FRIDAY FLASHBACK + HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Elvis Presley. The King would’ve turned 85 today. When he turned 11, his mother Gladys took him to the Tupelo Hardware Company Store and bought him his first guitar: A 1947 Kay flat-top K19. He’d play this guitar throughout his school years and at his first Sun recording session. Also on this day: In 1956 his double-A single “Don’t Be Cruel/Hound Dog” went to #1 and stayed there for weeks. Fast forward to 1993 and the United States Post Office issued an Elvis Presley stamp.
Sidebar: 1n 1976 David Bowie demo’d the song “Golden Years” with Elvis in mind to cover it (Elvis’s manager Colonel Parker approved but Elvis passed). Rewind to 1960 when Elvis recorded the song “Black Star” (it was shelved, then re-titled “Flaming Star”). That song directly inspired the Black Star theme of Bowie’s final work, and it’s remarkable that Bowie was also born on the same day as Elvis.
By default or design, Elvis looms over my musical adventures, be it through mindful study or cultural resonance. In the late 80s I named my back-up The Rover Boys after the surname for The Million Dollar Quartet a.k.a Elvis’s legendary 1956 jam session with Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins. Like many professional musicians, I started with cover bands playing in bars, and I’m certain I’ve learned up to 20 Elvis hits + in my solo set I do gospel songs that he favored.
Elvis’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love” is based on “Plaisir d’Amour,” a 1784 French chanson by Jean-Paul-Égide Martini and refashioned by the hit-making team of Hugo & Luigi w/George David Weiss. The lyrics are informed by poet Alexander Pope and Bible verses. I always enjoyed the tune, but when I heard Bob Dylan cover it (on his all-covers album DYLAN) it dawned on me that I should play it. Dylan gave it a gospel flair, and that triangulation with God’s love is what I aim for when I do it. I recorded a hard rock version of it, and many people have heard me perform it like it is in this video w/Davy Jones (Monkees): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeFCSe_t7OQ
The Elvis/Epiphone Guitar display (shown in the photo) relates to a practical joke played on Davy: In the mid-90s Davy’s then-bassist/music director (the late, great) Jerry Renino stopped by a music store I was working at. The store had this life-size Elvis store stand-up which Jerry saw and hatched a gag. He took planted the stand-up in a dark closet at Davy’s house when Davy wasn’t around. Time elapsed and we got a call from Davy, jolted after finding Elvis behind the door—“I jumped about 10 feet! Good one guys.” Concurrently there was a tabloid rumor afloat that Elvis was alive and living in Davy’s basement in Beavertown PA (I kid you not).
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