Monthly Archives: February 2013

The Tease

Did you know that Elvis had his own little private trailer village tucked away in the far reaches of his 163 acre Circle G Ranch in Mississippi?  His foray into cowboy communal living is an interesting story, especially because spring 1967 may well have been the happiest period of his life.

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I received an e-mail from a member of The Circle G Foundation who asked if I could write a story on ElvisBlog about their efforts to get the ranch purchased and save it from slow destruction.  It sounded like something I could do, and it might help, so I said sure.  Then, I realized I knew almost nothing about Elvis’ Circle G Ranch in Mississippi.

After two weeks of research, I now know enough to write a three-part ElvisBlog series.  I’ve found so much information on the web and in books I own, and Lesley Pilling of the Circle G Foundation has been very helpful.

But I need time to get it all together.  So, this week, all you get is that first paragraph tease.   Instead, we are going back in the archives again to find old stories that would improve the most with photos added.  Here is one from 2007 that really improved.

 

 

The Women Who Loved Elvis

 

That enticing title graced the cover of the August 2007 issue of the Ladies Home Journal.  As soon as I read the first line of the subtitle, “Very Private Confessions,” I knew this was prime material for an Elvisblog article.

A good many Elvisblog readers probably missed the Ladies Home Journal article by leading Elvis writer Alanna Nash.  It featured seven lovely ladies associated with Elvis in a variety of ways.

The subtitle “Very Private Confessions” turned out to be quite a stretch.  I looked specifically for them and have listed below my best guess at each woman’s “Confession.”

 

June Jaunico:   Elvis’ girlfriend for over a year in 1955/56.

June 4

“We got so wrapped up in kissing on our very first date – nothing too sloppy, it was marvelous – a little pecking here and there, a little nibble here and there, then a serious bite.”  (This one is a very sweet confession, but wouldn’t a real confession have been about what she and Elvis did on date number five or six, not on the first one?)

 

Wanda Jackson:   sang in concerts on tour with Elvis and was his girlfriend in     1955/56.

Wanda Smiling and Elvis

“In the early part of ’56, he gave me one of his rings… We stood by his car and he asked me to be his girl… I had a crush on him, and being able to know him and know his heart made me admire him a lot.  So, I said I’d be his girl.”  (Good move, Wanda)

 

Raquel Welch:     had a bit part in the 1964 movie Roustabout.

Raquel Welch

  “One of his guys came over and said, “Elvis is having a little party at the house, and if you’d like to come up…” I had a very strict upbringing, and I didn’t like the setup, so I didn’t go.”  (Big mistake.  Bet you wish you had that one to do over again, Raquel.)

 

Mary Ann Mobley:   appeared in Girl Happy and Harum Scarum

Mary Ann Mobley

“Elvis and I felt a common bond, coming from Mississippi.  He thought I understood him… This is an odd thing to say about Elvis Presley, but it was like I was working with my brother.  We never dated.”  (Sorry, but there is nothing else remotely approaching a confession in Mary Ann’s section.)

 

Jo Smith:   wife of Elvis’ very close cousin Billy Smith

Jo Smith

“He loved you to talk babytalk to him, and we had to take care of him and cater to him like a small child… He liked to be put in bed and be told good night.”  (You have to assume this took place in the time after Priscilla and before Linda Thompson.  Can’t see Jo Smith tucking Elvis in bed when either of them was around.)

 

Linda Thompson:   Elvis’ girlfriend from 1972-76.

Linda Thonpson in Jungle Roon

“But I think it’s wonderful if you can be all things to each other.  And he and I were.  He called me ‘Mommy.’  And he was like my father at times.  And we were like brother and sister at times, and we were like lovers at times.  (Looks like they played ‘cowboys and Indians’ at times, too.)

 

Kathy Westmoreland:   recorded and toured with Elvis in the 70s.

Kathy Westmoreland 2

“My last in-depth conversation with Elvis was just a few weeks before he died.  I remember he said, ‘Kathy, what’s it all about?’  And I said, “I think that is for you to find out for yourself.’”  (Kathy’s section in the article was very short and mostly about sad topics.  This is about the most upbeat thing she said.)

Here is a selection of other interesting quotes by some of the ladies.

June Jaunico didn’t hear from Elvis for a while after that first date.  “It turned out he was calling and my older brother wasn’t bothering to tell me.  Finally, he said, ‘Some guy with a hillbilly accent called.’”

Wanda Jackson and her dad were backstage on the first stop of a tour with Elvis in 1955.  “All of a sudden my dad and I started hearing screaming.  My daddy said, ‘I wonder if there’s a fire or something.  Let me go look.’  I started getting my things, and he came back and said, ‘No, relax.  But you’ve got to see this for yourself.’  He took me to the wings, and there was Elvis singing and moving and gyrating, and all these girls standing at the foot of the stage, screaming and reaching for him.”

Raquel Welch had a revelation about how sexy a guy could be when she saw Elvis in concert for the first time.  “Like many adolescents of the 50s, I had been completely gaga over Elvis.  I saw him live in San Diego in one of his early shows.  It was my first rock ‘n’ roll concert ever.”

A Linda Thompson quote seems to dispute reports that Elvis knew he would die young.  “I think it’s terrible for people to say they couldn’t imagine Elvis growing old.  Everybody has that right, even if they are a sex symbol. He wanted to live to be an old man.”

And, we sure wish he had.

 

Remember, lots of good stuff coming up the next three week on the Circle G Ranch.

 

 

©  2013    Philip R Arnold, Original Elvis Blogmeister    All Rights Reserved
   www.ElvisBlog.net

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Elvis, Elvis Presley, and Graceland are registered trademarks of Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc.

Happy 8th Birthday, ElvisBlog

I almost missed the eighth anniversary of the start of ElvisBlog.  527 articles posted, a new one added every weekend (except for three when my wife had surgeries).  Still plugging along.

The switch to WordPress last April has worked out pretty good.  They have a way to upload lots of pictures in a short time.  The set-up to leave Comments is much simpler, so comments to ElvisBlog have quadrupled.

However, the switch also left me without the Stats the old blog platform made available.  I was completely hooked on reading the numbers for page views and unique visitors every morning.  So, I got Google Analytics.  Obviously they have a much tighter matrix, because they cut ElvisBlog’s numbers by two-thirds.  Really bummed me out.  The happy news is that you good folks (unique visitors) have doubled in the first nine months on WordPress.

That’s enough of the victory lap.  So, to celebrate the birthday, lets go back to the early days.  During the first four years of ElvisBlog, no pictures were published, just text.  So, I went back to 2006 to see what stories would benefit the most from having  images included.

The winner is:   The Strange Story of Barney and Mabel

Aftermath 

(You can tell this is a strange story by looking at the chaos in this room.  Here’s the old blog article, now updated with photos.)

 

Elvis fans come in many forms, including an extremely rich English aristocrat who lives in a castle.  His name is Sir Benjamin Slade, and he has a substantial Elvis collection.  One of his more recent additions was a rare 1909 teddy bear from famous German manufacturer Steiff.  A teddy bear with that pedigree has intrinsic collectible value, but Elvis owned this one for a while, which made it even more valuable.   Sir Benjamin purchased the teddy bear, named Mabel, at auction in Memphis for $75,000.  However, he didn’t keep it long.  In a very generous move, he loaned Mabel to a nearby tourist attraction that was assembling an exhibition of rare teddy bears.  Mabel joined the British Bear Collection from Barnwell Castle, the Wareham Bears from Dorset, and others.  The total insured value of these combined loaner bears was $900,000.

mabel

Mabel

The insurance company insisted on 24-hour-uniformed security with highly trained guard dogs.   Security Guard Greg West was on duty when Mabel the bear showed up at the exhibition area.  His canine partner of six years was a Doberman named Barney.

All the most valuable bears in the collection were kept inside glass cases.  However, Mabel needed some prep work, so she was left on a large worktable.  Greg West came strolling through with Barney the Doberman, who was not on a leash.  Seeing Mabel laying there belly-up, West could not resist giving her a stroke and saying what a nice little bear she was.  Barney saw this and freaked out.

In a jealous rage, he attacked Mabel and tore her head off.  The ninety-seven-year-old, $75,000 Steiff teddy bear that Elvis once owned was decapitated – by the guard dog.  Uh oh.  Barney must have liked the taste of stuffing, because he went on to tear up several other bears worth another $25,000.

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Greg West and Barney

The insurance company can’t be too happy about having to pay this claim, and Sir Benjamin is really mad.  Who can blame him?

The attraction where all this took place is Wookey Hole Caves near Somerset.  How’s that for a name?  Their website boasts that Wookey Hole has 300,000 visitors a year and is “the most stunning underground caverns in the British Isles.”  In addition, the Wookey Hole attractions include: Dinosaur Valley (20 life-size dinosaurs), Victorian Arcade (large collection of Edwardian Arcade machines you can play), Pirates of the River Axe (pirate ship game area involving nerf cannonballs), Magical Mirror Maze (distorted mirrors plus a maze you try to navigate through), and Enchanted Fairy Garden, (a river trail where you encounter fairies, elves, and dragons).   What Wookey Hole doesn’t have anymore is Barney the guard dog – and probably not Mabel the Elvis bear either, if Sir Benjamin has any sense.

Barney and the Rubble

Barney and the Rubble

 

©  2013    Philip R Arnold, Original Elvis Blogmeister    All Rights Reserved    www.ElvisBlog.net

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Elvis, Elvis Presley, and Graceland are registered trademarks of Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc.

 

The Evolution of Elvis Tribute — Part 4

If you’ve been an Elvis fan for a long time like me, you’ve noticed EPE’s change in attitude toward Elvis Tribute Artists.  For the first two decades after his death, Graceland distanced itself from the hordes of men who performed as Elvis impersonators.  Actually, they went farther than that.  Ever protective of his ‘image,’ EPE filed a lawsuit against the Legends In Concert in 1983 to prevent the show’s “Elvis” from looking like, dressing like, or moving like the real Elvis.

Legends in Concert

We can assume it became impossible to sue all the hundreds (thousands?) of tribute artists, causing Graceland to accept a begrudging coexistence with them.  Early in the 2000s, Todd Morgan, EPE’s director of media and creative development said, “We represent the real thing.  The impersonator thing for the public and the press… has often been a negative.  When you think impersonator, you think of parody.  We could never find a comfort level in embracing it.”

Then in 2006, Morgan said something much different.  “Over the past year we have had a lot of discussion about the Elvis tribute artist phenomenon and what to do about it.”  (Cynics would say “what to do about it” is code for “how to make money off it”)  “We realized it was never going to go away.  It has gotten bigger, the entertainment has gotten better. So, we thought maybe if we get involved in some way, maybe we can bring attention to the most talented tribute artists.”

And their answer was… The Ultimate Elvis Artist Tribute Contest.

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If you’ve been to any of the past six Elvis Weeks, you know this is now a huge, big-ticket event.  Every competitor has previously won top prize at an Elvis tribute contest around the US and several foreign countries.  These guys are great entertainers and professional showmen.  There is certainly none of the parody or damage to the Elvis ‘image’ that EPE once worried about.

ETA winners

ETA winners 2

I have been to several competitions, and I love the good Elvis Tribute Artists.  From Shawn Klush in 2007 to Ben Portsmouth in 2012, these guys are great.

EPE has a new tie-in with the Ultimate Elvis winners. Now, they are presenting shows around the country with past winners headlining.  The Elvis Lives tour seems to be a great success.

Elvis Lives 3

 

The ultimate purpose of this article was not to give unpaid endorsements for EPE’s Ultimate Elvis contest or its Elvis Lives tour.  I really wanted to show just how far the evolution of Elvis tribute has come.  To do that, we have to go back and see what some of those guys that gave it a bad name looked like.  For years, I have kept a file titled “Elvis Impersonator Losers.”  After showing a few here, I’m going to delete the whole file.  Better gone and forgotten.

 

Big Belly

Fat Elvises are a recurring theme.  With all the iron bars here, it looks like this guy is in jail.  I think Elvis Week could use one, so we can keep these guys from walking the streets of Memphis and getting shown in the media around the country.

 

T

Todd Morgan certainly had a point about parody.

 

Elvi with Moustaches

Okay, we’ve got a group of Elvi’s with moustaches hovering around a copy of the Heisman Trophy.  Nothing strange about that.

 

Big Belly 2

Oh, no.  Not another fat Elvis.

 

ShElvis

Is that really an old female Elvis?  Some of the young ones are pretty hot, but this one… probably not so much.

 

midget

I saw this guy (or one of his peers) at the Collingwood Elvis Festival a decade ago.  I don’t think he actually performed, just added to the ambiance of the event.

 

Fat Red Elvis

Sad, just sad.  Another candidate for the bad impersonator jail at Elvis Week.

 

Too Old

Maybe this guy isn’t really an Elvis Impersonator Loser.  It would actually be pretty cool if an old dude could put on a good Elvis show.

 

Loser Drinking Beer

Give me a break.  Where do you even get a wig like that?

 

Fat Boy Sitting Down

Do we really have to look at another fat Elvis?  Hey, we’re not finished yet.

 

Hot Dogs

Well, at least they’ve got nice jumpsuits and sunglasses.

Just to end on a high note, here’s Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist Contest winner Shawn Klush, showing what a good ETA looks like.

Shawn Klush

Shawn klush 2

I’ve seen Shawn twice.  If you never saw Elvis in concert, Shawn’s show is as close as you’ll ever get.

 

©  2013    Philip R Arnold, Original Elvis Blogmeister    All Rights Reserved    www.ElvisBlog.net

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Elvis, Elvis Presley, and Graceland are registered trademarks of Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc.

 

Elvis Presley’s Gold Limousine

Every once in a while I check out the “News” at Elvis.com.  Unfortunately, to find the few newsworthy items, you have to skip through a lot of what really are advertisements.  During the past week, so-called news reports have been about the new 64 gigabyte Elvis USB drives, the 2013 Elvis Presley Holy Land Tour, big saving on Valentines Day gifts at ShopElvis.com, and my favorite, a 30% discount at Graceland’s Chapel in the Woods.

However, one news item that caught my eye was this:

Elvis.com news

I immediately recognized the car as Elvis’ customized Cadillac that toured all over Australia in 1968.  It has an interesting story.  Elvis wanted to have his own classic-styled luxury limousine, so he bought a 1960 Cadillac Series 75 Fleetwood for $10,000, and he took it to Barris Kustom City in North Hollywood, California.  George Barris had considerable fame for producing customized cars.

Elvis and George Barris

Elvis and George Barris in 1960

Elvis told Barris what features he wanted, and Barris gave Elvis many designs, artist renderings and engineering drawings before the modifications were decided.  The price tag was $65,000, which is $487,000 in today’s dollars.

Dream Car

Exterior modifications made significant changes to the roof, the paint, and the trim.  The headlight rims and all other trim were plated in 24 carat gold, as were hand-spun hub cap bullets and flanges.  The car is painted with forty coats of translucent pearl paint containing crushed diamond dust and pure fish scales from the orient.  The top was lengthened and the rear quarter panel windows were replaced by portholes.

1960 Cadillac Fleetwood Limo-Series-75

Here’s what the rear quarter panel windows on a standard 1960 Cadillac Fleetwood look like.  In addition to the portholes, the back window above was also replaced with a smaller one.  The roof was covered with coarse grain white pearl naugahyde.

The interior modifications were even more impressive.  Keep in mind that Elvis had no intention of driving the car himself.  His concept was for a chauffer driven limousine with a yacht-inspired lounge area in the back for him.

Elvis' Seat

Elvis’ Dream Car was designed to give him the ultimate in comfort by transforming the back-seat into a plush private cabin.  The seats are done in air-foam biscuit tufted panels made from gold frieze (with pearl buttons) imported from France.  The two-tone trim is done in white pearl Naugahyde.  The side and roof panels are covered with same gold-frieze biscuit panels and white Naugahyde.  Note that the porthole has the privacy cover in place, and gold lamé drapes can be closed to cover the smaller custom rear window.  Not shown in the photo is a car-phone mounted in a console between the seats.  To the right of where Elvis sat is his private control panel.

Elvis' Control Panel

Here is a blow-up of Elvis’ control panel which contains the intercom microphone Elvis used to talk to the chauffer, as well as controls for the radio, air-conditioner and heater.

 TV, Freezer, etc

Here is a view of many of the customized features at Elvis’ disposal.  At the top is the gold lamé privacy drapes between the front and rear seats.  The gold plated color TV sits on a swivel.  To the right of the TV and clock is a closed vanity case.  Below the TV is a gold refreshment bar that freezes its own ice cubes in two minutes and a refrigerated cab unit.  On the left is the pull-out RCA record player with 10-record automatic changer.

Draem Car Accessories

This shows a different view of the center lounge.  The gold vanity case is open.  Below it is the AM-FM tuner and the open shoe buffer.  Note the TV is not on the swivel in this shot, which seems to serve as a small table for Elvis to put stuff on.  Somewhere in the panel of accessories is a pull-out bar.  The open side door window has the same gold lamé curtains used throughout the car.

Close-up of shoe buffer and white mouton fur

This close-up shows the fold out shoe buffer and white mouton fur on floor.

 

Vanity Case

This close-up shows the open gold vanity case which contains a gold electric razor, gold hair clipper, chrome brush, etc.

It is not recorded just how much Elvis used his dream car, but souvenir-seeking fans caused enough damage to the car that he ultimately stopped using it.  He sold it to RCA who used it for promotional purposes across the country from 1965 to 1967.

Caddy Tour

 

Next, the car was shipped to Australia for a tour to raise money for the Benevolent Society of New South Wales.  It made almost four-dozen stops and was viewed by almost 400,000 people.

Souvenir Brochure

 Elvis’ gold car was not just displayed at large Australian cities like Sydney and Melbourne.  It also appeared in schools, shopping centers, and civic centers in many smaller communities.

Dream Car on Display

 

As the Elvis.com news report above states, the tour of Elvis’ gold Caddy raised over $110,000 ($700,000 in today’s dollars).  You all know how generous Elvis was and how much he contributed to charity.  You may not have known that his car could do that too

 ©  2013    Philip R Arnold, Original Elvis Blogmeister    All Rights Reserved    www.ElvisBlog.net

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Elvis, Elvis Presley, and Graceland are registered trademarks of Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc.