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The Bizarre Life of Elvis, Part One: From Poverty to Pop Stardom · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man,
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  Speaker 1: the myth, the legend, our super producer, Max the Hound
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Dog Williams.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Max Grumpy Gump, Grumpy Gus Williams. We just we just
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: called him a grump off.
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  Speaker 1: We just roasted.
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  Speaker 3: I note everyone's I note everyone. I am actually up
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  Speaker 3: in Canton, Georgia, so I'm basically in Tennessee right now.
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  Speaker 1: Hey, congratulations hollers. Yeah, what's it like at the top
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  Speaker 1: of the map.
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  Speaker 2: Or if you're in the holler at the bottom? Yeah, yeah, the.
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  Speaker 1: Bottom is the top. That is getting a little hermetic
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  Speaker 1: for us. That's none other the legendary mister Noel Brown.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Knowl how you're.
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  Speaker 2: Feeling, you know, I'm pretty good.
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  Speaker 1: Nice, I am feeling pretty good myself. We're very excited
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  Speaker 1: about this one. Oh, they call me Ben Bullen on
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  Speaker 1: this show because Noel. Today, we are tackling one of
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  Speaker 1: the biggest figures in all of American music history. This
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  Speaker 1: is a larger than life son of the South. He
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  Speaker 1: was known as much for his off stage eccentricities and
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  Speaker 1: shenanigans as he was for his on stage performances and
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  Speaker 1: groundbreaking or least record breaking music. That's right, we're finally
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  Speaker 1: tackling the one and only Elvis Aaron Presley.
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  Speaker 2: A real iconic, class, real real, a real divisive figure
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  Speaker 2: when he was first hitting the scene. Those hips don't lie.
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  Speaker 2: He was deeded that way before Shakira ever ever, was
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  Speaker 2: a glint in the eye of whomever birth to her. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: Elvis was it the Pelvis?
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  Speaker 1: I like that had many monikers and nicknames, as so
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  Speaker 1: many icons.
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  Speaker 2: King of.
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  Speaker 1: Well, it's it's a it's kind. He was the king
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  Speaker 1: dread pirate Roberts. I would argue, different people get the
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  Speaker 1: title over time. Now you may be asking yourselves, folks,
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  Speaker 1: who is that providing these amazing.
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  Speaker 2: Last mellifluous cackle.
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  Speaker 1: There's so much to get into here, and luckily we
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  Speaker 1: are not venturing forth alone ridiculous historians. We are thrilled
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  Speaker 1: to be joined with none other than the iconic legendary
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  Speaker 1: in his own right. Music journalists, writer, executive producer with
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  Speaker 1: us at iHeart and the podcast host Jordan Run to Jordan,
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  Speaker 1: thank you so much for hopping on the show with
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  Speaker 1: Possesster of quite the pell this himself.
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  Speaker 4: Thank you, thank you very much, so good to be here.
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  Speaker 4: Oh my god, guys, thanks for having me.
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  Speaker 2: And while he's not in the building with us currently,
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  Speaker 2: he is in a building and presumably when we conclude
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  Speaker 2: this podcast, he will leave the building.
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  Speaker 4: Now it's my apartment, so I guess I'm not leaving
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  Speaker 4: this building.
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  Speaker 2: You're not going anywhere you got today?
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  Speaker 4: This is it?
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  Speaker 1: Well, Jordan, Jordan, you are. It's weird that you are
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  Speaker 1: so humble man, because we are all friends outside of
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  Speaker 1: this show, and you host things like you You've hosted
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  Speaker 1: so many shows, created so many shows like Off the Record, Rivals,
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  Speaker 1: Music's Greatest Feuds and of course t M I too
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  Speaker 1: much information?
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  Speaker 4: Oh thank you. No, that's a fun one.
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  Speaker 2: No.
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  Speaker 4: I my In my my job as a music journalist,
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  Speaker 4: my favorite stuff to write were all these like you know,
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: listicals ten things you didn't know about led Zeppelin, four
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  Speaker 4: twenty different things you didn't know about you know, David Bowie,
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  Speaker 4: station to station, things like that. And you know, a
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  Speaker 4: lot of my journalist's friends would down their nose at
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  Speaker 4: writing these you know, research trivia pieces basically, But I
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  Speaker 4: just thought it was the most fun thing. I love
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  Speaker 4: diving in and you know, getting paid to learn about
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  Speaker 4: your favorite records and share that with other people. So
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  Speaker 4: that was kind of what TMI. The podcast was more about,
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  Speaker 4: just the little known, behind the scenes stories, a little
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  Speaker 4: known facts about your favorite movies, music, TV shows and more.
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  Speaker 4: And we never got to Elvis. Actually we were gonna
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  Speaker 4: do an episode on his house Graceland. We did Paul
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  Speaker 4: Simon's album Graceland, but we never got to his house.
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  Speaker 4: I had notes for that, and honestly, my notes for
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  Speaker 4: that were something like fifty pages and I was too
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  Speaker 4: afraid to put it together. So that's yeah, because I'm
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  Speaker 4: a huge Elvis nerd. Have you guys ever been to Graceland?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, I have not, but I'm a big fan of
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  Speaker 2: the Paul Simon album Graceland, and I've been watching this
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  Speaker 2: show on I think it's on Hulu or you know,
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  Speaker 2: maybe Disney plus I guess they're all the same thing
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  Speaker 2: now called Paradise, where there is a plotline surrounding Graceland
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  Speaker 2: in a post of acalyptic environment where it serves as
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  Speaker 2: kind of a fort, and it's pretty cool. I don't
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  Speaker 2: know if it's the real Graceland or if they just
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  Speaker 2: did a really good mock up of it. But I
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  Speaker 2: know about the Jungle Room.
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  Speaker 4: Mm hmm, that's uh. I did a piece for Rolling
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  Speaker 4: Stone that was just a history of the Jungle Room,
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  Speaker 4: which is this weird like man cave in in Elvis's home,
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  Speaker 4: and it was like five thousand words. It was really ridiculous.
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  Speaker 4: But it's a fascinating room. It definitely. Uh. I think
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  Speaker 4: there was a one journalist called it a a taj
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  Speaker 4: mahal to questionable aesthetic choices, which I just thought, yeah,
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  Speaker 4: it's a beautiful. Yeah. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And to your question there, Jordan, yes, Obviously having family
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  Speaker 1: in Tennessee, we were all rely we were all required
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  Speaker 1: to go to Graceland at some point. It's like our hajj,
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  Speaker 1: like I had to go because if I didn't, they
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  Speaker 1: will legally be allowed to destroy my birth certificate. So
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  Speaker 1: that's part of why so many people go to Graceland.
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  Speaker 1: And it's fascinating. You guys in TMI didn't get to
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  Speaker 1: Elvis Presley, You didn't get to Graceland.
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  Speaker 4: No, I mean, going to Graceland was honestly the thing
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  Speaker 4: I always was obviously aware of Elvis and you know
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  Speaker 4: as a classic rock lover. I was always you know,
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  Speaker 4: I appreciated some of his work, but it wasn't until
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  Speaker 4: going to Graceland for the first time that I just
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  Speaker 4: became deeply fascinated with the weirdness of Elvis Presley, because
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  Speaker 4: I mean, the thing about Graceland and I hope I
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  Speaker 4: don't offend you as a as a native Tennesseean, but
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  Speaker 4: it's it's it's not that nice about.
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  Speaker 1: No why we only go because our birth certificates are
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  Speaker 1: under threat.
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  Speaker 4: But that's what's about it. It's like the most American thing.
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  Speaker 4: It's like you're mythologizing this, like not like like you're
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  Speaker 4: like slightly upperclass aunt's house, Like this is just like
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  Speaker 4: grabbed me kitchen with like an avocado. I think. Actually
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  Speaker 4: he actually had the first Marcer wave in the city
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  Speaker 4: of Memphis. To believe he paid six hundred dollars for it.
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  Speaker 4: Was just a lot of money.
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  Speaker 2: And it was also it wasn't exactactly known for his
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  Speaker 2: like refined taste. Yeah, you know, I mean that's kind
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  Speaker 2: of a bit of the mythology surrounding him, Like dude eight,
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  Speaker 2: like was it peanut butter and banana sandwiches? He carried
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  Speaker 2: his humble roots into the most ostentatious lifestyle imaginable and
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  Speaker 2: kind of was unapologetically garish.
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  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, nobody ever said, you know what I love
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  Speaker 1: about this Elvis guy, his subtlety understatement. Yeah, nobody was
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  Speaker 1: ever like, what nuance to this man. But this is
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  Speaker 1: ne excellent set up that we're getting into here, guys,
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  Speaker 1: because we're talking about taste, we're talking about what some
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  Speaker 1: may describe as the struggle of.
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  Speaker 2: The Novu reach.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe we start with the fact that Elvis Aaron Presley
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  Speaker 1: was born into the opposite of a silver spoon situation. Right,
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  Speaker 1: we're talking a two room house to Blue, Mississippi. It's
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  Speaker 1: nineteen thirty five January eighth, So that puts us right
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  Speaker 1: in the middle of the Great Depression.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, oh yeah, smack in the middle. And his h
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  Speaker 4: and then you have I mean, it seems like, I know,
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  Speaker 4: there's so much mythology around Elvis, but his birth really
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  Speaker 4: is I mean, you can't make this stuff up. With
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  Speaker 4: the death of his twin brother, Jesse, and that really
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  Speaker 4: haunted him for his entire life. And he had a
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  Speaker 4: very good friend. His hairdresser was this guy Larry Geller,
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  Speaker 4: and Larry was one of these guys who he was
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  Speaker 4: an LA guy and in the early sixties is one
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  Speaker 4: of those people that was turning them on to like,
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  Speaker 4: you know, the e ching and all these like slightly
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  Speaker 4: spiritual bent things that Elvis would eventually get into. And
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  Speaker 4: he would He's given some really interesting interviews about Elvis
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  Speaker 4: and would talk about, you know, these late night conversations
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  Speaker 4: they would have, and Elvis was haunted by the death
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  Speaker 4: of his twin his whole life, and he would talk
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  Speaker 4: about how he felt this pressure to basically live for
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  Speaker 4: the both of them, and that is really one of
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  Speaker 4: the motivating factors in his drive to succeed and do
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  Speaker 4: what he did.
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  Speaker 2: Aren't there some kind of conspiracy theories surrounding the twin brothers,
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  Speaker 2: like burial site and like maybe like missing remains or
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  Speaker 2: something along those lines.
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  Speaker 4: Oh, I don't know about that. I know that I'm
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  Speaker 4: sure we'll touch on this later. But I know that
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  Speaker 4: Elvis's dad, you weren't allowed to have a burial on
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  Speaker 4: a private property in Memphis, and Elvis's dad was saying, well,
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  Speaker 4: he's Elvis. We can't just bury him in a public cemetery.
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  Speaker 4: There's gonna be great. It was all like the lunatic fringe,
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  Speaker 4: it's going to come out and so, and the Memphis
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  Speaker 4: City Council didn't care, so they buried him in I
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  Speaker 4: want to say Forest Hills Cemetery in Memphis, something like that.
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  Speaker 4: And Elvis's dad, Vernon, who you know, you didn't pull
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  Speaker 4: one over on Vernon. He apparently reportedly allegedly all the
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  Speaker 4: disclaimers hired these like bumbling thieves through a middleman to
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  Speaker 4: break into the cemetery at night and steal this I
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  Speaker 4: want to say, like nine hundred pounds steel lined coffin
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  Speaker 4: that had just been buried and hold Elvis's remains for ransom.
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  Speaker 4: And these guys show up, you know, with pick axes
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  Speaker 4: and shovels, under the cover of darkness, and they get
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  Speaker 4: to the cemetery and there's like representatives from every major
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  Speaker 4: news network there. Vernon to tipped them off, like they
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  Speaker 4: got busted immediately, and so Vernon could go back to
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  Speaker 4: the town officials to say, look, see what happened. He's
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  Speaker 4: already people trying to steal them. So we got we
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  Speaker 4: got to bury him at home where we can have
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  Speaker 4: private security. And that's why they changed the city ordinance
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  Speaker 4: so that you know, Elvis could be buried at Graceland
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  Speaker 4: at his home, so maybe that's the story, but I
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  Speaker 4: don't know anything.
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  Speaker 2: It's probably no, no, no, no, no, that's that's that's something to
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  Speaker 2: do with it. I'm sorry. It's also like when we
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  Speaker 2: say conspiracy theories, there are people out there saying that
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  Speaker 2: maybe he didn't actually die, you know, maybe he actually uh.
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  Speaker 2: I have a theory out you know, the remainder of
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: his life under an assumed name or something like that,
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  Speaker 2: but not much credence to any of it.
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  Speaker 4: He's an extra.
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  Speaker 2: He shows mcaulay cooking where the lobby. That's not true.
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  Speaker 1: So if if he were alive today, he would be
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  Speaker 1: let me see, he died officially on August sixteenth, nineteen
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  Speaker 1: seventy seven, just forty two years old, so he'd be
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  Speaker 1: like ninety one years old, which is possible waiting for
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  Speaker 1: that album. And Elvis, if you're here, thanks for tuning in.
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  Speaker 1: We know he had a lot of financial hardship growing up,
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  Speaker 1: similar to Dolly Pardon, we could say, and similar to
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  Speaker 1: so many other musicians of the time. We also know
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  Speaker 1: that he was from a deeply religious background and Jordan,
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  Speaker 1: one thing you pointed out that we did not know
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  Speaker 1: was that Elvis Presley was a natural blonde. Did he
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  Speaker 1: really have blonde hair?
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  Speaker 4: Natural blonde? There's some cute photos of him as a kid.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, it's so weird because he still, like very
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  Speaker 4: much looks like Elvis, but he's a little tow headed kid.
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  Speaker 4: And the theory, I mean, this was his humble beginnings.
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  Speaker 4: He apparently would color his hair black with shoe polish
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  Speaker 4: when he was when he was younger, when he was
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: first starting out, which I mean, the logical question is
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  Speaker 4: why would you Why would you do this? Apparently he
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: thought that dark hair made him look cooler and edgier
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: on stage when he was just starting out. And it's
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: believed that his look, this dark haired look, was inspired
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: by his love of the comic book character Captain Marvel Junior.
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: And if you look him up, he does have this
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  Speaker 4: like kind of swept back Elvis style quiff and like
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  Speaker 4: the sideburns. He's like a teenager. And later on in
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  Speaker 4: his career when he was in his like in the
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: seventies era, and he had those big jumpsuits in the capes,
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: those capes look a lot like this. Captain Marvel Junior's
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: like superhero capes and even like, you know, the the
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  Speaker 4: lightning bolt symbol that Elvis had later in his life
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  Speaker 4: that he had painted on the wall of one of
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  Speaker 4: the media room at Graceland. I think he had it
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  Speaker 4: on one of his planes too. That was a symbol
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  Speaker 4: from this Captain Marvel Junior comic book. So it hasn't
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  Speaker 4: been he never really spoke about it, but it's been
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: theorized by fans that he borrowed us from his favorite
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: comic book character. And it's so cute. His comic book
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: collection is still in the attic at Graceland.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, I wonder what that's worth.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: Yes, seriously, So to jump in real quick, we actually
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: did talk about that in our episode for a couple
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: of years back, the litigious history of Captain Marvel, which, yes,
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: we found that very interesting that he really liked JR.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm Jenmie. Gosh, we do so many of these.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: I totally spased on that aspect, and I honestly couldn't
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: have told you that Captain Marvel Junior was a thing.
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  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, thanks for the reminder.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Please please choose tune into that one in Also, we
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: talked a little bit at the top of one of
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: the most iconic pieces of Eddie Elvis performance live, which
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: was the dancing right the switch of the hips, as
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Noel said pre Shakira, and this became quite controversial right
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: to the more buttoned up pearl clutching crowd. But Jordan,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: you told us there is a reason for his infamous
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: dance moves, and it may not be the one we expect.
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: It's I mean always he was a shy country boy
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: at heart, and the theory, the rumor is that those
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: you know, hip swiveling leg shakes were actually a result
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: of stage fright. Early in his career. He was so
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: nervous that he would start to shake and he could
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: kind of see the audience's reaction and they were into it.
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: So he kind of leaned into it and made those
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: weird moves his own, and he put them in future shows.
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: But like you said, this deeply upset the pearl clutches
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: of the nation, so much so that in I think
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: it was August of nineteen fifty six, juvenile court judge
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: Marion Gooding attended one of Elvis's shows in Florida, and
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: he was so horrified by what he saw they threatened
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: to have Elvis arrested and he insisted on only and
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: this is a quote limited side to side movements.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Stop looking like you were doing the air guitar version
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: of sex.
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: Is that what, yeah, Garlon was.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: Yes, oh wow, Yeah, you definitely could classify what he
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: did as gyrating. Perhaps, you know, it's funny though, Jordan
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: I didn't realize the nerves angle at all, and it
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: really makes me think of an iconic sort of stage
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: presence associated with Ian Curtis Joydavision. Yeah, who had I
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: believe epilepsy or some form of seizures, and he was
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: known for these kind of real shaky tweaky dance moves
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: and oftentimes it was a result of a combination of
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: stage fright and his condition.
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: Oh that's so true. Yeah, there's some amazing footage of
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: him on one of those Tony Wilson shows, like the
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: local Manchester Cable Access, where he's performing She's lost control
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: and it's like it's really jarring, but it's it's yeah,
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: arresting is the word. Yeah. Yeah.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: We also know another theory that often gets brought up
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: right by analysts and music historians, which is they're going
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: to argue that Elvis was appropriating right music culture and
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: even dance moves of the time. So if we were
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: to ask you, Jordan, which, uh, which of those arguments
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: you fall more in favor of, would you say stage fright,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: nerves or would you say appropriation?
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: I would say in terms of the dancing, I would
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: say nerves. I I do believe that does feel. And
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: it was honestly those around him that kind of are
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: those sort of that stood to gain from that attention
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: that would kind of put him up to it. I mean,
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: there's the famous story of when he went on the
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: Milton Berle Show in June of fifty six, and that
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: was like his first real big I think it was,
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: I can't remember it was his first national appearance, but
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: it was certainly is the first really truly big performance.
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: And he spent most of the show with a guitar,
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: which kind of limited his ability to move around. And
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: then when he started singing a hound Dog Burrow, the host,
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: Milton Burle, a comedian, uh, told him to take the
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: guitar off and said, let him see your son was
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: the advice, and he have known what he was doing.
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: And that was you know, the big like national.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: Furor or all these good television right Yeah, Milton got it.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Uncle Milty got it.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Also Milton had a hog again himself.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, he had a hog.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Yes, and you know exactly what I mean, like he
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: had a Lyndon Johnson level jumbo.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Oh that I did not know. I'm sorry, I didn't
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: know that about Uncle Milty.
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: It was this story where they were at like he
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: was at a yurinal with like Groucho Marx and Gratcha
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: was just like, you better feed that thing or it's
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: liable to turn on you.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: That's very funny. No, sir, ree Bob staying in now, we're.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: Actually gonna cut it from that spot for at the
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: very start.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, everything all right, fast forward past the foreskinting jokes
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: since we're talking about cutting hog.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Must if we must. You know, it's interesting though, because
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: we're talking about appropriation. You know, he grew up in
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: rural the rural South. Uh, he was directly influenced by
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: black culture and black music, gospel music, A lot of
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: stuff like that was just happening around him. So then
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: the question becomes is he the appropriateur is he? Or
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: is he just kind of taken in what was around him?
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: And then his handlers sort of pushed him to that
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: level that might be considered appropriation, Like what even is appropriation?
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Like it's it's I don't mean to make some sort
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: of like gotcha question or hot button debate here, because
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: I think we kind of know what it is. It's
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: when you maybe unjustly take something from a culture that
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: doesn't get credit for it and then crink claim it
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: as your own. Was he doing that or was he
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: just sort of in turn because I believe he gave
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: a lot of love and respect to many of the
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: artists and people that he was surrounded by, but then
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: got so into drugs and sort of out of it
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: that his handlers were sort of the ones basically propping
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: him up and you know, pushing him out on stage,
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: and he maybe didn't have the agency to do some
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: of that, make some of those connections or give some
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: of that credit. I mean.
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: And he would say, this was what I grew up with,
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: This was what I am, a reflection of what was
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: around me. That is what he would say. Was he
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: held to a completely different standard and had opportunities that
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: these other artists did not. Of course, yeah, absolutely, but
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: he you know, and people like Big Mama Thornton deeply
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: resent to the fact that you know, he covered her
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: songhound Dog and he made it, you know, made a
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: gazillion dollars off of it.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Well she did, and she didn't get she didn't get
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: any any residuals for either.
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: Well there's this is a bad example, but they're famously
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: I need to check on this. I don't think in
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: that case that was this. This occurred, but when songwriters
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: would submit so to Elvis, his label insisted that he
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: get a writing credit on it, like that was part
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: of the deal when writers would.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: See even though he didn't actually write in the song.
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: No, he recorded something like seven hundred songs in his
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: career and he he was not a songwriter, but he's
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: credited on songs like all Shook Up and Don't Be Cruel.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: Which we also know that the largely white record industry
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: was infamous for taking advantage oh, you know, black artists.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: So that's why I'm not trying to give Elvis a pass,
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: but I'm just saying it seems like was it the
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: kernel and all the people that were sort of handling
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: him in the record company, they were more of the
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: ones turning the screws and making those bad deals to
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: your point about the writing credit, that's hogwash. But I'm
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: certain that Elvis wouldn't have pushed for that himself.
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: I don't think he was very involved with any of that.
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: I don't, I mean to be.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: He's very nicie, right, That's what I meant.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: But he wasn't a business guy. He wasn't a business
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: and development shark. He wasn't out there redlining contracts.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: He was frankly not super bright. No, I mean, I
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: don't mean to be a but like he was, he
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: was taking advantage of himself. Oh yeah, because he was
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: just all those.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Those Jordan, could you tell us a little bit about
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: the colonel and the so called Memphis mafia.
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: The colonel was, I mean, my favorite story about the
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: colonel was that he he was not a colonel. That
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: was just the name of.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: L Rod.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: He started calling himself the admiral.
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: The admiral, stolen valor in the highest he was. He
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: illegally came to this country from I want to say, Copenhagen.
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: And the reason Elvis famously never performed a concert abroad,
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: and the Colonel would always give him these like fictitious
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: business reasons why, like, oh yeah, it's a bad idea like,
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: you don't want to you don't want to perform anywhere
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: but right here.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: You will hold you hostage in Vegas the rest of
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: your life.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: You could go as far west as what But he
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: was because only in the movies.
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: He couldn't leave the country. He couldn't he and so
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: which is so fun. So that's the level of just,
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: you know, Elvis, just a blind trust in this guy.
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: What I was talking about earlier about the writing credit
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: thing that I mean, it seems on the surface like
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: a good business move. Oh yeah, you want Elvis, who's
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: gonna make whatever song records a massive hit? To record
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: your song? Cool, give us a you know, fifty percent cut.
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: Our brill building artists are brill building songwriters, and you know,
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: pro songwriters out of Nashville stopped offering him their best stuff,
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: which is why in the sixties, I mean, one of
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: the several reasons why his career started tanking in the sixties,
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: he just wasn't getting good songs. And I mean, one
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: of the most famous examples of this is that Dolly
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: Parton wrote I Will Always Love You in the early
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: seventies and she was still kind of on the rise
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: as a soul artist herself, and Elvis deeply wanted to
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: record it, and Dolly was so thrilled, and then Colonel
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: Tom Parker said, well, you know, you got to you
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: gotta sign over the I think get a co write
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: credit and at least half of the publishing rights. And
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: Dolly said, you know, no, I can't. That's my you know,
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: those publishing rights belonged to my it's my family's financial feature.
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: I can't just sign that away.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: And so she's and that's one of the many reasons
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: that Dolly is a badass, just absolutely rules. I mean,
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: because that in those days, you know, being a woman songwriter,
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: you would have already been like relegated to a certain
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: level of dismissed kind of attitude, you know, from the
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: patriarchal and white run record industry, and you wouldn't have
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: had the luxury of saying no to a thing like that.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: And she really did stand her ground and stick to
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: her guns and other you know, cowboy related metaphors.
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: I mean, two stories about Colonel Tom Parker, one that
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: illustrates just his viciousness and one that illustrates the fact
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: that he was not as smart as he thought he was.
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: There's a famous story that Larry Geller, guy the Elvis's
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: hairdresser who became his really close friend, tells the story
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: a lot. Where I think it was during the Elvis
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: residency was sometime towards the end in the seventies, and
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: Elvis was just comatose. He was not in any condition
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: to perform. It was maybe like an hour or two
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: before showtime. Yeah, And he calls the colonel and tells
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: him to come to helvis a suite and thinks that
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: he's gonna, like, you know, okay, you know, the old
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: man is here. He's gonna set everything right. He's gonna
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: see what's going on, and he's gonna put a stop
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: to it. He's gonna get Elvis the help he needs,
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: Like you know, Dad's here and he's gonna like fix everything.
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: And he sees Parker go in, and he sees him
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: shove Elvis's face into a champagne holder face with the
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: ice bucket. Yeah, shove his face in there, pull it out,
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: pull him out by the air, shove him back in,
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: pull him out by the hair. And Parker just looks
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: at this guy, Larry Galler, and says, the only thing
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: that matters is that bat Man gets on stage tonight,
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: that is the only thing that matter. It was chilling,
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: So that's that's the vish bousness. Parker started a. Elvis
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: was signed to RCIA Records famously, but he started the
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: Parker started the subsidiary label. I don't fully understand the
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: specific stuf. It doesn't really matter. But he wanted to
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: release an album on that label so that he personally
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: could just profit from it because he owned this label himself.
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: And so he thought, wait a minute, RCA owns the songs.
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: What if I have Elvis release a spoken word album?
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: Those are those aren't songs? And so he put just
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: did it even dumber. They recorded a bunch of his
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: live shows and then they just spliced out all of
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: his on.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Stage the stage speech, and.
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: It's called having fun with Elvis on stage.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: And then maybe so is that a novelty record? Now?
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Is that? Like they did? They not make many of them?
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: No, he was gonna sell it just at concerts as
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: like a like a momentum. And then was like, no,
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: you idiot, Elvis's voice on record. We own all of that,
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: not just songs. He missed the boat on that, so
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: he wasn't as smart as he No, he was not
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: as smart as he thought. So he was kind of
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: evil and not as smart as he thought.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: Now, now that does raise a question for me, Jordan,
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: and maybe you don't know the answer to this, but
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, do they own his speaking voice? Like? To
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: what degree does a record label own an artist? Like?
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: I guess their likeness, their their their whatever. Life rights?
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: There so many different angles of that, right, that's fascinating.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: I'd love to We need to do another episode at
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: some point, Ben on something like life rights. Yeah, yeah,
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: I think that would be interesting.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great call because if I if I
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: understand correctly, you know, RCA was such a huge monopolistic
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: force at the time. They had the best lawyers, so
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: they could drag people through court, uh just making their
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: opinion fact. So it does make sense that a group
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: as litigious as RCA would say nope, everything this guy
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: says auto Yeah uhr.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Was Edison right? I mean literally the first y Yeah,
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: they owned the medium of like recorded music, They invented it,
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: and then eventually more or less right and then they
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: had it on lockdown. I would love to talk a
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: little bit about that aspect of it for a second.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: I know, I know that you're into all aspects of
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: recorded music, but that's fascinating, always been fascinating to me.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: You're picturing the dog listening to the Victrola, just the
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: branding around that, and that being literally RCA being first
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: to market on the concept of recorded music.
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: And televisions too. I mean, of course, and Il was
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: famously uh he loved his TV and he had something
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: like fourteen TVs at his house.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Toxic relationship for television sets Georgian.
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: Yes, he liked to shoot them just like because he
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: knew that because he was with RCA, they would just
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: send them free ones whenever he wanted.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: A lot more TVs.
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, so he he he would like do it
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: just to like be funny, like if there's somebody like
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: the famous story of uh, the singer Robert Gulay was
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: on the TV and he was like watching it with
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: his friends, and I think I think there was some
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: like weird love triangle thing with guli I don't remember
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: why he hated him so much, but he just said
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: that guy's got no heart and shot the TV. And
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: when Ola was on.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Dude, what a what a hip hop level flex to say? Oh,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: I don't turn channels. I shoot the television and then
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: RCA sends me a new TV. Are you so broken
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: that you have to change the channel? You reuse your TV?
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Heitary he was kind of the first bad behaving rock
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: star guy, and like TV damage and destruction became a
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: trope kind of further down the line. But Elvis was
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: the og of the unhinged, you know, megalomaniacal musician, right just.
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: With his own stuff. He wasn't like Keith Moon level
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: trash and hotel room, but with his own stuf, he
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: had a He definitely had a much more cavalier relationship
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: to Also, it gets back to that and I say
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: he was a he was a lovable himbo, like like
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: you love that I have. You've heard about his fireworks battles.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the firework battles before we get back
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: to the Memphis Mafia, because they don't want to miss
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: that one. We do have to explain that on drug Well.
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: So so Memphis Mafia, I mean, was his ever expanding
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: crew of guys. And every year on New Year's Elvis
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: would drop like two grand on fireworks, which in sixties
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: money is I don't even want to know, it's probably
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: like twenty thirty grand these days. And he and some
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: of his friends they would wear like bomber jackets, like
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: thick you know, motorcycle leather jackets, goggles and gloves and
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: would shoot Roman candles at each other as one does.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: I'm Southern enough to have conducted similar escapades, but uh
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: not with not with thousands of dollars worth of fireworks,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Everybody gets one and then
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: we count down before it's time to run.
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: Bend is jump in here. I'm Southern enough to have
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: done the same thing, except not with the bomber jacket.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: You were just relied on your dexterity and your agility.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've certainly heard of like roman candle wars. You know,
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: people get oh yeah, it must be a Southern thing
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: or just it's just the height of drunken red neckery.
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: You know, it's stupid, so did it?
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: And fun?
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: A lot of stupid things are fun, But did a
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: lot of fun things are stupid?
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: And fellow ridiculous historians, we are going to pause the
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: conversation in media arrest. This is part two of our
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Bizarre soaka of Elvis Presley, and we just can't thank
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: Jordan Runtaw enough.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: He's our pal, He's a true friend inside and outside
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: of the show, and we were both kind of astonished
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: to realize that he hasn't been on the show before.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: And it's largely because I think we both spent time
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: together and separately with our boy Jordan, just chatting about
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: this kind of stuff. So I just sort of felt
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: like we'd done it before, but that was just real life.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: And to jump in here, he kind of has been
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: on the show as he's written episodes, but so we've
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: had him in a different way.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: In spirit, just like christ frasiotis.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Need to Jeff Coates and big big thanks for our
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: super producer, mister Max Williams. Big thanks to our composer
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Alex Williams who made this slap and bop, as well
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: as aj Bahamas, Jacob's aka the Puzzler.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: And Jeez Louise Ben. Thanks to you you got me
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: all shook up.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: And big big thanks of course to Jonathan Strickland ak
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: The Twister, because every show like ours needs a kerdle
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: of its own.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: Let's see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.