and any apparent propensity to stick to dubious agendas, we might get a decent article written soon, instead of about ten years from now. Rikstar 05:32, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Sam Phillips "quote"
There are several versions of this "quote"
- Over and over I remember Sam saying, “If i could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars.” (Sun Records co-manager Marion Keisker, citerad i Hopkins 1971: 66)
- Marion Keisker ... recalled Sam Phillips saying repeatedly, “If I could find a white boy who could sing like a nigger, I could make a million dollars.” (Goldman 1981a: 129)
- If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a million dollars. (Sam Phillips, citerad I Choron & Oskam 1991: 7) Elvis
Note the different words as the "quote" is repeated from text to text. The orginal "quote" is based on a second hand rendering. This is addressed in the following book -
- After Elvis: The Posthumous Career of a Living Legend By Gilbert B. Rodman
page 32 “On more than one occasion, however, Phillips has denied making any such statement (Marcus, 198: 16n; Worth and Tamerius, 1988; 153n) and Keisker is the only source of direct evidence to the contrary.” (emphasis added) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Steve Pastor (talk • contribs) 14:38, 8 May 2007 (UTC).
- The problem is that there are two living eyewitnesses to the event who contradict each other. Even Greil Marcus chooses to give more credence to Keisker's version than to Phillips's. It could well be that nowadays Phillips don't want to compromise himself and therefore denies to have said anything of the kind. Rodman, who discusses in detail the different versions of the story, also says, p. 34, "What Phillips did or didn't really say is almost irrelevant (...); of infinitely greater significance is what people believe he said and the effects of such beliefs." So I think the quote belongs in the article. Onefortyone 00:12, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
- There are many ways to present Phillips' philosophy. And there are many, many worthwhile things to add to Presley's music and performances, which in my opinion is somthing that should be a major part of this article. Also, there are many recorded interviews with the principals of this story. We no longer have to rely on second hand accounts of many things. We also no longer have to rely on someone elses account of what the music sounds like with the availablity of samples. He said/she said doesn't rise to my level of verifiablity. Especially when the supposed "quote" has verious permutations. Steve Pastor 19:59, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Article improvement efforts
I've truncated the Legacy and reformated the article regarding 21st century. Added "Accomplisments and Awards" then changed title to "Commerative measures" but am unsure of sub-header title and what it should be. Tried to reduce the trivial nature of the 21st Century section with new section "Recent Developments" - of course feel free to twik these sections if you feel you can improve them. Trying to get article length within acceptable standards - as earlier complaints of length were lodged by others and in the original Featured article rejection. I am pleased with the efforts of several editors thus far towards making this article acceptable to the "Good" category and someday be a "Featured" piece. --Northmeister 17:16, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
- This edit shows more than a thousand words which kind of "relevant" and "encyclopedic" information you wish to have included in the article in order to reduce its trivial nature. Onefortyone 01:12, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
- I certainly hope so! Joan inspired me with her words: . --Northmeister 02:50, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
- I must say that one of the first things I noticed about this article, in the introduction, is POV. It goes on a lot about how Elvis' voice had a a great "centre of gravity" and the like. Claiming that possibly no one to this day can sing for such a diverse range of music. This is not really factual, more the opinion of someone who liked his music.-Anonymous —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 121.45.127.83 (talk) 06:41, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
- Agreed, whoever you are. I skirted round those bits when I tried to clean up the intro, but they need to be changedRikstar 10:17, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
- Made above changes - also added reference to pill taking in the army (Military Service section). It seems to have started here and this is widely accepted. It should be mentioned because of it's later significance. Rikstar 12:25, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
- I agree. --Northmeister 13:45, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
Controversy surrounding health and cause of death' - We should shorten this titled for the look of the format. I am open to suggestions - maybe Health and cause of death or Health issues and death or Health and death issues - something overall that is shorter. --Northmeister 14:49, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
- Agreed. I'll have a think. It also strikes me that a few comments on his health and cause of death are based on the opinions of people who, as far as I know, aren't or weren't medically qualified e.g. Kathy Westmorland and Sam Phillips. Their inclusion looks a bit desperate, as if in the interests of balance, editors are trying to argue that he wasn't as obese or drug dependent as he actually was. I think comments of this nature should come from a medical source. Rikstar 01:47, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- True - I think that would be a good policy to go by with medical questions. --Northmeister 01:57, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- I've shortened the heading. I'm also thinking of changing the word 'abuse' to 'misuse' throughout (except if it's a quote of course): the two words are often seen as synonyms, but they aren't. Elswhere, I think the return to live performance section looks and reads too long. Rikstar 02:21, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Agreed. In regards to 'return to live...' - we should concentrate on the highlights of that decade (mostly the 1970s) rather than all the trivia like stuff of "And he again returned to Las Vegas..." to paraphrase. --Northmeister 02:41, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Have cut the 'return to live...' section; some of the 'he went here, then there' stuff has gone. Also added a bit about RCA struggling to get Elvis to record as his health deteriorated which I may expand a bit. Rikstar 05:09, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- I'll take a look. Been busy going through all the known articles and putting in the template where it relates. --Northmeister 05:13, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Improvement Efforts II
I've added a photo of Elvis from Aloha Hawaii - to see his look at the time. Photo's should show his transformation through the years I think. Not sure if one exists for his last years or not. Also added 1945 fair 'old shep' singing - first time before crowd. --Northmeister 05:31, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Yep, it all helps. And the 'Aloha' pic makes up for that hideous statue in Memphis... Don't want to tempt fate, but I think this article is getting somewhere. Rikstar 05:52, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
"In May 2007, the Warner Bros. and Paramount home video units launched a major campaign for 24 Elvis films on DVD. Jailhouse Rock (1957) and Viva Las Vegas (1964) were being released as double-disc collectors editions for the 30th anniversary of his death."
I look at the above as simple advertisement. But I could be wrong. It may belong in the recent developments section. I'll let others decide if that is the case. --Northmeister 05:19, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- I've trimmed the 'Return to live performances' section, but it still comes across like his major chart successes only came as a result of touring post 1968. His major chart impact was in the '50s (though it varied from country to country), but this isn't reflected in earlier sections. I don't think the chart success of 56-59 should be mentioned in great detail; we need to avoid the boring format of the early versions of 'Return to live performances' which listed everything bar what he ate for breakfast on tour. Maybe the 'Return to live performances' section needs cutting even more. Rikstar 08:15, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- "Presley is only one of four artists (Roy Orbison, Guns N' Roses and Nelly being the others) to ever have two top five albums on the charts simultaneously." This is an interesting statistic, but has little to do with 'Commemoration'. More I think, the more these latter sections don't work too well at the moment. The Legacy section looks too short and the sections following it make trivial facts and stats about Elvis seem more important than his legacy. I'll look at expanding the legacy section. Rikstar 08:29, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- I've been thinking the same myself. I cut the legacy section down, but maybe to much. See what you can do - I'll be working on the article a little later. --Northmeister 22:20, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- I have been busy on all sections, just trying to get everything to gel and look NPOV, and reinstated some of the legacy section. There's also a new section on early TV as this was getting long. Some sections still lack references. I hope people will use the talk page to discuss proposed changes of significance. Rikstar 22:44, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Hound Dog on the Milton Berle Show
I look forward to the day that we can replace a description of this performance to a clip of it that everyone can see for themselves. Dance is one of my hobbies. Presley's estate sanctioned a line dance to go with "Such a Night". There are, what I thought would be pelvic movements in the dance, so I did big hip/pelvic rolls. Boy was I surprised when I actually saw how Elvis moved. As I wrote originally, the movement he did was in his legs. I have stopped rolling my pelvis in this particular dance, because Elvis was rotating his knee and leg, not his pelvis or hips. There is of course some movement in his hips, but it is incidental. If they had wanted his hips and pelvis to show, he would not have been wearing black pants, coverd in part by a light colored sport coat. When this show was broadcast, his performance was over in little more than 2 minutes. Just as most people believe that they saw someone stabbed in the shower scene in "Psycho" (Hitchcock only shows the knife rising and falling, head shots, and blood going into the drain) people thought they saw Elvis thrust his pelvis. Likewise, people go to salsa lessons expecting to wiggle their hips. Hip motion in salsa comes primarily from stepping onto a straight leg, something Elvis does almost spastically in this preformance, and others. Also, dance for the majority of the population, has come quite a ways since the mid 1950s. Now, Fosse's dancers used their pelvis and hips! Just as I hope that Misplaced Pages would want to include the fact that a tomato is in fact a fruit, even though everyone calls it a vegetable, I hope we will not perpetuate an inaccurate description of how Elvis moved. If anyone knows where this clip can be found on line, please add a link! Steve Pastor 16:47, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- I can't dance, and the description we've got now is better than previous versions. Just glad we managed to avoid using the term 'spastic' and its derivatives in the main article! A link to the Milton Berle clip would be very nice. What d'ya think a http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afuJnsWRkwE ??Rikstar 17:26, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Wondering if there is anyway to imbed the clip into the article? --Northmeister 18:29, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to do this. There may also be other versions of this clip: the link I posted is from the film This is Elvis(I think) and has commentary over the Milton Berle soundtrack... I'd prefer it to be the unadulterated original. What the heck, I'll add a link anyway Rikstar 23:05, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
"paragraph list" of recordings with RCA
Maybe this will look better after I've seen it for a while, but I doubt it. Emphasizing through the end of the 1950s at this point goes way outside any time line, since the next section is on early TV appearances, all of which were in 1956. There was a synergy between the TV appearances and the 1956 releases. Presley didn’t cut “Hound Dog” until after the Steve Allen show. The post 1956 records can be picked up later. Also, the lengthy list of songs just looks bad, especially the ones in red (Yes, I know, article to come. It still looks bad.) I think we are a bit off track here. Thought I would give whoever added this first crack. Steve Pastor 16:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- See what you can do with it. Maybe it needs to be moved elsewhere or split up into relevant sections. I am open to suggestions. --Northmeister 18:16, 17 May 2007 (UTC) -I've addressed your concerns by reverting my edits with regard to RCA (wheras as a temp fix moved them to Discography) updating links and inline links only. I agree this is a better fit to maintain biography section flow. Let me know what you think. --Northmeister 19:02, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Steve Pastor, you're so right. I got so carried away and tired with all my hard work on my edits that I forgot the time line thing, and that post-'56 list looks so bad. I'll do my best to revise this. I think the 'Going national...' section is now unnecessary and can be partly absorbed into the previous section, and then the pre-army RCA hits might need some mention after the 'Controversy king' section, to maintain this time line thing. I say might because it seems inconsistent to not mention the chart hits he was having at this time when there is so much reference to his tour dates and chart hits in the 'return to live performing' section. Personally, I'd like to continue to do as I've done before and cut the "song/album 'x' was released and reached number 'y' in the charts" type stuff 'cos this information is available elsewhere. And apart from that, it's boring as hell, especially to those who are not Elvis fans, or just neutral. While I'm at it, I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their recents efforts in revising this article - it's only polite ] 22:22, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- I agree. --Northmeister 22:43, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Disambiguation Discomboobulation
What's up with that? I want to add an incident about Nat King Cole being beaten up, while at the same time he was a #1 selling artist, as an example of how things were in the 50s. Where did a workable link to that go? Think maybe the rewrite edits are coming to fast? Steve Pastor 19:07, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- Not sure what your referencing? --Northmeister 19:49, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- The last few days, you could click on the Disam link, and find your way to the Cultural Impact, etc sections. Now you just end up back at the Elvis article.???Steve Pastor 20:53, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
- I'm still not sure of what this is. Best thing is to go and fix the link you speak of, so it works right. I would but not sure of where it was. --Northmeister 22:44, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Elvis's Ed Sullivan appearances
Elvis's Ed Sullivan appearances need some rewriting. Here is Elvis expert Greil Marcus on the Ed Sullivan Shows (see ):
- Beginning on September 9, Elvis’s three appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show focused the nation. As if in counterpoint to the contest between President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his challenger Adlai Stevenson then just underway, the country tuned in, and suddenly you were on one side or the other. Was Elvis Presley a sexual predator, offering fantasies of ravishment to girls and rape to boys? A black man disguised as a white man? The hood who menaced you for your lunch money on your way to school and your new jacket on the way home? A homosexual in a pink shirt and dripping with make-up? A threat to all rules, of every kind, from every source, family, church, the law? Or was he the most exciting thing you’d ever seen? And was there a difference?
- As you trace Elvis’s journey through the country in 1956, you can feel the tension build. From show to show, month to month, as Berle or Allen or Sullivan flitted around the ever more relaxed, seemingly invulnerable Presley, you enter a queer drama, where legitimate, northern, fully socialized and socializing individuals, great celebrities secure in their belief that they will and deserve to be remembered forever, try eagerly, or desperately, to at once distance themselves from and attach themselves to the Memphis Flash in the pan. It’s a trend, they’re going to ride it out, they were here before he was and they’ll be here when he’s gone, but they’re like moths drawn to his flame. Berle in a skit where girls tear his clothes off, then in another where he presents himself as Elvis’s twin brother, “Melvin,” who “taught Elvis everything he knew” (a sick, if not cruel idea, given the still-birth of Elvis’s real twin brother, Jesse Garon). Allen dressing Elvis in white tie and tails and forcing him to sing “Hound Dog” to a basset hound, and then Sullivan, for Elvis’s second appearance on his show, attempting an Elvis shuffle: “I can’t figure this thing out. He just goes like this—and everybody yells.” They can’t help hinting, all but shouting in their scripted confusion, that they have no idea what’s going on—or what might come next. It was a drama of anxiety, and never so well played as by the British actor Charles Laughton, for Elvis’s first night on The Ed Sullivan Show. ...
- Presley was the headliner, and a Sullivan headliner normally opened the show, but Sullivan was burying him. Laughton had to make the moment invisible: to act as if nobody was actually waiting for anything. He did it instantly, with complete command, with the sort of television presence that some have and some—Steve Allen, or Ed Sullivan himself—don’t. ...
- For the first of his two appearances that night, as a performer Elvis had come on dressed in grandma’s nightgown and nightcap. ...
- Earlier, he stood before the Jordainaires, his vocal backup quartet, his band off-screen. Now they were all there, Elvis, Scotty Moore on guitar, Bill Black on stand-up bass, D. J. Fontana on drums, three Jordanaires on their feet, one at a piano. They were shown from behind; the camera pulled all the way back. They went into “Ready Teddy.” It was Little Richard’s most thrilling record, there was no way Elvis was going to catch him, but he didn’t have to—the song is a wave and he rode it. Compared to moments on the Dorsey shows, on the Berle show, it was ice cream—Elvis’s face unthreatening, his legs as if in casts—but it didn’t matter. ...
- Compared to Elvis’s performances on the first Sullivan show, what happened on the Dorsey shows—Elvis all but bursting out of dark clothes, his eyes almost blackened with shadow, his hair impossibly high, Moore and Black at his sides as if the three were an advance patrol behind enemy lines, the whole performance shot for lights flaring up in gloom—was back-alley noir compared to Sulllivan’s Broadway, less family entertainment than muggings at one end of the street and five-dollar tricks turned against the wall at the other, but the breadth of the moment told its own story. ...
- With Sullivan back to host Elvis’s second and third appearances, story played itself out. On October 28, ... Elvis came out looking pleased, at home. He reprised “Don’t Be Cruel” and “Love Me Tender.” He laughed at himself, burlesqued his performance, as he would throughout the night—except for odd moments, as with “Love Me,” in his second of three segments, when, after “Oh, so lonely,” with the camera in close he simply stopped, and a quiet smile drifted across his face, a moment of beauty and peace, just before he remembered to lift his upper right lip. He closed with “Hound Dog.” ...
- “I SPOKE TO SULLIVAN TODAY AND THERE SEEMS TO BE SOME MISUNDERSTANDING REGARDING PRESENTATION OF PRESLEY,” Elvis’s manager, Tom Parker, had written in a telegram to his agent, Harry Kaclcheim of the William Morris Agency, on July 12, just after the Elvis-in-tails Steve Allen Show. “I WILL DO WHATEVER IS FAIR BUT MUST INSIST ON COMPLETE CONTROL OF PRESENTATION AS TO SONGS WE HAD TOO MUCH ADVERSE PUBLICITY ON LAST SHOW REGARDNG ELVIS BEING TIED DOWN TOO MUCH AT LEAST TEN TO ONE.” If anyone had tied Elvis down on his first two appearances on the Sullivan Show, it was Elvis himself, but on his third and final appearance, on January 6, 1957, the notorious night when Elvis was shown only from the waist up—not only for “Hound Dog” and “Heartbreak Hotel,” but even for the closing spiritual, “Peace in the Valley”—Elvis did not tie himself down. Leaving behind the bland clothes he had worn on the first two shows, he stepped out in the outlandish costume of a pasha, if not a harem girl. From the make-up over his eyes, the hair falling in his face, the overwhelmingly sexual cast of his mouth, he was playing Rudolph Valentino in The Shiek, with all stops out. That he did so in front of the Jordanaires, who this night appeared as the four squarest-looking men on the planet, made the performance even more potent. Though the self-parody remained, the strangeness was back.
- In a show highlighted by the national television debut of “a very pretty young comedienne,” as Sullivan introduced Carol Burnett, who did a series of impressions of hapless female singers auditioning on Broadway, a breathtaking routine from the British ventriloquist Arthur Worsley, and more than eleven endless minutes devoted to the Broadway musical The Most Happy Fella, Elvis didn’t fit. Every time you looked at him, you wondered who he was, what he was doing there: where, in his heart, he really was. There was a time in the second of his three segments that night, in the midst of “When My Blue Moon Turned to Gold Again,” when a kind of vortex opened up, and there was a moment of suspension. In a close-up, the uniqueness of Elvis’s face escaped from its presentation; for an instant, he was too handsome, and too handsome in too different a way, for the show, for any show, for the spectacle he himself had enacted throughout the previous year, to contain. “May God bless you as he’s blessed me,” Elvis had said with eloquence and feeling as he closed his performance on October 28, but on the last night no words so clear would have done, and so, outside of the eloquence of the Reverend Thomas A. Dorsey’s words in “Peace in the Valley,” there were none. ...
See also the following account taken from Michael David Harris, Always on Sunday: Ed Sullivan, An Inside View (1968), p.116:
- Sullivan signed Presley when the host was having an intense Sunday-night rivalry with Steve Allen. Allen had the singer on July 1 and trounced Sullivan in the ratings. When asked to comment, the CBS star said that he wouldn't consider presenting Presley before a family audience. Less than two weeks later he changed his mind and signed a contract. The newspapers asked him to explain his reversal. "What I said then was off the reports I'd heard. I hadn't even seen the guy. Seeing the kinescopes, I don't know what the fuss was all about. For instance, the business about rubbing the thighs. He rubbed one hand on his hip to dry off the perspiration from playing his guitar." There was a press conference in the studio on the day of Presley's first appearance and Sullivan was impressed by the way the singer handled himself. One reporter asked if he was bothered when silly little girls put their lip imprints all over his new white Cadillac. "I tried to interrupt and help him out, but Elvis disregarded me completely: 'Well, ma'am,' he said politely, 'if it hadn't been for what you call these silly little girls, I wouldn't have had that white Cadillac.' Isn't that a beautiful line for a kid? "Today Elvis' gyrations are strictly old hat," Sullivan says, though he tried to sign the singer up again last year. He phoned Presley's manager, Col. Tom Parker, and asked about a price. Parker came up with a list of instructions and conditions and after hearing the demands Sullivan said, "Give Elvis my best—and my sympathy," and he hung up. Onefortyone 01:57, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- This is interesting stuff and I've got more like it on my book shelves. I'm just not sure what bits you think are significant for inclusion and what can be added without over-extending the TV appearances section. Rikstar 08:58, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- I think we need to keep in mind that many of the people who wrote about Elvis were writing books. Much of what they write is opinion and doesn't need to be repeated here. I would like to see us concentrate on what happened, not an interpretation of it. For instance, we can hear the young women giggling, laughing, etc, when Elvis "gyrates". What does it mean? Someone should write a book where they are free to guess. There is plenty to add about Elvis's breakthrough year 1956. Elvis at the New Frontier in Vegas is coming soon. I agree that we don't want to bloat things up too much. There is an article on the Ed Sullivan Show that is pretty short. Maybe there? Steve Pastor 16:51, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
- Peter Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley, p.12.
- Albert Goldman, Elvis: The Last 24 Hours, p.16
- Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis, p.12.
- Priscilla Presley, Elvis and Me, p.172
- Connie Kirchberg and Marc Hendrickx, Elvis Presley, Richard Nixon, and the American Dream (1999), p.7.
- Peter Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley, p.13.
- Robert Rodriguez, The 1950s' Most Wanted: The Top 10 Book of Rock & Roll Rebels, Cold War Crises, and All-American Oddities (2006), p.86
- Guralnick, p.13.
- Guralnick, Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley, p.651.
- John Harris, "Talking about Graceland". The Guardian, March 27, 2006.
- Priscilla Presley, Elvis and Me, p. 188.
- Marty Lacker, Lamar Fike, and Billy Smith, Elvis Aron Presley: Revelations from the Memphis Mafia (1995). A detailed biography of Parker was written by Alanna Nash and published in 2003.
- Abel, Glenn Elvis on DVD: big fat release campaign. Dvdspindoctor.com Retrieved on May 15, 2007.
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