Hopefully you can stand one more column about Elvis Presley, coming on the heels of last week’s account of my family’s trip to Graceland.
What’s got me stuck on the topic is “The Elvis Atlas,” a 1996 book by Michael Gray and Roger Osborne. It breaks down Elvis’ life and career into two-page stories, with photographs, maps of tours and other such information.
I’m less than halfway into it, but the book confirms that the most interesting part of the Elvis story is his early years, when he burst out of Memphis and became a regional star through radio, and then used the new medium of television to become a superstar.
“The Elvis Atlas” is full of information nuggets. Such as: His original pink Cadillac caught fire somewhere near Texarkana, Ark. in June 1955.
“Elvis sat under a tree and watched it go up in smoke,” the book reported.
It also has an interesting omission. It contains a list of all his “confirmed” performances, but excludes his Sept. 9, 1955 show in the McComb High School auditorium with Johnny Cash and four other stars of the day.
I could prattle on about the great details in the book. But it’s much more fun to talk to people who lived through the excitement of the mid-1950s. One of them is my neighbor, Maxine Bierbaum, who moonlights as the sous chef for my two border collies when Mary Ann and I are out of town.
She was 14 when Elvis came to town and remembers it well.
“I didn’t go to the concert,” she said, adding that some who did might have been more interested in seeing Cash. “But he ate down at the Blue and White Grill afterward.
“It’s gone now. And we peeked in the window and watched him eat. I guess the word just got around somehow that he was there. It was a lot of fun.”
Bierbaum remembers how kids her age liked Elvis, while their parents were far less impressed.
“Most of my friends’ mothers just thought he was kind of trashy, you might say,” she said. “My mother loved him. She thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread.”
Another big Elvis fan from the 1950s is Maureen Clark, who was working at WHNY, the radio station that arranged the McComb concert.
“He was personable, ordinary in many ways, but still a star enough with an incredible smile and stance,” she said in a text message. “How could you not fall for that?
“Even then he had it, in one young man! My being with WHNY was lucky for me. Got a close-up taste of the beginning of stardom for the incomparable Elvis.”
If you get right down to it, that beginning of stardom is the most interesting thing about Elvis. He came from literally nothing and worked his way up from high school auditoriums into the world’s most popular entertainer.
In Tupelo, Presley and his parents were dirt poor. After the family moved to Memphis in 1948, they lived in public housing for more than three years. After high school graduation in 1953, Elvis worked as an electrician trainee and truck driver. Very ordinary.
Yet from this ordinary emerged an energetic disruptor who turned the music world on its ear and started a debate over public morality.
“The Elvis Atlas” describes how his early performances helped him figure out how to get an audience’s attention. I’d say that worked out. It said he was determined to be successful — a good lesson for today’s young people.
When my family was at dinner in Memphis two weeks ago, my brother went around the table and asked everyone to list their favorite Elvis song. I picked his first one, 1954’s “That’s All Right,” saying that it set the stage for everything that was to come.
I’ve already changed my mind, thanks to “The Elvis Atlas.” It tells the story of “Mystery Train,” recorded at Sun Records in July 1955. I had never even heard of the song.
I listened to bluesman Junior Parker’s recording of the song before listening to the way Elvis and producer Sam Phillips handled it, with a huge assist from guitarist Scotty Moore. Huge difference. It’s an amazing song, even today. Elvis truly was onto something that defied category.
I’m now reading about 1956, his national breakout year. Soon I’ll be reading about the 1960s movies and the 1970s excesses, but for me the best part of Elvis is the mid-50s.
Can you imagine being just 20 years old, the way he was in 1955, and having kids like Maxine Bierbaum watch you eat dinner everywhere you go? For Elvis, the whole world lay ahead, but those early steps were absolutely fascinating.
