The King Revealed

AN ELVIS special coming on the tube. Far out. But they better not put him in a tuxedo.

They sure didn't. From the instant that smooth face, the curled lip, the incredible hair with that well-groomed gas station attendant sheen, the leather--leather!--and his first words:

If you're looking for trouble,

You've come to the right place,

If you're looking for trouble,

Just look right in my face.

There was absolutely no doubt; this promised to be the bossest hour of television in a very long time. Cherry, man. Cool. Like his guitar-man said, "What a gig!"

From "I'm Evil," all of a sudden Elvis is in the middle of this tiny stage, surrounded by an audience of girls. Real live human being girls, with whitened hair and Montgomery Ward dresses and the belligerently Okie appearance that is associated with California dragstrips and jerkwater high schools. He's holding his own ax--"I didn't know Elvis could play the guitar."

"He can't."

"Look. Look. He is!"

He's smiling now, digging it, "It's been a long time, baby," he says, then in the tone that you'd expect a man whose been around, done the whole trip, the tone that John Mayall tries to get into his music, he adds, "Real long time."

FLASH! Elvis is back! Oh wow! Yank those beers out of the mother icebox. The man, the MAN, the whole cause of everything. He's on the tube, can you believe, singing in a torrent of sweat in a black leather suit--no, wait, it's a high-roll collar dealie, and can you dig his pants? Heartbreak Hotel? Raunchy as ever? Hound Dog? It's too good to be true! That quiver that makes girls moan from their stomachs made me shriek at the top of my lungs: "Elvis, Elvis, you son of a bitch, you are the KING!"

Every minute of that show was like the last three seconds of the Harvard-Yale game. Or whatever moment in your life has ever turned you on to the point of shouting. As a rock and roll expatriate, I can remember many such moments: hearing Bill Haley screaming "Rock Around the Clock," in a movie theater; hearing Ray Charles, live at El Monte Legion Stadium, after singing ten minutes of "What'd I say" in 1956 say:

"Hold it, hold it." Complete silence. Then:

"Hey--yu-uh!"

"Hey--yu-uh!"

"Ho-wo-oh!" "Ho-wo-oh!"

"Huh!" "Huh!"

"HEY HEY HOOH HOOH HEY HEY HOH BABY THAT'S ALL RIGHT!"

Then there was the first time I saw Elvis on Ed Sullivan, the old man, that old dead man walking around with his hands up shouting "Silence! Silence, please!" and that incredible screaming of everyone in the nation, even if they were afraid to do it in front of their parents: "We did it! We did it!"

WELL, I LIKE a lot of the new groups. The Beatles. The Beards, whatever. The musicians are better--Mike Bloomfield, Eric Clapton, Butterfield, Jimi Hendrix. "The studios are better": 12-72 track, incredible microphones, stereo. Stereo wasn't even invented when Elvis first came out. "The engineers are better": Shadow Martin. Phil Spector. Jimmy Miller. George Martin.

This is Elvis surveying his domain, complimenting his children. You done good, chillun. I'm the king, though.

"You know, our music, rocknrollmusic, you know, s'got its roots in gospel, rhythm and blues. That's where it all sprang from." And then the Blossoms--remember the Blossoms? Hullabaloo? --come out and they do "Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Chile," while this incredible black dancer does a dance that everyone in the room likes. They liked a dancer on a TV special. No one likes dancers on TV. They always prance around and mince. These guys were studs, they had the moves. Then the Lieber-Stoller classic "I'm Saved," with Elvis leading the way:

"I used to smoke!" "Smoke!"

"I used to drink!" "Drink!"

"And dance the hootchie-coo!"

At that point I was so turned on I grabbed my girl and asked her: "C'mon, baby, let's go cruising!" Complete insanity. She pushes me away. I put my head next to hers: "Hey, baby, let's make out!"

Oh, who really remembers the good old days? Bicycle chain fights? Beating up the teacher? Ducktail haircuts? The days before everyone walked around alienated, and after that, the days that everyone walked around stoned? Who remembers what it was like to not worry about getting busted? Who can tell me, who can think back and tell me about the days before acid was invented? I know, for a fact, that every single American boy has at one time rolled up the sleeves of his teeshirt to look studlier as he walked downtown; that every chick has snuck up her hems in junior high school so somebody can take a good peek. America! You dumb ass stupid brutal beast! Why did you abandon us? We loved you, we really did, we might even fight in your stupid wars if you hadn't forbidden Elvis. Why didn't you let us have friends with greasy hair? Why? Why couldn't we go meet our friends at the drive-in? Why couldn't we go to Union Hall to see Jonny Dix Why did you wrench us away from the turned-down transistors in our bedrooms? Why? Why? Don't you see what you've done. America You made drugs. You made SDS. You made us follow Leary and Ginsberg and Marcuse. You created Haight-Ashbury, you gave us Dylan, you big creep. Why didn't you let us love you

"WARDEN threw a party in the county jail." Lieber-Stoller. Mike and Jerry. Then practically made Elvis. So many songs: "Hound Dog," "Heartbreak Hotel," "Little Egypt," on and on and on. "Jailhouse Rock," according to Peter Hayes, who anyone who is at all hip in Cambridge should know, or at least heard of, says: 'Jailhouse Rock' is the greatest song ever written." It's true:

Number Forty-Seven say to Number Three

Sure am pleased to make your company,

You're the cutest jailbird I ever did see,

Come on and do the jailhouse rock with me.

And that's the whole trip right there. We were prisoners. Elvis released us. Frank Sinatra said that Elvis' sound was the "Martial music of every juvenile delinquent in the country." He was righter than he knew. We were all juvenile delinquents. These boots are made for walking, Frankie baby?

Then Elvis is back and sings "Love Me Tender," on that tiny stage in front of all those Okies. Remember? That was the song that your mother said it was all right to listen to. "Why can't he sing like that all the time?" It's pretty easy to see why. He moves, pacing up and down, holding it all back, looking at the ground, he's got it in him, let it out Elvis, let it out. And he falls to his knees and throws his head back and sweats and yells. "He's doing it! Right now!" For us! Ah, Elvis, for us!

Then "Big Boss Man," the blues, that's a long time ago, when that record came out. Eric Clapton was fifteen when that came out.

Then a schmaltzy song that tones things down a little. Elvis begins to slip away from us--ten more years, Elvis? As you play with your model airplanes in Graceland and sip Pepsis, while we're off somewhere, thirty or so? The last few minutes of the program are a rerun of the first few. "I'm Evil" again. You started it, Elvis. The liberator. The martyr to our increased sophistication. Grand old man. He's exactly the same as he was ten years ago, exactly. He started it. We love you, Elvis.

Don't you mess with me,

Cause I'm evil

Whoa-oh, I'm as evil as could be,

Just let me go my way man

Cause I'm gonna get home free.