Peter Guralnick on Elvis Presley & Colonel Tom Parker w/an Intro by Billy Bob Thornton!

Break out the Peanut Butter, Banana & Bacon Sandwiches as Phil and David welcome Peter Guralnick, the renowned author of two definitive Elvis Presley biographies and the brand new book "The Colonel and the King: Tom Parker, Elvis Presley, And The Partnership That Rocked The World." Past "Naked Lunch" guest Billy Bob Thornton introduces this episode, then Phil and David use their Burning Love and Suspicious Minds to ask Peter lots of questions about Elvis and hear Peter's surprising take on Elvis's famously controversial manager, Colonel Tom Parker. That's All Right, but prepare to get All Shook Up. To buy Peter's new book, go here. To learn more about building community through food and "Somebody Feed the People," visit the Philanthropy page at philrosenthalworld.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello, Billy, Bob Thornton. Here, I so enjoyed having my
naked lunch with Phil Rosenthal and David Wilde. And now
I'm happy to introduce this latest lunch with a great
writer about music and about life, the author of the
new The Colonel and the King, Tom Parker, Elvis Presley,
and the partnership that rocked the world, the one and

(00:25):
only Peter Gerlnick.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Let's build the Beans to the fat, food for thought
and jokes on tap, talking with our mouthsful, having fun,
the beas the cake and humble pie, serving upsize lovely.
The dressing homicide. It's naked lunch.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
Clothing optional.

Speaker 4 (01:00):
Oh hello David, Hey Phil, how are you doing.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
I'm doing good, doing good. I just noticed it.

Speaker 4 (01:04):
The mug I chose today was to just try it mug.
And do you know that we're doing at least two
more books with som and Schuster, Two more kids books.
Oh my god, two more just try It books are coming.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
A generation will grow up on your books.

Speaker 5 (01:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
Apparently, just try It is popular with the kids and
the parents who are trying to get their kids to
try new things like eating new foods. The next book,
which you can pre order now is just try it
someplace new where little Lily is going someplace she's never
been before, and that is to stay over at her

(01:40):
grandma's house. So that's you know, these are the big
challenges that kids face. But our attitude about the books are.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
Just keep it open mind exactly. Well, that seems to
be part of the brand, right, the emotional brand of
somebody feed Phil exactly. If you can open them out,
you can open the mind, right. And speaking of.

Speaker 6 (01:59):
That, Phil's Favorites Cookbook, our second cookbook is also for
pre order now if you want did you.

Speaker 7 (02:06):
Know what you're doing ads today?

Speaker 8 (02:07):
David?

Speaker 3 (02:08):
I did not, and I'm gonna start ordering right now.

Speaker 7 (02:11):
Just so happened? Do I get to discount dcing?

Speaker 4 (02:13):
I'm going to give you a book and I'll even sign.

Speaker 6 (02:15):
It to my Let's see, what should I call you?

Speaker 3 (02:21):
Moyle sister? What's going on today?

Speaker 4 (02:27):
What's in the news, what's happening with you?

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Well, I'm very excited today about our guests. Yes, because
he's a music writer. You know you think of me,
people describe me as a distinguished music writer or a musicologist.
I don't think I'm either one of those things. I'm
your kind of yeah, well, we'll see what he thinks
of me. Okay, But this guy wrote two books that

(02:52):
I are two of the best biographies period I've ever
read about Elvis President. I've heard him and I as
I'll tell him as openly as I can. I did
not grow up a massive fan of Elvis Presley. I
just generationally, I'm not sure you're allowed to stay in
the country. Well, no, I now am. But he's a

(03:14):
large part of the reason I am is these books
made me sort of fall in love with the guy.
I just as when I grew up. I remember my
first memory of Elvis is him dying, and sort of
at that exact moment, I knew one song by Elvis,
which was Wow, suspicious minds.

Speaker 7 (03:30):
You know.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
I was seventy seven, Yeah, and I just wasn't It
hadn't my home. My parents had Frank Sinatra and some
Beatles records, but they didn't have l But you had
to know that the Beatles were directly influenced by him,
that all our favorites now were influenced by him one
hundred percent. Like Bryce Springsteen, you know is you know
often spoken about this podcast hugely influenced by Elvis it's

(03:54):
just said. It took me time to fall in love
with Elvis, and I now totally have. And this guy
is such a great writer. He's sort of yeah, he's
sort of a scholar. And I think one thing we
should discuss with him is he sort of befriended all

(04:15):
the great R and B and country roots guys the
way you did with sitcom guys, like, you know, instead
of Carl Reiner and mel Brooks and all these legends,
he really sort of found ways to bond with the greats.
He also in that way. It's a little like and
I will tell people you might want to go back
and listen to our Peter Wolf episode because Peter and

(04:39):
Peter Wolf and our guest today, Peter Gromick good friends
and I think similar sort of deep scholars of the
roots of music. And Peter is Gromnik who's on today
talking about Elvis. He's such an influence. He came up,
I believe, in two of our recent episodes, not knowing
we were going to have him on. He was on

(05:00):
the Donnie Osmond. When Donnie called in, I think we
were talking about Elvis, and I brought up these amazing books.
So those books just so people know. Last Train to Memphis,
The Rise of Elvis Presley came out in nineteen ninety four. Yeah,
and then in nineteen ninety nine he wrote this sort
of follow up, Careless Love, The Unmaking of Elvis Presley,

(05:22):
And now the book's coming out August fifth is called
The Colonel and the King Tom Parker, Elvis Presley and
the Partnership that Rocked the World, which is Colonel Tom Someone,
how familiar are you with Colonel Tom Parker?

Speaker 9 (05:36):
I saw Tom Hanks play him in the famous Buyer
Pick of Elvis. Yeah, it came out a couple of
years ago. Well, that's one thing I think we should
ask Peter is what he thinks of There are more books, movies,
and portrayals of Elvis and like anyone in history. Yeah,
and I wonder which ones he likes. I remember thinking
Kurt Russell was a pretty good Elvis. I don't know
if you ever saw that. I remember that.

Speaker 3 (05:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (05:58):
But the docs are the things that I mean, I'm
always going to prefer a documentary over a reenact.

Speaker 3 (06:06):
Enough with the biopics.

Speaker 4 (06:07):
If someone's really famous and we know them very well,
do we really need to see an actor play them?
When the documentary footage is not only so much.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
Better from a performance standpoint because they're the real deal,
but also.

Speaker 7 (06:26):
Accurate.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
Yep.

Speaker 10 (06:27):
So I'm just I'm not disparaging any movies that that
attempt this, but I don't find them as necessary as
other forms of entertainment.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
I do remember when the Buddy Holly story came out
a I thought Buddy Holly was Gary Busey. They were
the same people that was an Oscar nominated before. He
was absolutely fantastic. And here's the other thing. We didn't
know Buddy Holly very well. Yes, it's a different challenge.
It is. Everyone knows Elvis, yes, And one thing about

(06:59):
Elvis is I had last night to trep for this.
I watched a few documentaries. Uh, and I watched one
of the worst of the Elvis movies because I did
not grow up watching Elvis Presley movies. I don't know
if you did, but they're not great. No, I watched
clam Bake, and I can tell you they're not great.
And when he's star Fussel, don't ever call a movie

(07:21):
clam bake number one. You could call a clam bake
a clam bay. Yes, nothing even that may not probably
another name, yes, maybe a seafood Delight or something something
else the entirely Yeah. Uh, it's funny because, uh, you know,
there's so many things I'd like to know more details on.
Like one of the famous stories is the opportunities that

(07:42):
Elvis missed, and sometimes Colonel Tom Parker was blamed for that.
Like the famous one is the star is Warren Barbara
Streisand yeah, they wanted Elvis to do that amazing idea.
Can you imagine that the roll?

Speaker 9 (07:56):
I can't.

Speaker 7 (07:57):
I can't.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
I think it would have been a I.

Speaker 4 (08:01):
Think, but it's an amazing the idea is right, Yes,
biggest star.

Speaker 6 (08:05):
In the world now on the come down while his
girlfriend is ascending. That's that goes back to Starsborn from
the twenties.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
I believe was the first iteration of a star is born.

Speaker 7 (08:16):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (08:17):
Everyone remembers the Judy Garland James Mason one, which is
probably the definitive one. Uh, I think, to me, the
definitive one. Just I guess my parents didn't show me
the Yeah, the classic one was the barbarous Streis and
Chris koosoftis is big in my home. And then I
thought the Lady Gaga Bradley cooperwll was really good and
was surprising.

Speaker 7 (08:38):
It was good.

Speaker 4 (08:38):
I think it's the strength of the story.

Speaker 7 (08:40):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
Good.

Speaker 6 (08:41):
So it's kind of almost like a Greek tragedy or.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
Something in your household. I don't know this about Max
and Helen.

Speaker 6 (08:48):
I thought you were even saying my household, I'm descending
and Monica is ascending.

Speaker 3 (08:52):
True or not so? And so it is a little
bit of the stars. Yeah, but did rock and roll
mean something to your parents? Not one bit of Then
turn that noise down because they were classical at least
as I you.

Speaker 6 (09:05):
Know there, come from the old country, right, so they
didn't like popular culture much at all. In fact, I
think I've said this before, but my grandmother had a
fantastic Yiddish or German phrase for most entertainment, most American entertainment,
which was katch midzosa, which means crap with sauce on it.

Speaker 3 (09:28):
That is an amazing phrase I've never heard.

Speaker 6 (09:31):
The most things in the culture they found were katch
midzosa crapped with sauce on.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
And did you ever read a review of your work
that included that phrase? No, but I think it's applicable.

Speaker 7 (09:43):
No, No, uh.

Speaker 3 (09:46):
I want to talk to this young man. How old
this is a young man? This human bean is in
his eighties, so he is he'll love young man. I'm
gonna call him young man. Here he is Peter Gramm.

Speaker 7 (10:04):
Oh, I wish that word more.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
Under there were.

Speaker 7 (10:16):
My love of rock and roll happened very much in
the Elvis Costello so a phase of music. And I
so Elvis President was always my second favorite Elvis. And
then uh, I remember, you know, being told I had
to read your books as soon as they came out,
and they changed my perspective on Elvis and and I

(10:38):
think more than anything, they made me fall in love
with him as a person. I I I think he
had was he seemed like the furthest thing from a
person to me. And then I feel like your books
really taught me to understand and love the guy.

Speaker 11 (10:56):
Well, thanks so much. I mean, that was certainly the aim.
It was the aspiration. What was to bring him to life,
to remove him from the stigma of myth and theology
and you know, just the But you know, I think
your experience is like a lot of people, because he
disappeared from the from the spotlight, and so I mean
he didn't disappear from Elvis Costello swap I mean King

(11:18):
of America, yes, But the point is that but for Elvis,
the thing was that for the most part, he became
a cultural what people say, it was a cultural icon
that's good or bad, but not a career. You're not
a not conscious creative artist.

Speaker 8 (11:33):
And that was everything I was trying to do. So
I mean, I appreciate you saying that.

Speaker 11 (11:39):
You know it certainly was. I'm not claiming to have
achieved and I never claim I would never claim to
have achieved my aim, but it was certainly my aim
and my aspiration to do what you what you describe.

Speaker 7 (11:52):
Well, just so you know, on this podcast, I literally said,
they're not just two greatest music biographies. So there's just
two of the greatest biographies ever. And now with this book,
I feel like you've taken on having humanized the greatest
sort of icon that was reduced by you know, cultural
history and and maybe even a little by his own

(12:14):
the arc of his own career and life. You have
taken on telling the story of the colonel, Colonel Tom
Parker and in the context of Elvis, and I just
think this is a remarkable thing and I'm just gonna
feel if you want to, I'm going to share one
story because I would love your reaction. When I moved

(12:35):
to la in nineteen ninety one, I started driving to
Vegas every weekend because I had no friends and I
literally had nothing to do. This well, I married thirty
one years and.

Speaker 12 (12:49):
He's driving to Vegas this weekend.

Speaker 7 (12:52):
She asked me to go. But when I one of
the first time, and fortunately very soon the Sinatra people
realized I was going to see Sinatra at that point
like on the weekends, and they asked me to do
the liner notes. So this was had a happy ending.
I ended up getting to write Sinatra liner notes and
living a few dreams. But one of those first weekends,

(13:12):
I went to the Hilton and went to play blackjack,
and I went to sit down at a table, and
they told me you cannot sit at this table. You
cannot be over there. I said why, I said, this
table was held for the Colonel, And I went in
nineteen ninety one, this table was held for the colonel,
and I was just overwhelmed that I didn't even think
of the Colonel as being alive and certainly not still

(13:35):
gambling and possibly racking up on Elvis's account, but I did.
I called Yon Winner at Rolling Stone, where I was working,
and said the colonel was alive and still around here apparently,
so can I interview him? And I believe rolling Stone
called the office for me on my behalf, and we

(13:56):
got back the response, the colonel would love to do
an interview for ten thousand dollars per anecdote. Wow, and
per anecdote. We discussed this for me. Now, you can't
pay for anything, but what I just loved about it
was ten thousand dollars per anecdote, and little I knew
about Colonel Tom. I thought it's very funny. But I
have a feeling an anecdote would be a noun and

(14:18):
a verb. Have you ever heard of anyone being asked
ten thousand dollars an anecdote?

Speaker 11 (14:25):
Well, I don't think you were really being asked. I
think this is kind of perpetuating his own, his own
myth and his own you know so persona, And which
was odd because in a certain way, I think he
would have given anything to have shed that persona, and
yet he did more to build it up and more
to develop it. And he did this and this is

(14:45):
like the whole thing with you know, his being called colonel.
I mean people would ask him about it, people from
the time, from way way back, and he would say,
you know, I'm just a phony colonel. I'm not a
real kernel. So I've got a pony in him after me,
a little colonel. Can you imagine I had a horse
named after me, a named little colonel. But I mean
that was the extent to which he took it seriously.

(15:06):
So I think that, you know, the aim of the biography,
which wasn't intended to be a biography, originally was intended
to be a collection of his letters.

Speaker 8 (15:13):
Because I thought they were so elequent.

Speaker 11 (15:15):
They provided, you know, a way in to something of
his interior life. And then things changed and more things
opened up. But the point of the biography was to
get beyond you know that persona is a bad word,
but you know, just just that image that he had

(15:36):
developed and in which he took such delight.

Speaker 8 (15:38):
As he wrote to.

Speaker 11 (15:38):
His friend in Tampa, the newspaperman Paul Wilder, he said,
these little things that keep me going, these little letters
and stuff. If we didn't have these things, this is
back at sixty, if we didn't have these things to
keep going. I don't know what the point would be.
And that is the point. Over and over again, people
who got close to him observed that it was the jokes,

(15:59):
It was the kit.

Speaker 8 (16:00):
He was part of the.

Speaker 11 (16:00):
Whole kidding culture. I mean, something which I think has
gone today, but in which he got such a kickout
of and had he not goten the kickout of it,
neither he nor Elvis. I mean it's interesting they made
so much money. I mean, the money that Elvis made
is almost incal killed and neither one of them cared the.

Speaker 8 (16:19):
Slightest bit about money.

Speaker 11 (16:20):
Elvis liked to spend it, Colonel liked to gamble it away,
and it meant absolutely nothing to them.

Speaker 8 (16:25):
Really, it was a game.

Speaker 12 (16:28):
Because it always I think the mythology is that the
Colonel took full advantage of Elvis and did it for
the money.

Speaker 8 (16:36):
He didn't get any money.

Speaker 11 (16:37):
I mean, he kept a million dollars in the bank
in case of an emergency, whether it was you know,
it should have file Elvis, who was always in danger.
I mean, you can see the letters from Vernon and two.
But Elvis has fathered Vernon, but Vernon was just devastated.
I mean, this is the reason why Elvis went to Washington.

Speaker 8 (16:58):
You know, to get his MD. Is the nd is
you know the Nixon moment. Yes, But the reason.

Speaker 11 (17:04):
He went was because basically Vernon and Priscilla, I don't
want to say they ganged up on him, but they
came together and said you've got to cut down and
was spending. You know, you have to do this, and
he just stormed out the door, flew to LA. When
he got to La called it Ferry Shilly and he decided, well,
I'm going back to I think he had maybe been
on the plane with George Murphy. I'm not to be

(17:26):
the Senator, but I'm not sure about that. But the
point wasn't then he flew back to Washington his badge.
But it was all set off by the attempts to
control them. And again you can see in the book
where and this was not a problem that had ever
that had ever shown itself prior to Elvis in Vegas.
I mean, he had always enjoyed gambling, but it had

(17:46):
never been a dominant feature in any way. And then
it just took control of his life. As his wife, Leanne,
who adored him, adored him past the point of adoration,
and who admired him as much as she do it him.
And yet you know, she was committed to telling the
truth about him, and she described him and just as

(18:08):
a gambling addict in a way that I always figured, well,
this is all part of his shtick in the sense,
and he could, he was a lovable rap scallion. He
could lose a million dollars at the table, which he did,
and it didn't affect him, and the money did not
affect him, but the addiction did in any case. But
the point was what I was saying was from the
sixties on, he kept a million dollars in the bank

(18:30):
if they should run into an emergency with Elvis, which
was always on the verge of happening financial emergency or
because his wife Marie was increasingly ill, and should that
be necessary, and he died with a million dollars in
the bank.

Speaker 8 (18:45):
That was it. That was the end.

Speaker 12 (18:49):
When we see that biopic from a few years ago,
is there any truth to the way it's presented their relationship?
In other words, let's start at the beginning. Did he
really discover Elvis playing at a county fair?

Speaker 11 (19:07):
No, No, I haven't seen the movie, so I'm not
going to comment on the movie. Okay, it's it's not
it's not my aesthetic.

Speaker 12 (19:15):
I guess I understand it wasn't mine either, and I
saw the movie.

Speaker 11 (19:19):
But did you know, I mean, I think the most
telling thing about his original let's call it discovery of
Elvis for himself. He didn't discover himself that Sam Phillips
discovered Elvis. His parents.

Speaker 8 (19:34):
Elvis' parents discovered they.

Speaker 11 (19:35):
Had too, of course, But Colonel heard about Elvis in
January of nineteen fifty five. He heard that he had
done I forget you might remember, but eight hundred dollars
worth of business in Texakan. He had done way more
business than he could ever have been expected from an
untried and tested, unproven you know, nineteen year He was nineteen.

Speaker 8 (19:57):
At the time.

Speaker 11 (19:58):
Colonel went to see him at the Louisiana Hay Ride
on January twenties. With January twenty fifty five.

Speaker 7 (20:07):
Sixty six, more than sixty six years ago. Amazing, more
than sixty years ago.

Speaker 8 (20:12):
I'm sorry, well, seventy years ago, isn't it.

Speaker 7 (20:17):
Well, yeah, there's my math.

Speaker 11 (20:21):
I remember, but no, I mean, but the point was
he Colonel was at the top of the country music game.
He was the most successful manager in the business. He
had built Eddie Arnold into an act that nobody had
ever seen before. I mean, Gosbrooks was the first to
come along that even it was close to rivaling him.

(20:43):
And he was managing Eddie Arnold, who was the number
one country artist you know at that time. And he
was prepared, within weeks of seeing Elvis, to throw all
of that aside, to put everything he had into the
promotion management of Elves Press. Not I mean at a
time when nobody else, no other manager, no other promoter.

(21:05):
I mean, Kinnel went around I don't know how many
these letters I have in the book, but Colonel went
around to all these well known promoters looking for to
book Elvis, looking for you know, money which might help out.
Not all of them said, well, he's a nice boy,
but you know he's not ready for this. Colonel essentially
gambled absolutely everything from within weeks. I mean he was

(21:31):
prepared to put everything on the table within weeks of
having first seen Elvis performed. And it wasn't the performance,
it wasn't the music. It was he saw on Elvis
and it wasn't you know self. Aggraandouzman, on his part
it was because I really believe that it was because
he saw it in Elvis, someone who saw a future
as Colonel saw a future that neither one of them

(21:52):
could ever articulated, a future that had not yet taken place.
But he had such belief in Elvis for that total belief,
and Elvis had a not only a faith in the
manner in which he could move ahead, I mean, and
his wife had I mean, his mother had almost a
spiritual sense of what he was destined for, even if

(22:14):
they couldn't have possibly articulated. But Colonel truly believed, this
is another day, this is another vision, this is another
this is something which the world has never seen. And
that's what he gambled on. And by the end of
the month.

Speaker 6 (22:28):
He wasn't the power of rock and roll?

Speaker 7 (22:30):
Is that what?

Speaker 8 (22:31):
No? No?

Speaker 11 (22:32):
I mean, Sam Phillips believed in the power of rock
and roll, but Colonel believed.

Speaker 8 (22:38):
I believe.

Speaker 11 (22:39):
I think he saw in Elvis a someone so committed
to his art, so committed to his music. I mean
he saw this in Eddie Arnold too, but not with
that degree of passion. I mean, he was totally committed
to Eddie Ironold. He had stayed with him to the end.
It didn't work out, but he saw in Elvis not
only someone who was so committed to his are nothing

(23:00):
was going to turn him around, but also someone who
had the ability to grow, to educate himself, to just
almost with every performance, to develop something new, and somebody
who was open. Also is because Colonel Somseelf is a teachers,
not just Sam phillipsyimself as a teacher who was open

(23:20):
to instruction and suggestion, and who took Colonel's suggestions not
an instantly. I wouldn't say I wouldn't say that Elvis
was sold on colonel. He was totally sold on colonel
as somebody who could get him into the big time.

Speaker 8 (23:34):
But that was it.

Speaker 11 (23:35):
But somebody who could take Colonel's suggestions and advance them
and take them in his own way without in any way,
you know, submitting himself to being dictated by colonel or
anything like that. I mean, the whole point of the
it may not be the first chapter, but about Elvis
and the Colonel. I think it's in that section which
is called a partnership of equals. But the whole point

(23:59):
of the an initial chapter, one of the initial chapters
about Colonel's management of Elvis. It's called defending Elvis, and
he Colonel defended Elvis against every single comer. He defended
him against his record company that wanted to, you know,
conventionalize his music. He defended him against his booking agency

(24:22):
William Morris that was totally alarmed by the way that
Elvis was coming across Milton on the Milton Berle Show,
on the you know, on the dor SA shows and
said the Colonel, can't you do something. He defended him
against his record company where Steve shows and Bill Bullock
wrote him a letter which I think in the book
or at least allude to it in March of fifty

(24:42):
six saying, this is not what we agreed upon. You
were you were supposed to deliver Elvis to the mainstream market.
We were going to make him into a pop singer,
and you're not doing that. And Colonel said, my artist
knows what he wants, my artist knows his business, and
I will not interfere with any that my artist chooses
to do. And he never did. He never suggested the son,

(25:05):
he never suggested the direction. He totally believed.

Speaker 7 (25:08):
Just one song. I believe if I learned from from
your book. Are you launchome tonight?

Speaker 5 (25:13):
Are you long.

Speaker 11 (25:16):
Tonight?

Speaker 10 (25:18):
Do you miss me?

Speaker 2 (25:23):
Are you sorry?

Speaker 5 (25:26):
We drifty?

Speaker 6 (25:32):
Does your memo Mistra.

Speaker 7 (25:37):
To Bride? We have to think we got to give
the Colonel crdit for that. I'll tell you last night
and Phil was saying when we before we connected with
you that he tends to look at the documentaries, which
I think I also I love documentaries. But I will
say that Elvis fifty six. You ever see that one?

Speaker 5 (25:58):
Yes?

Speaker 7 (25:59):
You have you seen that?

Speaker 8 (26:00):
I worked on that.

Speaker 11 (26:01):
That was by the Raymond, the Raymonds, Alan and Susan Raymond.

Speaker 7 (26:07):
That was phenomenal.

Speaker 11 (26:09):
It was I withdrew from for reasons that had nothing
but the image.

Speaker 8 (26:13):
I'll tell you what made it.

Speaker 11 (26:14):
Phenomenal was the Worthhimer images And that was the entire
thing that was based on and to make to bring
to life just the galvinism of Elvis's performances. I mean,
for instance, I believe they used Worthhimer's photographs from the
Hown Dog session. I don't be cruel session, and they
essentially I figure what you call it, but they gave

(26:36):
you know, they put them into a sequence that gave
the motion. But yeah, no, the eloquence of al Wortheimer's
photographs is astonishing.

Speaker 12 (26:45):
That but also the footage. I mean, if anyone wants
an intro to Elvis or just wants to understand the
power of him, that's that's the best thing you can see.

Speaker 11 (26:54):
Oh, I think, I think you're right. The other thing,
and I don't remember, I mean, but this is actually
one of the things that got me into writing the
biography of Elvis was through working with the Raymonds and
throughout Van Elworth, whom I met for the first time
at that time, you know, and knew for the rest
of his life. I mean to a degree. I mean,
I don't mean didn't make too much of it, but

(27:16):
I got access. Remember this is in a pre internet age.
This is you know, there's no Safari, there's no search engines,
there's no and there was no availability of Elvis's interviews,
early interviews. And I said, look, I've got to see
listen to all of the early interviews from fifty five,

(27:38):
fifty six, fifty seven, and actually there were a couple
in sixty and sixty two that were great, but and
that was when and so I just immersed myself in that,
which is what I basically what I wrote. The script
of the script was it's not the final script. It
was a script that I wrote, and I immersed myself
in that. But I suddenly realized that I didn't have

(28:02):
to write about I mean, if I wanted to, I
didn't have to write about Elvis from the outside, which
is what I don't. I mean, I let's say I
wrote the chapter of the Rolling Stone the Illustrated History
of Rock and Roll, or I wrote a chapter about
Elvis in The Lost Highway, and I'm going I'm not
rejecting those. I'm not going back on those. But they
were written from the outside. They were theoretic. They were
trying to figure out what maybe is that the way

(28:23):
it happened is that the way it could have happened.
But listening to the interviews, I suddenly realized Elvis can
speak for himself, which is pretty much the experience that
I had when I saw Colonel's letters. I mean, but
Elvis can speak for himself, He can speak eloquently for himself.

Speaker 8 (28:35):
Those are early interviews.

Speaker 11 (28:36):
I just astonish it, and I wish we had him
here instead of me, because he would just blow you
away with.

Speaker 7 (28:42):
All due respective. We would accept that.

Speaker 2 (28:55):
What you want the biggest.

Speaker 11 (29:00):
Now, can't you hear me? What car.

Speaker 7 (29:07):
I said to me, so big? You know you're just tall.
I will say that Phil. You know I couldn't recommend
more highly anything Peter has written. But yeah, like the Colonel,
My understanding of the Colonel is changed radically by the

(29:29):
first half of this book is really it's a bit
of a narrative of the relationship of Elvis and the Colonel.
The second half is the letters. But by the first
half I knew enough that when I watched this documentary
last night Bruce Springsteen, who I bet we all kind
of love on some level, he said something about Colonel Tom,
and I really thought, boy, this isn't example of where

(29:50):
I think Bruce Springsteen is wrong. Because in this documentary,
which is sort of about the sixty eight special, he
said something which was I tried to write it down accurately.
This closest collaborator was someone who didn't understand him, and
went on to say, someone who sort of thought he
was a clown or which is interesting because Colonel Tom,
the more you read, had a real circus history, so

(30:11):
the clown thing has a certain power. But I believe
I learned from your book. From this book, that the
Colonel had a deep understanding and a deep love for Elvis.
That the sort of idea of him as this exploiter
purely out to you know, undermine him artistic or whatever

(30:33):
the perception is. Am I wrong? That the Colonel had
a deep understanding.

Speaker 11 (30:37):
He had a total understand and a total dedication to
further in the art of his artist. I mean, he
wanted to do nothing more than to make it possible
for Elvis to do exactly what he wanted to do.
Now it's Bruce Bensley is a very eloquent commentator on Elvis.
I think in this instance, you know, he I hope,

(31:02):
I hope he reads my book, and I hope it
gives him a different perspective, because it really would be
unfair to see Colonel is exploiting him at every stage
from the very beginning on. The intention is to do
everything he can to allow Elvis, to encourage him, to

(31:22):
help him to express himself in the way that he
wants to, so that you see, for example, in the
early sixties, which is which maybe I mean.

Speaker 8 (31:30):
I hate to.

Speaker 11 (31:31):
Say this because I would never have said this as
a kid, but that may be the pinnacle of Elvis's art.
The extent to which his voice is just in it's
unparalleled at that point, and he's putting himself into singing
signs which require interpretation, not simply energy, although he never
I mean all of his signs from trying to get

(31:54):
to you a mystery train on. You know, they all
express something deep down and something that communicate itself to
his audience. But the point is, for Colonel this is great.
Elvis is recording songs by Don robertson He's beautiful Ballance,
He's recording songs by Doc Pomis and Mark Schulman equally
beautiful balance. You know a manager who is looking to

(32:17):
exploit him with, say, Okay, what you have to do
is you just got to do all the songs have
to be just like stuck on. You don't be cruel.
They have to follow a pattern. It just was never
any of that pressure, none of it whatsoever.

Speaker 7 (32:29):
Well, by the way your book I think it was,
or maybe an interview you gave point turned me onto
a song like I'm always up for discovering. There is
a deep enough catalog, especially when you get into the sixties,
where there's you have to go through some soundtrack stuff
that is much less than satisfactory. But then you get
to something like, uh, I need somebody to lean on.

Speaker 11 (32:52):
I go.

Speaker 7 (32:54):
A pomising. So it's one of the greatest performances I've
ever ever heard.

Speaker 8 (32:58):
It's vias just so beautiful, no use denying.

Speaker 2 (33:09):
I'm close to crying, but.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
What good.

Speaker 5 (33:16):
Tell me?

Speaker 11 (33:17):
And so fluid and just so romantic. I mean, I
wish that were the whole movie.

Speaker 8 (33:23):
That is from Lee Viva Las Vegas.

Speaker 11 (33:25):
And actually the sequence is really terrific, but I mean
it's completely set apart from my Hotel's movies, and you
just feel like there's this total belief in that. But
I mean, you mentioned the sixty eighth special, and the
myth is that Colonel did everything he could to block it.
He did nothing to block it. I mean he he
had nothing whatsoever to do with the creative elopment of that.

Speaker 8 (33:46):
But that was the extent of it.

Speaker 11 (33:48):
The Colonel was a totally benign for us, as bones How,
who was half of the production team, said, I mean,
but you know, bones How didn't see him as in
any way thwarting, and also as the Billy Goldenberg, who
was the music director, said.

Speaker 8 (34:06):
Colonel was just wonderful.

Speaker 11 (34:07):
He was wonderful to me because Billy sort of got
picked on by Elvis's guys and Colonel stood up for
him and stood out for his music choices. But basically
he had nothing to do with the music. I mean,
Steve Bender deserves tremendous credit for his directions, for being
able to, you know, shoot things on the fly, for
taking advantage of the improv session with section, which was

(34:31):
always part of the original concept.

Speaker 8 (34:33):
But I would say.

Speaker 11 (34:34):
Bender was the one who made it work and the
way that it did. But Colonel was never an opponent,
never put up both.

Speaker 7 (34:41):
The only things I do traditionally. And again I could
be wrong, you know much more I've always.

Speaker 8 (34:47):
I could be wrong.

Speaker 11 (34:48):
I want to jump down there.

Speaker 7 (34:50):
I always assumed that the Colonel was responsible for the
idea that Elvis had to have control of publishing and
limited the songwriter who could write for Elvis. Is that
is that unfair to put that on Colonel Tom Or
is that?

Speaker 8 (35:06):
I think?

Speaker 11 (35:06):
I think you have to go back to what the
music business is about. The music business from time immemorial,
we can go back to the eighteen seventies is about ownership,
has always been about ownership. Ownership has always had to
do with publishing. Every artist, every star has sought to
own his or her own publishing. Eddie Arnold, I mean

(35:29):
it was the Hill and Range. It was the Abberbach brothers,
Julian and Jean who came along, you know, Viennese refugees
came along and set up a hill in ranges. You know,
the hills and the hill in the range. It's the
Country and Western publisher was for the upstart BMI organization
which was challenging ascalp and they made deals with all

(35:52):
of the country stars.

Speaker 8 (35:53):
I mean at the beginning it.

Speaker 11 (35:54):
Was hard for them to break in with all of
the country stars up to and including Eddie Arnold. Where well,
actually Eddie Ano'm didn't make the deal, which is interesting.
Eddie Arnold he made money from publishing, but he had
a different perspective. But all of them, they were fifty
to fifty deals and they were the best deals any
artist could ever have. So when Colonel writes, you can

(36:15):
see the letters that Colonel is writing to Elvis, particularly
when Elvis is in the army, saying don't give away.
You know, the publishing people will come to you. They'll
say this is colonel talking, they'll say, I'm your best friend.
We'll see if they're your best friend. When you don't
have any money, they'll say, I want to help you.
We'll see if they want to help you. When you know,

(36:38):
when you're in a place whether you can't help them.
He said you have to, you know, let at the Arabacks.
He'll arrange me, make the deal and keep your publishing.
Because that's the thing that is going to provide for
you on a rainy day. Now, the thing that actually
everybody wanted to write for Elvis. Virtually everybody. There may

(37:00):
have been you know, one or two, I mean as
little richards to thank God for Elvis Presley because he
probably made more money from Elvis recording his signs than
he did from his own. Because I mean, but the
whole point is when Ray Charles wrote a song, do
you think he said, I don't want any white folk
recording my son. I don't want to polk a version
of my of my of my son. I don't want

(37:21):
this recorded in any genre except no. He wants everybody,
every writer, every songwriter wants that.

Speaker 8 (37:28):
And what the.

Speaker 11 (37:31):
What the songwriter gave up to get an Elvis cut
was one third of the mechanical royalties, and he didn't
give up any of the songwriting royalists mechanical rights.

Speaker 8 (37:42):
You could probably explain it better than I can't, But
it's it's the royalties.

Speaker 11 (37:45):
They go they they go to the label for the
use of the of the recorded composition.

Speaker 8 (37:56):
Yes, but they're recorded.

Speaker 11 (37:57):
Yes, and so and then they split fifty to fifty
with the with the songwriter. So does what a songwriter.
This is in Elvis's heyday, and it was for many years.
Gave up was one third of those mechanical royalties only
on Elvis's recorded version of the son.

Speaker 7 (38:17):
Oh I see. I totally misunderstood that in terms of like,
for instance, the famous Dolly parton not wanting to give
up I Will always love you.

Speaker 11 (38:27):
What she would I mean, she's like Elvis. She wanted
to I mean, she should have held on to everything
that she owned.

Speaker 8 (38:34):
Why would she give it up?

Speaker 11 (38:36):
But what she would have given up would have been
a third of the mechanical royalties on Elvis's version of
the song.

Speaker 8 (38:41):
But she didn't have to do that.

Speaker 11 (38:42):
She had enough belief in herself, in her own artistry
and also in the concept again, something promoted for example
by Alan Klein for Sam Cook, who made it an
unbelievable amount of money for Sam Cook at a time
when black artists were not being paid by getting him
paid for the songs he wrote, the songs for which
he had the publishing, which were all his songs.

Speaker 7 (39:04):
Dream Boogie about Sam Cook. That's your next other book.

Speaker 12 (39:07):
I have a lot to read. Can you talk a
little bit about the influence of black music on Elvis?

Speaker 7 (39:15):
And is there in your mind.

Speaker 12 (39:18):
Validity too, accusations of appropriation?

Speaker 8 (39:24):
You know, this is very on.

Speaker 11 (39:31):
I'm trying to right the word is you know, I
don't think there is. But the reason that I think
there are there is no validity the accusations of cultural
appropriation is because again, what is the music business? Everybody
recorded everything, you know. Jimmy Rogers, the father of country music,
was a blues singer, Holland Wolfe, who was his greatest influence. Mean,

(39:54):
this is what he said. It is not just to me,
but to many people. Jimmy Rogers was his great He
got his he got his how from Jimmy Roder's yoga.
I mean the Carter family were you know folks and
was bing Crosby saying Hawaiian signs everybody Ray Charles, you know, saying,
didn't just sing country and weston when he did modern

(40:15):
sons in country and Western. He started out as a
kid in Florida singing in the country and Western band.
People did not see those distinctions and Elvis. Do you
think that Elvis had anything more in common with let's say,
blue grass music than he did with glues. His ears
were you know, I think Sam Phillips said he had

(40:37):
ears all around his head, and you know, he heard everything,
and what with some of the music that he loved
the most being Crosby, Eddie Fisher, bat Teresa Brewer, he
loved those ballots and he continued to record them. So
Elvis had no He basically was an all around artist

(40:57):
who heard everything, took every into account, maybe the biggest
influence of all on his gospel music. But honestly, he
had no more claim to bluegrass music than he did
the blues. And this was the music that was all
around him when he grew up. So I think it's
this is I mean, this is not uncommon in this

(41:21):
day and age, but it'll I think it'll pass eventually.
In writing, for instance, I taught creative writing at Vanderbilt
for twelve years, and more and more in the last
few years, people would say, how do I have the
standing to write as a man, as a woman, as
a person of color, as you know, you know, as

(41:44):
anything but what I am. Well, if that's the case,
I would say, you know, art just is stopped dead
in its tracks, because basically, all you can ever write
about is who you are in this place and this time.
I can only write about you talking. I write about
myself talking to you at this time, at this table,

(42:05):
and nothing else. And it's sort of the death of
the imagination. So I don't mean to mock or make
light of people's understanding. And but the main thing is
the I think the main thing is it has to
be understood first of all, that we that we live

(42:25):
and have always lived in a racist country, in a
country which is in which racism, let's say, for the
sake of argument, racism is inescapable. And that was no
less true of the world that Elvis grew up in,
and it's the world than the world that we live in.
But you also have to see that we live in

(42:47):
this country in a capitalist society, and a capitalist society
just does not make discriminations like that. It's like saying
what I was saying about.

Speaker 8 (42:56):
The song published.

Speaker 11 (42:57):
Everybody who's ever written a song wants everybody in the
world to record it and to sing it in every
possible variation and version, because that's how a songwriter makes
us living. And if you look at something like Elvis Records,
That's all Right by Arthur Crude, here's a song. Could

(43:20):
it ever have occurred to Elvis that he was invading
somebody else's cultural activity. This is a song that came out,
you know, eight years before. What's all right, mama, that's
all right with you, That's all right, mama.

Speaker 7 (43:35):
You see any way to do.

Speaker 5 (43:37):
That's all right, that's all right, that's all mama.

Speaker 7 (43:46):
Way.

Speaker 11 (43:50):
That has probably done nothing in the last six years
that nobody would ever remember or would ever have remembered.

Speaker 8 (43:55):
At that time.

Speaker 11 (43:57):
And that should have brought a great deal of money ultimately.

Speaker 8 (43:59):
To a big boy.

Speaker 11 (44:01):
It didn't because of the way that the music industry
is set up. Because he had signed away all his rights,
which was terrible, and you can read about this in
Dick Waterman's book Between Midnight and Day. It's just a
devastating story. But that had nothing to do, you know,
with Elvis or with anybody else who would record the
song and who would record the song out of admiration.
Then you have to have ears to listen to the

(44:22):
music and to say is this just an imitation? Or
is this somebody singing music the way that they feel it,
the way they hear it.

Speaker 8 (44:30):
And if you look at somebody like little.

Speaker 11 (44:32):
Junior Parker, one of Sam Phillips's greatest artists, who recorded
Mystery Train, who would ever set aside Little Junior Parker
was mystery trained for anything, and yet Elvis's Mystery Train
is something completely different?

Speaker 8 (44:46):
Who would ever set that aside? It's not a.

Speaker 11 (44:48):
Question of exploiting or evading or taking over. It's a
question of hearing music and taking music and making something
of it for yourself.

Speaker 12 (45:12):
Train a ride.

Speaker 5 (45:17):
Coach, train, a ride sixteen coach.

Speaker 7 (45:27):
Low well, by the way, anyone who ever has that?
And if you read the Peter's first book on Elvis,
what it taught me? In a way that I knew
a little, but it taught me. There's almost no one
in no music biographer you'll ever read where you feel
the respect he had for so many cultures, for so

(45:49):
many people, and even and I was telling Phil this story.
I have this memory. I have not read the first
book in many many years, But am I imagining it?
Or was there a Jewwish neighbor, maybe some Orthodox neighbor
in his neighbor who Elvis was not only like the
profound love for all the black r and b artists,

(46:09):
gospel artists, but even his Orthodox Jewish neighbor. You get
the sense Elvis was beyond his beauty, beyond his talent,
there was a beauty to his soul where he was
sensitive and welcoming of everyone, not just respecting.

Speaker 11 (46:25):
No, this was Rabbi Fructer who lived lived upstairs and
downsters on Alabama Street. And Elvis was the shabaskoy who
let the you know, turned on the electricity you know,
on the Sabbath when the when the Rabbi couldn't. And
he remained in touch with them too, with the Fructers,
and he put it also really interestingly he put a

(46:45):
Jewish star on his mother's grave, which was something I
think that his father was not totally thrilled about for
whatever reason, but not because of Rabbi Fructer. But no,
there was look Elvis growing up in in Tupelo. Everybody
talks about Sheik Greg and Elvis was very young when
they lived down there by Shakgreg and he may have

(47:07):
seen a lot. I mean, were growing up in Memphis.
I mean the South was totally segregated by law and
totally integrated by a neighborhood. I mean, you couldn't, you know,
black and white cheeked by the towel. But when Elvis
was living in Tupelo, the last place they lived was
on North Green Street, which was a black street with

(47:28):
I think two or three houses reserved for white residency.
All of the people on the street were black. When
the Presleys wanted to make a phone call, they went
down the street to I think the ministers at the
Black Minister's house, and they would make a phone call.
There was a doctor there named doctor Zuber who when
there was that rumor about Elvis in nineteen fifty seven

(47:49):
about being a racist, about it being a racist, Doctor
Zuber said, no, he was just the finest person in
the world. When there was a revival at the end
of the street. And this is really weird. This is
something I didn't win until very late, and I got
this from Robert Stone's research and recording of the Sacred

(48:12):
Steel Players.

Speaker 8 (48:12):
You know, part of this Dominion Church.

Speaker 11 (48:15):
They held their annual convention at the end of North
Green Street, and there were other revivals too, And so
you think, wow, was Elvis affected by the Sacred Steel
good sound of the Dominion Church, that's like, but probably so.
And you know, when he was in Memphis, he went
to East Trade which was pastored by the great civil rights.

Speaker 8 (48:37):
Pioneer songwriter.

Speaker 11 (48:40):
William Herbert Brewster, doctor William Herrit Brewster, and again he
made himself known. Doctor Brewster referred to Elvis as I mean,
I hate to be talking about Elvis so much. We
siuld be talking about Colonel. But but for example, with Colonel,
who was it who got Elvis to endorse Adelaide Stephenson?

Speaker 8 (48:59):
Colonel did?

Speaker 11 (49:00):
Who was it who campaigned for Frank Clement, the progressive
governor of Tennessee, who also happened to give Colonel his
second colonel appointment. But he was progressive and a great
hero of Sam Phillips. The colonel was totally in his corner.
And when the rumor was, you know, the rumor about

(49:24):
Elvis's racism had gained such traction in the spring and
summer fifty seven, at a time when Elvis was doing
no interviews, he did an interview with Jeff a guy
named Louis Robinson a black newspaper, Black magazine. And again

(49:46):
this I don't have any correspondence on, but do you
think that Colonel as he's blocking Elvis from you know,
he's telling people, look, you want to interview my boy,
You're going to have to pay fifty thousand dollars for
an anecdote. And yet there he is this Black weekly
Elvis is talking about is essentially he was conveying the
message of the sign If I Can.

Speaker 8 (50:08):
Dream from the sixty eighth special conveys.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
My dreams.

Speaker 7 (50:29):
Right, which is, by the way, still one of the
most moving things you can see. It's sort of like, uh,
there's a lot of songs that are meant to move us.
That still moves me. Every time you about the Colonel

(50:51):
and Elvis's movie career, is there any argument that the
drive on the colonels we have to make these deal Ultimately,
whether it was I mean no doubt it was financially helpful,
extremely helpful, and broke records and that was very important.
But ultimately, do you think it undermined the quality of

(51:14):
the films because there is the and again there's a
lot of it's been attributed by you know, in many
areas to like going to the going, you know, going
to the army, the time away, but there was a
huge fall off, like Elvis had significant promise early on
in his acting.

Speaker 11 (51:33):
An enormous amount of an enormous amount of ambition. Yes,
you're right, and.

Speaker 7 (51:37):
It follows out. And by the way, one story about that,
and you tell me this This was I had an
interview for an Elvis special with Dennis Hopper. And Dennis Hopper,
I don't know if you're familiar with this story. He
told me that when Elvis came to Hollywood, he asked
to meet with Dennis Hopper because Dennis had been associated

(51:58):
with James Dean, who was his hero as an actor.
And Dennis Hopper told me the story this way, which
was that I think, he said, I was asked to
come to the Beverly Hills Hotel, and I came to
the hotel and I waited to meet with Elvis, and
there were girls going into the room, two at a time,
he said, and he goes, and he goes. This was

(52:20):
before the sexual Revolution by an hour and a half,
and he goes, I was shocked. He goes, he's going in.
There were two beautiful women going in at a time,
coming out like twenty minutes later. And when Dennis finally
got to meet with Elvis, according to Dennis Hopper to me,
he said, Elvis, are you sleeping with these are you
having sex with these women? And he went yes and Dennis,

(52:43):
to which Dennis Hopper said, how can you do that?
And he Elvis said, It's easy, Dennis. They're all special,
they're all different, and they're all special. And I don't
know if this was a delusion of Dennis Hoppers or real,
but it was always just an amazing cultural moment, especially
Dennis Hopper being the naive.

Speaker 12 (53:04):
This is the reason I give yes exactly.

Speaker 11 (53:08):
No, I think that's it's a little apocryphal. I mean
in the sense that if you talk to the women
who were without, some of whom he you know, said,
he said, this is a nice girl, and he would
go so fared no further. But I, you know, I
just I don't think that's borne out by the relationships,

(53:28):
by the way in which the women that he was
with spoke it. And I think One of the things
that I think grew up around Elvis with the sexual
mythology was the I don't want to say, the envy
of the guys around the extent to which they heroized.
But I don't know that this is something it's fultuated.

Speaker 7 (53:48):
But back to Colonel, back to the Colonel Hollywood and
the Colonel. Do you think the colonels was too successful
in a way in making and keeping these deals and
the amount of films required.

Speaker 11 (54:00):
I think this is a complicated thing, and I think
it requires looking at Elvis' performance in some of the films,
and if you look at his performance, I'm going to
back up on a second, but look at his performance
let's say in Wild in the Country or in Flaming Star,
both of which were seriously intended, both of which were
essentially non singing wolves, which is what Colonel had been

(54:21):
trying to get for him from the very beginning. And
Colonel actually the original impetus the thing he was looking
at this was kind of a naive thing on Colonel's part,
was for Elvis to take over roles James Dean would
to play. This is going back to late fifty five,
early fifty six and write into Harry Calsheim and William
Morris and Colonel I think not fully understanding. But if

(54:44):
you look at Elvis' performances in Wild in the Country
and Flaming Star, and I'm not trying to make too
much of movies, but they were seriously intended and it's
not the same. I don't believe this is an esthetic
judgment on my part. It's not the same actor that
we see in King Creole or Loving You or jay
Less Rock.

Speaker 8 (55:02):
And I don't know why that is. Uh.

Speaker 11 (55:05):
The songwriter Don Robertson, who started writing for Elvis around
this time, you know, told me and it was just
a great guy, great.

Speaker 8 (55:13):
Songwriter and you know, no bullshit kind of a guy.

Speaker 11 (55:16):
And he said that he met Elvis in Las Vegas
when he was on his honeymoon and Elvis and he
was overweight at the time of Don Robertson, and Elvis
just pushed these amphetamines on him, which Elvis said he'd gone,
which are the greatest things in the world. They were fantastic,
Don Robertson and I took the ill just like he,

(55:38):
you know, urged him and I had a disastrous marriage
night wedding night. But but But the point is that
he thought and other people. I talked to a guy
named doctor John Moyden, who was a farmer pharmacological doctor.

(56:00):
I'm a great fan of music, and you know, some
people suggest that I can't say this, that the use
of amphetamines caused Elvis to speed his you know, delivery
of his lines. In any case, you can watch these
films and you can say Peter's full of shit. You know,

(56:21):
I see this. I see a great performance here.

Speaker 8 (56:23):
You can't.

Speaker 11 (56:24):
I don't see that. I see it real falling off
in a real difference, Colonel. If you read the letters
that Colonel wrote at every stage from the very beginning
through nineteen sixty or so, he is doing everything he
can to get Elvis serious roles. He writes to Elvis,
MGM is offering a ton of money for this, for

(56:45):
this movie. But I don't think it's the kind of
thing you want to do. Not because it was, because
it wasn't a serious role. Because and he is continuing
to write to he's writing to the William Barris People's
writing was great and good friends. They able to ask
photos ahead of William Morris. We don't just want to
repeat what we've done in the past he's made Elvis

(57:07):
has made three movies now and they've all been pretty
much the same. And I mean he he gives an evaluation.
He says that Love You was better, Love Me tender,
but I think everyone would agree. And he says the
King Creole was pretty was very good. But we want
to do something. Elvis wants to do something different. He
wants to take on serious roles.

Speaker 8 (57:26):
Now.

Speaker 11 (57:27):
There are other elements here, and one of them is
that as time went on, and again I'm not trying
to down anybody, I'm not You know, Elvis was entitled
to live the life he wanted to live, but more
and more he wanted to make the movies, collect the money,

(57:48):
and live the life that he wanted to live. And
this was particularly true for example, once he met Larry
Gallaher And I'm not making Larry Galler into any kind
of film.

Speaker 7 (57:55):
Who Larry Geller was? That was his spiritual god.

Speaker 11 (58:00):
Yeah, and advisor. And again, I this was what Elvis wanted.
It wasn't like Larry Gello with some dark guy. He
was a hairdresser and he came in and to do
Elvis's hair. He was substituting for somebody JC bring maybe
somebody and so, and they start talking and they start

(58:23):
talking about the deepest, you know, most profound elements of existence,
and Elvis says, you're the guy that you know I've
been looking for. So from sixty four to sixty six,
for two and a half years, Elvis did not record
a single song in the studio apart from the movie songs.

(58:43):
Now you could make the argument that, oh, the reason
he didn't do it is he was so heartsick being
made to make all these terrible movies. That just isn't
the case. I mean, he had all the music. It
always meant the most of him. He wanted to have
every moment free. This is for two and a half
years for his spiritual studies. And he was totally serious

(59:03):
about it. And even look at the books that he read.
I put some, you know, some of them into Elvis.

Speaker 8 (59:10):
Day by day.

Speaker 11 (59:10):
I had photographs of you know, the mark pages. But
he was totally serious, and that, to some extent, I
think was the answer. When Colonel a movie, for example,
there were two movies that Colonel believed in, and I
have a good deal of not a good deal, but
a certain amount of Colonel's movie criticism in the book

(59:31):
because he didn't try to direct Elvis's career, but he
had you know, feelings about well and in any case,
follow that Dream, for example, was a movie that he
felt was something that was a good, very good comic

(59:55):
performance by Elvison could be promoted to develop a whole
new audience. And he was devastated by the fact. And
I can't remember if I say The Marriage Brothers, that's
probably one. I don't remember who produced who, but the
studio was it produced it. But he was devastated by
their failure at promoting something that he thought it wasn't
James Dean, it wasn't you know, the height.

Speaker 8 (01:00:17):
Of him, but it was.

Speaker 11 (01:00:18):
But it was a very well considered role and a
well concerned performance.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
I've gotta follow that dream wherever that dream.

Speaker 5 (01:00:28):
I gotta follow that dream.

Speaker 12 (01:00:32):
When your heart gets rast I moved along.

Speaker 5 (01:00:37):
When your heart.

Speaker 10 (01:00:38):
Gets weary, I am saying.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
A song where dream is calling you, just one thing
you can do.

Speaker 7 (01:00:51):
By the way, I've watched that movie recently. I love
that movie. And also it's very moving to me because
Tom Petty, when he was a little kid, was brought
by a relative who was working on the movie and
met Tom and met Elvis, and that was sort of
like and literally followed his dream from that moment in
Florida on the set of Follow That Trip.

Speaker 12 (01:01:11):
This is a funny movie.

Speaker 7 (01:01:13):
It's it's it's charming.

Speaker 11 (01:01:14):
It's a kind of naive, you know, a kind of
country boy, you know, not stupid.

Speaker 12 (01:01:21):
But oh I tell from the documentaries that I love
that he had a wonderful sense of humor.

Speaker 7 (01:01:29):
There's one letter in the letters section. It's not a letter.
One of the most amazing things in the back half
of the book is there is a studio bio that
you put in there, the Colonel Like usually it would
be the thing of like Colonel Tom Parker is the
manager of Elvis for so many years, you publish what

(01:01:50):
must be Colonel must have spent days thinking, dictating to somebody,
editing the most insane bio of himself. And it made
me realize what you have said in different ways. That
bio is written by a guy who was in love
with Elt loved Elvis, and so in love with their

(01:02:11):
partnership and what they did for one another. And it
made me realize this was not someone who had disregard
in any way for Elvis. It was almost a crazy
I don't know if that document how much does that
stand out to you? I just thought it was amazing.

Speaker 11 (01:02:25):
No, No, that's why I put it in there was I
just felt like, here he is portraying himself, always through
a veil. There's never an unveiled self portrait, and yet
you can see through that veil and you can see
the way in which you know, he develops his portrait
and it Yeah, no, I think it's sort of an
astonishing document.

Speaker 7 (01:02:45):
Phil. One of the things you get from this is
he you know, we haven't even talked about how Colonel
Tom got to this country, which is part of the story,
and then joins the circus literally and as someone who
started out a respectable music right or not as good
as Peter, But I was sort of a music writer
at Rolling Stone. I fell into the circus and you

(01:03:06):
have joined, you know, created your own circuses of show business.
And that's one thing that comes through is like my next.

Speaker 12 (01:03:12):
Job will be in the literal circuit exactly.

Speaker 7 (01:03:16):
But I I, you know, it's fascinating because throughout the
story you have these you know, Colonel Tom is always
talking about the book he's going to write he's going
to finally tell a story, and it's the title is
He's working title was how much does it cost if
it's free? And the amazing thing is, so I think
you have You've done a better book than Colonel ever

(01:03:39):
ever would have done. But I will say this is
what connects it, and the way you are speaking up
for him in ways that you know might might surprise
some people who have just seen one movie about Elvis
and decided Colonel Tom is the bad guy. I'm happy to.

Speaker 12 (01:03:56):
Learn always that somebody who might have been maligned is
actually a great guy. I love that angle on this.

Speaker 11 (01:04:05):
Well, yeah, no, I appreciate him, and that to me,
I mean, I learned so much. I thought to think,
what's so fascinating is And it's one of the things
that you know, I kept trying to encourage him in
ten years or so that I knew him not even
to write a book, to publish his letters, because I
had read currently a great letter writer. He says, I know,

(01:04:27):
I am. I said, well, you know, let me suggest this,
he said, I already had that idea. You know, if
you think this is I'm crazy, you know I think
I'm crazy. Throw the idea out of the window. He's
too late for that. Like he thought I was crazy
to be with. But in his descriptions of what the
book will be, it is always going to be a
work which a positive work. It will be the most

(01:04:51):
positive thing ever written about show business. And the reason, ultimately,
I mean, when I knew him, he was still talking
about her to a degree, and his wife, Flo Anne,
who was just a wonderful, wonderful woman, was doing her
best to encourage him, but every time she would eat
a set of tape recorder in front of him, or
a figurative tape recorder, he would freeze out. But I

(01:05:12):
think the real reason, I mean, you can say, well,
that's writer's block. Everybody suffers from writer's block, and don't
we all know.

Speaker 8 (01:05:17):
It, But.

Speaker 11 (01:05:20):
The real reason was that he wanted to tell the truth.
He wanted to tell a true story. But as he
said over and over again, the artist always wears the
white hat. Elvis always wears the white hat, and whenever
there's any blame to be assigned, it goes to the manager,
who wears a black hat. And he simply was not

(01:05:42):
going to and could not reveal the things that had
really been heartbreaking to him in his relationship with Elvis.
And I'm not trying to put it all on one
side of One of the things that I learned in
the book, one of the things that totally surprised me,
I thought the Colonel. I see this to some degree
in Careless Love. I mean, where I cast the Colonel,

(01:06:06):
and he played a very very important role in telling
the story because the externals in Last Train, you just
tell what happened, and that's plenty, that's the story. But
in Careless Love, which takes place after always gets back
from the Army, when he makes the movies you're talking about,
so much of what he's doing is really it doesn't

(01:06:26):
matter whether he's making this movie or that movie. And
the Colonel becomes the light motif. And I assigned this
kind of Falstaffian rolled to him, and he's both entertaining
and you know, creates a myth about himself and stuff.
And I'm not disowning this. But even when I wrote
I did a chatter on him and looking to get
Lost a few years ago, it called Me and the Colonel,

(01:06:48):
which is based on my relationship. It's very limited with him,
you know, I saw him in a sense as a
character and put that in quotes. But once I started
writing this book, I came more and more to see
this was not who he was, This was the persona
this is that he adopted, but that there was something
much deeper, and that it led in the end because

(01:07:10):
he was so sold on Elvis. He believed so much
in Elvis, and Elvis believed in him. But it led
in the end, over the last a few years of
their relationship into really what was a kind of yoked tragedy.
I mean, the two of them suffering, each one suffering
from his own addiction, Colonel to gambling, Elvis to the
prescription medications, neither one of them being able to address

(01:07:32):
the other because if they brought up the other's faults,
they would hear it back. I mean, if Elvis said, well, Colonel,
you're you know you've got to cut back on the gambling.
Colonel could Elvis could hear Colonel saying, well, you look,
look what you're doing. And neither one of them want
and neither one of them wanted to forfeit the relationship,
which in a sense at that point both would have

(01:07:55):
been better off walking away from just in human terms.
So and you read letters, they when basically they fired
each other at the end of the Las Vegas engagement
in seventy three, in September seventy three. You read the
letters and they're all from one side, They're all Colonel's letters,
but it's just devastating. It's heartbreaking because you can see

(01:08:17):
how much each is suffering, how much is each is disappointed.
I mean, there are other places where Colonel says to Lan,
I went to see Elviston and that he didn't even
recognize me. This is not my friend, this is not
the person I've known and loved all these years. But
the letters themselves, just as letters, reveal so much, and
they reveal the anguish and the vulnerability.

Speaker 7 (01:08:38):
Well, I just want to you know, I want to
wrap up by saying that I remember in college. I
think the first time I tried to get to know
anything about Elvis was when Albert Goldman wrote a book
and I remember reading it and I don't you don't
need to comment on it, but I just remember thinking,
this is exactly the kind of book I never want
to read because it was written and I would never

(01:09:01):
want written about me because it had like it was
almost a writer that had contempt. There was sort of
contempt for the subject rather than understanding and humanity. At
least that's the way I read into it, and.

Speaker 11 (01:09:14):
It's like biopathology or something.

Speaker 7 (01:09:17):
Yes, oh no, my memory is a line which may
or may not exist, but this is all these years later.
I remember there was a line where I think he
had Elvis in a bathroom and he had said Elvis
looked down and was ashamed of his ugly hillbilly pecker.
I think that was in the book unless I write
and going, okay, that seems who's a source on that?

(01:09:38):
But I will say your books, including this one now,
which in a weird way, the challenge was, you're writing
about the most beautiful entertainer who had quite a journey,
and you brought them alive for me in those books.
This is quite a challenge to get at this relationship
and get to the complexity, and you've done it. I'm
telling you. When I read the Colonel's biography, the bio

(01:10:02):
that's in the back half in the letters section, I
was just like, oh my god, this man was so
far from contemptuous of Elvis. This man the relationship was
one of the in addition to his relationship with Luann
the second wife, the love that comes through the and
the pride in what they accomplished. And that's my last
statement is just that I think when people put down

(01:10:24):
Brian for signing a bad deal on merchandise, or Brian
Epstein or the truth is this big a dream like
the reason Elvis that word means so much. It's the
two of them that made that happen, you know, more
than anyone else on earth. It was the two of
them that made that the concept of Elvis so massive

(01:10:46):
and enduring.

Speaker 12 (01:10:47):
And I want to thank you for this new historical perspective.
I think you may have writ it or wrong, which
is always great.

Speaker 11 (01:10:55):
Well thanks, I mean it was just I'm telling you,
when I saw those letters was just the beginning. I
was thirty years ago, and then it developed from there.
But I just felt like there was an obligation at
least to try to, you know, provide some kind of
historical restitution.

Speaker 8 (01:11:14):
I mean, it's just that twittering.

Speaker 11 (01:11:15):
And that was you know, That's what That's what I
was most.

Speaker 12 (01:11:19):
Thank you, Thank you for that, and it's so nice
to meet you.

Speaker 7 (01:11:23):
My friendly thank you.

Speaker 13 (01:11:25):
Naked Lunch is a podcast by Phil Rosenthal and David Wilde.
Theme song and music by Brad Paisley. Produced by Will
Sterling and Ryan Tillotson, with video editing by Daniel Ferrara
and motion graphics by Ali Ahmed. Executive produced by Phil Rosenthal,
David Wilde, and our consulting journalist is Pamela Chellan. If
you enjoyed the show, share it with a friend, But
if you can't take my word for it, take Phil's.

Speaker 12 (01:11:46):
And don't forget to leave a good rating and review.

Speaker 7 (01:11:49):
We like five stars.

Speaker 13 (01:11:50):
You know, thanks for listening to Naked Lunch, a Lucky
Bastard's production.