-ELVIS IN CANADA

Toronto,Canada April 2nd 1957
By The Toronto Star

23 000 See Elvis. Late Show 15 000.

Crowds estimated at 8,000 and 15,000 persons jammed Maple Leaf Gardens last night as Elvis Presley gave his first and second Canadian shows. Col. Tom Parker, Presley's manager, said the second-show crowd was the largest Presley has ever faced in a personal appearance. I think Toronto audiences are terrific,' Col. Parker said.

But if the Toronto audience was the largest Elvis has ever faced, to all reports it was also one of the quietest and best-behaved audiences ever to watch Elvis in action. Members of the troupe said the whooping and hollering and shenanigans just didn't compare to what they had seen in other cities. However, they gave part of the credit for this to the 90 special constables on duty and to the alert Gardens' staff. Whenever a youngster bounced up in his seat a policeman would reach over and plunk him down again. This sometimes gave the Gardens the appearance of a large jack-in-the-box, but it seemed to have the desired effect. Two women fans were ejected late in the second performance when they tried to break through 20 policemen and as many Maple Leaf Gardens' attendants to reach the stage. Frankie Trent, who leads off th Presley show with a tapdance routine said he had heard a lot more heck ling than was usual in most towns.'But the kids didn't screech and run around as much as they did in other places,' he said.

Same Everywhere
Elvis himself didn't notice anything different about Toronto teenagers. "Teenagers are the same everywhere," was his only comment, but although Toronto teenager may have been quieter and better behaved than teenagers elsewhere, they managed to disappoint anyone who came to hear Elvis sing.

From the time Elvis, dressed in his all-gold suit, walked on stage and smiled until he gave his last bump nearly an hour later, nearly every teenager in the place screeched, at the top of his lungs. Despite a good public address system Elvis managed to get across only the occasional note that the audience could hear. However, this didn't seem to matter to most of these present.Every time Elvis reached out his arm in one direction or turned to smile in another, all the crowd in that section would screech with ecstasy. One girl got out of her seat and ran down the aisle. Col. Parker and a few policemen pulled her away as she tried to clamber onstage and touch Elvis.

Busy With Cameras
About one-third of those present had flash cameras and each time Elvis made a slight turn that side of the auditorium would light up as hundreds of flashbulbs went off. The show's manager told the crowd they could take as many pictures as they liked and no one needed a further invitation. When Presley made his first appearance on stage the lights were dimmed. But so many flash-cameras went off at once that one could see clearly even in the grays.
Throughout the show flash after flash went off. About the only thing comparable to this seen in the Gardens is the matchlight demonstration at a rodeo when everyone present is asked to light a match in memory of cowboys who have gone to the last round-up.

Noise Was Deafening
Clean-up men trundled away several boxes full of flashbulbs between the first and second shows.The noise, too, was deafening from start to finish. During the first show when Josh King, local disc jockey, first announced Elvis was coming, the audience hollered for about 30 straight seconds. At this point, an attendant rushed up on stage and quieted the crowd. 'Elvis isn't coming yet,' he said. 'Elvis doesn't think you're making enough noise.'
Somewhat surprised, the crowd seemed determined to prove that their lungs were capable of even louder noises. They thereupon screeched for a full two minutes.Apparently the word got around between shows for the second show audience needed no second invitation. They screamed for the full hour that Elvis was on stage. Although television cameras cut Elvis off at the waist when he appeared on the Ed Sullivan show Presley himself appears to have no qualms about making gyrations when he's doing a live show.

Tenor is Booed
Although the crowd didn't seem to appreciate most of the acts that took up the first part of the Presley show, even booing Irish tenor Frankie Connors, Elvis is actually backed by a good rock-and-roll type show. The Jordanaires, who back Presley in his 'Peace In The Valley' record and also backed Sonny James' popular 'Young Love,' received second top billing.The quartet, the only other number to get a really good audience reaction, consists of Hugh Jarret, Gordon Stoker, Neil Matthews and Hoyt Hawkins. They sang hit tunes, 'Party Doll,' 'Young Love,' and their record not yet released in Canada, 'Walk Away.' They also provide musical background for Elvis' gyrations on stage.
Other numbers on the show include Frankie Trent, who tap dances rock-and-roll; Pat Kelly, an attractive blonde who hustles on and off stopping long enough to sing 'I Dreamed;' Jimmy James, who plays the banjo; and comic Rex Marlowe.
Marlowe, who does an imitation of a lady doffing a girdle ('That's how they invented rock-and-roll') also appeared to draw few laughs from the crowd.A noticeable absence from the evening's performance was Presley's popular 'Blue Suede Shoes.' 'I have five pair of blue suede shoes at home but I never wear them,' said Elvis. 'That kind of thing gets worn out after a while,' he admitted.

Originally published in “ The Toronto Star “ on April 3rd 1957.

-HEARTBREAK HOTEL...

Mae Axton was co-writer with Tommy Durden of Heartbreak Hotel. In November 1955 in Nashville, she played a demo of Heartbreak Hotel sung by Glenn Reeves for Elvis in her suite. Durden was a steel guitar player with the Johnny Tillotson's band. While reading the Miami Herald on day in 1955 he ran across the photograph of a suicide victim whose identity was a mystery. The headline asked, “Do you know the man?” In the dead man's left hand was a note that read. “I walk a lonely street” which inspired Durden and Axton to compose Heartbreak Hotel. There was a real historic hotel in Florida named the Heartbreak Hotel which also may have inspired Durden to compose the song. The two of them wrote the song in about 20 minutes and Glen Reeves was called to record the demo. After hearing the demo Elvis was ecstatic and promised Axton that he would record the song the time he was in the recording studio. Elvis recorded Heartbreak Hotel on January 10, 1956 at RCA's Nashville studio. Instrumental backing was provided by Scotty Moore (guitar) Floyd Cramer (piano) Bill Black (bass) and DJ Fontana on drums. Heartbreak Hotel was released on 27 January 1956 it become a national number one hit and stayed there for seven weeks

-1977 CBS TV SPECIAL

After the Aloha show Elvis quickly returned to his old routine, Vegas and concert tours, of course no fan ever complained with the King visiting each and everyone’s own home town!, over and over…This was of course numbing for Elvis himself, who always performed magic whenever challenged, but the later years were, sadly so, on automatic pilot for the most time. But artistic creativity or not, major changes or not, Elvis always remained Elvis, the greatest of them all, the sheer mention of his name send fans into raptures. I mean, he was the only artist ever who had the sheer guts to soak scarves with his own sweat over which females fought. HE was the one who came on stage cloaked in the music of Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra, the God Theme and people went crazy. Let’s face it there never was one like him before and there will probably never be one like him ever again.
However, way back in 1977, things were a bit different, Elvis was deadly tired, he’d performed almost non stop for 8 years and things looked bleak, very bleak. At the end of 1976 Elvis looked rivigorated during his late December tour, with the highlight of course being his legendary New Year’s Eve Show in Pittsburgh. Elvis gave one of THE greatest performances of his life and let no one fool you by tellling you he wasn’t that great that night compared to any 1970 performance, because he WAS great, singing for about 90 minutes and in a way like it seemed he was doing it for his own pleasure, and in part he always did of course. He hit notes that could cause a mild hernia wrote one of the reporters attending the concert, and how right he was. Unchained Melody, Hurt, Rags To Riches and so many more were sung with such an intensity that was almost frightening, man could he sing….

The February and spring tours of 1977 were somewhat disappointing compared to the December frenzy, there are many shows available in the import scene and even the latest Follow That Dream CD didn’t prove anything otherwise. He sounded tired, very tired for the most part, he was a very sick man and it started to show. In this light what he did for his last TV show was so unbelievable, it must have cost him every ounce of courage and willpower to deliver one of his greatest concerts ever, I am of course talking about the Rapid City, June 21, 1977 show..….
What caused the Colonel to allow Elvis to be filmed that final time is open to suggestion. They did need the money desperately, Elvis needed a challenge, his records could use a boost. Whatever his motivation, the Colonel began discussions with CBS in early 1977 to do a TV show. He didn’t want NBC anymore as they hadn’t come up with a follow up to the Aloha show so this time CBS could try to sell it to the Colonel. They were very eager to do this special and came up with $750.000 dollars for the privilage. They also produced two of their top directors, Gary Smith and Dwight Hemion. Annette Wolfe did all the interviews with fans and fanclub bosses. On June 1, the CBS special was announced, it had of course taken months to set up the deal and Colonel Parker had months before organized that Todd Slaughter, the UK fanclub boss would take a couple of hundred fans to see two of the shows on that tour.
The producers originally wanted to film three shows, Omaha, Lincoln and Rapid City. The auditorium manager in Lincoln however, protested when he saw what kind of space the cameras took up. He was afraid a lot of fans wouldn’t be able so get a clear view of the stage. So ONLY 2 show were filmed in full, however, there’s more, we’ll get to that later…

The special was really no reflection of these two concerts, there weren’t enough songs included to begin with, there was no real sense of a concert as interviews(with sometimes very strange people indeed) kept interrupting the program, and they ‘forgot’ to include any candid footage. Some critic stated that it ‘’looked like Elvis was a guest on his own show’’. They should have included some showstoppers like Tryin’ To Get To You, It’s Now Or Never and Unchained Melody.
Only a few outtakes crept up from time to time, with the complete Are You Lonesome Tonight from Rapid City in This Is Elvis, Love Me from Omaha(excellent choice-not) on the extended This Is Elvis version from 1983 and Unchained Melody on the Great Performances vol. 1 from 1990.
In 1999 suddenly a black and white tape popped up featuring the bigger part of the Rapid City performance and what a joy it was to see the undoctored performance with a joking Elvis ‘bit my tongue’ and some outstanding songs like Tryin’ To Get To You, It's now Or Never and Hawaiian Wedding Song. We had the songs on record but now were finally able to also see him sing them. What a treat. Then a couple of months later the same performance came in color and even the complete Omaha show appeared in color. Now we could see that Elvis was in much better shape in Rapid City. In Omaha Elvis seemed to be singing on automatic pilot, he sang okay but there wasn’t the edge that was on June 21. Rumor has it that Elvis performed with painkillers in Omaha and with uppers in Rapid City, I cannot verify any of this but the difference in the man was obvious. Even Gary Smith said that when he saw Elvis in Rapid City after haven seen him in Omaha he said that it looked like he had lost 10 pounds.
On the outtakes videos we finally got a glimpse of Elvis backstage. We see him arrive in Rapid City stepping out of his limo clad in a track suit complete with high collared shirt and shades, he walks by the camera and says ‘’Oh, hi there!’’, quickly moving towards the dressing rooms. He’s surrounded by people like Joe Esposito, Dick Grob, Sam Thompson, AL Strada, Dean Nichopoulos, Ricky Stanley, Ed Parker and some more. After that we see Elvis with mayor Lacroix and little Monique Brave, a local Sioux Indian girl who presents Elvis with a medal of long life, how ironic. Although only lasting about 2 minutes we get to see a rare glimpse into the personal life of the man. He’s very gracious to the mayor and very kind to the little girl, she gets a kiss and a photo of the meeting!

For the 2 shows Elvis wore the beautiful Sundial Jumpsuit, this particular suit was made in 1974 and Elvis wore it for the first time in Lake Tahoe 1974. He suddenly started wearing it again in 1977. Now a lot of rumors float around concerning this suit, it’s said it wasn’t the same one as in ’74, that a replica was made and also the rumor that 2 copies existed, which makes sense as he was wearing the same suit every night during his last tour, with the exception being Kansas City, June 18, when he wore the King Of Spades suit. Originally Elvis was to have worn a complete new jumpsuit but the one that was being manufactured at the time kept needing refitting as it wouldn’t fit the man. Elvis at that time no longer tried on the suits first. The tailors had to guess his measurements. So as that fell through he reverted to the Sundial.

How did Elvis himself feel about this special!? Was he concerned about his appearance or not. According to Elvis’ friend and bodyguard Ed Parker, Elvis had said that he knew he looked terrible. According to other sources Elvis was glad to be on tv again, and that his fans would be able to see him. All we can see is that during the Rapid City performance Elvis LOOKED happy and up for it. It was also obvious he wasn’t moving around as easily but the voice was there, boy was it there! His renditions of Tryin’ To Get To You, Now Or Never, Hurt and Unchained Melody send shivers down your spine. And Hound Dog gets a rocking treatment it rarely got anymore. Just compare the latter song to the Aloha version. Need I say more, the 1977 version beats the crap out of the 1973 one. Also it’s been said that Elvis’ voice was slipping, now I’m very sorry but I just can’t hear it at this particular show. Just exactly where does it slip, each song gets the royal treatment. His voice just kept getting richer and richer. Just listen to Hawaiian Wedding Song, pure bliss…
Now I’ll face some rumors. As far back as 1977 fans who had been to the Cincinnati show stated that they saw cameras in the auditorium. I have personally spoken to 2 fans who were there and they DID see them, stationary cameras fixed at the stage Elvis was on. And although no paper work has surfaced supporting this claim, it is very well possible as most directors have the tendancy to overshoot, they don’t want to be short of some shots when they start editing, so yes there must be footage of at least one other concert! Then there is definitely more backstage footage of Elvis talking with his dad, make up being applied and even some footage of Elvis putting on his jumpsuit with Elvis heisting it over his shoulder, this footage will blow our minds when and if it finally emerges. But make no mistake, it IS there. There’s also about twenty minutes of footage left of Elvis standing at Indianaplis Airport, June 26. We have some clips in In Concert, The Great Performances, Elvis’ Graceland and the UK fanclub put about a minute’s worth of this footage on their 1984 fan club video of their visit to the US. Todd Slaughter would present Elvis with a trophy and Elvis in turn would give one to Todd. Todd paid off a local camera man to film their meeting.
But perhaps the strangest clip of this meeting I have is about 5 seconds and comes from a local tv station in Indianapolis!!! You can make out some name underneath but alas the quality is too poor to properly read it. But is goes to show that footage WAS shown on local television! Hey mr. archivist start searching….The strangest and most persistent rumor, be it in a very small circle, is an interview that was to have been filmed at Graceland with Elvis sitting by the swimming pool and fooling around with little Lisa Marie. Now how’s that for a shake up. A camera crew did go to Graceland following the concert tour as can be seen in the original special with Vernon walking around the premises. Now one might wonder why this footage hasn’t aired yet if it exists, but then again the backstage footage of Rapid City hasn’t seen an official release either has it, heck even the original special hasn’t been released!!! Don’t forget the Estate has no desire to project ANY image later than 1973, 1974. The want to protect his image and all that jive, to me personally Elvis was more candid and genuine in 1977 than ever before but that’s my opinion. He was somehow stripped of most of the glamour and yet he shone more brightly than ever, why, because he had such an unbelievable charisma and presence, I feel that the Estate sometimes forget this.

What’s interesting is the fact that CBS had decided to film some more shows on Elvis’ August tour starting in Portland, Maine. If Elvis had lived, the June shows probably would never have been shown at all!
Then what’s left is the question whether Elvis himself ever got to see the special. No evidence exists if he saw the actual special, but what he DID see were the raw video tapes of the shows and the backstage footage. He was handed some copies by Gary Smith himself after the tour, probably when they did the filming at Graceland later that summer. How do we know this, well, Elvis in turn handed his own copies over to his good friend Janelle McComb, while saying that she could have them as he had no use for it...
On October 3, 1977 the CBS special was shown on US tv
2002/07/23 Simon de Wit / EpGold.Com