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- [00:01]
Terry Gross
This message comes from Capital One. Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts. What's in your wallet terms apply. See capitalone.com bank for details. Capital One NA Member FDIC. This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. The history of rock and roll, really the history of most 20th century popular music is filled with stories of unscrupulous managers. One of the men frequently near the top of the list is Elvis Presley's longtime manager, Colonel Tom Parker. He had worked in carnivals and was considered to have a slippery relationship with the truth and a flair for exaggeration, but a talent for making a profitable business deal. Parker's name and his background were fictions. He was really from Holland, not the U.S. he stowed away on a ship to the U.S. and never became a citizen of America. He served in the military under his false identity, but was never a colonel in the U.S. army. Colonel was an honorific bestowed on him by the governor of Louisiana. During the time my guest Peter Guralnick was writing his definitive two volume biography of Elvis Presley, he got to see Parker's archive, which included his letters, thousands of them. He knew the colonel and his letters were worthy of a book. And now Goralnik has written it. It's called the Colonel and the King. The first half of the book is a biography of the colonel. The second is a collection of his letters written to Elvis executives at his record label, RCA and other people in the orbit of Elvis's music and movies. Guraonik says researching this book made him question many of his own preconceptions about Parker and led to plenty of surprises. Guronek's other books include a biography of Sam Phillips, whose Sun Record label was the first to record Elvis. Peter Goralnick, welcome back to FRESH air. So I want to hear what some of your preconceptions were about Colonel Tom Parker.
- [02:01]
Peter Guralnick
I think my biggest preconception, it wasn't a negative preconception. It was just the idea that Colonel was a character. He was someone who could rise above any troubles that were set in his way and who, you know, who simply was going to be unfazed. And in writing this book, from reading his letters, from speaking at length with his widow, Loanne, from getting to know Colonel better overall by immersing myself in the material, I came to have a much deeper view. And I felt like in some ways, and I'm not trying to disown what I wrote before, but in some ways I wouldn't write it like that. Now he just was a much deeper character. And his vulnerability, his sensitivity and the openness of his feelings is something that I could never have imagined and that I tried to describe and elucidate in this new book.
- [02:54]
Terry Gross
I think the Colonel is often blamed for Elvis's most schlocky recordings and for like the Big White Suit Elvis in which he became a parody of himself. But you write about how Colonel Tom Parker always insisted that it was Elvis who would choose the music that he recorded, that the record company couldn't dictate that it was different in the movies because that was a whole different deal than his RCA recording contract. And you know, it was understood that the movie director was handling that. But how true did he stay to that about letting Elvis choose his own music?
- [03:35]
Peter Guralnick
Colonel had absolutely nothing to do with the music. He did not have one single thing other than defend Elvis ability to make the music he wanted to make. And Colonel defends Elvis against the record company, against everybody's attempt to homogenize his music, his presentation. He defended him against the movie companies. He defended him against the talent agency William Morris. And when somebody came to him and said, we're very concerned about the way that Elvis is presenting himself at rca. Bill Bullock and Steve Scholz came to him in March of 56, right after Elvis had begun there and said, you're violating the agreement that we had. We thought we were all agreed we wanted to take Elvis into the mainstream. And Colonel in essence responded, responded with nothing. He just said, my artist knows his business and he will do what he will do. But basically he had nothing whatsoever to do with the music other than to defend Elvis's choices.
- [04:33]
Terry Gross
Well, let's hear an example of him defending one of Elvis's choices. And this is right after he signed to rca. I think this is like his first recording session when Elvis made Hart, which is really one of my favorite of Elvis's recordings. And what RCA wanted him to record were songs like Wham Bam, Hot Ziggity Zam, which sounds like a follow up song to Perry Como's Hot Diggity Dog and Shiver and Shake. I don't know what that would have been, but Wham Bam, Hot Ziggity Zam, that really could not have been a good song. And Elvis wanted to do Heartbreak Hotel. How did the Colonel defend Elvis against rca?
- [05:14]
Peter Guralnick
Well, first of all, Elvis brought the song into the studio. Mae Axton had written the song or co written the song, gave it to Elvis at the DJ convention a couple of months before the session. A Month and a half. And Elvis said, okay, I'm going to do it. And Steve Scholz, who was his A and R man, brought in the songs you mentioned and several others. But Elvis said, this is the song I'm going to do, and this is going to be my first single. When Steve Scholz, who supervised the session, he was a very respected A and R man, and he had done a good job for Eddie Arnold and for Hank Snow, but he and Elvis did not hit it off. Elvis insisted on what he wanted to do. He wanted to bring the Jordanires into the session. Steve Sholes didn't get the Jordan. A furious or terribly upset Steve Shoals brought the results of the session, including Heartbreak Hotel, back to New York to rca. And everybody in the RCA home office said, this is terrible. Go back to Nashville. This is a disaster. Go back to Nashville and do the session again. Well, there were many reasons why he couldn't do that. So they put out Heartbreak Hotel as a single. The song that Elvis had brought to the session. It didn't do anything at first. There was no commitment to it. And there was a great deal of pressure on Colonel from Steve Scholz and his boss, Bill Bullock, to try to bring Elvis to heel, have him do the things that would make him into a more homogeneous kind of artist, somebody more middle of the road. And Colonel resolutely refused. And finally, the single Heartbreak Hotel picked up sales. It went to number one on pop, country, and maybe number two, R&B. And then RCA was forced to put on an album which, again, there had been terrible conflict about. In the end, Steve Schultz had to include, I think, half a dozen Sun Signs, which hadn't been released on that first album, and that went to number one. So basically, the Colonel's strategy was proved out, which was that Elvis knew what he wanted. He knew, he knew his music, he knew his business, and Colonel was going to defend him to the last bit.
- [07:16]
Terry Gross
So let's hear Heartbreak Hotel. And I believe it's Chet Atkins on guitar and Floyd Kramer at the piano.
- [07:22]
Peter Guralnick
Yeah, it's Chet Atkins and also Elvis's guitarist, Scotty Moore and Bill Black.
- [07:28]
Terry Gross
Oh, great. Okay, here's Heartbreak Hotel.
- [07:32]
Peter Guralnick
Well, since my baby left me Will I find a new place to dwell? Well, it's down at the end of Lonely street that Heartbreak Hotel Where I'll be I'll be just a lonely baby well, I'm so lonely I'll be so lonely I could die Although it's always crowded you still can find some room for brokenhearted lovers to cry There in a gloomy soul Because a lonely baby so lonely her they're so lonely when they could die now the bell house tears keep flowing the death clerks dress in black well they've been so long on the street they'll never look back and think you're so Think you're so lonely baby A layer so lonely A lair so lonely they could die so.
- [08:32]
Terry Gross
That was Elvis's Heartbreak hotel recorded in 1956. Parker got his start in carny shows, a profession famous for come ons and outright cons to get you to buy a ticket. So let's talk about his origin story because it includes carny shows and it includes lying about who he was. His whole identity was totally fictitious. So tell us where he grew up and what his real name was.
- [09:00]
Peter Guralnick
His real name was Andreas Cornelis van Kirk and he grew up in Breda, which was a fairly provincial town not too far from Rotterdam, but very different from Rotterdam. He was raised in a family in which clearly he stood out. He loved his mother dearly. He was, as he described it and I think everybody else described it, he was abused by his father. But there was some traumatic event that led to. To his never wanting to revisit either his family or his country again. But his main motivation was he wanted to go to America. And at 16 he tried once. He was sent back by the immigration authorities, he tried again several weeks later and he made it. And from that point on he considered himself an American. And his story, even though he was born in Holland, is perhaps as American a story as you could ever encounter. And in an age which prizes self invention, there is no one who was more an exemplar of self invention than Andreas Cornelius von Kirk. I don't know that he really lied about. He went into the army, he took on the name of Tom Parker.
- [10:12]
Terry Gross
There was a fair that would come to his town in Holland every year and it had a family circus within the fair. And he was so taken with the circus. He started his own little circus with like the. A handmade newspaper tent and he trained like insects and animals to perform. I just think that's really interesting. But he ended up working in carnivals. What do you know about the carnival work that he did in Holland and in the us because carnies have such a reputation for being con men.
- [10:41]
Peter Guralnick
Well, again, I think Colonel would dispute that. The only thing that Colonel believed in in his entire life, he did not believe in organized religion. He believed in the wonderful world of show business of which both the, the carnival and the circus were an Intrinsic part. And he believed two things about it. He believed that in the world of the carnivals and the circuses, your acceptance and your identity were based not on birth, not on education. They were based on character and on integrity, on being trusted. And he thought that, you know, all of his life he felt the most authentic people, the realest people, the most honest people were fellow veterans of that carny and circus world. The other thing he believed about show business and the carnivals and circuses as much as any of them was what they brought to their audiences. When he first started going out with the country shows with Roy Acuff, with Ernest Taubman, and then with Eddie Arnold, they were blazing new territory. They were going into places that had never seen a live show before. And Colonel believed that what they brought to these places was something of inestimable value.
- [11:53]
Terry Gross
What's the story behind his discharge in the military? Because another story that circulates about Colonel Tom Parker is that he was discharged as a psychopath, that he was in military prison for a while because he tried to desert. I think that's the story. So what is the story?
- [12:11]
Peter Guralnick
His first enlistment, which I think was. Was it two years or three years? I'm not sure. It was a very happy time. He spent a good deal of it in Hawaii, where he was adopted by a family named Kufarath, who remained his close friends all of his life. And like all of these extended families that he developed over the course of the years, he then was transferred to Florida. And right after he wrote to his mother that he thought he would not re enlist, he reenlisted. And I would say what happened was he immediately regretted it. He. Not long after he reenlisted, he went AWOL for five months. When he returned, and this is the mystery, why in heaven's name would he ever come back? He could. Why not just fade into the woodwork? I mean, this is a guy who, as you say, had invented his identity, who was perfectly capable of living a life which didn't have to do with the rules of society. Why would he come back after going AWOL for five? But he came back and he was then thrown into prison. He was kept in isolation for two months. And when he came out, now you can interpret this. Anyway, when he came out, he was very disturbed and they sent him to Walter Reed. And eventually it's interesting because Howlin Wolf was discharged from the army for the same reason. Chester Arthur Burnett, the great blues singer, Howlin Wolf, as a psychopath. And just like Colonel Parker, the Behavior that the army psychiatrist judged to be psychopathic was never repeated, never showed up in any way again, nor did it with Colonel. But really the question is, was he so desperate to get out of the army that he behaved in a way that would get him. He got an honorable discharge. He was honorably discharged, and he was always proud of that.
- [14:15]
Terry Gross
Early on in Elvis's career, once he started doing, like, tv, especially the Ed Sullivan show, and he became known as Elvis the Pelvis because of these gyrations that were considered way too sexual for tv and for a show like the Ed Sullivan show, which was a family show, the Colonel kind of defended him and thought, like, hey, this is great. This is great publicity. It's not a problem. You don't have to change.
- [14:41]
Peter Guralnick
Well, yeah, he defended him just as he would have defended Elvis. If Elvis said, I want to stand in one spot and not move around in one bit. But I think you mentioned Ed Sullivan. Ed Sullivan said, I'll never have Elvis on my program. He then got beaten in the ratings by Steve Allen, and he then went to Colonel or William Morris and said, okay, I will have this artist, and, you know, that's a legitimate thing to do. And he made a $50,000 offer for three appearances, which was an extraordinary offer, an unheard of offer at that time. And Harry Kallsheim, the William Morris agent, came to Colonel with the offer. And Colonel said, that's fine, but Ed Sullivan agreed to these terms, and these terms have to be written out. And the terms are that my artist is in full charge of the songs that he performs, the manner in which he performs them, the musicians with whom he performs them, and his entire. And without those conditions being met, he didn't care if it was. It could have been $100,000. But he was going to defend his artist's independence and right to determine his own, make his own artistic choices. And that's the reason why Elvis and Colonel were such an extraordinary partnership, because they were working hand in glove towards the same common end.
- [15:58]
Terry Gross
So let's talk about Elvis and the movies. He had a screen test with the producer hal Wallis in 1956. Elvis was only 21. Whose idea was it to do movies? Did that come from the studio? From Elvis? From the Colonel?
- [16:12]
Peter Guralnick
It came from Elvis. That was Elvis's highest ambition, was to be a movie star, along the lines of Marlon Brando, James Dean, Montgomery Clift. And that's what Colonel promoted. You can even see the letters that Colonel writes at the beginning where he is promoting Elvis to William Morris as someone who wants to make a James Dean type of mov Again and again in those first few years, he writes to each of the studios saying, Elvis wants to make a serious movie. He wants to make a movie in which he's regarded as a serious actor. And they're very interesting letters. And to some degree, he succeeded. I mean, the movies improved. King Creole was a huge improvement, for example, over the previous. Over the first movie, Love Me Tender, where Elvis really didn't know what he was doing, but did his best, but it continued even past that point.
- [17:06]
Terry Gross
There's some not very good songs in his films, but there's some really good ones, too. And one of them is from King Creole, which you just mentioned. It's called Trouble. It's such a great performance. Can you talk about the song and what you think makes it great and the difference between how it's performed in the movie and how it's performed on the recording?
- [17:25]
Peter Guralnick
Well, the interesting thing with Trouble was written by Leiber and Stoller. And it's just one of those Stop Time Blues, which, you know, Elvis was always so drawn to. So, I mean, it's a blues, and that's what it is. But once they had recorded the soundtrack, and it's a wonderful soundtrack, and it's. This movie is set in New Orleans, and it's with a New Orleans sound, musical sound. I'm not sure of all the musicians, but the point is, the idea was to be true to the New Orleans setting. And then there was a debate. And I'm not sure that anybody came down really strongly one way or the other. But there was a strong impulse at rca, let's say, to rerecord the soundtrack. To rerecord the songs that Elvis had already recorded, like Trouble, but to record them as rock and roll, not as New Orleans music. And Elvis, through colonel In a decision that colonel Fully supported, but it was Elvis's decision, said, no, the movie is about New Orleans. It's. The music is New Orleans music. And the music should reflect, regardless of whether my audience will go along with it, the music should reflect the authenticity of the setting. And, you know, they kept the New Orleans musical settings.
- [18:36]
Terry Gross
So why don't we hear the record that was recorded in the studio and released? Because that's pretty great. This is Elvis's recording of Trouble, a song from the film King Creole.
- [18:51]
Peter Guralnick
I never looked for trouble but I never ran.
- [18:56]
Terry Gross
I don't take no orders.
- [18:59]
Peter Guralnick
No kind of man I'm only made out flesh, blood and bone but if you gonna start a rumble don't you try at all. All because I am evil, my middle.
- [19:16]
Terry Gross
Name when I'm Eva.
- [19:27]
Peter Guralnick
So don't you mess around with me. I'll evil, evil, evil, let me evil, evil after me. So don't mess around, don't mess around.
- [19:44]
Terry Gross
Don'T mess around with me.
- [19:47]
Peter Guralnick
I'm evil, I'm evil, evil, evil.
- [20:14]
Terry Gross
So that's a song from the film King Creole, the Elvis musical. Well, on that note, we have to take a short break, so let me reintroduce you. My guest is Peter Guralnick. His new book is about Elvis Presley's longtime manager, Colonel Tom Parker. The book is called the Colonel and the King. We'll be back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH air. Hi, it's Kathryn Maher, CEO of npr. Federal funding for public media has been eliminated. That means that the NPR network is moving forward in an uncharted future. But our commitment to you will never waver. Please give today to support the kind of journalism that democracy relies upon. Make your gift@donate.NPR.org thank you.
- [20:59]
Peter Guralnick
This summer on Planet Money Summer School, we're learning about political economy. We're getting into the nitty gritty of.
- [21:05]
Terry Gross
What government does with things like trade.
- [21:07]
Peter Guralnick
Taxes, immigration and healthcare.
- [21:10]
C
So politics and economics, which are taught separately, they shouldn't be separated at all.
- [21:13]
Peter Guralnick
I think you have to understand one.
- [21:15]
Terry Gross
To really appreciate the other. So what is the right amount of.
- [21:17]
Peter Guralnick
Government in our lives? Tune into Planet Money Summer School from.
- [21:20]
Terry Gross
Npr, wherever you get your podcasts. So let's play another song. And I want to play Are youe Lonesome Tonight, which was the one song that Colonel Tom Parker ever suggested that Elvis record because the colonel tried to stay out of the music part and leave that to Elvis. But, you know, he loved the song. It was his wife's favorite song. And as you've said, it was an example of how Elvis wanted to sing more adult material. This was recorded at the same session as Elvis's first album after Coming out of the army, the album Elvis Is Back. But this wasn't included on the album. Why not?
- [22:00]
Peter Guralnick
Because singles were not included on albums at that time. It wasn't a universal belief, but it was a very strong belief in the record business that you kept the single separate from the album and and that including the single in the album was like giving away the single. I think they were wrong, but it was a very, as I say, it was a very common belief, and that's why it wasn't on none of the singles. You know, it's now or Never. I mean, none of the singles recorded at the Elvis's back sessions were included on the album. But the album is one of the greatest achievements of Elvis's career, artistic achievements. And I mean, it's an astonishing achievement because it covers the full range and gamut of all of Elvis's, the kind of music that Elvis liked. It has blues with Reconsider Baby, it has rhythm and blues with Such a Night, and then it has the ballads to which Elvis had always been drawn. And I think the extended version of the album with the singles included is really one of the great audio documents of Elvis career.
- [23:01]
Terry Gross
All right, so let's hear Are you lonesome tonight? Which was recorded as part of the first sessions after Elvis got out of the army.
- [23:18]
Peter Guralnick
Are you lonesome tonight? Do you miss me tonight? Are you sorry we drifted apart? Does your memo stray To a bright summer day When I kissed you and called you sweetheart? Do the chairs in your parlor Seem empty? Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there? Is your heart filled with pain? Shall I come back again?
- [24:24]
Terry Gross
Tell me dear Are you lonesome to light? That was Elvis's Are youe Lonesome Tonight recorded after he got out of the Army. So Elvis Presley resumed his movie career after he got out of the military. And one of the movies he made was Viva Las Vegas, which had songs by Mort Schuman and Doc Pomas. And it includes a song that. The first time I heard it, which was not that long ago, maybe I didn't notice it so much in the movie, I don't know. But it really struck me when I heard it a few months ago because it's such. It's so unlike Elvis's repertoire. It has a very, like, bluesy jazz feel and. But I mean, like jazz blues as opposed to blues blues. And it's very behind the beat, which is kind of unlike Elvis. It's almost as if, like, Elvis had been listening to Chet Baker, which, like, I don't know, could be. You think?
- [25:28]
Peter Guralnick
Well, I think Elvis, as Sam Phillips said, had ears all around his head so he can.
- [25:34]
Terry Gross
Right. So this is part of a dream sequence in the movie. Do you want to say anything? I know you really like this song a lot.
- [25:41]
Peter Guralnick
I think the extraordinary thing about it is it's almost like it could have come out of Gene Kelly's An American in Paris. I mean, it's just. It's on such a different level, not just of anything in Viva Las Vegas, but of almost anything in any of Elvis's movies. It just. It has A Aside from the Chet Baker, you know, aspect, it just has a feel to it. And you feel that Elvis is caught up in it in the way that he was caught up in those early movies he made in King Creel and Loving you and JLS Rock to a lesser extent. But, you know, where he is genuinely just in the moment in a way that in so many of the movies he wasn't. One thing I should point out is that, you know, it's a Doc Thomas and Mort Schuman song. And it is actually fairly similar to a number of songs that Elvis recorded in the aftermath of the Elvis's Back sessions, where he recorded these beautiful, beautiful ballads by Don Robertson and by Doc Thomas and Mort Schumann, and where he becomes almost more of an interpreter of song than he had been before. And they just. These are songs that have been largely overlooked and largely overlooked by me when I was a kid. Certainly I just thought, eh, what's he doing that for? But I think they're among the most beautiful recordings he ever made. But, you know, I don't think anything surpasses. Everybody Needs Somebody to Lean On.
- [27:11]
Terry Gross
So let's hear I Need Somebody to Lean on, which is a song from Viva Las Vegas. I need somebody.
- [27:32]
Peter Guralnick
To lean on.
- [27:37]
Terry Gross
I.
- [27:38]
Peter Guralnick
Need somebody to tell my troubles to no use denying I'm close to crying but what good Tell me what good would my crying do?
- [28:03]
Terry Gross
I need somebody.
- [28:07]
Peter Guralnick
To help me.
- [28:12]
Terry Gross
Help.
- [28:12]
Peter Guralnick
Me forget all those worries on my mind and when I'm lonely if someone would only.
- [28:28]
Terry Gross
Want to be.
- [28:31]
Peter Guralnick
Sweet and.
- [28:32]
Terry Gross
Kind that was Elvis singing the ballad I Need Somebody to Lean On, a song written for him for the film Viva Las Vegas. So let's talk about the period when, like, the Colonel was out of control with his gambling and Elvis was out of control with his drug addictions. In September of 1973, the Colonel and Elvis basically fired each other. What happened between them?
- [29:00]
Peter Guralnick
Well, basically, Elvis on stage insulted the Hilton family, who were his employers, who owned the hotel and who, you know, with whom he had a one point something million dollar and Colonel felt was totally wrong. This is the kind of thing you never do in public. This is the kind of thing in show business. You never air your differences in this way and you never treat people in this manner. So that was what instigated it.
- [29:27]
Terry Gross
Yeah. So In September of 1973, the Colonel even writes a letter to Elvis's father saying, I have tendered my resignation effective immediately. And Elvis was really angry at the Colonel, but their relationship continued.
- [29:45]
Peter Guralnick
There was virtually no contact between them for nearly three months until around Christmas time when Colonel heard from Vernon and I think from Sunny west that Elvis wanted to be in touch with him. And Elvis then did get in touch with him and Elvis wanted to go back on the road. And that was the beginning. It was picked up again as if nothing had happened, but there was no telling. There was never a response from Elvis or his father. Elvis's father, Vernon was part of every business conference that Elvis and Colonel had, and he was the only other person besides Elvis and Colonel who knew Elvis's business. But in any case, they picked it up again and they went on as they had been.
- [30:28]
Terry Gross
Let's take another break here and then we'll talk some more. My guest is Peter Goralnick, who wrote the definitive two volume biography of Elvis Presley and now has a book about Elvis's longtime manager, Colonel Tom Parker. It includes many of the letters Parker wrote, including letters to Elvis. We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH air.
- [30:47]
C
At Planet Money, we know that economic jargon can sometimes feel like speaking another language.
- [30:52]
Terry Gross
Yeah, like arbitrage, alpha, otarchy. That's just what's in the news these days.
- [30:57]
C
There's also absolute advantage, aggregate demand, aggregate supply.
- [31:02]
Terry Gross
And this is just the A's.
- [31:03]
C
Oh, animal spirits.
- [31:04]
Terry Gross
That's a pretty good one. Planet Money from npr. We help you translate the economy so you can understand the world. Wherever you get your podcasts, this message comes from dsw. Where'd you get those shoes? Easy. They're from dsw because DSW has the exact right shoes for whatever you're into right now. You know, like the sneakers that make office hours feel like happy hour, the boots that turn grocery aisles into runways, and all the styles that show off the many sides of you, from daydreamer to multitasker and everything in between, because you do it all in really great shoes. Find a shoe for every you at your DSW store or dsw.com you're listening.
- [31:45]
Peter Guralnick
To NPR because you're curious. You want to know what the world is like beyond the surface. NPR feeds that curiosity with stories from real people, with real experiences and all the perspectives that come with them. It's our right to be curious and our prerogative to listen. So keep your curiosity alive.
- [32:04]
C
Hear the bigger picture every day on NPR.
- [32:09]
Terry Gross
Elvis died August 16, 1977. This was the day before his sixth tour of the year was scheduled to begin. It's a lot of tours, especially if you're addicted like Elvis was and visibly getting sicker. Could the colonel have prevented that, do you think? The Colonel should have tried to have Elvis work less or try to do something to help him get off these drugs.
- [32:37]
Peter Guralnick
You can see all through the last few years, Colonel Trying to get Elvis off the road, not on the road. It was not Colonel who was putting him on the road. It was Elvis's need for money. I mean, there was always a crisis. You know, Graceland had to be remortgaged. Taxes needed to be paid. You can see this in the letters that Elvis's father, Vernon writes to Colonel Just begging Colonel to come up with some money. Surely you can come up with some money from rca. We desperately need money for all the money that Elvis was making, an extraordinary amount of money. So it wasn't Colonel's doing that. He was on the road. But I think one thing that has to be understood is that everybody around Elvis, not everybody, but so many people around Elvis, tried hard to intervene in their own way. I mean, I don't know if you've ever been part of an intervention. I haven't. But I can only imagine how difficult it is. And the fact that you say we're going to stage an intervention does not in any way suggest you're going to have any success. And everybody from Dr. Nick to Red west to Jerry Schilling to Elvis's father, Vernon, all of them and Colonel all of them attempted in different ways to intervene. And you can find evidence of this all the way through. And each of them had one thing in common. They all worked for Elvis, including Elvis's father. And all got the same response. If you don't like what I'm doing, there's the door. So that's the reason why none of these interventions worked or could work.
- [34:04]
Terry Gross
You met the Colonel because you were working on your Elvis biography. Just explain a little bit how you met him.
- [34:11]
Peter Guralnick
I met him because I went to the Elvis birthday celebration. I'd never been before, and I didn't go again for many, many years. But Colonel was advertised as making an appearance there. It was really his rapprochement with the estate. And this was in January of 88. And I really hadn't begun the book, the Elvis biography, or I had just begun it, I guess. But I thought, well, I'll probably never meet the Colonel. He'll never do an interview. I might as well absorb some of his aura, let's say. And so I was sitting with Sam Phillips, whom I knew pretty well at that point, and his sons Knox and Jerry, and Sam said, I'm going to go over. Sam hadn't seen Colonel in probably, you know, 25 years. And he never knew Colonel particularly well. He disapproved of him, but he didn't know him. And they had very different values. Although I think as time went on, Sam came to appreciate Colonel much more after that point and spoke of it. But. So Sam said, I'm going to go over and see Tom. He ain't no damn Colonel. I'm going to go see Tom. So I trailed along behind him like a good little reporter, and I met Colonel. I shook hands with him, and then I wrote to him right afterwards. And then I immediately got a response. And that began a correspondence which went on for the next, almost the next 10 years. And it also led, much to my surprise, to an invitation the following year to his 80th birthday party, which was an incredible event at which I met all the people in the shadows, all the people behind Elvis. None of whom I'm sure were would ever have talked to me if I hadn't gotten the Colonel's imprimatur by being at that party for his friends.
- [35:51]
Terry Gross
He wrote a letter to you, and I want you to read the letter.
- [35:56]
Peter Guralnick
This letter, which he wrote to me In July of 1990, I had sent him. This was early on in my writing the last train to Memphis. And it was very difficult to piece together what had actually happened in those early days. When Colonel Frist came into the picture, he played his part. How he got Elvis away from Bob Neal, from Elvis's manager, Bob Neal, just what happened? And so I put together something that was really theoretical, and I sent it to him, soliciting his input. So he wrote back, friend Peter, Your letter, dated July 4, received and carefully read. I do not wish to waste my time to make corrections regarding the most misinformed information I have ever read in all my career in show business. And he then proceeded to waste some of his time feeding me information that might be useful to me. After that, he wrote, if this helps you any, fine. If not, this is all I can do. The true story of my entire career has been documented for me and at some future date will be included in my memoirs, which will either be handled by me or my estate, as there is lots still to be added as I expect to be around for some time. Good luck from your friend. And then it's signed, Colonel but underneath in all caps, the Colonel.
- [37:19]
Terry Gross
He never did write that memoir that he said he had been writing for decades.
- [37:23]
Peter Guralnick
He couldn't. The reason he couldn't was early on in his management career, Colonel had come to feel that the artist always wears the white hat and the manager wears the black hat. And if there's any blame to be cast, it should always fall on the manager. He recognized that if he were to tell the true story and he couldn't conceive of telling the story, if it weren't true, he would be knocking off Elvis's white hat. And he simply wasn't going to do that. You know, he was always going to take the blame and that was what had left. But really the truest thing he said was he said to Bob Hilburn several years after Elvis died, and he said it, murmured it, I think, after the formal interview was over. And he says, yeah, I really loved him. And he truly did. I mean, he loved him from the moment he met him. And I think it was a love that was reciprocated by Elvis.
- [38:19]
Terry Gross
Let's close with a song that you really love by Elvis. It could be one of his hits or a song that few people know that you'd like them to know, you'd like to introduce them to.
- [38:29]
Peter Guralnick
Well, this is an old standby for me. I mean, it's trying to get to you. A song that Elvis first recorded in 55 for son. He never finished it. I always say it's the best unfinished song he ever recorded at Sun. It was released on that first RCA album. But it has a spiritual quality which I think stayed with Elvis all of his life. He recorded it in I mean, he sang it in 77 as much as he recorded sang it in 55. And it's just a song that I think if you listen to it, you just hear how it hits with him and how he hits it and how he brings it to an entirely different level.
- [39:07]
Terry Gross
Peter Guralnick, thank you so much for coming back to FRESH air. And congratulations on your book.
- [39:12]
Peter Guralnick
Well, thanks. I really enjoyed it.
- [39:15]
Terry Gross
Peter Guralnick's new book about Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis Presley's longtime manager, is called the Colonel and the King. After we take a short break, John Powers will review the new British crime drama Code of Silence, about a deaf woman who's asked to help in a police investigation by reading lips. This is FRESH air.
- [39:35]
Peter Guralnick
If you're a robot, this might not.
- [39:37]
Terry Gross
Be the show for you. But if you're a human with hopes, dreams and bills to pay, the Life.
- [39:41]
Peter Guralnick
Kit podcast might be just what you need. Three times a week, Life Kit brings.
- [39:45]
Terry Gross
You a fresh set of solutions to.
- [39:47]
Peter Guralnick
Help you tackle topics big and small, from how to save money on groceries to how to bring the house down at karaoke. You know human stuff. Listen to the Life Kit podcast from NPR Presentado por me Mariel Segarra hey.
- [39:59]
Terry Gross
Everybody, it's Ian from How to Do Everything. On our show we attempt to answer your how to questions. We don't know how to do anything, so we call experts. Last season, both Tom Hanks and Martha.
- [40:11]
Peter Guralnick
Stewart stopped by to help. Our next season is launching in just.
- [40:14]
Terry Gross
A few months, so get us your questions now by emailing howtopr.org or calling 1-800-424-2935. The Fantastic Four are back again in a new movie, and it's an eye popping good time. We've seen the story before, but this time the vibe is different.
- [40:30]
Peter Guralnick
It's brighter, set in a retro future with flying cars. Plus, it stars Pedro Pascal and works.
- [40:35]
Terry Gross
For casual viewers and nerds alike.
- [40:37]
Peter Guralnick
We'll tell you why on Pop Culture Happy Hour. Listen on the NPR or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [40:44]
Terry Gross
The new British crime drama Code of Silence, which airs on the Brit Box streaming service, centers on a deaf woman asked to use her lip reading skills to help a police investigation. Things do not go as planned. Our critic at large, John Power, says it's a compelling show whose heroine keeps doing things that will make you nervous.
- [41:06]
C
Albert Brooks once joked that if an alien landed on Earth and went to the movies, it would think we're all cops. Just imagine if the alien watched television. We have so many police shows that most producers don't even bother to seek out new bottles for the old wine. An exception is Code of Silence, a twisty new English crime series on the Britbox streaming service that centers on a heroine who is deaf. Now there have been plenty of police shows featuring people with disabilities, from Raymond Byrd's Wheedle Chair, Bound Ironside to the blind detectives in Sight Unseen and Blind Justice. What makes this show interesting is that it not only stars a deaf actor, but the character she plays isn't stuck being a victim or a paragon. Rose Ayling Ellis plays Alison Woods, a young woman who lives in Canterbury with her deaf mum and works two jobs, one in a police canteen. Having recently broken up with her deaf boyfriend, she feels bored and undervalued. Then she gets called upstairs to the precinct offices, where a detective squad asks if she can read lips. She can very well. They put her to work interpreting surveillance footage of a gang they hope to catch committing a robbery. Alison instantly becomes obsessed. Although ordered to stay in her own lane, she's there as an emergency lip reader, nothing more. She goes a bit rogue and starts investigating the case. Like Homeland's Carrie Matheson, albeit without the mania. Alison soon finds herself inappropriately attracted to one of the crime gang. That's the hoodie wearing Liam. Nicely played by Irish actor Kiran Moore, a quietly charismatic techie who seems, well, soulful. Naturally, she hides what she's doing from her police handlers. Naturally, things spin out of control. Here, Allison bumps into Liam outside the bar where she works. He asks her about the guy she's just been talking to inside. And he makes her an offer she knows she should refuse.
- [43:15]
Peter Guralnick
The guy you were speaking to, is that your. Yeah, my ex. I got major bad vibes. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be so rude. It's okay. When you two were, like, signing it made me think that's how it must be for you all the time around, you know, people who can hear. Yeah, it can be like that sometimes. I was wondering.
- [43:54]
Terry Gross
Do you want to.
- [43:55]
Peter Guralnick
Come out for a drink sometime? Yeah. Yeah, maybe.
- [44:06]
C
At one point, a detective warns Allison that what is exciting isn't always what's best for you. That's true of TV shows, too. As so often happens in crime stories, Code of Silence is more original and suspenseful in the opening episodes that set things up than it is in the amped up later ones. Designed to tie things together, the series is a showcase for Ayling Ellis, a groundbreaking figure in British television who at 30, has already acted in beloved TV soaps, fronted documentaries, announced sporting events and won a British version of Dancing with the Stars. Here she brings a bracing complexity to Alison, a good hearted young woman whose pleasant demeanor can't hide that beneath her sweetness, there's a tremulous romanticism and a gnawing frustration that as a deaf person, she has to keep proving her competence over and over. Perhaps because ailing Ellis is one of its producers, Code of Silence gives Allison a life more fully rounded than is usual in cop shows. We see her entrapment in dismal jobs, her awkward interactions with the nice but dull ex who wants her back, and her desperate signing with her mom when it looks like they might lose their publicly owned housing to developers. And then there are her feelings for Liam, an irresponsible desire that threatens to destroy the police's case and her life. Now, to be honest, when I first heard about Code of Silence, the I feared it might be one of those worthy shows designed to teach me a valuable lesson. Instead, it tells a good story about a smart, underestimated woman who leaps at the chance to escape her dreary life. Unsentimental about deafness it shows that people who are deaf can be as brave and reckless as anyone else.
- [46:00]
Terry Gross
John Powers reviewed Code of Silence. It's streaming on BritBox. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberto Shorrock, Ann Marie Boldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman and John Sheehan. Our digital media producer is Molly Seaving as our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson. Thea Chaloner directed today's show. Our co host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.
- [46:43]
Peter Guralnick
Federal funding for public media has been eliminated. That means decades of bipartisan support for public radio and television is ending.
- [46:51]
C
To be clear, NPR isn't going anywhere.
- [46:53]
Peter Guralnick
But we do need your support. Please give today to help keep rigorous, independent and irreplaceable news coverage available to everybody free of charge. You can make your gift@donate.NPR.org and thank you. This summer, ditch land with short waves Sea camp. Because when's the last time you had an ocean getaway?
- [47:13]
Terry Gross
Every Monday, we bring you insights from a different ocean zone, starting with the.
- [47:18]
Peter Guralnick
Sunlit surface until we hit the deep sea floor, where there's marine snow, weird critters, carbon sinks and so much more. But first, you gotta take the plunge. Follow NPR's Short Wave. Wherever you get your podcasts.