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I blew my one chance to visit Elvis Presley back in 1970. It was August, he had a month-long engagement at the International Hotel in Las Vegas, and I was invited. Actually, it was Jackie DeShannon, the singer-songwriter, who was going, and she asked if I’d like to accompany her. She’d dated Elvis in the Sixties, and I was doing an article on her in Rolling Stone. Unfortunately, I was booked for another interview—with John Kay of Steppenwolf, and had to decline. When she returned, she told me that she’d seen the show and stayed up most of the morning, visiting with Elvis in the kitchen of the International. And I could’ve been there. I console myself with the fact that I did get to see Elvis in concert, and got to interview various of his buddies and fellow musicians over the years. One such associate was Elvis’ first guitarist, Scotty Moore, who was so important to Elvis’ first records and shows. In 1976, Moore had a CD out, called All the King’s Men. He was top-billed with Elvis’ first drummer, D.J. Fontana, and they were accompanied by some high-profile admirers, including Jeff Beck, Keith Richards, Tracy Nelson, and the Mavericks. I got a chance to ask Scotty about their first sessions together. Elvis, he said, didn’t strike him as anything special at first—except that “he seemed to know every song in the world.” That was at Scotty’s place on the Fourth of July, 1954. The next day they went to Sun Studio, along with bassist Bill Black. “Those early acetates he made, it was him and a guitar. Sam (Phillips) said, ‘You and Bill come in. I wanna hear what he sounds like with some music.’ They were going nowhere, Scotty said. “And then we were taking a break and he started goofing around, singing ‘That’s All Right, Mama.’ Bill and I joined in at the end, and it was amazing. Sam was at the right place, right time.” |
