Thomas wrote:selling "super souvenirs" with always the same speaker with his legacy hunter voice
You must be forgetting that he sold souvenirs in the form of photos, okay maybe those were not "super"
, but that started before he met Elvis. And since old habits die hard... Anyway here is the little story for the amusement of all users.
-----------
In the early days, it is said, when Parker was booking country singers across the South, he put them on "round robin style." This meant they were booked into two diffrent towns for the same night, often as much as a hundred miles apart. The first act would finish in one town and then drive like crazy to get to the next town to start the act. And all the other acts would do the same thing. Thus Parker's musicians got double the money. An intermission was scheduled which provided a break in case there was a flat tire or other emergency.
Parker used that intermission to sell 8x10 glossy photos of the performers. Later, he send a small boy into the hall to pick up souvenir programs which people had left behind so they could be sold in the next town. Nothing was wasted. Every possible opportunity was taken to get an extra nickel or so out of the paying customers.
and
He used to shock Hollywood men by doing things like appearing in the lobby of a theater where an Elvis movie was showing and selling photographs or other Elvis souveniers. The shocking thing was that he often did this himself rather than hiring some lackey to do it.
