Where Were You On That Fateful Day?

But in 1977 it was ok to say this stuff about Elvis.

Unfortunately, this was something that Elvis had to face all of his professional life.

That's why it came to a boiling point in 1974.

I was an 11yr old rogue playing out in the fields nearby with my friends...I got home to a scene with my dad crying and mayhem on the tv.......i think it was about 2pm in the afternoon, after a little while i noticed there was no-one around anywhere.....i think everyone was indoors watching the news in disbelief.

If i recall correctly most if not all of the television broacasts that day were devoted to Elvis (on all channels)....And i think they broadcast Elvis In Concert later that evening.

One of the saddest days of my life.

Sq

I was just a pup (I think the same age as LTB) but he has
recreated much of the fervor of that time. (Thanks!)
I didn't get Philly TV but New York (and some of Scranton, PA, long story...) so he has managed to remind me how much the re-broadcasts
of Elvis' movies played a key role at the time.

It was kind of "out of sync" but somehow comforting
to see marathons of '60s Elvis movies, not unlike those that I think existed before he died. In New York, stations like WOR (Channel 9)
had a role in it, but especially Channel 5 (WNEW) and
perhaps WPIX (Channel 11). Of course, local stations like
Channel 2, 4 & 7( all network afflilates) cued up anything
they could find of MSG footage or in the case of Channel
4, loads of NBC footage: '68 and ALOHA. The magazine
racks were always stocked with either Elvis-themed
Hollywood rags but also some rather nice special
"all Elvis" issues that I only have a handful of today.

It seemed like people tried to make up for their love of
Elvis after the fact. The sense of loss fueled an Elvis boom
that surely had the Colonel smiling. This was a rather
sad, final "Elvis comeback."

I recall that LOVING YOU got some prime time
broadcasts on NBC (a co-owner of sorts?) from about
'78 or '79 right into few lazy Augusts of the 1990s, believe it or not.
Everyday people watched Elvis rip into "Got A Lot
Of Livin' To Do" in "living color" - all on the precipice
of the cable TV era, when soon we'd all be watching some
random 100 channels with little else in common.
Back then, at least, on a bad night,
some 30% of the populace were watching Elvis, or so
it seemed.

LTB is correct that for years, CBS prided itself as being the
more "serious" news network due to the dominence of
Walter Kronkite and it being the premier network for so many years.
I lived in an "ABC" household, so the Elvis thing took off pretty fast.
I also actually remember the "Bert Lance" affair at the time, as I
was an avid newspaper reader, but frankly didn't get any of it.

I recall, of course, the '77 CBS Special that fall and the reaction to it,
as well as Kurt Russell's TV movie in '79, which seemed postively
electric at the time. (Haven't seen it since.) But that same year,
Geraldo Rivera's reports on 20/20 squarely blamed Dr. Nick
for Elvis' death - and by extention placed a lot of bad publicity
on Elvis after a rather celebratory year or two. (I recall how
NBC rebroadcast the '68 and ALOHA shows with Ann Margaret hosting..).

The '80s were just dispiriting, starting with one Albert Goldman...

Into the '80s, a TV marathon of '60 Elvis movies provided
a comforting counterweight. And every once in awhile,
'68 and ALOHA might be re-broadcast. At the time, that was still
"drop everyhing and watch this now" TV!

HBO's "One Night With You"version of a '68 sit-down show was
in its own way a revelation to all in my family and to the odd
detractors I knew in the late '80s. That show really packed
a whallop for many people. I think this show succeeded in
wiping a lot of anti-Elvis crap that had been building up
totally off-the-boards - assuming you had cable TV.

Last edited by Gregory Nolan Jr. on Wed Aug 17, 2005 7:13 pm, edited 2 times in total.

If i recall correctly most if not all of the television broacasts that day were devoted to Elvis (on all channels)....And i think they broadcast Elvis In Concert later that evening.

One of the saddest days of my life.

Sad day indeed. However, Elvis In Concert wasn't broadcasted until October 3, 1977.

Just about everything else was broadcasted that night though.

If i recall correctly most if not all of the television broacasts that day were devoted to Elvis (on all channels)....And i think they broadcast Elvis In Concert later that evening.

One of the saddest days of my life.

Sad day indeed. However, Elvis In Concert wasn't broadcasted until October 3, 1977.

Just about everything else was broadcasted that night though.

speaking of Elvis In Concert, does anyone have the stats of the viewing audience on the nite of October 3, 1977?

I once read that 41 Million people tuned in, but can anyone confirm this?

The only thing that I can confirm is that I was one of them.

I was one of them too.....or Rob and I were two of them. Something like that

"Loving You" was on NBC as late as 2002. I remember a prominent broadcast on the fifth anniversary in 1982.

I remember the A/M special with the '68 Special and "Aloha". It was maybe four or five months after his death. I didn't get to see it that night as my mom took me to bingo because she didn't have a babysitter. To make matters worse WNEW was showing "Tickle Me" that night. I didn't see either of these until repeats the following summer.

I remember the weekend before "Elvis in Concert" was on when was when I finally got to see "Star Wars". I remember "EIC" was on the cover of the local paper's TV guide they used the movie poster from Elvis on Tour.

NBC in early September aired an abbreviated verison of EOT at 10 pm. It was a school night and my sister and I snuck downstairs to watch it and my mom beat the sand out of us for sneaking out of bed.

I picked up a lot of those magazines that cluttered the newsstands in those stands. Unfortunatley, they're all lost to history. One I especially liked had pictures from all his movies and I used it as a guide to the ones I hadn't seen. And in those pre-VCR days, I used to look it at to get in the mood whenever a movie was on and as a souvenir when the show was over.

Despite Goldman, the constant and endless derogatory references to weight and drugs and later Public Enemy and their controversy, the '80s weren't as bad as they seemed. While it was true that Elvis' reputation was at an all-time low somebody still liked him. He was all over the place. It was far easier to encounter Elvis than it is today. His songs were still all over contemporary radio in a variety of formats and he dominated the oldies stations and shows. He was on television a lot. It seemed there was a new book out every week even if most of them were crap. The tenth anniversary inspired a huge appreciation. There was actually so much choice for Elvis stuff that weekend, I couldn't drink it all in.

The worst problem of the 1980s was that so much of Elvis' music was available. Up until about '83 or '84 you could still pick up the leftovers of the catalogue in some stores. From then to the start of the CD era, all there was a few albums and some comps. Vast parts of his reprertoire were out of print and difficult to obtain. It was especially troublesome for me in that I had a lot of stuff on 8-track and they didn't make the players anymore. When I picked up "EIB" when I finally got a CD player in 1990, I hadn't heard some of the songs in more than five years.

I was always very jealous of you guys that you were around when Elvis lived and got to see him live and see his rise to stardom.
After reading all your stories, that feeling is less dominant now, but I am sure that will come back when I hear him singing live.
I was around in 1977, but I was born in october 1974, so I was almost 3 years old. That's why I don't remember anything from that day, I was just too young.
August 16th must be a much sadder day when you were around in 1977 and remember everything, because for me it's a day that I know as the day Elvis died but it's not like I get all emotional about it. Sure, I find it all very sad and I really hate the fact that he's gone but if you were around that day in 1977 the emotions must be much stronger.

Ever the devilish joker....

Actually, I must confess. The entire story is true, but it was a dear friend's experience, not mine. I can say that the staggering media reaction to Elvis' death was a real mind-blower. It changed me from a casual fan to something more -- a dedicated fan and scholar of Elvis, the music and rock and roll.

DJC

I vaguely remember hearing that tale on FECC back in the day.
Some things are just too "out" to be made up! Kind of funny, too,
in a sick, infuriating way, too. (I wonder if what Kiss fan thought
of Kiss' Elvis tribute that followed in the concert itself.)

Yeah, it's true: "mind-blower" is the word. His death still can
shock me if I remember how "above it all" he once seemed.


And, of course, some have fun with our "enthusiasm":

"Loving You" was on NBC as late as 2002. I remember a prominent broadcast on the fifth anniversary in 1982.

I remember the A/M special with the '68 Special and "Aloha". It was maybe four or five months after his death. I didn't get to see it that night as my mom took me to bingo because she didn't have a babysitter. To make matters worse WNEW was showing "Tickle Me" that night. I didn't see either of these until repeats the following summer.

I remember the weekend before "Elvis in Concert" was on when was when I finally got to see "Star Wars". I remember "EIC" was on the cover of the local paper's TV guide they used the movie poster from Elvis on Tour.

NBC in early September aired an abbreviated verison of EOT at 10 pm. It was a school night and my sister and I snuck downstairs to watch it and my mom beat the sand out of us for sneaking out of bed.

I picked up a lot of those magazines that cluttered the newsstands in those stands. Unfortunatley, they're all lost to history. One I especially liked had pictures from all his movies and I used it as a guide to the ones I hadn't seen. And in those pre-VCR days, I used to look it at to get in the mood whenever a movie was on and as a souvenir when the show was over.

Despite Goldman, the constant and endless derogatory references to weight and drugs and later Public Enemy and their controversy, the '80s weren't as bad as they seemed. While it was true that Elvis' reputation was at an all-time low somebody still liked him. He was all over the place. It was far easier to encounter Elvis than it is today. His songs were still all over contemporary radio in a variety of formats and he dominated the oldies stations and shows. He was on television a lot. It seemed there was a new book out every week even if most of them were crap. The tenth anniversary inspired a huge appreciation. There was actually so much choice for Elvis stuff that weekend, I couldn't drink it all in.

The worst problem of the 1980s was that so much of Elvis' music was available. Up until about '83 or '84 you could still pick up the leftovers of the catalogue in some stores. From then to the start of the CD era, all there was a few albums and some comps. Vast parts of his reprertoire were out of print and difficult to obtain. It was especially troublesome for me in that I had a lot of stuff on 8-track and they didn't make the players anymore. When I picked up "EIB" when I finally got a CD player in 1990, I hadn't heard some of the songs in more than five years.

I enjoyed that post! Yeah, in 2002, I remember thinking, jeez,
how cool is it that Elvis is still on a network, let alone circa a dusty
(if eternally-colorful) 1957 vehicle!

And as you point out, the '80s were actually not all bad on for fans.

I'm afraid we are going back , as Greil Marcus said in an essay a few years ago, to a slow disappearance of Elvis from everyday life:


"It was in late July that a representative from a public radio talk show asked me to take part in a program on “all the insanity about the twenty-fifth anniversary.” He didn’t have to say the twenty-fifth anniversary of what, but I still didn’t know what he was getting at. It seemed to me that in 2002, twenty-five years after Elvis Presley’s death, and more than two years after the last interesting Elvis impersonator, Bill Clinton, had left his stage, the real story was the evaporation of Elvis Presley in American life.

What was striking, given the staggering ubiquity of Elvis Presley after his death, was his disappearance from ordinary talk, paintings, movies, t-shirts, other people’s songs—from the cultural conversation through which a society explains itself to itself. The commemoration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of August 16, 1977 seemed more than anything a media mirage churned up by Graceland smoke machines. A Graceland spokesman had recently discussed the problem facing the operation: if Elvis Presley was indeed immortal, his fans were not. Many of Elvis’s original fans were dying off; if the enormously successful marketing of Elvis Presley over the last twenty-five years were to continue, they would have to be replaced by people who were not even born when Elvis Presley died.

“What insanity?” I said to my caller.

“What about the remix of ‘A Little Less Conversation’ putting Elvis over the Beatles for the most number-one singles in England?” ...."

http://www.threepennyreview.com/samples/marcus_w03.html

Oh, he'll be back, like ALLC proved, but I wonder sometimes...

P.S. I had that same great movie magazine and stupidly traded off some
of my tackier memorobilia to a hard-core fan ten years ago!

Little did i know...!

I was home that day being 13 i was watching tv when the new broke that Elvis had died being a fan i remember that night some of the news stations caring the special progaming that night on Elvis
I remember watching Eivis In Concert in Oct of 77 remembering that is the last live peforrmcace that we would ever get to see was sad
It also hit be in another way also Being born on Jan 8

When you look at some of the editorials gathered by the Gregorys in their book, many, many of them are very dismissive.

"He was not an especially creative man"- the Montgomery Advertiser.

On Elvis' rock and roll- "Bland stuff compared with anarchic rock movements, from acid to punk, that were to follow" The Virginian Pilot.

"He was not a great singer. He never achieved the quality of a Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Robert Goulet (What???) Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole or many others. He made no pretense about it. As an actor his ability was even more limited." Press Herald- Portland Maine.

Utah's The Desert News smarmily wrote that some "mourning is in order" because Elvis never left anything of "lasting value".

"I think what Presley's death really proves is that the majority of Americans- while fine decent people- have lousy taste in music"- Mike Royko syndicated columnist. Royko called Elvis' success an "enormous con."

"Extraordinarily untalented" San Francisco Chronicle.

The Tulsa World called him a "mediocre singer".

Imagine if such comments came forth about Sinatra in 1998. But in 1977 it was ok to say this stuff about Elvis.

What an appalling collection of quotes. I can take comfort
only in assuming this was a generational problem.

I liked old codgers liked Royko (or Jackie Gleason) and assume
their comments were a reflection of their big band,
WWII sensibility.

What is the source of these quotes, LTB?

They were gathered by Neal and Janice Gregory in their book "When Elvis Died". Some are in the main text but most are in the editorials they collected. Many others, even though they are respectful, are also dismissive and attribute Elvis' fame to simple nostalgia and Col. Parker's management. None of them match the Carter speechwriter who tried to derail the president's Elvis tribute. "To me, the death of Elvis Presley was the least important event of the century." Fortunately, less snobbish heads prevailed and the administration crafted a lovely tribute.

I feel Marcus is a little too pessimistic. He has been looking for the end for more than 20 years. However, he does have a point about some of Elvis' cultural interaction. Although he is still used as a reference point in something like 8 mile. I think the Estate is the big villain in his retreat from public debate as they have been so stringent in controlling the image. When fans won't to do something they stop it, censor it, control it. I also think the demographers and corporate consolidation have something to do with it as well. These market testers are simply trying to write Elvis out of the picture in their quest to paint a picture of eternal youth for everyone in the country.

Still even now magazines put out two editions of magazines with Elvis on their cover because it's big business. Ricky Nelson commanded a huge following in the 1950s. Yet his hordes do not buy these magazines. Some of those original fans have been replaced.

Many fans on here such as you and myself are not first generation Elvis fans. Some like See Rider or Elvis Babe have never known a time when Elvis was alive. His legacy is safe for the near future.

Well, I wanted to be challenged and I hope you are right.

And of course, EPE brought on the BBC's constant use of that
awful '77 live associated press photo whenever Elvis is referred to.

And the powers that be would like to reign in even this site
from what I understand, so hang tough, people.

Elvis is so much a part of modern culture he will be around when my youngest grandchildren are pensioners.

Just think of all those grandchildren of Elvis fans, ignoring their parents, and listening and looking awestruck at Elvis DVDs:-)

I've seen them wide-eyed watching "Loving You". Elvis was just so cool then.

The anti-Elvis media lost. They can never forgive themselves for being soooo wrong about him, right from the start.

What was striking, given the staggering ubiquity of Elvis Presley after his death, was his disappearance from ordinary talk, paintings, movies, t-shirts, other people’s songs—from the cultural conversation through which a society explains itself to itself. The commemoration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of August 16, 1977 seemed more than anything a media mirage churned up by Graceland smoke machines

.
Strange! I agree with Maurice. In the UK and Europe I find the opposite to be true!

I'm still up in the air on this matter of Elvis' continued
currency. It's inevitable that some drop-off is or will
occur, but likewise for the Beatles, Sinatra, etc. All
are legends of all time, however.

I think with DVDs in particular, Elvis is "enshrined" and can be
tapped into, just as new generations enjoy "The Sound
Of Music," "The Wizard of Oz," etc.

Still, another year spent talking about "stars" like
"50 Cent," or "Oasis" or "Jessica Simpson" and I really
start to miss Elvis. 28 years since that
"Tupelo Flash" left the stage for good and sometimes
I really feel those three decades.

Hell, I miss the 20th century.

But the perspectives (optimism?) of a Maurice,
Delboy and LTB are appreciated.

Someday Elvis will not command the mass audience he has today but I don't think it's unreasonable to think that there will be significant pockets of people that will keep the music alive. This idea of relevance is way overplayed. Great music and art is always relevant. The idea that you have to sell these huge numbers of records to have some meaning in the contemporary world is conceit of the companies that sell these records.

Good point, which is why I think the flogging of "Elvis, Inc." (the "brand")
by EPE, RCA, et. al. grates.

Now is as good times as any to return order to his record catalog
if only for posterity. You just don't see the same schlocky
"new" albums for the Beatles, Frank Sinatra, etc. - with a few
exceptions.

I'm in the mood to revive relevant threads today...

Apparently so.

I was 10 years old. My mom and sister came home from shopping at the mall. My mom said that they announced at the mall that Elvis had died. For years I thought that they had announced it over the PA system, or at least that's what I pictured back then. It was until recently that my mom told me that they had actually heard it on a radio or stereo that was playing in one of the stores. Needless to say that at the time she told me that night I was shocked. Probably the first time in my life that hearing about the death of someone in the news struck me. The next day or maybe the next week or so, it was all over television. I remember going to a record store or a record department in a larger store and all the Elvis records were gone. Definitely a period of mourning was happening just about everywhere.

Apparently so.

Bothers you, Rob ? We're only going to have new threads made on the same subject every year anyway. Might as well build on existing conversations.

Thanks for the input, IntheGhetto.

Bothers you, Rob ?

Not in the least.

Have at it.