The Crudup Connection: 5 July 1954 Revisited

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Re: The Crudup Connection: 5 July 1954 Revisited

Post by drjohncarpenter »

samses wrote:
Fri Nov 13, 2020 9:06 pm
This a fantastic post. Extremely well researched and loaded with new info for me. Thank you, thank you very much!


Eight years later, this may still be the most important topic to ever grace this or any Elvis Presley discussion board.

If you care about his music, popular culture and American history, that is.


::rocks


.
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Stop, look and listen, baby <<--->> that's my philosophy!

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Re: The Crudup Connection: 5 July 1954 Revisited

Post by ck1 »

Totally agree Doc!
This is the mother of all posts ;)



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Re: The Crudup Connection: 5 July 1954 Revisited

Post by mike edwards66 »

drjohncarpenter wrote:
Tue Nov 17, 2020 10:42 pm
samses wrote:
Fri Nov 13, 2020 9:06 pm
This a fantastic post. Extremely well researched and loaded with new info for me. Thank you, thank you very much!


Eight years later, this may still be the most important topic to ever grace this or any Elvis Presley discussion board.

If you care about his music, popular culture and American history, that is.
Huh?

WOW! Elvis created the classic rock 'n' roll band
https://www.elvis-collectors.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1462367#p1462367

The ground began to rumble and the earth began to rock . . .
https://www.elvis-collectors.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=100063&p=1636745#p1636745

The pleasing languor of the later King
https://www.elvis-collectors.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=87213&start=125


>>>


this is a wonderful day, it’s as bright as a day’s ever been . . .

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Re: The Crudup Connection: 5 July 1954 Revisited

Post by drjohncarpenter »

I just noticed that today, July 5th, falls on a Monday.

July 5, 1954 also fell on a Monday.

The 1954 and 2021 calendars may well be identical, so what better reason to revisit this ground-breaking FECC topic.

George Smith's research is sound, fascinating and completely changes everything we thought about Elvis that long-ago Monday night.

The teen-ager knew what he wanted.




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Re: The Crudup Connection: 5 July 1954 Revisited

Post by AndrewJ »

I wonder how Elvis, Scotty, Bill, and Sam were feeling 67 years ago this morning? Did they realise their previous night's work would be game changing? OR were they just exhausted and relieved to have got something on tape? I think Sam knew that this was the beginning of something



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Re: The Crudup Connection: 5 July 1954 Revisited

Post by George Smith »

Monday 5th July 1954 was the longest working day of Elvis Presley’s life. A thousand times he glanced at his watch, willing his shift to be over. When the whistle finally blew, he rushed home, took a shower, combed his hair twice, changed his clothes and, guitar in hand, left in time to arrive at 706 Union before 7:00 pm.

Marion had gone for the day, Scotty and Bill were already uncasing their instruments, and Sam was laughing at Bill’s latest wisecrack. He looked up as the boy came in through the front door and then, five short paces later, nervously stepped down onto the studio floor itself. They all shook hands, and the first thing Elvis noticed was the heat. Lacking all but the most basic air conditioning, the Memphis Recording Service was an oven by this time of day, and the four men were soon dabbing sweat from their foreheads.

Sam reassured the boy that this evening was just going to be an informal session: Elvis would be putting a few songs on tape — this time with a couple of backing musicians — to see how it sounded. He positioned three microphones precisely, and gave each player instructions on where to stand. Sam placed Elvis nearest the control booth, but had him face away from the window, lest the producer’s gaze un-nerve him further. Scotty and Bill formed the other two corners of the triangle, and all three looked in at one another, just six feet apart.

Elvis and Bill checked their instruments against Scotty’s beautiful bronze-finished Gibson es295, which was always perfectly tuned for studio work. The conversation inevitably turned to repertoire, and a handful of songs were suggested and discarded: the challenge was to find something that all three musicians knew well and could play all the way through.

Eventually, they settled on a most obscure selection: “Harbor Lights”, a 1950 number one pop hit for The Sammy Kaye Orchestra. It was a mid-tempo ballad given a Hawaiian flavour by the use of steel guitar. As was the way of things, it had charted for several different artists, and the vocal line that Elvis had in his head was that of Bing Crosby’s, no less. Elvis owned the Crosby single — he also loved the B-side, the similarly exotic “Beyond the Reef” — and it was a song he’d sung often in his room, maybe even to Dixie.

As they played a chord or two, Sam slipped into the control booth and cued up the Ampex. This being just a try-out session, he didn’t bother setting the second machine, but decided to record the boys “dry”, without echo. He started the tape rolling while they were still gently strumming, then silently caught their attention and nodded for them to begin.

The first two takes didn’t get past the guitar introduction, but the third was complete. Scotty’s opening notes rang clear and true, capturing the balmy and still studio atmosphere. Elvis self-consciously crooned his way through the tune, throwing in a whistling section for good measure. The song ended, and Sam praised the boys, calling for another take at a slightly faster tempo. It was a tactic he often used, trying to catch the musicians by surprise. They obliged: Elvis played around with the words a little; Scotty — probably to Sam’s annoyance — added a stream of over-complex guitar fills; Bill plunked on the first beat of each bar.

They tried another two aborted takes, one of which fell apart because Scotty’s accompaniment became so intricate that Elvis lost the rhythm. Hoping to shake things up again, Sam called for a key change. So the trio lowered the song, giving it more of a melancholy edge. Scotty continued over-filling, causing Sam to suggest maybe he should bring a bottle of bourbon next time to slow him down a little. They tried yet another take without directing the song anywhere new.

Elvis had been in the studio for maybe the best part of forty minutes. The heat was suffocatingly oppressive. He remained quiet between takes, unsure of exactly what was expected of him, but keenly aware that everything revolved around his performances. The next take sort of just dissolved, and all present knew the song had run out of steam.

Sam suggested they try something else. Elvis listened while titles were tossed about. Pop numbers, hillbilly hits and ballads were all floated, but no one, not even Mr Phillips, talked about the blues. And why would they? White musicians in a Memphis studio — even a studio usually dedicated to black performers — were unlikely to know about, much less sing anything from, the r&b chart.

Eventually, they chose Leon Payne’s 1949 country hit “I Love You Because”, a fiddle-led ballad, but Elvis’ vocal line was inspired by Eddie Fisher’s 1950 pop cover. As he had done with the first song of the evening, Elvis took his inspiration from the best singer. Sure, he knew the hillbilly version, but he matched himself against the smooth crooning of the pop artist rather than the pedestrian original.

Sam changed tapes and they spent much of the next hour running through take after take of their new selection. Again, Elvis played with the words; sometimes he whistled; sometimes he tried a dramatic narration. Scotty resisted overplaying, and when he got it right it was beautiful. Bill still plunked on the beat.

This pattern was repeated over and again with different songs as the minutes drifted slowly by. Sam grew impatient inwardly — although he would never allow his players to see any negative emotion — because he sensed the boy was holding back. There was something he wasn’t revealing. Yes, he sang well, but Sam had already realised they didn’t have the next Red Foley or Bing Crosby in the studio. Scotty, just three years older than Elvis but seeming decades more mature, was wondering why he was wasting a Monday night. Bill carried on plunking, knowing the session was heading nowhere.

They’d been playing and replaying for hours. Sam, sure that nothing of worth had been recorded, was beginning to use the same reels, taping over previous performances. The enthusiasm that had filled the studio at 7:00 pm was all but gone. The boys were tired, hot and sweaty. All three musicians had work the next morning. There was the occasional yawn and regular glances at watches. Maybe it was 10 o’clock. Maybe 11. Perhaps even later.

Sam came out onto the floor to call a short break. The guys picked up a Coke. Sam returned to the booth to sort through the tapes. Bill put down his bass and laid flat out beside it. Scotty slumped into a chair and fanned himself with a newspaper. Elvis remained standing at the mike, guitar still strapped, hair still perfectly combed, sweat-soaked shirt sticking to his back. No one felt the sense of frustration more keenly than him. The studio was silent. All evening he’d been following the general suggestions of pop and hillbilly tunes (which he genuinely loved, of course) — songs they’d all known how to play. Heck, he’d nominated some of the choices himself.

But the conversation had never turned to the other side of the musical fence. At no point had Mr Phillips followed Elvis’ carefully imagined but unlikely script: “Do you know any blues, son?”

The hour was late. This was the session Elvis had been dreaming of for a year or even longer. And he knew that any minute now, Mr Phillips was going to call time and his big moment would be gone forever. Elvis had not wanted to expose himself or his musical tastes to people he barely knew. He hadn’t wanted to risk potential ridicule. But, with the Blackwoods’ tragedy in mind, he sensed he stood at a crossroads and, inspired, made a decision.

Seemingly out of the blue, Elvis started strumming his guitar rhythmically and loudly on an insistent A chord. Scotty and Bill looked up, surprised. Until now, Elvis had played slowly and quietly all evening. After a bar or two, Elvis sang the words, “Well, that’s all right, now mama”. Bill laughed and leapt to his feet, amused by the catchy beat and, although he didn’t recognise the song, grabbed his bass and started not plunking but slapping. Scotty — also unfamiliar with the tune — picked up his guitar, figured out the key and started filling in where he could.

Sam, still in the booth and facing away from the band, stopped dead: chills ran down his spine. This was his “Marion” moment. The point at which he realised the boy had something special; something that connected emotionally with the listener. He, of course, did recognise the song, and the sense of swing and rhythm coming from the three untrained musicians was simply irresistible. He put down the tape box and turned around. Elvis still faced away from the glass, but Sam could see him physically involved in the performance, bouncing on his toes. Scotty and Bill, both beaming, were focused more on Elvis’ left hand, looking for the chord changes.

Sam stepped down onto the studio floor and asked, “What are you boys doing?” The song abruptly stopped — although Bill, ever the clown, insisted on hitting a couple of extra notes — and the trio looked sheepishly at the producer, like children caught messing about by their father after lights out. “Ah, we’re just fooling around, Mr Phillips,” Elvis suggested, barely suppressing his stutter.

Now, what Sam wanted to do was grab Elvis by the shoulders and shout, “Why have you been holding out on me? You should have told me you knew Crudup’s stuff ! What other blues do you know?” But what he actually did was to say, “Well, it sounds pretty good. Let’s back up, see if we can find a place to start over, and get it on tape.”

The boys looked at one another and shrugged. Elvis clarified he was playing A, D and E chords, then suggested it might be nice to have a guitar solo after the second verse. Sam meanwhile was furiously cueing up the Ampex, partly terrified that they’d be unable to recreate the magic in a formal take. Maybe he should have just recorded the jam. There was no time to set up the slapback: he needed to get this on tape now.

Sam gave the okay and Elvis accidentally brushed against one guitar string. There was no count in, no take number announcement. He started strumming and Bill jumped right in on the second beat, and then both men stopped. It wasn’t quite right. They tried again, this time getting as far as the end of the first line, with Scotty following the vocal melody, before coming to a halt. Sam held his breath.

They started yet again. Two bars of introduction, then Elvis started singing, Scotty once more following the tune. The guitarist quickly realised he should be filling in between the lines, so he changed tack, looking for a less cluttered approach. Bill was still slapping, and the physicality of his playing created a percussive clicking sound, making the band seem much bigger than it was. Scotty’s solo spot came and he wandered around the strings, finding some good notes, but he sounded too stiff. The take finished. It didn’t quite have the looseness of what he’d heard when the boys were jamming but, damn it, Sam knew they were almost there.

“Sounds good! Now, Bill, you let Elvis have a little more space in the intro; don’t jump in too fast. Scotty, I swear, if I’d wanted Chet Atkins on this session I would have flown him in from Nashville — keep it simple, son. Elvis, you’re doing just fine. Maybe we can ease back a little on the tempo. Okay, let’s try it again, just one more time for Sam.”

After hours of tension, there was suddenly a sense of grace and freedom in the cramped sweatbox of a studio. The boys were ready; Elvis was a ball of energy; Bill was chewing gum and smiling; Scotty was attentive and serious. Elvis hit the opening riff, clear and strong, with just the slightest drop in tempo, allowing the song to breathe. Bill jumped in perfectly, a beat later than previously — Sam was right; it worked much better this way. Scotty watched Elvis as the second bar of introduction came to an end, waiting for the vocal to kick in, so he could feed off his lines. But Elvis didn’t come in as scheduled and Sam’s heart skipped a beat. The riff kept going for an extra half a bar before Elvis, now absolutely in command of the song and teasing the band, started in with the lyric. And Sam loved this — it was different! It would catch the listener by surprise.

The performance swung beautifully, but Sam stood quite motionless throughout the take. He didn’t want anything to interrupt the moment. Scotty found the ideal balance between complexity and simplicity, and his guitar solo perfectly complemented Elvis’ singing. Bill drove the song along, giving it the essential bounce and lightness of touch. But it was Elvis who was the catalyst. His acoustic guitar playing had, up until now, been a handicap. But suddenly, it was the glue that held everything together. And his vocals were a revelation. This was an adult song about a failing relationship, and Elvis sang it like a bird. He brought together the lust of Jimmie Rodgers and the piety of the Carters, all in a single performance.

Just two minutes after the song had begun, Elvis rang the final note and stood absolutely still, waiting for the all clear from Mr Phillips. When it came, the players laughed and relaxed. Sam was exhilarated. For the first time, he’d captured the spirit of his black artists through a white band. But Elvis wasn’t simply a white boy singing the blues: he was a poor young Southerner singing in a way that made barriers and divisions irrelevant.

They listened to the playback and self-consciously mocked their own performances. It began to occur to Scotty and Bill that they’d actually played on a blues. When the tape ended, the boys stopped laughing and a tense silence filled the small room. One voice wondered whether it’d be allowed to be played on radio. After another short silence, the answer came back, “Good God, they’ll run us out of town.”

Sam sent the boys home, although none of them would be able to sleep that night. Elvis walked on air all the way. Scotty drove Bill and their instruments back to Belz. Sam stayed in the booth and played the song again. It was black, white, country, blues, gospel and pop all mixed together. But overall, and most importantly, it was the sound of youth. American popular music of all genres was dominated by singers who were in their late twenties and beyond. Why? Because it took so damn long to make a breakthrough, to get a record contract, to get on the radio, to achieve recognition.

He wondered to himself again why the boy hadn’t told him he knew blues songs. But, in truth, Sam entirely understood Elvis’ need for discretion. One tended not to talk about these things — hell, even with Dewey he skirted around the obvious conversation — but he felt sure he’d found a white boy who was not only non-prejudiced, but who also adored black culture as much as he did. He knew they’d achieved something truly special, but wasn’t at all sure what was going to happen next.

He put the tape in a Scotch box and left it on his desk in the booth. He locked up, then made his own way home, thinking to himself, “Imagine a kid like that knowing Crudup.” The following morning, Sam, Scotty and Bill would all tell the same tale to their wives over breakfast “… and then, out of nowhere, this crazy boy just started singing this song.”

And that’s the story everyone, including Elvis, told from that point on.

Walk A Lonely Street: The Secret Song, II



WALK A LONELY STREET
Elvis Presley, Country Music &
The True Story of Heartbreak Hotel

Now available from Amazon

http://www.GeorgeSmithPublications.com
https://www.facebook.com/WalkALonelyStreet/

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Re: The Crudup Connection: 5 July 1954 Revisited

Post by drjohncarpenter »

I think they call this a sneak peek treat.

Very nice, thank you.




George Smith wrote:
Tue Jul 06, 2021 8:43 pm
Monday 5th July 1954 was the longest working day of Elvis Presley’s life. A thousand times he glanced at his watch, willing his shift to be over. When the whistle finally blew, he rushed home, took a shower, combed his hair twice, changed his clothes and, guitar in hand, left in time to arrive at 706 Union before 7:00 pm.

Marion had gone for the day, Scotty and Bill were already uncasing their instruments, and Sam was laughing at Bill’s latest wisecrack. He looked up as the boy came in through the front door and then, five short paces later, nervously stepped down onto the studio floor itself. They all shook hands, and the first thing Elvis noticed was the heat. Lacking all but the most basic air conditioning, the Memphis Recording Service was an oven by this time of day, and the four men were soon dabbing sweat from their foreheads.

Sam reassured the boy that this evening was just going to be an informal session: Elvis would be putting a few songs on tape — this time with a couple of backing musicians — to see how it sounded. He positioned three microphones precisely, and gave each player instructions on where to stand. Sam placed Elvis nearest the control booth, but had him face away from the window, lest the producer’s gaze un-nerve him further. Scotty and Bill formed the other two corners of the triangle, and all three looked in at one another, just six feet apart.

Elvis and Bill checked their instruments against Scotty’s beautiful bronze-finished Gibson es295, which was always perfectly tuned for studio work. The conversation inevitably turned to repertoire, and a handful of songs were suggested and discarded: the challenge was to find something that all three musicians knew well and could play all the way through.

Eventually, they settled on a most obscure selection: “Harbor Lights”, a 1950 number one pop hit for The Sammy Kaye Orchestra. It was a mid-tempo ballad given a Hawaiian flavour by the use of steel guitar. As was the way of things, it had charted for several different artists, and the vocal line that Elvis had in his head was that of Bing Crosby’s, no less. Elvis owned the Crosby single — he also loved the B-side, the similarly exotic “Beyond the Reef” — and it was a song he’d sung often in his room, maybe even to Dixie.

As they played a chord or two, Sam slipped into the control booth and cued up the Ampex. This being just a try-out session, he didn’t bother setting the second machine, but decided to record the boys “dry”, without echo. He started the tape rolling while they were still gently strumming, then silently caught their attention and nodded for them to begin.

The first two takes didn’t get past the guitar introduction, but the third was complete. Scotty’s opening notes rang clear and true, capturing the balmy and still studio atmosphere. Elvis self-consciously crooned his way through the tune, throwing in a whistling section for good measure. The song ended, and Sam praised the boys, calling for another take at a slightly faster tempo. It was a tactic he often used, trying to catch the musicians by surprise. They obliged: Elvis played around with the words a little; Scotty — probably to Sam’s annoyance — added a stream of over-complex guitar fills; Bill plunked on the first beat of each bar.

They tried another two aborted takes, one of which fell apart because Scotty’s accompaniment became so intricate that Elvis lost the rhythm. Hoping to shake things up again, Sam called for a key change. So the trio lowered the song, giving it more of a melancholy edge. Scotty continued over-filling, causing Sam to suggest maybe he should bring a bottle of bourbon next time to slow him down a little. They tried yet another take without directing the song anywhere new.

Elvis had been in the studio for maybe the best part of forty minutes. The heat was suffocatingly oppressive. He remained quiet between takes, unsure of exactly what was expected of him, but keenly aware that everything revolved around his performances. The next take sort of just dissolved, and all present knew the song had run out of steam.

Sam suggested they try something else. Elvis listened while titles were tossed about. Pop numbers, hillbilly hits and ballads were all floated, but no one, not even Mr Phillips, talked about the blues. And why would they? White musicians in a Memphis studio — even a studio usually dedicated to black performers — were unlikely to know about, much less sing anything from, the r&b chart.

Eventually, they chose Leon Payne’s 1949 country hit “I Love You Because”, a fiddle-led ballad, but Elvis’ vocal line was inspired by Eddie Fisher’s 1950 pop cover. As he had done with the first song of the evening, Elvis took his inspiration from the best singer. Sure, he knew the hillbilly version, but he matched himself against the smooth crooning of the pop artist rather than the pedestrian original.

Sam changed tapes and they spent much of the next hour running through take after take of their new selection. Again, Elvis played with the words; sometimes he whistled; sometimes he tried a dramatic narration. Scotty resisted overplaying, and when he got it right it was beautiful. Bill still plunked on the beat.

This pattern was repeated over and again with different songs as the minutes drifted slowly by. Sam grew impatient inwardly — although he would never allow his players to see any negative emotion — because he sensed the boy was holding back. There was something he wasn’t revealing. Yes, he sang well, but Sam had already realised they didn’t have the next Red Foley or Bing Crosby in the studio. Scotty, just three years older than Elvis but seeming decades more mature, was wondering why he was wasting a Monday night. Bill carried on plunking, knowing the session was heading nowhere.

They’d been playing and replaying for hours. Sam, sure that nothing of worth had been recorded, was beginning to use the same reels, taping over previous performances. The enthusiasm that had filled the studio at 7:00 pm was all but gone. The boys were tired, hot and sweaty. All three musicians had work the next morning. There was the occasional yawn and regular glances at watches. Maybe it was 10 o’clock. Maybe 11. Perhaps even later.

Sam came out onto the floor to call a short break. The guys picked up a Coke. Sam returned to the booth to sort through the tapes. Bill put down his bass and laid flat out beside it. Scotty slumped into a chair and fanned himself with a newspaper. Elvis remained standing at the mike, guitar still strapped, hair still perfectly combed, sweat-soaked shirt sticking to his back. No one felt the sense of frustration more keenly than him. The studio was silent. All evening he’d been following the general suggestions of pop and hillbilly tunes (which he genuinely loved, of course) — songs they’d all known how to play. Heck, he’d nominated some of the choices himself.

But the conversation had never turned to the other side of the musical fence. At no point had Mr Phillips followed Elvis’ carefully imagined but unlikely script: “Do you know any blues, son?”

The hour was late. This was the session Elvis had been dreaming of for a year or even longer. And he knew that any minute now, Mr Phillips was going to call time and his big moment would be gone forever. Elvis had not wanted to expose himself or his musical tastes to people he barely knew. He hadn’t wanted to risk potential ridicule. But, with the Blackwoods’ tragedy in mind, he sensed he stood at a crossroads and, inspired, made a decision.

Seemingly out of the blue, Elvis started strumming his guitar rhythmically and loudly on an insistent A chord. Scotty and Bill looked up, surprised. Until now, Elvis had played slowly and quietly all evening. After a bar or two, Elvis sang the words, “Well, that’s all right, now mama”. Bill laughed and leapt to his feet, amused by the catchy beat and, although he didn’t recognise the song, grabbed his bass and started not plunking but slapping. Scotty — also unfamiliar with the tune — picked up his guitar, figured out the key and started filling in where he could.

Sam, still in the booth and facing away from the band, stopped dead: chills ran down his spine. This was his “Marion” moment. The point at which he realised the boy had something special; something that connected emotionally with the listener. He, of course, did recognise the song, and the sense of swing and rhythm coming from the three untrained musicians was simply irresistible. He put down the tape box and turned around. Elvis still faced away from the glass, but Sam could see him physically involved in the performance, bouncing on his toes. Scotty and Bill, both beaming, were focused more on Elvis’ left hand, looking for the chord changes.

Sam stepped down onto the studio floor and asked, “What are you boys doing?” The song abruptly stopped — although Bill, ever the clown, insisted on hitting a couple of extra notes — and the trio looked sheepishly at the producer, like children caught messing about by their father after lights out. “Ah, we’re just fooling around, Mr Phillips,” Elvis suggested, barely suppressing his stutter.

Now, what Sam wanted to do was grab Elvis by the shoulders and shout, “Why have you been holding out on me? You should have told me you knew Crudup’s stuff ! What other blues do you know?” But what he actually did was to say, “Well, it sounds pretty good. Let’s back up, see if we can find a place to start over, and get it on tape.”

The boys looked at one another and shrugged. Elvis clarified he was playing A, D and E chords, then suggested it might be nice to have a guitar solo after the second verse. Sam meanwhile was furiously cueing up the Ampex, partly terrified that they’d be unable to recreate the magic in a formal take. Maybe he should have just recorded the jam. There was no time to set up the slapback: he needed to get this on tape now.

Sam gave the okay and Elvis accidentally brushed against one guitar string. There was no count in, no take number announcement. He started strumming and Bill jumped right in on the second beat, and then both men stopped. It wasn’t quite right. They tried again, this time getting as far as the end of the first line, with Scotty following the vocal melody, before coming to a halt. Sam held his breath.

They started yet again. Two bars of introduction, then Elvis started singing, Scotty once more following the tune. The guitarist quickly realised he should be filling in between the lines, so he changed tack, looking for a less cluttered approach. Bill was still slapping, and the physicality of his playing created a percussive clicking sound, making the band seem much bigger than it was. Scotty’s solo spot came and he wandered around the strings, finding some good notes, but he sounded too stiff. The take finished. It didn’t quite have the looseness of what he’d heard when the boys were jamming but, damn it, Sam knew they were almost there.

“Sounds good! Now, Bill, you let Elvis have a little more space in the intro; don’t jump in too fast. Scotty, I swear, if I’d wanted Chet Atkins on this session I would have flown him in from Nashville — keep it simple, son. Elvis, you’re doing just fine. Maybe we can ease back a little on the tempo. Okay, let’s try it again, just one more time for Sam.”

After hours of tension, there was suddenly a sense of grace and freedom in the cramped sweatbox of a studio. The boys were ready; Elvis was a ball of energy; Bill was chewing gum and smiling; Scotty was attentive and serious. Elvis hit the opening riff, clear and strong, with just the slightest drop in tempo, allowing the song to breathe. Bill jumped in perfectly, a beat later than previously — Sam was right; it worked much better this way. Scotty watched Elvis as the second bar of introduction came to an end, waiting for the vocal to kick in, so he could feed off his lines. But Elvis didn’t come in as scheduled and Sam’s heart skipped a beat. The riff kept going for an extra half a bar before Elvis, now absolutely in command of the song and teasing the band, started in with the lyric. And Sam loved this — it was different! It would catch the listener by surprise.

The performance swung beautifully, but Sam stood quite motionless throughout the take. He didn’t want anything to interrupt the moment. Scotty found the ideal balance between complexity and simplicity, and his guitar solo perfectly complemented Elvis’ singing. Bill drove the song along, giving it the essential bounce and lightness of touch. But it was Elvis who was the catalyst. His acoustic guitar playing had, up until now, been a handicap. But suddenly, it was the glue that held everything together. And his vocals were a revelation. This was an adult song about a failing relationship, and Elvis sang it like a bird. He brought together the lust of Jimmie Rodgers and the piety of the Carters, all in a single performance.

Just two minutes after the song had begun, Elvis rang the final note and stood absolutely still, waiting for the all clear from Mr Phillips. When it came, the players laughed and relaxed. Sam was exhilarated. For the first time, he’d captured the spirit of his black artists through a white band. But Elvis wasn’t simply a white boy singing the blues: he was a poor young Southerner singing in a way that made barriers and divisions irrelevant.

They listened to the playback and self-consciously mocked their own performances. It began to occur to Scotty and Bill that they’d actually played on a blues. When the tape ended, the boys stopped laughing and a tense silence filled the small room. One voice wondered whether it’d be allowed to be played on radio. After another short silence, the answer came back, “Good God, they’ll run us out of town.”

Sam sent the boys home, although none of them would be able to sleep that night. Elvis walked on air all the way. Scotty drove Bill and their instruments back to Belz. Sam stayed in the booth and played the song again. It was black, white, country, blues, gospel and pop all mixed together. But overall, and most importantly, it was the sound of youth. American popular music of all genres was dominated by singers who were in their late twenties and beyond. Why? Because it took so damn long to make a breakthrough, to get a record contract, to get on the radio, to achieve recognition.

He wondered to himself again why the boy hadn’t told him he knew blues songs. But, in truth, Sam entirely understood Elvis’ need for discretion. One tended not to talk about these things — hell, even with Dewey he skirted around the obvious conversation — but he felt sure he’d found a white boy who was not only non-prejudiced, but who also adored black culture as much as he did. He knew they’d achieved something truly special, but wasn’t at all sure what was going to happen next.

He put the tape in a Scotch box and left it on his desk in the booth. He locked up, then made his own way home, thinking to himself, “Imagine a kid like that knowing Crudup.” The following morning, Sam, Scotty and Bill would all tell the same tale to their wives over breakfast “… and then, out of nowhere, this crazy boy just started singing this song.”

And that’s the story everyone, including Elvis, told from that point on.

Walk A Lonely Street: The Secret Song, II



.
Dr. John Carpenter, M.D.
Stop, look and listen, baby <<--->> that's my philosophy!


AndrewJ
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Re: The Crudup Connection: 5 July 1954 Revisited

Post by AndrewJ »

George Smith wrote:
Tue Jul 06, 2021 8:43 pm
Monday 5th July 1954 was the longest working day of Elvis Presley’s life. A thousand times he glanced at his watch, willing his shift to be over. When the whistle finally blew, he rushed home, took a shower, combed his hair twice, changed his clothes and, guitar in hand, left in time to arrive at 706 Union before 7:00 pm.

Marion had gone for the day, Scotty and Bill were already uncasing their instruments, and Sam was laughing at Bill’s latest wisecrack. He looked up as the boy came in through the front door and then, five short paces later, nervously stepped down onto the studio floor itself. They all shook hands, and the first thing Elvis noticed was the heat. Lacking all but the most basic air conditioning, the Memphis Recording Service was an oven by this time of day, and the four men were soon dabbing sweat from their foreheads.

Sam reassured the boy that this evening was just going to be an informal session: Elvis would be putting a few songs on tape — this time with a couple of backing musicians — to see how it sounded. He positioned three microphones precisely, and gave each player instructions on where to stand. Sam placed Elvis nearest the control booth, but had him face away from the window, lest the producer’s gaze un-nerve him further. Scotty and Bill formed the other two corners of the triangle, and all three looked in at one another, just six feet apart.

Elvis and Bill checked their instruments against Scotty’s beautiful bronze-finished Gibson es295, which was always perfectly tuned for studio work. The conversation inevitably turned to repertoire, and a handful of songs were suggested and discarded: the challenge was to find something that all three musicians knew well and could play all the way through.

Eventually, they settled on a most obscure selection: “Harbor Lights”, a 1950 number one pop hit for The Sammy Kaye Orchestra. It was a mid-tempo ballad given a Hawaiian flavour by the use of steel guitar. As was the way of things, it had charted for several different artists, and the vocal line that Elvis had in his head was that of Bing Crosby’s, no less. Elvis owned the Crosby single — he also loved the B-side, the similarly exotic “Beyond the Reef” — and it was a song he’d sung often in his room, maybe even to Dixie.

As they played a chord or two, Sam slipped into the control booth and cued up the Ampex. This being just a try-out session, he didn’t bother setting the second machine, but decided to record the boys “dry”, without echo. He started the tape rolling while they were still gently strumming, then silently caught their attention and nodded for them to begin.

The first two takes didn’t get past the guitar introduction, but the third was complete. Scotty’s opening notes rang clear and true, capturing the balmy and still studio atmosphere. Elvis self-consciously crooned his way through the tune, throwing in a whistling section for good measure. The song ended, and Sam praised the boys, calling for another take at a slightly faster tempo. It was a tactic he often used, trying to catch the musicians by surprise. They obliged: Elvis played around with the words a little; Scotty — probably to Sam’s annoyance — added a stream of over-complex guitar fills; Bill plunked on the first beat of each bar.

They tried another two aborted takes, one of which fell apart because Scotty’s accompaniment became so intricate that Elvis lost the rhythm. Hoping to shake things up again, Sam called for a key change. So the trio lowered the song, giving it more of a melancholy edge. Scotty continued over-filling, causing Sam to suggest maybe he should bring a bottle of bourbon next time to slow him down a little. They tried yet another take without directing the song anywhere new.

Elvis had been in the studio for maybe the best part of forty minutes. The heat was suffocatingly oppressive. He remained quiet between takes, unsure of exactly what was expected of him, but keenly aware that everything revolved around his performances. The next take sort of just dissolved, and all present knew the song had run out of steam.

Sam suggested they try something else. Elvis listened while titles were tossed about. Pop numbers, hillbilly hits and ballads were all floated, but no one, not even Mr Phillips, talked about the blues. And why would they? White musicians in a Memphis studio — even a studio usually dedicated to black performers — were unlikely to know about, much less sing anything from, the r&b chart.

Eventually, they chose Leon Payne’s 1949 country hit “I Love You Because”, a fiddle-led ballad, but Elvis’ vocal line was inspired by Eddie Fisher’s 1950 pop cover. As he had done with the first song of the evening, Elvis took his inspiration from the best singer. Sure, he knew the hillbilly version, but he matched himself against the smooth crooning of the pop artist rather than the pedestrian original.

Sam changed tapes and they spent much of the next hour running through take after take of their new selection. Again, Elvis played with the words; sometimes he whistled; sometimes he tried a dramatic narration. Scotty resisted overplaying, and when he got it right it was beautiful. Bill still plunked on the beat.

This pattern was repeated over and again with different songs as the minutes drifted slowly by. Sam grew impatient inwardly — although he would never allow his players to see any negative emotion — because he sensed the boy was holding back. There was something he wasn’t revealing. Yes, he sang well, but Sam had already realised they didn’t have the next Red Foley or Bing Crosby in the studio. Scotty, just three years older than Elvis but seeming decades more mature, was wondering why he was wasting a Monday night. Bill carried on plunking, knowing the session was heading nowhere.

They’d been playing and replaying for hours. Sam, sure that nothing of worth had been recorded, was beginning to use the same reels, taping over previous performances. The enthusiasm that had filled the studio at 7:00 pm was all but gone. The boys were tired, hot and sweaty. All three musicians had work the next morning. There was the occasional yawn and regular glances at watches. Maybe it was 10 o’clock. Maybe 11. Perhaps even later.

Sam came out onto the floor to call a short break. The guys picked up a Coke. Sam returned to the booth to sort through the tapes. Bill put down his bass and laid flat out beside it. Scotty slumped into a chair and fanned himself with a newspaper. Elvis remained standing at the mike, guitar still strapped, hair still perfectly combed, sweat-soaked shirt sticking to his back. No one felt the sense of frustration more keenly than him. The studio was silent. All evening he’d been following the general suggestions of pop and hillbilly tunes (which he genuinely loved, of course) — songs they’d all known how to play. Heck, he’d nominated some of the choices himself.

But the conversation had never turned to the other side of the musical fence. At no point had Mr Phillips followed Elvis’ carefully imagined but unlikely script: “Do you know any blues, son?”

The hour was late. This was the session Elvis had been dreaming of for a year or even longer. And he knew that any minute now, Mr Phillips was going to call time and his big moment would be gone forever. Elvis had not wanted to expose himself or his musical tastes to people he barely knew. He hadn’t wanted to risk potential ridicule. But, with the Blackwoods’ tragedy in mind, he sensed he stood at a crossroads and, inspired, made a decision.

Seemingly out of the blue, Elvis started strumming his guitar rhythmically and loudly on an insistent A chord. Scotty and Bill looked up, surprised. Until now, Elvis had played slowly and quietly all evening. After a bar or two, Elvis sang the words, “Well, that’s all right, now mama”. Bill laughed and leapt to his feet, amused by the catchy beat and, although he didn’t recognise the song, grabbed his bass and started not plunking but slapping. Scotty — also unfamiliar with the tune — picked up his guitar, figured out the key and started filling in where he could.

Sam, still in the booth and facing away from the band, stopped dead: chills ran down his spine. This was his “Marion” moment. The point at which he realised the boy had something special; something that connected emotionally with the listener. He, of course, did recognise the song, and the sense of swing and rhythm coming from the three untrained musicians was simply irresistible. He put down the tape box and turned around. Elvis still faced away from the glass, but Sam could see him physically involved in the performance, bouncing on his toes. Scotty and Bill, both beaming, were focused more on Elvis’ left hand, looking for the chord changes.

Sam stepped down onto the studio floor and asked, “What are you boys doing?” The song abruptly stopped — although Bill, ever the clown, insisted on hitting a couple of extra notes — and the trio looked sheepishly at the producer, like children caught messing about by their father after lights out. “Ah, we’re just fooling around, Mr Phillips,” Elvis suggested, barely suppressing his stutter.

Now, what Sam wanted to do was grab Elvis by the shoulders and shout, “Why have you been holding out on me? You should have told me you knew Crudup’s stuff ! What other blues do you know?” But what he actually did was to say, “Well, it sounds pretty good. Let’s back up, see if we can find a place to start over, and get it on tape.”

The boys looked at one another and shrugged. Elvis clarified he was playing A, D and E chords, then suggested it might be nice to have a guitar solo after the second verse. Sam meanwhile was furiously cueing up the Ampex, partly terrified that they’d be unable to recreate the magic in a formal take. Maybe he should have just recorded the jam. There was no time to set up the slapback: he needed to get this on tape now.

Sam gave the okay and Elvis accidentally brushed against one guitar string. There was no count in, no take number announcement. He started strumming and Bill jumped right in on the second beat, and then both men stopped. It wasn’t quite right. They tried again, this time getting as far as the end of the first line, with Scotty following the vocal melody, before coming to a halt. Sam held his breath.

They started yet again. Two bars of introduction, then Elvis started singing, Scotty once more following the tune. The guitarist quickly realised he should be filling in between the lines, so he changed tack, looking for a less cluttered approach. Bill was still slapping, and the physicality of his playing created a percussive clicking sound, making the band seem much bigger than it was. Scotty’s solo spot came and he wandered around the strings, finding some good notes, but he sounded too stiff. The take finished. It didn’t quite have the looseness of what he’d heard when the boys were jamming but, damn it, Sam knew they were almost there.

“Sounds good! Now, Bill, you let Elvis have a little more space in the intro; don’t jump in too fast. Scotty, I swear, if I’d wanted Chet Atkins on this session I would have flown him in from Nashville — keep it simple, son. Elvis, you’re doing just fine. Maybe we can ease back a little on the tempo. Okay, let’s try it again, just one more time for Sam.”

After hours of tension, there was suddenly a sense of grace and freedom in the cramped sweatbox of a studio. The boys were ready; Elvis was a ball of energy; Bill was chewing gum and smiling; Scotty was attentive and serious. Elvis hit the opening riff, clear and strong, with just the slightest drop in tempo, allowing the song to breathe. Bill jumped in perfectly, a beat later than previously — Sam was right; it worked much better this way. Scotty watched Elvis as the second bar of introduction came to an end, waiting for the vocal to kick in, so he could feed off his lines. But Elvis didn’t come in as scheduled and Sam’s heart skipped a beat. The riff kept going for an extra half a bar before Elvis, now absolutely in command of the song and teasing the band, started in with the lyric. And Sam loved this — it was different! It would catch the listener by surprise.

The performance swung beautifully, but Sam stood quite motionless throughout the take. He didn’t want anything to interrupt the moment. Scotty found the ideal balance between complexity and simplicity, and his guitar solo perfectly complemented Elvis’ singing. Bill drove the song along, giving it the essential bounce and lightness of touch. But it was Elvis who was the catalyst. His acoustic guitar playing had, up until now, been a handicap. But suddenly, it was the glue that held everything together. And his vocals were a revelation. This was an adult song about a failing relationship, and Elvis sang it like a bird. He brought together the lust of Jimmie Rodgers and the piety of the Carters, all in a single performance.

Just two minutes after the song had begun, Elvis rang the final note and stood absolutely still, waiting for the all clear from Mr Phillips. When it came, the players laughed and relaxed. Sam was exhilarated. For the first time, he’d captured the spirit of his black artists through a white band. But Elvis wasn’t simply a white boy singing the blues: he was a poor young Southerner singing in a way that made barriers and divisions irrelevant.

They listened to the playback and self-consciously mocked their own performances. It began to occur to Scotty and Bill that they’d actually played on a blues. When the tape ended, the boys stopped laughing and a tense silence filled the small room. One voice wondered whether it’d be allowed to be played on radio. After another short silence, the answer came back, “Good God, they’ll run us out of town.”

Sam sent the boys home, although none of them would be able to sleep that night. Elvis walked on air all the way. Scotty drove Bill and their instruments back to Belz. Sam stayed in the booth and played the song again. It was black, white, country, blues, gospel and pop all mixed together. But overall, and most importantly, it was the sound of youth. American popular music of all genres was dominated by singers who were in their late twenties and beyond. Why? Because it took so damn long to make a breakthrough, to get a record contract, to get on the radio, to achieve recognition.

He wondered to himself again why the boy hadn’t told him he knew blues songs. But, in truth, Sam entirely understood Elvis’ need for discretion. One tended not to talk about these things — hell, even with Dewey he skirted around the obvious conversation — but he felt sure he’d found a white boy who was not only non-prejudiced, but who also adored black culture as much as he did. He knew they’d achieved something truly special, but wasn’t at all sure what was going to happen next.

He put the tape in a Scotch box and left it on his desk in the booth. He locked up, then made his own way home, thinking to himself, “Imagine a kid like that knowing Crudup.” The following morning, Sam, Scotty and Bill would all tell the same tale to their wives over breakfast “… and then, out of nowhere, this crazy boy just started singing this song.”

And that’s the story everyone, including Elvis, told from that point on.

Walk A Lonely Street: The Secret Song, II
I really enjoyed this part of the book - so evocative of the night (the nerves, the heat etc), capturing the tensions in the room and conveying a sense of suspense around whether it would be released as Elvis took his chance and performed his version of That's All Right. Phew! He got there in the end.



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Re: The Crudup Connection: 5 July 1954 Revisited

Post by samses »

Very nice. As I said - a truly fantastic post. Thank you!
George Smith wrote:
Tue Jul 06, 2021 8:43 pm
Monday 5th July 1954 was the longest working day of Elvis Presley’s life. A thousand times he glanced at his watch, willing his shift to be over. When the whistle finally blew, he rushed home, took a shower, combed his hair twice, changed his clothes and, guitar in hand, left in time to arrive at 706 Union before 7:00 pm.

Marion had gone for the day, Scotty and Bill were already uncasing their instruments, and Sam was laughing at Bill’s latest wisecrack. He looked up as the boy came in through the front door and then, five short paces later, nervously stepped down onto the studio floor itself. They all shook hands, and the first thing Elvis noticed was the heat. Lacking all but the most basic air conditioning, the Memphis Recording Service was an oven by this time of day, and the four men were soon dabbing sweat from their foreheads.

Sam reassured the boy that this evening was just going to be an informal session: Elvis would be putting a few songs on tape — this time with a couple of backing musicians — to see how it sounded. He positioned three microphones precisely, and gave each player instructions on where to stand. Sam placed Elvis nearest the control booth, but had him face away from the window, lest the producer’s gaze un-nerve him further. Scotty and Bill formed the other two corners of the triangle, and all three looked in at one another, just six feet apart.

Elvis and Bill checked their instruments against Scotty’s beautiful bronze-finished Gibson es295, which was always perfectly tuned for studio work. The conversation inevitably turned to repertoire, and a handful of songs were suggested and discarded: the challenge was to find something that all three musicians knew well and could play all the way through.

Eventually, they settled on a most obscure selection: “Harbor Lights”, a 1950 number one pop hit for The Sammy Kaye Orchestra. It was a mid-tempo ballad given a Hawaiian flavour by the use of steel guitar. As was the way of things, it had charted for several different artists, and the vocal line that Elvis had in his head was that of Bing Crosby’s, no less. Elvis owned the Crosby single — he also loved the B-side, the similarly exotic “Beyond the Reef” — and it was a song he’d sung often in his room, maybe even to Dixie.

As they played a chord or two, Sam slipped into the control booth and cued up the Ampex. This being just a try-out session, he didn’t bother setting the second machine, but decided to record the boys “dry”, without echo. He started the tape rolling while they were still gently strumming, then silently caught their attention and nodded for them to begin.

The first two takes didn’t get past the guitar introduction, but the third was complete. Scotty’s opening notes rang clear and true, capturing the balmy and still studio atmosphere. Elvis self-consciously crooned his way through the tune, throwing in a whistling section for good measure. The song ended, and Sam praised the boys, calling for another take at a slightly faster tempo. It was a tactic he often used, trying to catch the musicians by surprise. They obliged: Elvis played around with the words a little; Scotty — probably to Sam’s annoyance — added a stream of over-complex guitar fills; Bill plunked on the first beat of each bar.

They tried another two aborted takes, one of which fell apart because Scotty’s accompaniment became so intricate that Elvis lost the rhythm. Hoping to shake things up again, Sam called for a key change. So the trio lowered the song, giving it more of a melancholy edge. Scotty continued over-filling, causing Sam to suggest maybe he should bring a bottle of bourbon next time to slow him down a little. They tried yet another take without directing the song anywhere new.

Elvis had been in the studio for maybe the best part of forty minutes. The heat was suffocatingly oppressive. He remained quiet between takes, unsure of exactly what was expected of him, but keenly aware that everything revolved around his performances. The next take sort of just dissolved, and all present knew the song had run out of steam.

Sam suggested they try something else. Elvis listened while titles were tossed about. Pop numbers, hillbilly hits and ballads were all floated, but no one, not even Mr Phillips, talked about the blues. And why would they? White musicians in a Memphis studio — even a studio usually dedicated to black performers — were unlikely to know about, much less sing anything from, the r&b chart.

Eventually, they chose Leon Payne’s 1949 country hit “I Love You Because”, a fiddle-led ballad, but Elvis’ vocal line was inspired by Eddie Fisher’s 1950 pop cover. As he had done with the first song of the evening, Elvis took his inspiration from the best singer. Sure, he knew the hillbilly version, but he matched himself against the smooth crooning of the pop artist rather than the pedestrian original.

Sam changed tapes and they spent much of the next hour running through take after take of their new selection. Again, Elvis played with the words; sometimes he whistled; sometimes he tried a dramatic narration. Scotty resisted overplaying, and when he got it right it was beautiful. Bill still plunked on the beat.

This pattern was repeated over and again with different songs as the minutes drifted slowly by. Sam grew impatient inwardly — although he would never allow his players to see any negative emotion — because he sensed the boy was holding back. There was something he wasn’t revealing. Yes, he sang well, but Sam had already realised they didn’t have the next Red Foley or Bing Crosby in the studio. Scotty, just three years older than Elvis but seeming decades more mature, was wondering why he was wasting a Monday night. Bill carried on plunking, knowing the session was heading nowhere.

They’d been playing and replaying for hours. Sam, sure that nothing of worth had been recorded, was beginning to use the same reels, taping over previous performances. The enthusiasm that had filled the studio at 7:00 pm was all but gone. The boys were tired, hot and sweaty. All three musicians had work the next morning. There was the occasional yawn and regular glances at watches. Maybe it was 10 o’clock. Maybe 11. Perhaps even later.

Sam came out onto the floor to call a short break. The guys picked up a Coke. Sam returned to the booth to sort through the tapes. Bill put down his bass and laid flat out beside it. Scotty slumped into a chair and fanned himself with a newspaper. Elvis remained standing at the mike, guitar still strapped, hair still perfectly combed, sweat-soaked shirt sticking to his back. No one felt the sense of frustration more keenly than him. The studio was silent. All evening he’d been following the general suggestions of pop and hillbilly tunes (which he genuinely loved, of course) — songs they’d all known how to play. Heck, he’d nominated some of the choices himself.

But the conversation had never turned to the other side of the musical fence. At no point had Mr Phillips followed Elvis’ carefully imagined but unlikely script: “Do you know any blues, son?”

The hour was late. This was the session Elvis had been dreaming of for a year or even longer. And he knew that any minute now, Mr Phillips was going to call time and his big moment would be gone forever. Elvis had not wanted to expose himself or his musical tastes to people he barely knew. He hadn’t wanted to risk potential ridicule. But, with the Blackwoods’ tragedy in mind, he sensed he stood at a crossroads and, inspired, made a decision.

Seemingly out of the blue, Elvis started strumming his guitar rhythmically and loudly on an insistent A chord. Scotty and Bill looked up, surprised. Until now, Elvis had played slowly and quietly all evening. After a bar or two, Elvis sang the words, “Well, that’s all right, now mama”. Bill laughed and leapt to his feet, amused by the catchy beat and, although he didn’t recognise the song, grabbed his bass and started not plunking but slapping. Scotty — also unfamiliar with the tune — picked up his guitar, figured out the key and started filling in where he could.

Sam, still in the booth and facing away from the band, stopped dead: chills ran down his spine. This was his “Marion” moment. The point at which he realised the boy had something special; something that connected emotionally with the listener. He, of course, did recognise the song, and the sense of swing and rhythm coming from the three untrained musicians was simply irresistible. He put down the tape box and turned around. Elvis still faced away from the glass, but Sam could see him physically involved in the performance, bouncing on his toes. Scotty and Bill, both beaming, were focused more on Elvis’ left hand, looking for the chord changes.

Sam stepped down onto the studio floor and asked, “What are you boys doing?” The song abruptly stopped — although Bill, ever the clown, insisted on hitting a couple of extra notes — and the trio looked sheepishly at the producer, like children caught messing about by their father after lights out. “Ah, we’re just fooling around, Mr Phillips,” Elvis suggested, barely suppressing his stutter.

Now, what Sam wanted to do was grab Elvis by the shoulders and shout, “Why have you been holding out on me? You should have told me you knew Crudup’s stuff ! What other blues do you know?” But what he actually did was to say, “Well, it sounds pretty good. Let’s back up, see if we can find a place to start over, and get it on tape.”

The boys looked at one another and shrugged. Elvis clarified he was playing A, D and E chords, then suggested it might be nice to have a guitar solo after the second verse. Sam meanwhile was furiously cueing up the Ampex, partly terrified that they’d be unable to recreate the magic in a formal take. Maybe he should have just recorded the jam. There was no time to set up the slapback: he needed to get this on tape now.

Sam gave the okay and Elvis accidentally brushed against one guitar string. There was no count in, no take number announcement. He started strumming and Bill jumped right in on the second beat, and then both men stopped. It wasn’t quite right. They tried again, this time getting as far as the end of the first line, with Scotty following the vocal melody, before coming to a halt. Sam held his breath.

They started yet again. Two bars of introduction, then Elvis started singing, Scotty once more following the tune. The guitarist quickly realised he should be filling in between the lines, so he changed tack, looking for a less cluttered approach. Bill was still slapping, and the physicality of his playing created a percussive clicking sound, making the band seem much bigger than it was. Scotty’s solo spot came and he wandered around the strings, finding some good notes, but he sounded too stiff. The take finished. It didn’t quite have the looseness of what he’d heard when the boys were jamming but, damn it, Sam knew they were almost there.

“Sounds good! Now, Bill, you let Elvis have a little more space in the intro; don’t jump in too fast. Scotty, I swear, if I’d wanted Chet Atkins on this session I would have flown him in from Nashville — keep it simple, son. Elvis, you’re doing just fine. Maybe we can ease back a little on the tempo. Okay, let’s try it again, just one more time for Sam.”

After hours of tension, there was suddenly a sense of grace and freedom in the cramped sweatbox of a studio. The boys were ready; Elvis was a ball of energy; Bill was chewing gum and smiling; Scotty was attentive and serious. Elvis hit the opening riff, clear and strong, with just the slightest drop in tempo, allowing the song to breathe. Bill jumped in perfectly, a beat later than previously — Sam was right; it worked much better this way. Scotty watched Elvis as the second bar of introduction came to an end, waiting for the vocal to kick in, so he could feed off his lines. But Elvis didn’t come in as scheduled and Sam’s heart skipped a beat. The riff kept going for an extra half a bar before Elvis, now absolutely in command of the song and teasing the band, started in with the lyric. And Sam loved this — it was different! It would catch the listener by surprise.

The performance swung beautifully, but Sam stood quite motionless throughout the take. He didn’t want anything to interrupt the moment. Scotty found the ideal balance between complexity and simplicity, and his guitar solo perfectly complemented Elvis’ singing. Bill drove the song along, giving it the essential bounce and lightness of touch. But it was Elvis who was the catalyst. His acoustic guitar playing had, up until now, been a handicap. But suddenly, it was the glue that held everything together. And his vocals were a revelation. This was an adult song about a failing relationship, and Elvis sang it like a bird. He brought together the lust of Jimmie Rodgers and the piety of the Carters, all in a single performance.

Just two minutes after the song had begun, Elvis rang the final note and stood absolutely still, waiting for the all clear from Mr Phillips. When it came, the players laughed and relaxed. Sam was exhilarated. For the first time, he’d captured the spirit of his black artists through a white band. But Elvis wasn’t simply a white boy singing the blues: he was a poor young Southerner singing in a way that made barriers and divisions irrelevant.

They listened to the playback and self-consciously mocked their own performances. It began to occur to Scotty and Bill that they’d actually played on a blues. When the tape ended, the boys stopped laughing and a tense silence filled the small room. One voice wondered whether it’d be allowed to be played on radio. After another short silence, the answer came back, “Good God, they’ll run us out of town.”

Sam sent the boys home, although none of them would be able to sleep that night. Elvis walked on air all the way. Scotty drove Bill and their instruments back to Belz. Sam stayed in the booth and played the song again. It was black, white, country, blues, gospel and pop all mixed together. But overall, and most importantly, it was the sound of youth. American popular music of all genres was dominated by singers who were in their late twenties and beyond. Why? Because it took so damn long to make a breakthrough, to get a record contract, to get on the radio, to achieve recognition.

He wondered to himself again why the boy hadn’t told him he knew blues songs. But, in truth, Sam entirely understood Elvis’ need for discretion. One tended not to talk about these things — hell, even with Dewey he skirted around the obvious conversation — but he felt sure he’d found a white boy who was not only non-prejudiced, but who also adored black culture as much as he did. He knew they’d achieved something truly special, but wasn’t at all sure what was going to happen next.

He put the tape in a Scotch box and left it on his desk in the booth. He locked up, then made his own way home, thinking to himself, “Imagine a kid like that knowing Crudup.” The following morning, Sam, Scotty and Bill would all tell the same tale to their wives over breakfast “… and then, out of nowhere, this crazy boy just started singing this song.”

And that’s the story everyone, including Elvis, told from that point on.

Walk A Lonely Street: The Secret Song, II



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Re: The Crudup Connection: 5 July 1954 Revisited

Post by Steve Morse »

Superb. I love the final sentence.

I also spotted the nod to Casablanca, and "As Time Goes By". Maybe I spotted it when I read the book - can't remember, now.


"Won't you sing me away to a summer night - let me hold her in my arms again"

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Re: The Crudup Connection: 5 July 1954 Revisited

Post by jeanno »

George Smith wrote:
Tue Jul 06, 2021 8:43 pm
Monday 5th July 1954 was the longest working day of Elvis Presley’s life. A thousand times he glanced at his watch, willing his shift to be over. When the whistle finally blew, he rushed home, took a shower, combed his hair twice, changed his clothes and, guitar in hand, left in time to arrive at 706 Union before 7:00 pm.

Marion had gone for the day, Scotty and Bill were already uncasing their instruments, and Sam was laughing at Bill’s latest wisecrack. He looked up as the boy came in through the front door and then, five short paces later, nervously stepped down onto the studio floor itself. They all shook hands, and the first thing Elvis noticed was the heat. Lacking all but the most basic air conditioning, the Memphis Recording Service was an oven by this time of day, and the four men were soon dabbing sweat from their foreheads.

Sam reassured the boy that this evening was just going to be an informal session: Elvis would be putting a few songs on tape — this time with a couple of backing musicians — to see how it sounded. He positioned three microphones precisely, and gave each player instructions on where to stand. Sam placed Elvis nearest the control booth, but had him face away from the window, lest the producer’s gaze un-nerve him further. Scotty and Bill formed the other two corners of the triangle, and all three looked in at one another, just six feet apart.

Elvis and Bill checked their instruments against Scotty’s beautiful bronze-finished Gibson es295, which was always perfectly tuned for studio work. The conversation inevitably turned to repertoire, and a handful of songs were suggested and discarded: the challenge was to find something that all three musicians knew well and could play all the way through.

Eventually, they settled on a most obscure selection: “Harbor Lights”, a 1950 number one pop hit for The Sammy Kaye Orchestra. It was a mid-tempo ballad given a Hawaiian flavour by the use of steel guitar. As was the way of things, it had charted for several different artists, and the vocal line that Elvis had in his head was that of Bing Crosby’s, no less. Elvis owned the Crosby single — he also loved the B-side, the similarly exotic “Beyond the Reef” — and it was a song he’d sung often in his room, maybe even to Dixie.

As they played a chord or two, Sam slipped into the control booth and cued up the Ampex. This being just a try-out session, he didn’t bother setting the second machine, but decided to record the boys “dry”, without echo. He started the tape rolling while they were still gently strumming, then silently caught their attention and nodded for them to begin.

The first two takes didn’t get past the guitar introduction, but the third was complete. Scotty’s opening notes rang clear and true, capturing the balmy and still studio atmosphere. Elvis self-consciously crooned his way through the tune, throwing in a whistling section for good measure. The song ended, and Sam praised the boys, calling for another take at a slightly faster tempo. It was a tactic he often used, trying to catch the musicians by surprise. They obliged: Elvis played around with the words a little; Scotty — probably to Sam’s annoyance — added a stream of over-complex guitar fills; Bill plunked on the first beat of each bar.

They tried another two aborted takes, one of which fell apart because Scotty’s accompaniment became so intricate that Elvis lost the rhythm. Hoping to shake things up again, Sam called for a key change. So the trio lowered the song, giving it more of a melancholy edge. Scotty continued over-filling, causing Sam to suggest maybe he should bring a bottle of bourbon next time to slow him down a little. They tried yet another take without directing the song anywhere new.

Elvis had been in the studio for maybe the best part of forty minutes. The heat was suffocatingly oppressive. He remained quiet between takes, unsure of exactly what was expected of him, but keenly aware that everything revolved around his performances. The next take sort of just dissolved, and all present knew the song had run out of steam.

Sam suggested they try something else. Elvis listened while titles were tossed about. Pop numbers, hillbilly hits and ballads were all floated, but no one, not even Mr Phillips, talked about the blues. And why would they? White musicians in a Memphis studio — even a studio usually dedicated to black performers — were unlikely to know about, much less sing anything from, the r&b chart.

Eventually, they chose Leon Payne’s 1949 country hit “I Love You Because”, a fiddle-led ballad, but Elvis’ vocal line was inspired by Eddie Fisher’s 1950 pop cover. As he had done with the first song of the evening, Elvis took his inspiration from the best singer. Sure, he knew the hillbilly version, but he matched himself against the smooth crooning of the pop artist rather than the pedestrian original.

Sam changed tapes and they spent much of the next hour running through take after take of their new selection. Again, Elvis played with the words; sometimes he whistled; sometimes he tried a dramatic narration. Scotty resisted overplaying, and when he got it right it was beautiful. Bill still plunked on the beat.

This pattern was repeated over and again with different songs as the minutes drifted slowly by. Sam grew impatient inwardly — although he would never allow his players to see any negative emotion — because he sensed the boy was holding back. There was something he wasn’t revealing. Yes, he sang well, but Sam had already realised they didn’t have the next Red Foley or Bing Crosby in the studio. Scotty, just three years older than Elvis but seeming decades more mature, was wondering why he was wasting a Monday night. Bill carried on plunking, knowing the session was heading nowhere.

They’d been playing and replaying for hours. Sam, sure that nothing of worth had been recorded, was beginning to use the same reels, taping over previous performances. The enthusiasm that had filled the studio at 7:00 pm was all but gone. The boys were tired, hot and sweaty. All three musicians had work the next morning. There was the occasional yawn and regular glances at watches. Maybe it was 10 o’clock. Maybe 11. Perhaps even later.

Sam came out onto the floor to call a short break. The guys picked up a Coke. Sam returned to the booth to sort through the tapes. Bill put down his bass and laid flat out beside it. Scotty slumped into a chair and fanned himself with a newspaper. Elvis remained standing at the mike, guitar still strapped, hair still perfectly combed, sweat-soaked shirt sticking to his back. No one felt the sense of frustration more keenly than him. The studio was silent. All evening he’d been following the general suggestions of pop and hillbilly tunes (which he genuinely loved, of course) — songs they’d all known how to play. Heck, he’d nominated some of the choices himself.

But the conversation had never turned to the other side of the musical fence. At no point had Mr Phillips followed Elvis’ carefully imagined but unlikely script: “Do you know any blues, son?”

The hour was late. This was the session Elvis had been dreaming of for a year or even longer. And he knew that any minute now, Mr Phillips was going to call time and his big moment would be gone forever. Elvis had not wanted to expose himself or his musical tastes to people he barely knew. He hadn’t wanted to risk potential ridicule. But, with the Blackwoods’ tragedy in mind, he sensed he stood at a crossroads and, inspired, made a decision.

Seemingly out of the blue, Elvis started strumming his guitar rhythmically and loudly on an insistent A chord. Scotty and Bill looked up, surprised. Until now, Elvis had played slowly and quietly all evening. After a bar or two, Elvis sang the words, “Well, that’s all right, now mama”. Bill laughed and leapt to his feet, amused by the catchy beat and, although he didn’t recognise the song, grabbed his bass and started not plunking but slapping. Scotty — also unfamiliar with the tune — picked up his guitar, figured out the key and started filling in where he could.

Sam, still in the booth and facing away from the band, stopped dead: chills ran down his spine. This was his “Marion” moment. The point at which he realised the boy had something special; something that connected emotionally with the listener. He, of course, did recognise the song, and the sense of swing and rhythm coming from the three untrained musicians was simply irresistible. He put down the tape box and turned around. Elvis still faced away from the glass, but Sam could see him physically involved in the performance, bouncing on his toes. Scotty and Bill, both beaming, were focused more on Elvis’ left hand, looking for the chord changes.

Sam stepped down onto the studio floor and asked, “What are you boys doing?” The song abruptly stopped — although Bill, ever the clown, insisted on hitting a couple of extra notes — and the trio looked sheepishly at the producer, like children caught messing about by their father after lights out. “Ah, we’re just fooling around, Mr Phillips,” Elvis suggested, barely suppressing his stutter.

Now, what Sam wanted to do was grab Elvis by the shoulders and shout, “Why have you been holding out on me? You should have told me you knew Crudup’s stuff ! What other blues do you know?” But what he actually did was to say, “Well, it sounds pretty good. Let’s back up, see if we can find a place to start over, and get it on tape.”

The boys looked at one another and shrugged. Elvis clarified he was playing A, D and E chords, then suggested it might be nice to have a guitar solo after the second verse. Sam meanwhile was furiously cueing up the Ampex, partly terrified that they’d be unable to recreate the magic in a formal take. Maybe he should have just recorded the jam. There was no time to set up the slapback: he needed to get this on tape now.

Sam gave the okay and Elvis accidentally brushed against one guitar string. There was no count in, no take number announcement. He started strumming and Bill jumped right in on the second beat, and then both men stopped. It wasn’t quite right. They tried again, this time getting as far as the end of the first line, with Scotty following the vocal melody, before coming to a halt. Sam held his breath.

They started yet again. Two bars of introduction, then Elvis started singing, Scotty once more following the tune. The guitarist quickly realised he should be filling in between the lines, so he changed tack, looking for a less cluttered approach. Bill was still slapping, and the physicality of his playing created a percussive clicking sound, making the band seem much bigger than it was. Scotty’s solo spot came and he wandered around the strings, finding some good notes, but he sounded too stiff. The take finished. It didn’t quite have the looseness of what he’d heard when the boys were jamming but, damn it, Sam knew they were almost there.

“Sounds good! Now, Bill, you let Elvis have a little more space in the intro; don’t jump in too fast. Scotty, I swear, if I’d wanted Chet Atkins on this session I would have flown him in from Nashville — keep it simple, son. Elvis, you’re doing just fine. Maybe we can ease back a little on the tempo. Okay, let’s try it again, just one more time for Sam.”

After hours of tension, there was suddenly a sense of grace and freedom in the cramped sweatbox of a studio. The boys were ready; Elvis was a ball of energy; Bill was chewing gum and smiling; Scotty was attentive and serious. Elvis hit the opening riff, clear and strong, with just the slightest drop in tempo, allowing the song to breathe. Bill jumped in perfectly, a beat later than previously — Sam was right; it worked much better this way. Scotty watched Elvis as the second bar of introduction came to an end, waiting for the vocal to kick in, so he could feed off his lines. But Elvis didn’t come in as scheduled and Sam’s heart skipped a beat. The riff kept going for an extra half a bar before Elvis, now absolutely in command of the song and teasing the band, started in with the lyric. And Sam loved this — it was different! It would catch the listener by surprise.

The performance swung beautifully, but Sam stood quite motionless throughout the take. He didn’t want anything to interrupt the moment. Scotty found the ideal balance between complexity and simplicity, and his guitar solo perfectly complemented Elvis’ singing. Bill drove the song along, giving it the essential bounce and lightness of touch. But it was Elvis who was the catalyst. His acoustic guitar playing had, up until now, been a handicap. But suddenly, it was the glue that held everything together. And his vocals were a revelation. This was an adult song about a failing relationship, and Elvis sang it like a bird. He brought together the lust of Jimmie Rodgers and the piety of the Carters, all in a single performance.

Just two minutes after the song had begun, Elvis rang the final note and stood absolutely still, waiting for the all clear from Mr Phillips. When it came, the players laughed and relaxed. Sam was exhilarated. For the first time, he’d captured the spirit of his black artists through a white band. But Elvis wasn’t simply a white boy singing the blues: he was a poor young Southerner singing in a way that made barriers and divisions irrelevant.

They listened to the playback and self-consciously mocked their own performances. It began to occur to Scotty and Bill that they’d actually played on a blues. When the tape ended, the boys stopped laughing and a tense silence filled the small room. One voice wondered whether it’d be allowed to be played on radio. After another short silence, the answer came back, “Good God, they’ll run us out of town.”

Sam sent the boys home, although none of them would be able to sleep that night. Elvis walked on air all the way. Scotty drove Bill and their instruments back to Belz. Sam stayed in the booth and played the song again. It was black, white, country, blues, gospel and pop all mixed together. But overall, and most importantly, it was the sound of youth. American popular music of all genres was dominated by singers who were in their late twenties and beyond. Why? Because it took so damn long to make a breakthrough, to get a record contract, to get on the radio, to achieve recognition.

He wondered to himself again why the boy hadn’t told him he knew blues songs. But, in truth, Sam entirely understood Elvis’ need for discretion. One tended not to talk about these things — hell, even with Dewey he skirted around the obvious conversation — but he felt sure he’d found a white boy who was not only non-prejudiced, but who also adored black culture as much as he did. He knew they’d achieved something truly special, but wasn’t at all sure what was going to happen next.

He put the tape in a Scotch box and left it on his desk in the booth. He locked up, then made his own way home, thinking to himself, “Imagine a kid like that knowing Crudup.” The following morning, Sam, Scotty and Bill would all tell the same tale to their wives over breakfast “… and then, out of nowhere, this crazy boy just started singing this song.”

And that’s the story everyone, including Elvis, told from that point on.

Walk A Lonely Street: The Secret Song, II
Wonderful post of a/true piece of (american) music history!



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Re: The Crudup Connection: 5 July 1954 Revisited

Post by George Smith »

It's that day again.

Seventy years ago, and it still sounds wonderful.



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Re: The Crudup Connection: 5 July 1954 Revisited

Post by minkahed »

Happy 70th That’s All Right (Lil Mama).


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Re: The Crudup Connection: 5 July 1954 Revisited

Post by AndrewJ »

I never get tired of the song - nor of George Smith's masterful retelling of that evening in that hot, sweaty studio when music was changed forever.



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Re: The Crudup Connection: 5 July 1954 Revisited

Post by jurasic1968 »

Right. The music changed forever.



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Re: The Crudup Connection: 5 July 1954 Revisited

Post by drjohncarpenter »

George Smith wrote:
Fri Jul 05, 2024 10:15 am
It's that day again.

Seventy years ago, and it still sounds wonderful.



Sun 209 really is perfection. Has any major artist appeared on a recording debut so solidly in the style that would define him?

One clue we have about why Elvis came off so well singing "his song" that hot Monday evening emerged in the late Dixie Locke's memoir.

She and her family had left Memphis for a planned summer vacation just days before July 5th, and got back in town after all the crazy events that followed.

This included:
  • recordings completed for both sides of Sun 209
  • Sam Phillips pressing copies of the tracks for local disc jockey airplay
  • Elvis getting interviewed by Dewey Phillips at WHBQ Radio
  • "That's All Right" galvanizing the community almost immediately.


As soon as we got in the car to drive home from vacation, I turned on the radio and heard the DJ announce, "and now a new recording by a local talent, Elvis Presley singing That's Alright Mama." I had heard Elvis rehearse this tune so many times, but to hear it on the radio for the first time, it simply made my sisters and me scream like crazy!

- Unlocked: Memoirs of Elvis's First Girlfriend, June 2021.



"I had heard Elvis rehearse this tune so many times . . ." is just a mind-blowing statement.

Totally supports what George Smith writes here.

Kismet.


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Re: The Crudup Connection: 5 July 1954 Revisited

Post by 1015elvis »

70 years, time flies when you don't think about it


A little less conversation


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Re: The Crudup Connection: 5 July 1954 Revisited

Post by PiersEIN »

AndrewJ wrote:
Fri Jul 05, 2024 1:43 pm
I never get tired of the song - nor of George Smith's masterful retelling of that evening in that hot, sweaty studio when music was changed forever.
Fantastic writing - truly capturing the excitement of that very special night.
Nothing would ever be the same again.
THANKS.
I hope everyone here on FECC bought the book, it is a masterpiece of research & expressive writing.
Walk A Lonely Street


Cheers
Piers



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Re: The Crudup Connection: 5 July 1954 Revisited

Post by mike edwards66 »

PiersEIN wrote:
Sat Jul 06, 2024 5:10 pm
I hope everyone here on FECC bought the book, it is a masterpiece of research & expressive writing.
I did.

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>>>


this is a wonderful day, it’s as bright as a day’s ever been . . .

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Re: The Crudup Connection: 5 July 1954 Revisited

Post by drjohncarpenter »

1015elvis wrote:
Sat Jul 06, 2024 1:28 am
70 years, time flies when you don't think about it


We're thinking about it now.

:wink:


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Re: The Crudup Connection: 5 July 1954 Revisited

Post by minkahed »

drjohncarpenter wrote:
Sat Jul 06, 2024 11:29 pm
1015elvis wrote:
Sat Jul 06, 2024 1:28 am
70 years, time flies when you don't think about it


We're thinking about it now.

:wink:
Wisenheimer. :D


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Re: The Crudup Connection: 5 July 1954 Revisited

Post by Swedish »

George Smith wrote:
Mon Apr 22, 2013 4:28 pm
Thanks for the excellent input, John and rj, great discussion points.

With regard to whether Elvis was literally drawing upon three or five Crudup songs, John, I'm happy either way: I was attempting to justify every single word if at all possible, hence my somewhat over-the-top word-by-word comparison. In practice, it may well have been just three that EP was actually using but the other lyrics were dancing around in the back of his head.

Just to clarify, with regard to the above extract, are you saying that these are the words that Elvis is quoted as using?

If so, my highlighted phrase sounds about as un-Elvis a phrase from 1956 as can possibly be imagined. It sounds too self-consciously hip to my ears and it just seems so alien to the sort of stories that Scotty and Sam have told down through the years. The sudden and unexpected emergence of this r&b song at the end of the audition session is the key message that always comes across when I hear or read the story.

I just re-watched a Sun documentary over the weekend and there it was again, Sam's exclamation -- "What have you been holding from me, man!", or words to that effect.

Such a fascinating and frustrating topic: what an awesome day in pop culture. When I read Guralnick's account I'm always caught up in the moment, that sense of excitement that Sam must have felt when the studio eventually cleared in the early hours of Monday night / Tuesday morning. Sam KNEW exactly what they'd achieved.
The problem is that nobody never gather all four (Elvis/Sam/Scotty/Bill) together for an interview to ask about this historical event. And when journalists & historians finally became interested in documenting this, it was already a little late. Yes, only Scotty & Sam left then (Bill Black died 1965)
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Shakin' Stevens aka Michael Barratt March 4th 1948 - 36 Marcross Rd, Cardiff suburb of Ely, South Wales