Being too young for things when you're a kid is pretty standard stuff. You get old, then there's about nothing left for which you're too young. That's depressing.A lot of Americans were too old for Elvis. They hated him, thought him some work of some evil force sent to destroy our wonderful way of life. Those were the same people who insisted America only see this Elvis person from the waist up, never look at the hips.
I was too young for Elvis. I'd been born just a little too late to be at the right time and place in my life to fall victim to Elvis-mania. Beatle-mania? Oh, yeah, absolutely, I'm among the millions who still get goose bumps watching the Ed Sullivan appearances. I have the full DVD set, thanks to my wife.
My first memory of someone named Elvis was during a hot and sunny summer day on the beach in Atlantic City. This was, of course, pre-casino Atlantic City. From where we'd settled upon the sand, we could see the fabled Steel Pier, although I have no memory of setting foot upon it. I never saw the diving horse. Why do I now feel cheated?
Also from our sandy position, I could see someone sitting close by reading a newspaper. It was in tabloid format, probably a daily, but from where, I don't know. For a ton of reasons, I really want to say it was The New York Daily News. Probably not. Probably a Philly paper.
It was the front page headline that I remember - ELVIS DRAFTED!
That was it. ELVIS DRAFTED! Beneath the headline, an obligatory photo of Elvis, snarling lip and all.
Grade school, high school, college, and the first 3 years of my radio "career" came, were, and went without me giving Elvis a second thought. I wasn't a fan. He didn't move me. His music didn't move me. His appeal was lost on me. Sure, I played his records on the radio, that was part of my job.
I knew Elvis fans, lots of them. A few were insane about Elvis. To them, The Beatles were no more than pretenders to the throne, phonies, fakes, not the real thing. I was more of a Beach Boys/Beatles fan who also had a strong taste for jazz. Clearly, I was somewhat of a mongrel - I'd prefer eclectic - when it came to music.
And then one day, an Elvis impersonator came to town. A friend of mine had seen this guy's act and told me he was among the best. He had a band, trunks full of costumes, all the gestures, the moves, the snarl...and he looked and sounded just like Elvis. "You've got to see this dude," says my friend.
With nothing else to do on a Saturday night many years ago, I went to a club called Bourbon Street in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. We sat at a small round table, drank beer, smoked cigarettes, and awaited the evening's entertainment. I can't sit here and lie - I wasn't exactly all keyed up about seeing this guy. He called himself The Big El. Yawn. Make that a Big Yawn.
Then, something happened.
The house lights dimmed. Strains of Also Sprach Zarathustra began to build, and build, and build. This was a direct Elvis steal.
Now the sound of a kettle drum, then a crescendo...BoomBoomBoomBoomBoom...then more kettle drum...BoomBoomBoomBoomBoom...then another crescendo. Geez, what's happening here? What the hell is this? I'm feeling the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
POW!
Just like that, an enormous slap in the face.
It was like this big hand, one heavy with gaudy rings, had reached from that stage and slapped me upside the head. I damn near leapt from my seat.
The reality of what had happened was this; Also Sprach Zarathustra had segued into to the driving rhythm of See See Rider, as "Elvis" as you can get, the piece which opened his legendary Vegas' shows.
And there he was!
It was Elvis! Right there. Feet away. It was Elvis! And it just might as well have been. This guy, The Big El, looked so much like Elvis Presley that it was scary. Not just the looks, there were the moves, the voice, they all belonged to Elvis. Somehow, The Big El had managed to borrow Elvis. It was remarkable.
In an instant, I'd gone from not caring about Elvis to being an Elvis fan. On the west end of Williamsport, in the part of town they call Newberry, Elvis Presley had just acquired another fan, a big fan, a huge fan, and a fan to this very day.
Not that I wasn't a fan of The Big El. I was. Every bit a fan of "Big." Whenever he came back to town, I went to see him. Not once was there any disappointment, he was always terrific.
And, do remember, it wasn't even The King himself, it was a knock-off. A damned fine knock-off, yet still not the real deal. Elvis Lives!
Elvis did indeed live. See, when The Big El turned me into an Elvis fan, Elvis was still alive. But not for long.
It was no more than a handful of months into enjoying my newly discovered status as an Elvis fan that it happened. On August 16th, 1977, there I was, doing radio, being a disc jockey. My life's passion was talking on the radio and playing the hits. The control room door opened.
"If you're in radio for fifty more years, you'll never get to read anything like this on the air again." That was Gary Chrisman, friend and colleague, and still a friend to this day.
"Elvis Presley is dead." It was an AP bulletin, literally hot off the wire.
Our AP machine, the clackety, constantly in motion automated typewriter, big unsightly beast that it was, sat in our newsroom. Gary had been there, heard the bells announcing important news. He saw the headline, which is all it was so far, "Elvis Presley is dead." He'd ripped it, and ran to me, because I was on the air. Had someone been in our newsroom, they would have handled the story, we would have "broken in" with it. I'm only guessing all these years later that our news people were out on the road covering some story. Could be they were down the hall taking a squirt. This news couldn't wait for an empty bladder.
I read it on the air. The phones went nuts. Callers were in disbelief. Callers wanted more information. Callers had tickets to see Elvis within weeks in Syracuse, he was scheduled to play The New York State Fair. One caller, a woman, wanted to know how she could get a refund on her ticket. Maybe she was stunned, in shock. I hung up on her. This wasn't the time for refunds. The King was dead. Not only was he dead, but the world was just now finding out that he was.
There was no CNN yet, no internet, just network news to turn to for information and pictures. Being in radio, we had an advantage. That clacking AP machine was spitting out reams of info on the death of Elvis. Already there were implications of drugs, there was talk of an Elvis whose bloated body had been found so unfittingly slumped from a toilet. There was then black humor, gallows humor, the jokes about kings and thrones.
In the end, and before too long, we had at least a hazy picture of a man whose last few years were unhappy, perhaps even tortured. The drugs were his, they'd been prescribed, they were legal. Not necessarily moral or ethical, but legal. It mattered not, he was gone. The King was dead.
But I was still a fan, maybe even a bigger fan than before.
I am to this day.
Perhaps the greatest tribute to the man lies in the fact that young men and women, people in their teens, twenties, thirties, are enormous fans of Elvis. We can thank men like Shawn Klush for that. Shawn is himself an extraordinary Elvis tribute performer. Thanks, Shawn.
The King may be dead.
But Elvis lives!
(P.S. Adding a postscript to a blog entry seems redundant. However, after a little poking around, I discovered that The Big El's given name was Larry Seth, and that he hasn't done the Elvis thing in decades. The biggest crowd Mr. Seth ever drew was in excess of 50,000, which is big! That was at a performance within a week or two of the death Elvis. The photo at the top of this entry is...Larry Seth, The Big El, performing before those 50,000 people.)
