Television Meets Elvis - "Stage Show" at 59

Fifty-nine years ago today Elvis Presley made is first national television appearance on Stage Show, which began an incredible year that took him from near-obscurity to national celebrity.  Over the next twelve months, Elvis would make a dozen TV appearances that stunned his audiences, infuriated some critics, made “Elvis” a household word, and established him as a superstar.

It all began on the struggling, low-rated Stage Show, hosted by Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, onetime icons of the Big Band swing era, but now clearly aging and out of touch with the rising tide of post-war teenage music fans.  The following excerpt from Channeling Elvis: How Television Saved the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll (http://tinyurl.com/mhyaouz) recaptures the event and how it looked to Americans during the Eisenhower Era. 

“Elvis Presley was the first performer without nationwide recognition who used television to establish himself on the national stage, and he did it in a matter of weeks. When he first set foot on Stage Show in January 1956, he was still touring with country and western package shows, playing gigs in high school auditoriums, and appearing on the country-oriented Louisiana Hayride radio show. By the time he bid Stage Show farewell two months later, he was headed for Hollywood and boasted hit records on all three Billboard charts.

“The young singer also transformed television by demonstrating its promotional potential through access to a huge national audience. Television producers learned that they need not rely on older, more familiar acts to draw audiences, but could promote new talent and appeal to the country’s postwar teenagers, who were tuning in to a new kind of music. Television was still finding its niche. Many shows had simply been lifted directly from radio, along with their stars, and many variety show guests were old vaudeville hands. Although Elvis’ recordings had sounded a revolutionary note, only television captured his unique physical appearance and exciting performing style, and presented him in stark contrast to the fading acts from an earlier era.

“Elvis is introduced by Cleveland disc jockey Bill Randle, who sensed Elvis’ potential when he twice saw him perform in Cleveland. During his second visit, Elvis was one of several performers, including Pat Boone and Bill Haley, who were filmed for a short produced by Randle known alternately as The Pied Piper of Cleveland, Top Jock, and A Day in the Life of a Famous DJ.   

“’We’d like at this time,’ Randle begins, ‘to introduce to you a young fellow who, like many performers, Johnny Ray among them, came out of nowhere to be an overnight big star. This young fellow we saw for the first time while making a movie short. We think tonight that he’s going to make television history for you. We’d like you to meet him now—Elvis Presley.’

“Elvis struts from the wings, wearing a black shirt, white tie, dark pants with satin stripes down the side, and a dark tweed jacket that literally sparkles in the television lights. He is isolated in a spotlight that leaves everything else in darkness. Even black and white television accents his offbeat clothing, and the high-contrast lighting exaggerates the brightness of Elvis’ teeth, which look a bit like glow-in-the-dark dentures. After exchanging a quick word with Scotty [Moore], he jerks his head, strums a chord, shoots his right arm out to the side, emits a prolonged, ‘Weeell,’ and launches into Big Joe Turner’s ‘Shake, Rattle and Roll.’ The camera slowly closes in on him as he throws his entire body into the song, his shoulders, arms, head, and face moving in time with the music. He shouts, ‘Play it!’ to his combo as he steps back to join them in a tightly packed formation for an instrumental break, shaking his legs uncontrollably and strumming during Moore’s solo.

“As the audience responds enthusiastically, Elvis rolls his guitar in a circular motion, unable to stand still, his eyes darting from place to place, his mouth twitching convulsively. There’s another break and more gyrations. Toward the end of the number, Elvis switches briefly to Turner’s ‘Flip, Flop and Fly’ and, after taking his bow, says ‘Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. And now we’d like to do a song called “I’ve Got a Woman, Way Across Town.”’ His sly demeanor makes it pretty clear which end of town he’s referring to.

“He instinctively knows how to reach a peak that incites enthusiastic applause and then how to slow things down before overdoing it. He slows the final verse to a half-time ending that gives the number a sudden bluesy feel. At the end, eyes closed, pulling away from the mike, he takes his bows and leaves Stage Show’s viewing audience wondering what the hell they’ve just seen, but in little doubt that they have found it new and exciting.”

Allen J. Wiener's books can be found on Amazon.com at this link:  http://tinyurl.com/po638bd

A Mystery To Me

While most of my reading dwells on history, I do love a good mystery. I got hooked on Agatha Christie ages ago, but ultimately found her stories a bit too similar and her characters too one-dimensional. She did know how to create a great puzzle, though. I periodically pick up my Complete Sherlock Holmes and spend a few evenings perusing his cases. Holmes is an enduring, fascinating character and his most exciting cases are among Conan-Doyle’s best work, even if the author often played down the Holmes stories. Edgar Allan Poe remains a great favorite and I’m sure to re-read some of his more celebrated tales and poems, especially around Halloween. What’s Halloween without a spirited reading of “The Raven?” Much of Poe’s work, of course, lies more in the field of the macabre, or just plain weird, than in traditional mystery, but he did, after all, create the detective story, and Holmes was, in part, modeled on Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin. I think the reason I enjoy Dickens is that his plots often play out like mysteries. There’s always more to the back story of Oliver Twist or David Copperfield than meets the eye and we know that all will be revealed eventually. Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse, and his long-suffering assistant, Sgt. Lewis, are as memorable as Holmes and Watson, but that is due in large measure to the actors John Thaw and Kevin Whately, who brought them to life on television.

In fact, television has brought new and lasting life to many fictional detectives. Thaw and Whately may lead the pack, but Jeremy Brett nailed Holmes so well that it is unlikely any other actor will be found credible in the role, notwithstanding the iconic Basil Rathbone and despite modernized renditions on the popular TV series Sherlock and Elementary. Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple have been fleshed out on TV far more than they were on paper by the author. David Suchet diminished images of Poirot created by Albert Finney, Peter Ustinov and the unlikely Tony Randall, while Joan Hickson came closest to the original Miss Marple, while breathing a good deal more life into the character than the books gave her. Nonetheless, I’ll always have a soft spot in my head for Margaret Rutherford’s comical take on Miss Marple in four films released in the 1960s. 

For pure enjoyment I turn to John Mortimer’s Rumpole of the Bailey, both in print and on television. Leo McKern placed his lasting imprint on the character during the 14-year run of the Rumpole television series and in his recorded readings of Mortimer’s original stories. Mortimer’s writing is fluid and charming, and he has a unique talent for dry, understated wit, which McKern captured perfectly. These are not great “mysteries” in the strict sense, but great fun and sly observations on life at the bar—or anywhere else.

Most recently I've also become absorbed in The Doctor Blake Mysteries and Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, both from Australia.  The charming Miss Fisher series is set in 1920's Melbourne and the authentic costumes, sets, automobiles and other visuals alone are worth watching for.  But, the real appeal is in Essie Davis' delightful portrayal of Phryne Fisher and her tantalizing romantic pas de deux with detective Jack Robinson, underplayed beautifully by Nathan Page.  Set in 1959 Ballarat, The Doctor Blake Mysteries follows Doctor Lucien Blake, played by Craig McLachian, as he attempts to take over his late father's medical practice, while also serving as Ballarat's official  police surgeon, which inevitably leads him into investigating crimes in ways beyond his official duties, often to the consternation of Chief Superintendent Matthew Lawson, played by Joel Tobeck.  A war veteran and former POW, he has a cloudy past that is only revealed gradually and includes the loss of his wife and daughter in the Far East during the war and his search for them.  

There are other entries from the U.K., some of which have ended, but which have me tuning in regularly on the PBS UK channel, including New Tricks, Waking the Dead, DCI Banks, George Gently, and Vera.  And, despite the cast changes over the years, I still enjoy an occasional visit to Midsomer Murders.

Allen J. Wiener's books can be found on Amazon.com at this link:  http://tinyurl.com/po638bd

Aloha at 42

Aloha From Hawaii, televised live via satellite 42 years ago today, remains one of Elvis Presley’s most iconic moments and is a perennial fan favorite.  Just after midnight on January 14, 1973, Elvis took the stage in the Honolulu International Center Arena, before a live audience of about 6,000 fans and gave them, more or less, the standard show he had been doing on tour and in Las Vegas for the past year.  The King drifted effortlessly from rockers to ballads and looked terrific in his blazing white jump suit.  Although he did his best to interact with fans and keep things as informal as possible, it was obvious that he was performing with a one-hour television time limit in mind.

The following excerpt from Channeling Elvis: How Television Saved the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll describes how different that concert looked to television viewers around the world, both those who saw it televised live in the Far East and those who saw it on a delayed basis days or months afterward around the world.  The concert witnessed by those in the arena and the production aired on television made for very different experiences. 

“Unfortunately, Far East television viewers saw something quite different from the live performance that audience members witnessed in the Honolulu International Center Arena, as would television audiences viewing the special on a delayed basis elsewhere, particularly in the United States. Instead, they would see Marty Pasetta’s TV-eye’s-view of Elvis’ performance, and that was quite a different thing. The result would show that a live concert and a television special were not always compatible.

“Throughout the televised broadcast, Pasetta moves the camera around most of the time, using numerous dissolves, overlaps, and very rapid cuts from one view to another, making full use of his six cameras, including one hand-held camera at stage side that offers sometimes clumsy views looking up at Elvis. Most noticeable are the many split-screen shots that he uses, which divide the screen into four individual panels, each showing a different shot of the concert from different angles. These include both close-ups and medium shots of Elvis and his band, long shots from the audience, and longer ones that take in the entire stage and show off the flashing ‘Elvis’ signs and the silhouette figure, and shots of the audience itself. The split-screen views are somewhat trendy, but they often undermine Elvis’ performance, distracting viewers’ attention away from him and the energy he brings to his music, and disrupting the concert’s momentum. Pasetta seems to be trying to create action, or ‘excitement,’ as he put it, with camera moves and flashy visuals, but they are no substitute for the excitement that Elvis provides his fans simply by performing. There is a clear disconnect between that perspective and Pasetta’s television sensibilities.

“The U.S. telecast the following April 4 suffers even more detrimental tampering. Despite some minor editing, it retains most of the distracting rapid cuts between camera shots, flashing lights, and eerie images on the Mylar mirrors, but those problems are minor compared to the major editing job that was done in order to fill the expanded 90-minute time slot for NBC-TV. This was achieved by splicing in four of the five after-concert ‘filler’ numbers that a stationary Elvis, clearly low on energy, recorded in the wee hours following the live concert. They bog down the telecast and suck what life there is out of it. Not only is Elvis shot in perfectly stationary positions, the very thing Marty Pasetta said he wanted to avoid, but these numbers are all done as multi-panel split-screen shots in which Elvis shares the screen with images of the Hawaiian countryside and other outdoor footage that Pasetta shot before Elvis arrived in Hawaii. In most of these scenes, Elvis appears in the smallest panels, and sometimes not at all, further drawing attention away from him. Most damaging, these flat numbers interrupt the flow and momentum of the show. Six commercial interruptions exacerbate that damage to the point where the U.S. version of the TV special loses its identity as a televised concert that should focus on Elvis’ performance. It is neither that, nor anything nearly as appealing as the 1968 special, which creatively combined clearly delineated musical production numbers and live performance segments, all centered on Elvis. The segments were skillfully edited to accommodate commercial interruptions without disturbing the flow of the show. That was simply not possible with Aloha, which clumsily, and unsuccessfully tried to break the concert into similar segments around commercial breaks.

“For once, TV had undermined Elvis instead of helping him, as it almost always had done before. The way the concert appeared on TV was disappointing and lost most of the energy, excitement, and fun of the actual live concert that the Honolulu audience had witnessed.”

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Allen J. Wiener's books can be found on Amazon.com at this link:

http://tinyurl.com/po638bd

Twofer

Be careful what you wish for, especially if you are tempted to take on two book projects at once. Still, it can be done. Retirement and a lifelong interest in the Alamo got me started on the “fun” project of collecting all the music that had been written about the famous battle and publishing what I found. Countless trips to the Library of Congress and various websites gleaned piles of sheet music, fragile 78 RPM records, and tons of downloaded music. Soon, I joined forces with Bill Chemerka, a fellow “Alamo sufferer,” who had been doing similar work and we embarked on a two year quest for Alamo music -- and a publisher.

We scoured the Alamo’s Library in San Antonio and met friends who shared our Alamo addiction. While chatting over beers one night, Jim Boylston casually mentioned that he’d been collecting David (“Davy”) Crockett’s letters and asked if I’d like to join that search. It may have been the beer, but I readily accepted, as if I had nothing but time on my hands, and suddenly found myself working on two books at once. What was I thinking? Clearly, I wasn’t.

The pace quickened when we signed with Bright Sky Press to publish Music of the Alamo and we were suddenly under a deadline. Days were filled with completing research, drafting chapters, and periodically being yanked over to the Crockett project. Since I was spending my days at the Library of Congress anyway, what better time to begin looking for all of those Crockett letters? As the music project wound down, the Crockett book grew far beyond our original concept.

Jim and I had been reading about Crockett since we were kids and we pored over every book ever published on the Tennessean. As we read and transcribed Crockett’s letters we became increasingly aware that the conventional wisdom about the frontiersman was completely wrong. Instead of a clueless bumpkin, we found a dedicated public servant, determined to give his poor constituents a voice in government. As our thinking evolved, our book grew into a new political biography based largely on Crockett’s own words and Bright Sky Press agreed to publish David Crockett in Congress: The Rise and Fall of the Poor Man's Friend.  At least I would have the benefit of dealing with only one publisher!

Still, much remained to be done on Music of the Alamo and I shifted between the two projects, perpetually bringing myself back up to speed on each. This literary schizophrenia finally came to a merciful end when Music of the Alamo went to press and, at long last, I had only one book to work on.

Finally, the day came when David Crockett in Congress also went to press and I could, at last, stand down. All that remained was the hectic promotional schedule for both books, which was mercifully staggered since the books were released nine months apart. Nonetheless, I found myself at the Texas Book Festival in Austin, Texas, in 2009 giving presentations for, and signing copies of, both books.

Writing two books at once was a real test. I’m glad that I did it, and even happier that I survived to see both books published to excellent reviews. But, believe me when I say “don’t try this at home!”

Reprinted from Helen Ginger’s Straight From Hel website, March 19, 2011

http://straightfromhel.blogspot.com/search?q=allen+

Allen J. Wiener's books can be found on Amazon.com at this link:  http://tinyurl.com/po638bd