You are probably familiar with the way Johnny Cash opened his concerts.  He would walk out on stage, go to the mike, and say, “Hello, my name is Johnny Cash.”  Elvis Presley was obviously aware of this mannerism, because he opened several of his live shows a very similar way.  That’s right.  Elvis walked on stage and announced, “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.  I’m Johnny Cash.”  I guess he found it a good way to break the ice and get beyond pre-show jitters.

The following information in this column was gleaned from the wonderful book, “ELVIS: Word for Word” by Jerry Osborne, which contains over 300 verifiable quotes by Elvis.  Osborne and his staff listened to audiotapes of more than 100 Elvis’ concert performances.  However, Elvis did about 700 live shows from 1969 to 1977, so there were probably many other funky introductions by Elvis we will never know about.

The first time “ELVIS: Word for Word” notes him using the Johnny Cash line was on August 19, 1970, and the book shows Elvis returned to it a total of at least eleven times. The last time was June 3, 1975 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Elvis must have enjoyed using the Johnny Cash theme, because he embellished it over the years.  At different times while performing at the International Hotel in Las Vegas, he had double fun by welcoming the guests to other Vegas hotel/casinos, the Golden Nugget and the Frontier, as well as the Lake Tahoe International in another city.  While performing in Portland, Oregon, Elvis said, “My name is Johnny Cash.  It’s a pleasure to be here in Oakland.”  In Seattle, he said, “I did a movie here in 1912 I think it was…It Happened at the World’s Fair.”  My favorite variation came just two days after Elvis first used the Johnny Cash line.  He said, “I’m Johnny Cash.  I used to be Fats Domino, but I lost weight”  (And changed his color, too, you might note).

Prior to starting the Johnny Cash theme, Elvis had a good bit of practice fooling around with the audience. On August 28, 1969, early in his return to live concerts, Elvis said he wanted to introduce the members of the band.  After he did so, he said, “Now that they know each other, we can go on with the show.”  A few months later, he amused himself with the names of drummer Ronnie Tutt and bassist Jerry Scheff during the introductions: “So that’s Tutt and that’s Scheff.  That’s Tutt Scheff, any way you look at it, boy.”  (Think about that one for a minute)

One night, he had fun with James Burton, who he introduced as Lightnin’ Hopkins, and Charlie Hodge, who he introduced a Willie Booger.  Another time, Elvis introduced James as Chuck Berry and piano player Glen D Hardin as Steve Allen.  Elvis got Charlie Hodge again in 1971 during band introductions.  Elvis went through the sequence, “On guitar, James Burton,” “On rhythm guitar, John Wilkinson,” and so on.  Elvis finished with, “On alcohol, Charlie Hodge.”

After using the Johnny Cash line successfully, Elvis branched out and started introducing himself as other performers.  There was Glen Campbell in 1970, and Jerry Lee Lewis, Frankie Avalon, and Johnny Rivers in 1971.  However, the novelty must have worn off, because the book notes no more trick introductions by Elvis until 1974.

On February 6, 1974, he came on stage at the Las Vegas Hilton and used the name of another Vegas legend, “My name is Wayne Newton.  I just work here.”  Three months later, it was, “My name is Wayne Newton.  I’ve got a brother named fig.”  In September, Elvis said, “Good evening.  You think I’m Elvis Presley… I’m Wayne Newton.  You came to the wrong place.”  In April 1975, at a concert in Jacksonville, it was, “My name is Wayne Newton.  I’d like to tell you it’s a pleasure to be here in Tampa.”  The last time Elvis introduced himself as Wayne Newton was on June 21, 1977, bringing the total to at least twelve.  It was the last recorded Elvis trick introduction on stage.

As far as is known, only one other performer received more than two mentions by Elvis. His friend Tom Jones inspired at least four funky introductions.  On August 28, 1974, Elvis introduced Jones who was sitting in the audience at the Vegas Hilton.  Elvis told everyone to catch Jones’ show opening at Caesars Palace the next night.  The ones who did, received a special treat when Elvis surprised Jones and came out on stage, too.  For the next three nights, Elvis opened his own show by saying,” Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.  My name is Tom Jones.  You came to the wrong place.”  Near the end of 1975, Elvis said, “Welcome to the show.  You know who you are…and I think you know who I am…Tom Jones, you’re right.”

Elvis introduced himself as several other singers and one bird in 1974:  Pat Boone, Sammy Davis, Little Richard, and the NBC Peacock (I think that one had to do with the jumpsuit he wore that night).  Comedians also got the Elvis intro treatment.  Flip Wilson in 1976 was one.  Bill Cosby got it twice in 1974, including, “My name is Bill Cosby.  Elvis closed last night.”  And there was even one non-entertainer:  “I’m Jimmy Carter’s smarter brother.”

Jerry Osborne’s book “ELVIS: Word for Word” has been an invaluable help in writing this blog column.  For years I have been aware of his many books directed to rock fans and historians and to rock and roll record and memorabilia collectors.  I met Jerry Osborne backstage last year at an Elvis Week concert.  He’s a nice guy.  I think it’s interesting that his book includes five quotes where Elvis mentioned him.  For some reason, he left out the one where Elvis introduced him as Donnie Osmond. (Only kidding)

When Bubba Ho-Tep was released back in 2003, I did not watch it in a movie theater.  As an independent film made on a shoestring budget, its run was mostly limited to the film festival circuit.  However, it received much critical praise, and by the time the Bubba Ho-Tep came out on VHS, there was enough buzz to make it a ‘must have’ for me.  I loved it.  Because it was about Elvis, I was predisposed to like it, but this film won me over on its merits.

Over the years, we’ve had fun on ElvisBlog a few times critiquing the press reviews of Elvis’ early concerts, TV appearances, and movies.  Recently I found another gem at the Los Angeles Times website. In a December 2007 blog by Larry Harnisch, he takes a look back at a 52-year-old column by LA Mirror-News entertainment editor Dick Williams.  Williams used the above title on his review of Elvis’ first live concert appearance in Los Angeles on October 28, 1957.  With a tease like that, it’s hard to imagine that any of the paper’s readers would skip by without reading it.

Mr. Williams’ attitude toward Elvis is completely evident with his first line:

“Sexibitionist Elvis Presley has come at last in person to a visibly palpitating, adolescent female Los Angeles to give all the little girls’ libidos the jolt of their lives.”

I doubt Dick Williams was the first writer to coin the word Sexibitionist, and I assume other writers have used it since.  However, a half-century later, Spellcheck still doesn’t recognize it.  Visibly palpitating, adolescent females is a good phrase, but this classic is my favorite: give all the little girls’ libidos the jolt of their lives.

That’s all the praise Mr. Williams will get from me for his review – kudos for some well-crafted phrases.  This next line would be fairly good if the sentiment wasn’t so outrageous:

“The whole panorama … looked like one of those screeching uninhibited party rallies which the Nazis used to hold for Hitler.”

He compared Elvis to Hitler.  Now that’s just stupid, but it wasn’t the only brainless statement he made:

“It (the concert) started out with ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ and wound its way through all his popular record hits from ‘Hound Dog’ to ‘Don’t Be Cruel.’  There is but scant difference in any of them.  Only the wild abandon varies.”          

Actually, Mr. Williams, only your idiotic statements vary.  No one can say there is scant difference between “Heartbreak Hotel” and “Hound Dog.” They are totally different songs.  It gets worse.  Williams wasn’t satisfied to just give a bad review; he made up horrible stuff about Elvis.  For some reason, he had an ax to grind.  Here are some sorry examples:

“He wiggled, bounced, shook and ground in the style which stripteasers … have been using at stag shows since Grandpa was a boy.”

“He played up to the mike stand like it was a girl in a gesture which is expressly forbidden by the police department in every burlesque show in Los Angeles County.”

And finally, the worst lie of all:

“The madness reached its peak at the finish of “Hound Dog.”  Elvis writhed in complete abandon, hair hanging down over his face.  He got down on the floor with a huge replica of the RCA singing dog and made love to it as if it were a girl.”

Now, that’s a bunch of crap.  How do I know?  My friend Alan Hanson is an Elvis historian who hosts http://www.elvis-history-blog.com/.   He has thoroughly researched this concert for his book  “Elvis ’57: The Final Fifties Tours.”  In fact, he wrote a whole chapter about it.  Alan says Dick Williams had been a long-time critic of Elvis in his column, and believes he planned to blast Elvis even before he went to the concert.  Gordon Stoker of the Jordanaires replied in an e-mail to Alan that all of this was false.  Gordon was on stage that night and said that all Elvis did was to grab Nipper and sing to him.  Other LA columnists Wally George and Hedda Hopper wrote reviews of the concert and never mentioned any sexually suggestive acts by Elvis. 

The short L.A. Times blog commentary that precedes the 1957 Dick Williams column says that the LAPD vice squad filmed Elvis’ performance the next night for possible legal action.  Think about this: If Elvis was doing anything really raunchy, that film would have surfaced by now and sold for big bucks.

If Mr. Williams had chosen to tell the truth, he certainly could have used his skills to write about an outstanding event.  Here’s what 25-year-old journalist Wally George had to say about the concert:

“The impression upon walking through the audience was that of being on the edge of a volcano from which emitted an ominously growing cloud of smoke.  At any moment, you felt you might be overrun by the eruption.”

I sure wish I had been in the audience that night.  Bring on the eruption.

©  2008   Philip R Arnold    All Rights Reserved    www.ElvisBlog.net

Cruising through the Internet is one of my favorite ways of finding ideas for ElvisBlog columns.  I doubt that there are many websites devoted totally to Elvis that I haven’t visited at least once.  But, I have a special joy in finding other sites with just some Elvis content, and often it is pretty strange.  I bookmark them, so I can share them with you from time to time.

Elvis Shot JFK – We Have Proof:  This site is 100% tongue-in-cheek, and contains some interesting elements.  I like the disclaimer at the bottom that says, “This web page is best viewed… while on prescribed doses of Prozac, Lithium and Valium.  Check out the letter that supposedly shows the startling similarities between Elvis and JFK, or the one were the writer talks about putting on his aluminum foil cap to keep the alien beta-waves from causing further brain damage.

http://www.jokewallpaper.com/elvisshotjfk/

Elvis Effigies:  I don’t think effigies is the right word here, but this website certainly has an eclectic assortment of Elvis images, and most seem to be made by Elvis fans.  Elvis has been depicted many ways, but this is the first time I’ve seen him done with balloon art.

http://www.shsclassof1956.org/ElvisEffigies.htm

Elvis Guns for Sale (Maybe):  I discovered this site back in November 2007, so I was surprised that these guns Elvis used to own are still available for sale five months later.  If you are interested in finding out, click on Home, and scroll down to the contact information.

http://www.famousfirearms.com/_wsn/page3.html

Mickey Mouse in an Elvis Jumpsuit:  Here is a joint offer from Disney and EPE, and it looks pretty good for $20.  Thanks to Photoshop, we have seen everybody else in an Elvis jumpsuit, so why not Mickey Mouse?

http://www.collectiblestoday.com/ct/product/prdid-901529001.jsp?elvis+mickey/_prod/_16&endeca=true&abbr=hm#

38 Women Elvis Dated:  It figures that a website named “Who’s Dated Who?” would have a pretty good section on Elvis Presley.  There are quite a few women they say Elvis ‘hooked up with” who I have never heard of.  No proof is offered, so take it with a grain of salt.

http://www.whosdatedwho.com/celebrities/people/dating/elvis-presley.htm\

Elvis Does Some Self-Promotion in Sweetwater, TX:  This is a six-year-old web column from Don Aly’s Celebrity Scene.  Aly is a freelance journalist with past experience in motion picture promotion.  In this article, he reminisces about Elvis performing in his hometown in 1954.  I especially like the part about Elvis going from car to car at a drive-in hamburger joint promoting himself while “That’s All Right” played on the PA system.

http://www.donaly.com/don_alys_column5.html

Elvis Bootleg Albums -- The Bottom of the Barrel:  When this site opens, your first impulse may be to get out quickly.  The two photos at the top of the home page of El Buncho’s Sound Dungeon aren’t very appealing, and neither is most of the content.  However, if you scroll quickly about 2/3 of the way down, you will spot a picture of a bootleg Elvis album with a title I won’t repeat here.  The concept is totally gross, presumably because the album is a collection of the worst songs Elvis ever recorded.  I’ve never seen a copy of this mess, but if you are curious and not easily offended, check it out. (Note to the male readers: I’ll bet something will catch your eye as you scroll down, and you will stop and look at it.  I do have this album.)

http://sounddungeon.blogspot.com/

Tag Team Match – The Oprahs versus The Elvii:  I would imagine very few of you readers ever watched Celebrity Death Match on cable TV.  It was an animated show pairing two celebrities in a no-holds-barred fight, and it was pretty crude and very violent.  Two courtside announcers provided verbal humor ((sort-of) with their commentary.  Well, there is an Internet version called WWWF Grudge Match.  There is no animation, just the text of the announcers’ commentary.  For 248 matches, the fans could vote for the winner, but the function has now been retired.  Most fights had just two combatants, but this one has both fat and skinny Oprah Winfrey and fat and skinny Elvis in a tag team match.  At least check it out to see if the Elvii came out on top.

http://www.grudge-match.com/History/elvii-oprahs.shtml

Sadly, Priscilla has been voted off the island – or, more accurately, off the dance floor.  She put up the good fight on Dancing With The Stars and lasted until the fifth night of competition, but a couple of slips last Monday did her in.  I will leave it to others to argue whether the judges were looking for a way to vote her off, or if they showed favoritism to Marlee Matlin because of her hearing disability, or if Louis van Amstel made a poor choice for their dance routine.  We probably all agree with those who state that Priscilla’s five-week resume of performances was superior to that of Jason, Marissa, and Christian, all of whom will come back next week. 

However, I will say one thing.  That split by a 62-year-old-woman was absolutely amazing!!!  It will be a long time before we will ever see another dancer eligible for Social Security do something like that.   Maybe there ought to be a Seniors Division, like in golf.  Priscilla would be their superstar.

For the past several weeks, I have been watching Dancing With The Stars and rooting for Priscilla Presley.  Give the woman some credit.  She is sixty-two years old and has already out-danced four other competitors.  It did get a little hairy last Tuesday when she came in next-to-last, but the week before Priscilla and partner earned the second-highest score by the panel of judges.  It looks like Kristi Yamaguchi would have to screw up big time not to win this thing, but Priscilla is already a winner in my book.

Priscilla and her Dancing With The Stars partner

Last week, we got serious and did a historical piece on Elvis’ most significant ancestor.  According to my wife, it was too serious -- and boring.  She likes all the fun stuff I put in ElvisBlog.  So, this week, we are going back to fun – fun with Elvis on Photoshop..  It’s too late to give proper credit to all the clever people who created these things and put them on the web for me to borrow.  When I added them to My Pictures, I failed to note where they came from --  but thank you all, anyway.

Let’s start with a nifty image of what Elvis would look like if he had lived to be an old man.  He still looks very handsome, doesn’t he?  Vernon kept his full head of hair into old age, so Elvis may well have turned out like this.  Looks like he could still beat the crap out of the bad guys in a movie, doesn't he?

Recently, a lot of folks have been coming to this blog to read about Elvis’ grandchildren.  If you think they are interesting, wait until you hear about his ancestors.

The more recent Elvis genealogy charts reveal that his surname changed from the Germanic Pressler to the anglicized Presley several centuries ago.  In fact, if you go back through nine generations of Elvis’ family, you can pinpoint his Pressler ancestor who crossed the Atlantic in 1710 to start the whole bloodline here in America.  His name was Johann Valentine Pressler.

In the ElvisBlog column two weeks ago, I mentioned the DVD of Jailhouse Rock I bought in Rome while on vacation.  For some reason, the Italians changed the title to Il Delinquente del Rock & Roll.  I can’t figure out why they chose to do this, because Jailhouse Rock has a direct translation – Casa Carere Rock.

The back of the DVD packaging listed all 22 of Elvis’ films in the Italian series, and only three had the American titles we all know:  Blue Hawaii, Viva Las Vegas, and Frankie and Johnny.  This established that the names of people and places would stay the same in English and Italian, so the word Acapulco gave an easy clue to one other title.  Café Europa confused me for a while, until I remembered that was the name of the nightclub where Juliet Prowse performed in G.I. Blues.  Beyond that, the original American title that matched up with each Italian one was a complete mystery to me.

Back of DVD packaging.  22 Italian Titles at bottom right.

Fortunately, Giuseppe, our friendly vacation tour director, accommodated me and translated the Italian titles into English.  For example, Fratelli Rivali translated to Rival Brothers, so I knew they were talking about Love Me Tender (Remember the Reno brothers who both loved the same woman?).   I have no idea why they didn’t just use the direct translation, which is Amami Teneramente.

In fact, there were only three Italian titles in the series that translated to the same words as the original title.  Stella Vi Fuoco means Flaming Star.  Guai Con Le Ragazze means The Trouble With Girls.  Paese Selveggio means Wild In The Country.

Some of Giuseppe’s other translations at least gave a clue to the American title.  For example, I was pretty sure The Barefoot Sheriff was Follow That Dream (Elvis was barefoot on the beach a lot and he was elected Sheriff by the homesteaders).  Crazy For Women was close enough to Girl Happy for me.  Multimillionaire Lifeguard had to be Clambake where rich Elvis traded identities with lifeguard Will Hutchins.  The Forbidden Punch invoked a boxing theme, so that had to be Kid Gallahad.

I could narrow down the options on some translations to two possible Elvis movies.  Elvis played a racecar driver in three films, so Drive Real Fast had to be Spinout or Speedway (Since Viva Las Vegas had been identified).  Singer at the Amusement Park could have been Roustabout or It Happened at the World’s Fair.

To answer the various title mysteries, I walked to a little shop in Rome with computer access rentals and paid 5 Euros for an hour on the Internet.  I typed Il Delinquente del Rock & Roll in Google and soon had ten sites that covered Elvis’ Italian movie DVDs.   Although this gave me the original titles for each Italian one, some questions still persisted.  For example, La Via Del Male was used for King Creole, but Giuseppe said that translated to The Way to the Sea, and that didn’t sound right.  So, I asked Anna, one of our vacationers who was an Italian native that married an American G.I. and has lived in the USA for the last 49 years.  I thought her command of English might be a little better than Giuseppe’s.

Sure enough, she corrected Giuseppe’s translation to The Bad Way, which certainly fit King Creole’s plot.  She also corrected Il Monte Di Venere from Mount Venus to The Mountain of Love (Venus was the Goddess of Love).  This worked much better for Kissin’ Cousins, because the action took place on a mountain owned by Pappy Tatum, and Elvis had two Tatum daughters and all those Kitty Hawk girls to choose from.  However, Anna suggested she had a little trivia about another Italian meaning for The Mountain of Love.  “What is that?” I responded.  I don’t remember her full answer, but when I heard the words “female pubic hair,” I nearly dropped my pen.

&nbs