Word: presleys
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...died 25 years ago next Friday (he did die, didn't he?), but the Presley industry is bigger than ever. "A Little Less Conversation," an obscure 1968 tune from the movie "Love a Little, Love a Little," was recently the #1 song in Britain in a remix by Dutch deejay JXL. A collection of 100 alternate (read: not-so-hot) takes of Elvis songs fills a new four-CD box set. A pity that daddy Vernon didn't record his infant son squealing in the crib; then RCA could release "Elvis: the Colic Years...
...Then a young truck driver, stupefyingly shy until he stood before a microphone, walked in to make a record for his mother. A few visits later, abetted by guitarist Scotty Moore, bass player Bill Black and Phillips at a primitive console, Elvis Presley fooled around until he came up with a variation on the Arthur Crudup song "That's All Right." It was, too. "That's different," Phillips legendarily said. "That's a pop song now, just 'bout." What it was, just 'bout, was rock 'n roll - a mighty mutant of pop, blues and country, born July 5, 1954, right...
...Within a year, Phillips had sold Presley's contract to RCA Victor for $25,000. He says he never regretted the decision, never looked back. He soon had another rockabilly prodigy, Carl Perkins, whose "Blue Suede Shoes" kicked some serious chart butt: #1 country & western, #2 pop and rhythm 'n blues. Johnny Cash, the Arkansas gent with a grave voice and a lifer's stare, recorded "I Walk the Line": #1 country, #17 pop. Roy Orbison, who would not fully flower till the '60s, did an early stretch at Sun, recording some goofy rockers and writing a hit song...
...baby. In the uniquely free-form Sun atmosphere, Sam helped performers express their tangled visions; they would come in with no songs or arrangements prepared but just noodle and canoodle until inspiration struck. Of course, he also should earn a week's detention for dropping the black acts when Presley showed him he could make money with white ones. But, hey, that's show business...
...artists often covered one another's songs, at Phillips' encouragement: He owned the catalogue. He also took droit de seigneur on certain compositions. Somehow, between Little Junior's initial recording of "Mystery Train" and Elvis' remake, Phillips had become the song's co-author. (Presley took instruction from the master: when he moved to RCA, he demanded and got co-authorship on Otis Blackwell's "Don't Be Cruel" and "All Shook...