vic colonna

[viccolonna@gmail.com]

april, 1974. i am in los angeles. hollywood, ca, in a little apartment off sunset boulevard just down the street from kaiser hospital where i am working. elvis will be appearing at the forum, a 20,000 seat venue, and i have good tickets--stage level, left hand side, about ten rows back. i am reading the l.a. times a couple days before the show and robert hilburn, the legendary times music critic for over 35 years (recently retired but still does occasional pieces and he is worth looking up on the net) has a few words to say about elvis. what stood out, what i will always remember, is that he really nailed it when he said, "elvis is the only entertainer that can go from a rock song to a country song to a ballad and to a spiritual and have the crowd on their feet for every one and begging for more. no other entertainer in history has ever been able to do that." how true. ever think about it that way? i never had but sometimes we can't see the forest through the trees. more tomorrow about the show. enjoy your christmas dinner, all.

vic

[Keith F]

he's been an elvis fan since he was 22 seconds old. rumor has it that the first words he said were, "gimme that guitar." ger has the dubious distinction of being arrested 675 times for trying to scale the wall at graceland. and that was just in one week. ger once covered himself with crazy glue and ran after elvis' limousine as it sped away from the hilton. sadly, he tripped over a box of bootlegs and fell when he was just one step away. the box split open and it took five days to peel all those records off of him. he was never happier. ger once made a deal with charlie hodge: charlie would get elvis to give him a scarf and ger would let charlie live. he got the scarf. ger once stood in the rain outside the pressing plant waiting for the truck with elvis' latest album to pull out. the truck left, ger followed, he and his gang forced the driver off the road, tied him up, unloaded all the albums, and sped away. sadly, it was the wrong truck and ger is still trying to figure out what to do with 325,000 englebert humperdink records. ah, ger, i love you ol' buddy. a merry christmas and happy new year to you and yours and tell paul granlund to get in touch with me.

This is the funniest thing I've read in years, still laughing out loud now! You seem to be one funny guy Vic, and have the same sense of humour as Ger. Looking forward to more of your stories with interest.

[rickeap]

Great stuff Vic
Rick

[viccolonna@gmail.com]

Help Me Get to You

Let me try and remember; join me for a little time trip back to April 1974 as we head over to The Forum in Los Angeles to spend an hour with Elvis Presley. Cindy and I leave well before noon for it is an hour’s drive from Hollywood, where I am living, to Inglewood; the traffic is always horrific in that area (not far from LAX where it sometimes takes over half an hour to traverse the last couple miles to the airport and another half hour to circle inside the durn thing before you can escape). Today it is worse; but we have given ourselves plenty of time, Elvis is on the car stereo, the sun is shining, and this is a special day in paradise. I love L.A.; arrived in August 1973 from Philadelphia and ‘twas but a couple weeks before I knew I would never leave. It’s the weather. I grew up in the inhospitable climes of CT where there are but six weeks a year that are sublime. Hot and humid, damp and freezing, pouring rain, windy and overcast describe the other forty-six. Los Angeles is my kind of place: every movie plays here, usually first; the music scene is rivaled only by New York; any play worth its salt runs through here; and there is a store, shop, or business dealing with anything and everything you can think of. With a population of three million and another seven million to fill out Los Angeles County, niche businesses that could not survive elsewhere can find a customer base. Most importantly to me, it is warm. I’m the idiot who got off the plane at Tan Son Nhut airport in Saigon in February 1966 where it was 106º in the shade (and there was no shade) and said, “Hey, nice weather.” Two days earlier I had been in CT where it was three below. Los Angeles is twice as nice as Vietnam—not only is it warm but I don’t need a machete, they have streets and sidewalks.
It takes fifteen or twenty minutes to travel the last couple blocks to The Forum parking lot and then another ten before we step out of the car, tickets held tightly to our chests as if cradling an infant. Up the steps, through the turnstile, past the souvenir stands, down to our seats, and it is just half an hour to Showtime. It turns out to be over an hour to Elvis time, one very long hour that many of you have experienced. Did time ever pass more slowly than when you were waiting for Elvis to take the stage? I have but one measly complaint—why could they not tear the tickets at the perforations instead of mangling them and leaving us with tattered remnants? I know they were in a hurry, I know there were twenty thousand people crowding into the place all in the same sixty minutes, but if I were in charge I would have issued stern and strict orders that the ticket stubs, something most of those attending would keep forever, be treated as valuable mementos because that is what they are. That minor bit of aggravation evaporates when the house lights dim. Next we put up with a second–rate comedian (Sorry, hope I don’t offend anyone, but I have always been of the opinion that the warm–up act was purposely mediocre so there would not be the slightest chance of upstaging Elvis. I always thought it was dumb because how in the heck could that happen?), even that is tolerable because what is coming is like nothing else. I know this for sure: I have seen him twice before. I have, as previously mentioned, seen some great performers. None compare. Nothing even comes close. I was fifteen feet from Robert Plant, third row center, when Led Zeppelin toured their third album. I’ll never forget it. On a scale from one to ten that was an 8.5. And I really like Zep. I saw Sinatra at the Universal Amphitheater and I could tell the audience, mostly older, loved him but they never jumped out of their skin. Sat on the lawn at Trinity Stadium (Hartford, CT) summer ’73 and The Kinks and The Beach Boys rocked the town. I love them. Give it a 9.3. Here comes a perfect ten. Let’s face it: the bad news is that Elvis is addictive; the good news is that no one ever died from an overdose of Elvis.
I’m a tad smarter now as far as Elvis shows are concerned. There have been a couple more live albums—Madison Square Garden and Hawaii (and two months after this show another one that becomes my favorite)—and I know I am bound to hear not just a different grouping (outside of the must–do classics) than before but, hopefully, one of my personal favorites. When you have had as many hits as Elvis it is impossible to do them all; the approach taken is perfect—each tour will showcase some songs never before recorded along with a couple from the vaults not performed live up to this point in time. I’m sure the mastermind mapping the selections figures that eventually he will do them all.
It’s time, the first note of 2001 sounds and you can feel, you can honestly feel, everyone tense. What? Is this an extended version of the introduction? No, it just always feels that way. Now the drum roll, the spotlight, and the tension of twenty thousand people ready to pop is released in thunderous applause. Worth waiting for? Got it in one. More than a hundred years before a fellow named P.T. Barnum was referring to his enterprise as “The Greatest Show on Earth”. That was then. This is now. Sit down, Mr. Barnum, enjoy the show, there’s been a new kid on the block for almost twenty years and right now he’s at the height of the touring stage of his career. There are a number of big acts that sell out instantly. There is only one that can claim fans from eight to eighty. He’s one for the ages and one for all ages. You can take your children to this one. You can take your parents to this one. You’ll take this one home with you and relive it forever.
After the familiar, expected, and always–pleasurable opening songs Elvis says something (Darn, why can’t I remember the exact words? Because, face it, you’re getting old.) about one of his earliest songs and I hear, “I’ve been…” and I literally jump out of my seat. Cindy must think I’m nuts. (Hey, I heard that.) My favorite song from his first album? You have to be kidding me. If I could have picked the one song I wanted to hear today this would probably have been it. I never, and I mean never, thought he would do this one. It never got airplay, you cannot call it a hit by any standard; it just sits there on one of those albums mixed in with all those other songs. But, like many of his songs that cannot claim “hit” status, it is a song that Elvis just plain put his indelible stamp on. There are a number of albums with songs like this: “King Creole”, “Elvis Is Back”, “Pot Luck”, etc. There are songs on those albums that only Elvis fans have heard over and over. Only Elvis fans? Did I really say that? That just happens to be one huge number. Okay, so there are a few people in the audience beside myself jumping for joy. But none higher. This is the one song whose grooves were twice as worn than the others. (And that just reminded me of another story I have to tell you. And I will do that tomorrow.) There was only one album to choose from for many months; this was the song I always played first.
Wowie! Zowie! This is really one of those, “can’t put it into words” moments. I am hearing it, it is happening, I probably pinched myself, and I just cannot believe it. “Make my day” just became the biggest understatement of all time. Can it get any better than this? Of course not. Wrongo, Chucko. Now for the hook: The first two stanzas are over and I am still wondering if I am dreaming and here it comes—
When I read your loving letter
Then my heart began to sing
There were many miles between us,
But they didn't mean a thing.
He hits “read your loving letter” really hard and loud and this causes a noticeable stir in the crowd. This is a crowd that is already delirious and the excitement just went up a notch. This third stanza is a little stronger than the previous two and then, and then, he goes, “thing–hing–a–hi–hi–hi–hing” with that trademark inflection and I have never, just plain never, heard a crowd erupt like we did that day. I can tell you one thing: The roof on the Forum is really nailed on tight. Just how it stayed in place is something structural engineers have been debating ever since.
For stanza four he tones it back down a little, brings it up again during stanza five, and then, of course, he ends stanza six with, “loved me true–ew–ewewew–ew–ew” and we are all, every single person in the place because I glanced around just to make sure, absolutely gaga. What more could we ask for? Not a thing. What did we get? A double dose: I do not know if it was planned, but I have always suspected that it was not because “Trying to Get to You” had gone on long enough and there were so many others to do. I think he was so astounded by the reaction that some signal passed between him and the band; a collective understanding that told them all to do it again. The song had actually ended; then they came back with more. You could tell when he was going to do something again (Think “Hurt” and “How Great Thou Art”) but this one came out of nowhere. This was for us. He realized he had just done something special and gotten a reaction about a thousand times greater than ever expected so he figured, “If they liked it that much they deserve another one.” Thanks, Elvis.
How about a new song? One never recorded before? We got that too. He said, and if you have ever heard him say these words then you were lucky enough to attend a concert at a special time, “I have a new record coming out…” and we got to hear what I guess is only fair to call an “unreleased song”. It was for a couple more weeks at least. I won’t keep you guessing. Not for long. In a previous posting I mentioned Robert Hilburn’s comment about how he could move from one genre to another like no other performer. The previous bit was the medley of hits and it ended with “Jailhouse Rock” done at light speed. Now we go back to mid–tempo, not a big deal all by itself, and from a rock standard to a spiritual. No one, not even Mahalia Jackson (I really said that? I must be darn sure of myself. I am.), can sing a spiritual like Elvis. The song is one of my all–time favorites and to hear this for the first time before ever hearing it on record was something beyond special. Elvis just said to us, “Tell you what, I’m going to sing a song for you that only a few people have ever heard me sing.” He did not actually say that, but that is what he did. What a great song it is. I always referred to it as a “humbling” song because it tells me that no matter how hot you are or think you are, no matter how well you have it together, without some help from The Man In The Sky you are bound to fall flat on your face.
I was at the record store almost every day until it finally arrived. This was before release schedules were posted months in advance, before the Internet, and just when it would actually come out no one knew for sure. I played “Help Me” more than fifty times before I turned the record over.
The rest of the show was fantastic but those are the two memories that are forever stamped in my mind. What a great day. Cindy and I had dinner and then went back to the apartment and put on some Elvis records. What? You thought we’d have had enough Elvis for one day? Nope. In fact, there was one thing I did wrong. I really goofed; it is right up there in the top ten of my biggest mistakes. What a jerk! I didn’t get tickets for the evening show.

[Elvis_Priestly]

Fantastic writing Vic and fantastic stories, you keep giving me the chills! Thanks so much for sharing these.

[viccolonna@gmail.com]

Impressionable Teens

I admit it; I actually spent hours training one side of my lip to curl back in 1956. I seldom do it now but the muscles have retained the memory. I only did it in private, alone in my room. I was probably in my early twenties before I unleashed my “laughing sneer” on an unsuspecting world. No one noticed; no one cared. No one realized I was trying to be cool. By that time The Beatles had taken over the music world. No one asked me if I thought I was Elvis Presley. I didn’t; I was just another of those kids who was in the ten–to–fifteen age group in 1956 and witnessed the arrival of the most charismatic performer the world had ever seen. Valentino had thousands who gathered annually at his gravesite; Sinatra had his bobby–soxers; Elvis had 50,000,000 fans that knew he could do no wrong.
What do I remember about the spring and fall of 1956 and the spring of 1957? A couple things that you have not seen in those ubiquitous newsreels where that cute, pudgy little boy is standing in front of the mirror combing his hair into a ducktail. I will try to tell you what it was really like on the home front, folks. I lived it, I saw it, and what you have read and seen about that wonderful time in America is less than the truth. American youth did not worship Elvis Presley, they did not idolize Elvis Presley, they simply ate, breathed, and slept Elvis Presley. Guys were not jealous of Elvis; they were too busy trying to figure out how to be as cool as Elvis. Collars got turned up, hair got slicked back, and every little thing one could do to imitate Elvis without being obvious (or so we naïvely thought) was done. Who were we trying to kid? No one. Who were we trying to impress? No one. We just did it. We could not help ourselves. This was the real–life version of the Pied Piper fairy tale. I owned a couple hundred 45s by the time 1956 drew to a close. And I am not counting the drek in the middle of those five–packs (Surplus 45s were bundled together and sold 5/89¢; you based your pick on what you saw on either end—the ones in the middle were inevitably throw–aways). I only had two Elvis 45 singles. I had “Hound Dog” and “Blue Suede Shoes” and neither one had a picture cover. But I had four EPs with all the songs on the 45s I did not have. I remember thinking that I had every song Elvis had recorded because I also had his two LPs, the only two there were at that point in time; the only two albums I owned. This was a time when kids bought 45s, not albums. I remember buying all three of the EPs that were simply each one–third of the second album. I had the album, what did I want the EPs for? The first two even had the same picture as the album. I didn’t have money to spare for something I didn’t really need and the EPs were $1.29 each. Gas was less than a quarter a gallon, comic books were a dime, candy bars were a nickel, and I will let you do the math. A dollar went just a wee bit further when I was a lad. Old Shep’s Alpo® was probably 19¢ a can. Baking soda was 9¢ a box. Those little green bottles of Coca–Cola® were 10¢ in the old round top machines. And I bought those EPs. I actually resisted when I first saw them. That was when I only saw the first two. They did not come out all at once; the release dates were staggered. I could live without something that looked the same as what I had and contained the same songs I already had. Then one afternoon a little after Christmas 1956 I was in Woolworth’s and I saw this EP called, “Strictly Elvis”. What a cool shirt! I might have been a bit disappointed when I saw the songs were simply the other four from the album but I didn’t hesitate. I bought it; then I bought the other two because if I had that one… Unassailable logic. Another sound buying decision by an impressionable teen and the cash register at RCA went ka–ching for the four thousandth time in the last two minutes. I patted myself on the back when I got home because I could now play the songs from “Elvis” without having to flip the needle on my little record player from 45 to LP. I just plain knew what I was doing; I was no impulse buyer. Not me. A couple days later, just to prove I was really an Elvis fan and I was playing for keeps I bought his new 45 on the way home from school. That afternoon, like many an afternoon in CT in winter, I went right to my room and played 45s. I didn’t have a changer, I had to get up after each record ended and put on a new one. I never cared. I never remember wishing I had a changer. I do remember thinking how lucky I was to have my own record player. So I had a new Elvis record. So I played it. I had two new Elvis songs. So I played them. Usually I played a different song every two to three minutes. Some afternoons I watched American Bandstand (down in the den, no TV in this boy’s room) but not that day. That afternoon the stack of 45s next to the record player was smaller than normal. My regular routine was to play as many of my favorites as I could before dinner. That day was energy–conservation day: I just moved the needle from the center to the edge every couple minutes for over an hour. I did turn the record over once. Dad got home, just before 5:30, just like clockwork. By 5:45 he was yelling upstairs to me, just like clockwork, “Turn that s*** down.” That’s the only time Dad ever swore. Okay, once in a great while he GD’d something, but he saved his real down–and–dirty foray into the world of profanity for rock ‘n’ roll. Dad was classically trained and all that noise was just too much at times.
I just told you, now you tell me, the two songs on the 45 I bought in January 1956 and no fair looking it up.
You’ve all seen the footage of disc jockeys breaking Elvis records; you’ve seen the newspaper clippings about preachers ranting to their congregation and warning them this devil–child would be the end of civilization. Know what I remember about that? Nothing. Not a thing. I don’t deny it happened. It has been preserved for all to see—on the silver screen and right there in black–and–white. It happened. Some people actually cared. They must have been that sinister, creepy, avoid–at–all–costs segment of the population known as “adults”. We kids didn’t care; we didn’t even notice. We didn’t bother to ignore it, it wasn’t important enough. Plus, we were too busy ignoring our parent’s constant shouts and threats to “turn that stupid music down”.
Fall of 1956 and I was in eighth grade. Only twelve, I wouldn’t be thirteen until February and that made me a year younger than all my classmates. I was not quite ready to challenge the world on my terms. I was at least two or three years away from feeling I could make it on my own. In just two short years I would know everything I would ever need to know. A few months after that, with all that knowledge at my disposal, I would be rough enough and tough enough to take on the world all by myself. Sound familiar? Gee, you mean some things never change? But some things do and in 1956 they sure did. Rock ‘n’ Roll had been gathering steam for some time now; what it needed was a champion. Down in the Dirty South there was a kid who had been making lots of noise and the word started to spread. Ed Sullivan was the pinnacle of success. Three bookings? America gathered around their TVs to see just what all the commotion was about. True, he had been on TV nine times previously but not that many people had seen him. Uncle Milty was popular; Steve Allen had a big audience; Ed Sullivan was an event. Sunday evenings were planned around The Ed Sullivan Show. Two Sunday evenings that fall there were hundreds of thousands of viewers poised in front of their sets well before eight o’clock to make sure they didn’t miss anything (Seven central time because we all know, thanks to television, that people in the Midwest go to sleep an hour earlier than people on the east coast. It’s the law. Every city in every state in the central time zone has an ordinance stating just that. Would I lie to you?). Come nine o’clock the country was abuzz and people everywhere were talking about a boy and his guitar. Older people, that is. We kids just smiled. Our day had come. Gotcha! Look, Mom & Dad. Look, Virginia, there really is an Elvis Presley and he is a runaway train and there is nothing you can do to stop him. Elvis’ first appearance on Ed Sullivan was an act of vindication for American youth. Our hysteria was justified that night; Elvis just plain jumped out of that screen and into people’s living rooms and the disease that children had been infected with became an epidemic. What was to dislike about this kid? Polite, humble, and he just plain tore the place apart. People began circling the next Sullivan appearance on their calendar. They really did.
I went to Sedgwick Jr. High for seventh and eighth grade. That was fall/winter of 1955 and winter/spring of 1956 for seventh grade and fall/winter of 1956 and winter/spring of 1957 for eighth grade. “Heartbreak Hotel”, “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You”, and “Hound Dog”/”Don’t Be Cruel” just plain dominated the airwaves throughout 1956. Elvis took the world by storm in 1956 A.D. (or, as those in the know like us refer to it— the year 0001 E.P.). By the time eighth grade began he was the king of rock ‘n’ roll. There were all these other great performers touting and shouting this new musical form, heading up this revolution, and then there was Elvis. You know that. You’ve read about it. You’ve seen clips. You’ve heard about it to some extent from curmudgeons like me who happened to be there. As Cashman & West said, “I was there when it started, I was part of the original cast.” Let me try and tell you a little more about what it was really like. How many kids really liked Elvis? Sure, he was #1 but just what did that mean? Did over half the kids think Elvis was great? Was it as many as maybe 75% of us? You decide, as I tell you a couple stories from eighth grade.
I took the bus to school most mornings except for the ones when I was actually ready when Dad left for work and he would drop me just a few blocks from school. I walked a block to Paul Murphy’s house and then we would walk up the street to Sedgwick. When I waited with the crowd for the bus it was typical young teens: the girls were in one group and the guys in another. We didn’t wear backpacks then, everyone carried a notebook, the binder kind where you put the blank sheets in yourself and manila dividers with colored tabs delineated the notes for different classes. We balanced the textbooks on top of the notebooks and carried them under our arm. Guys who had girlfriends had to carry twice as many books—back then there was a strange custom that no longer exists. It was called manners. There are still vestiges of it in existence today but they are few and far between. But in the 1950’s guys carried girl’s books to and from school, they opened car doors for them, they helped them on with their coats, and they even pulled out their chairs before they sat down. Strange days. Trust me, things like this really happened. Sure, kids were kids and some of us talked back to our parents. And Dad took off his belt. And Mom got a bar of soap and scrubbed the inside of our cheeks and lathered our tongues. We learned. Routine parts of child–rearing that were commonplace then are felonies today. Dumb–de–dumb–dumb. I was often unruly (there’s a euphemism for you) in my eighth grade history class and my teacher, Mr. Johnstone, told my parents at the parent–teacher meeting that he would like to take me in the closet and give me a whipping. Dad took off his belt, handed it to Mr. Johnstone, and said, “Go ahead.” I behaved better after that. No lawyer ever entered the picture. And for those of you fortunate enough to have survived Catholic School you have your own stories of Sister Mary Hitler and her six–pound ruler. Discipline was something that was expected and if you strayed outside the lines you paid the price. Strange days indeed. Wonderful days. Days made more wonderful by a new phenomenon we could call our own—Rock ‘n’ Roll—and a kid who could growl way down in his throat, bend a string, and that was all she wrote—Elvis Presley.
So there I am at the bus stop many a morning with the girls a few feet away and they are always putting us boys to shame. They studied more than we did. We were talking sports and there they were, waiting for the bus, with their notebooks open and comparing class notes. Day after day they did this. Every day. They were deadly serious about it and when one of the guys wandered over all the notebooks shut at once. Then they giggled. Girls. Go figure. One day, a few weeks into the fall semester, I thought I spotted a picture of Elvis on the inside cover of one of the girl’s notebooks. So I began to snoop. Whenever I could, on the bus or in class or in the halls, I stole a look at an open notebook one of these study–queens carried. I saw the same thing in every one: pictures of Elvis. Every girl in the school, and I mean every single one (if you didn’t you would be an outcast and individualism had to wait for the sixties, this was an era of conformity) had pictures of Elvis in their notebooks. Inside front cover, inside back cover, and pages covered with Elvis pictures cut out of magazines and glued to notebook pages. Every girl. Every notebook. Was Sedgwick Junior High in West Hartford, CT different from all the other schools in the country? Okay, so this was the reaction of young teeny–boppers to Elvis in the beginning. We didn’t just make him our hero, we made him a part of our everyday existence. A big part.
After school I often went back to Paul Murphy’s house before heading home. He had a cool bedroom that looked out on a backyard full of trees. Big trees. And he had a BB gun and an air pistol. We spent many an afternoon taking pot shots at the birds when they landed on a branch within range and squirrels as they scrambled up and down the trees. I will now state that no animals were ever harmed as a result of our teenage delinquency. We were lousy shots.
So we two gunslingers trudged up the stairs and down the hall to Paul’s room many an afternoon in the fall of 1956 and we had to pass by Paul’s sister’s room on the way. She was in tenth grade and always got home earlier than Paul did. Every time I passed by her room during that eight grade year, every single time, and out of 180 school days I must have gone over to Paul’s fifty or sixty times, I saw the same thing: she was lying on her stomach, facing away from us, arms outstretched, holding one of the two Elvis albums out in front of her. Most of the time the album was playing, sometimes it was silent. Maybe the record had ended and she was about to get up and turn it over; more likely she was in a trance. Every time, folks, every time. She never changed position, I don’t think I ever saw her face.
Was she strange? Was this an anomaly? Or do you think that maybe, just possibly, there was some slight chance that the scene I just described was being repeated in a few hundred thousand bedrooms across the land? Every day. For months on end. And that’s the way it was in the year 0001 E.P.

[drjohncarpenter]

Vic -

Your memories are just about the nicest holiday gift this forum has ever had! Thank you for sharing, and please don't hold back, you've got us all on the "Mystery Train" yet again.

[Tony Trout]

Wow! I dunno who you are but I look forward to hearing more and more of your stories here on the forum!! Welcome!!

[Little Darlin]

Wow! I dunno who you are but I look forward to hearing more and more of your stories here on the forum!! Welcome!!

LOL!!

Vics someone who is once met never forgotten.

[Tony Trout]

LOL!!

Vics someone who is once met never forgotten.

Well....educate me on this intriguing fella, LD!!

[Little Darlin]

LOL!!

Vics someone who is once met never forgotten.

Well....educate me on this intriguing fella, LD!!

Ok .. here goes. although I have never met him myself .. I have it on good authority he's a guy in the ''know''.

Once upon a time far far away ...

No seriously Vic and Paul are the one's who started it all Tony. All the collecting in the good old days of Vinyl is down to these guys.They were so passionate about getting Elvis' work out to the Fans .. they paid the ultimate sacrifice .. God love em'.

We owe a HUGE debt of Gratitude to Vic and Paul and we on FECC are very lucky they are here.

[viccolonna@gmail.com]

The day after Christmas and I trust everyone is smiling. May we all have eighty or more of them and may some of them be as memorable as an Elvis Concert. They will be. You'll have the tree knocked over by your toddler. I do not wish upon you the time all the presents, I mean every present for every one on our list, all those ones we stayed up all night wrapping and how beautiful they looked under the tree at 4 a.m., all those presents were spread out all over the living room floor in their unwrapped glory when we got up a few hours later, the floor covered in ripped paper and untied ribbons. A good thing there was no Internet when Patrick was four or he would have been on eBay that afternoon.

My attempt to describe the '74 concert (that's 1974, my daughter Lisa is looking over my shoulder and she just asked, "are you going to tell them what it was like just after the Civil War, daddy?") seems to have been somewhat successful. I recall reading back in the seventies (before cable TV, before the Internet) that the networks counted one letter from a viewer as 1500. That is, the market research people had estimated that for every person who actually took the time to sit down and write a letter and put it in the mail there were another 1499 people who felt the same way but did not take the time to write.

Knowing that bit of trivia I can safely figure that when one of you takes the time to post a kind response that others out there feel the same way. You have managed to ignite a tiny spark of sentimentality in this granite heart of mine. Thank you. We are a strange animal, this species of ours that is separated from the others by the remarkable gift of language: making people happy makes people happy.

Here comes 2008. Whoosh! This is our life flashing by. Happy New Year to you all. Thanks for the kind words.

[Tony Trout]

Ok .. here goes. although I have never met him myself .. I have it on good authority he's a guy in the ''know''.

Once upon a time far far away ...

No seriously Vic and Paul are the one's who started it all Tony. All the collecting in the good old days of Vinyl is down to these guys.They were so passionate about getting Elvis' work out to the Fans .. they paid the ultimate sacrifice .. God love em'.

We owe a HUGE debt of Gratitude to Vic and Paul and we on FECC are very lucky they are here.

Kewl! I guess I'm a late bloomer when it comes to guys like this. Welcome aboard the FECC train, Vic & Paul!!


(I apologize for the mini-hijacking..we now return you to your regularly scheduled thread already in progress--carry on, y'all!)

[viccolonna@gmail.com]

just thought of one that always made me chuckle. after i stopped crying. we actually got an elvis scarf. vicki did, my children's mother. it was signed. not one he handed out, i knew someone who knew someone and when we went to the hilton my buddy fulfilled my request. i knew vicki would be jazzed, and she was. hey, not everyone had a scarf actually signed by elvis. when we got home what do you think she did?

everyone who said "put it in the washing machine" go to the head of the class.

well, it was signed for a while anyway.

a corollary to that one:

we were down front at the hilton for one show and at the very end elvis came to the front of the stage and flicked his guitar pick out into the audience. it hit me in the chest and i dove to the floor to beat all those who would also be going after it. i grabbed it, it had fallen right at my feet, and looked up. everyone was looking down at me wondering what i was doing down there. it was such a casual little movement, his hand was at his waist, everyone must have been looking at his face and no one noticed. talk about feeling like an idiot. so i got up and held the guitar pick high as if to explain this aberrant behavior. guitar picks are pretty small and the looks i got were even more skeptical.

that guitar pick went into the change purse section of one of vicki's pocketbooks. it was white, sort of mother of pearl, and had a little gold E on it. four years later it was joined by a KISS guitar pick with Gene Simmons picture on it that i caught when i took patrick to see KISS. it joined the elvis pick in its safe little hideaway. i had always meant to get a little frame and mount that elvis pick on black velvet but never got around to it.

so now i had two to frame and i decided to do it a few months later.

that was a couple weeks after vicki cleaned out the closet and got rid of lots of things she never used any longer. including a bunch of old pocketbooks.

[Gregory Nolan Jr.]

Keep 'em coming, Vic! Great stuff.

Tony to catch up, find the newly-revived "Them Damn Bootlegs..!" thread (below), then read from the start to finish, then return to this sequel thread of sorts, starting with page one.

http://www.elvis-collectors.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22741&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a


********************

[viccolonna@gmail.com]

thank you gregory nolan for that link. i went there, read a little, it reminded me of some things, just spent 45 minutes composing, tried to post, it vanished. fooey. it's late. i'll reconstruct it tomorrow. for now i will put on my hair shirt and tighten my celice because i know better. always copy the post or the email before you hit send or submit. i hate it when that happens. where's my shirt? oh that itches. now to cinch that strap tight. ouch.

[wwelvis]

Well, it kinda looks like my old buddy Vic is taking over completely (as he very well should) so I suspect that Willem will soon announce that there will be a special "ASK VIC" section. They love this guy (and rightfully so)! I still need someone with a PHD in everything to explain to me what he's saying but that's ok

Oh, and let me be the first to tell everyone that we are RE-DOING all those great "imports" like BEHIND CLOSED DOORS; ROCKIN REBELS 1-3; 68 COMEBACKS 1 & 2; etc etc with NEW liner notes penned of course by................MR VIC COLONNA. The good news is that you won't have to read all that drivel and the childish mess that I wrote and got away with but the bad news is that the NEW liner notes for EACH LP (how many did we do, Vic?? 20, 30????) will be approximately 350 pages long so that each LP will come with a special hardbound book which will just be liner notes. You can order each LP from either me or Vic. My price will be $5,000 each (plus postage) although trades are preferred; Vic's will be $2.98 each (postage included). The first release will be the newly discovered (and, until now, UNKNOWN) sessions Elvis did in Darby, PA with his best friend Jim "E" Curtin in 1969. Of course bonus photos (all color and AUTOGRAPHED by Jim and Elvis) will be included along with the 350 page liner notes from Vic. You won't want to miss this one.

[Keith F]

If you don't mind Paul, I'll order my copy from Vic!

[viccolonna@gmail.com]

seeing paul's latest post made me think: when the book is finished i will have to do the "acknowledgements" page thanking all of those who assisted me. so i have decided to thank everyone who posts a reply on this thread because it is their encouragement that inspired me to finally get it done. i have been procrastinating too long.

now, if you want to be in the "special thanks go to" section just send paul $10.

the "very special thanks go to" section will be $25.

the "without whose inspiration this would not have been possible" section will be $100

the "lifelong friends who stood by when things got tough" section will be $1000.

send all the money to paul, he's two payments behind on his ferrari.

[Ciscoking]

...sent....

[wwelvis]

Thanks Vic old buddy! The payments on the Ferrari are due Jan 1 but don't forget about my three new Corevettes I just bought plus the WWELVIS yacht and the homes in Bermuda, Barbados, St Thomas, and the French Riviera.

But what Vic has failed to mention is that the "book" so far is OVER 20,000 pages and that's just covering the year 1975!! Also, Vic hasn't told anyone about the CD and DVD versions where you can see and hear the amazing Vic Colonna in person go into every minute detail of how a record is actually pressed. Trust me, all you Colonnaites, you have to see this to appreciate it.

Vic goes wild and TELLS ALL!!

VIC RULES!!!

[viccolonna@gmail.com]

We know Elvis liked to play football so we know he'll be watching the Patriots tonight as they try to go undefeated. I want them to win because:

Every time another team has won their first nine or ten games and talk of an undefeated season springs up here come the members of that '72 Dolphins team saying they were the greatest and no team will ever do it again. Just so happens those Dolphins, and they did go on and win the Super Bowl so they were a very good team, played about twelve games that year against teams with a losing record. So I hope the Patriots win so the old Dolphins will just shut up.

The irony of the Dolphins team of this year going winless while the Patriots won them all was avoided a couple weeks ago. That would have been one for the books.

Enjoy the game.

[paulsweeney]

Thanks Vic old buddy! The payments on the Ferrari are due Jan 1 but don't forget about my three new Corevettes I just bought plus the WWELVIS yacht and the homes in Bermuda, Barbados, St Thomas, and the French Riviera.

Homes on the French Riviera aren't that expensive

http://ca.geocities.com/paulselvispage@rogers.com/index1.html

And you guys make for some interesting reading...keep it up

[viccolonna@gmail.com]

thanks for that, paul sweeney, i would have thought it would be much more. less than 700 bucks for a week's lodging is not bad at all. could not stay at a hotel for that. now all i need do is retrofit my rowboat, spend a few months at the gym building up my arms to the size they were when i was lugging around all those boxes of records every day, and i am off.

i just realized, paul is in tremendous shape and i can let him do the rowing while i navigate. i can't wait to tell him.

[wwelvis]

Hey Vic!

Phew! Another normal day in the life of a former (????) bootlegger! Got a hot date tonight so i want to workout a little before!

Woke up at 7AM. Ran 12 miles. Had a huge protein shake. Then right off to the gym for 2 hours. (Oh, I finally got that 650 pound bench press I've been working on for a few months!). Then home for lunch. On the beach at 1PM. Rowed around the Gulf til about 4, then headed immediately to Tony's kickboxing gym where I sparred 15 rounds. Got home around 5:30. Still hadn't been able to work up a good sweat so I ran 7 miles and am now ready for dinner! Gotta leave soon to pick up Vickie!! It's going to be a long night but I think I'm ready.

So don't worry old buddy! I row - you navigate!!!