(137) ELVIS' #1 HIT 1961 ARE YOU LONESOME TONIGHT?

In 1961 Elvis had two number one hits on the charts. One was "Surrender" and the other was "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" which has a spoken part. It had been a hit for the entertainer Al Jolson in 1950.

Here is Elvis's 1961 version....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4HluUP8FbA

To compare, here is a YouTube video of Al Jolson and his 1950 version which has that Hollywood musical feeling to it. If you are not familiar with Al, he became controversial because of his use of black-face, in the tradition of the "Negro" vaudiville act. Friends to Al said that he was able to make inroads in show business that other African-American entertainers could not as a result. Enemies to Al said he was some sort of sell out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-tQRvCnQX0

One of the reasons we want to post this comparison is to emphasize the fact that we were in the "cover-tune era." It was a rare thing that a singer or group wrote most or all of their own material. This was a terrific era for the songwriter! It helped if a songwriter could carry a tune but it wasn't necessary to sell a song. Buddy Knox, who I traveled on tour with, was THE FIRST TO WRITE HIS OWN NUMBER ON HIT - "Party Doll!"

C.S. LEWIS Quote on Friendship

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, "What! You too? I thought I was the only one." -C.S. Lewis

(136) HAWAIIAN WEDDING SONG and HULA LOVE

The Hawaiian theme of Blue Hawaii also had impact on other artists, including me. The new state captured all our imaginations and many of us wanted to write the next great Hawaii song.

Now this "Hawaiian Wedding Song" was one of the songs that was played for Buddy Knox's wedding, which I was in as a member of his wedding party! But remember our blogs on Buddy Knox and his 1957 hit "Hula Love?" VIDEO REPLACED JULY 2013

(135) BLUE HAWAII - CAN'T HELP FALLING IN LOVE WITH YOU

Friends, this song is one of my very favorites that Elvis ever recorded. It's one of the most romantic songs ever and he would keep it in his repertoire for years.

Click on the words "Can't Help Falling in Love," above and go right to the video on YouTube!

(134) ELVIS SINGS BLUE HAWAII !

As we have said, Elvis helped put the new state of Hawaii on the map and his film "Blue Hawaii," was very well recieved and the sound track his best album seller to that point. Here is a YouTube video of Elvis singing the theme song.

CLICK ON THE WORDS ELVIS SINGS BLUE HAWAII ! above to go right to the video!

(133) HAWAII and ELVIS

When Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese in a surprise attack on December 7th, 1941, the United States officially declared war on Japan and became part of World War Two. The islands became the 50th state of the United States on August 21st, 1959. Elvis helped publicize the wonder and the beauty of Hawaii as a tropical island paradise with his film "Blue Hawaii."

Elvis begged me to come out to the islands with him and stay while he was making this movie, but my contract with American Music didn't allow me a vacation any time I wanted one and I had to decline.

Friends, despite everything Elvis had achieved and the way he was surrounded by people, he confided in me that he was feeling very lonely at this time. I had seen a new maturity in Elvis when he first returned to the states after his own military service in Germany, and now I saw a seriousness in him too, which was often hidden by the love of life he projected. I knew he had things on his mind. Decisions.

For Elvis, Hawaii was probably the most exotic location he ever worked in or vacationed in. And it was the scene of the one benefit he ever did, once again a Colonel Tom Parker marketing event that emphasized Elvis' own military service and patriotism. After this Parker would never let Elvis do anything for free.

This old ticket is not part of my own Elvis collection, but Christine found it on an auction site several months back and we hope whoever owns it won't mind that we've used it to illustrate this blog.

The "Blue Hawaii" movie soundtrack album was Elvis' most successful chart album to that date. It was on the #1 spot for 20 consecutive weeks on the Billboard Top LP's chart in 1961-1962. So we will be posting a bit more on this film and its importance to Elvis and his career soon!

WES BRYAN'S BLOG - RIGHTS INFORMATION

WES BRYAN'S BLOG - Rights Information

Every once in a while we'll be posting a notice like this one that reminds readers that the content of this blog is Copyright Wes Bryan and Christine Trzyna with all rights reserved including Internet and International Rights. If interested in speaking to me, Wes Bryan, please contact us at the e-mail address we've provided. We are linking to a good many web sites, favoring the official web sites of various famous and important people as well as reference sites. If we link to your site and you don't want us to, please let us know, and we'll take down the link. The content of other people's sites remains theirs. Thank you for your consideration and courtesy.

Christine Trzyna and Wes Bryan

http://wesbryan.blogspot.com/
WES BRYAN - MY LIFE IN MUSIC

Thank you to Google - BLOGSPOT for providing free blog templates and access.

(131) EP ENTERPRISES : ELVIS' FOOTBALL TEAM

Elvis' football team was called EP Enterprises. At five foot ten, I was one of the smaller guys on it. We played in public parks against other teams, sometimes comprised of people from the studios, often pick up teams. We even played at Los Angeles Valley College, which is still there, in Valley View (then Van Nuys), in the San Fernando Valley. Some members of The Entourage played football too.

I've heard it stated that other teams let Elvis and his team win a lot. Not at all! I remember playing some vicious games with Elvis and his team coming away from a game with their clothes ripped and muddy! Elvis carried extra clothes with him to change into and gave me a shirt of his to replace one of mine that was destroyed. Gary Lockwood, who had started out as a real football player was on the team. Sometimes other teams put some real football players on theirs! Maybe we weren't playing to kill but they were. Maybe we were playing for fun, but we wanted to win!

It is through playing football on Elvis' team that I met a singer I'd always admired but had never met up with before, despite the New York days when I met the Everly Brothers, or the road tour days with Buddy Knox; Rick Nelson!

(130) TUESDAY WELD INGENUE

Tuesday Weld had a wild unconventional reputation. To compare, maybe we could say sort of like the actress Drew Barrymore had early on; there were other similarities including growing up way too fast. She looked innocent and sexy and she had a quality to her of being very modern for the times. Elvis and his friends liked that quality in women.

I know a lot of information on the net says Tuesday and Elvis had an off screen romance but not to my knowledge. Let's just say that Tuesday showed up with Gary Lockwood for football games and that more than one member of the Entourage was interested in her, meaning, if you have read what I've said about Elvis and his policy about women, anything that happened between Elvis and Tuesday wasn't serious. And, the guys knew this because they didn't have to be hands-off, but that doesn't mean they got anywhere with her.

Gary would have been too respected by all of us to do that!

Now we looked at a lot of sites that mention Tuesday and declined to link to any of them. Let's say that she had longevity as an actress that was perhaps unexpected of someone early on assigned to be a "sex kitten," and at the same time her talent was rarely fully exposed in the roles she took. Like a lot of women who were as pretty as Tuesday she wasn't thought to be especially smart - but she was.

Earlier in this blog I talked about what it was to ever be taken seriously as an actor. Tuesday stayed in there and her nominations for an Emmy and an Acadamy Award recognized her talent.

THE WEEK / ELVIS and BLUE HAWAII MENTIONED

Christine here.

I was just reading the magazine called "The Week" which features small articles culled from other magazines. Here is a clip what it says on page 31/Leisure/Travel for the March 7, 2008 edition.


Getting the flavor of...
Elvis Presley's "Blue Hawaii,"


Elvis Presley put Kawai on the map with his 1961 movie Blue Hawaii, said Laura Bly in USA Today. More than 50 other films have also used Kauai's "lush, staggeringly gorgeous scenery as a stand-in for paradise." ......

(129) WILD IN THE COUNTRY WITH ELVIS

Also in 1961 Elvis made the film "Wild In The Country." The script was based on a novel by the famous playright Clifford Odets, "The Lost Country."

Link above to the IMDb database for Wild In The Country

(We've posted links to a number of films though this database. It's not complete by any means and is deficit photos of many actors and actresses but one of the best movie databases going on the Internet. We like the link feature which you can use to follow the careers.)

Here's a YouTube presentation of Elvis singing to Tuesday Weld's character in the film, the song "In My Way."

Elvis had numerous co-stars on this film but the people I remember seeing socially with Elvis and his friends were Tuesday Weld, Gary Lockwood, and Christina Crawford.

Tuesday and Gary were dating for a while so they were a couple, and they showed up to play football (Gary had started out as a pro football player, Tuesday was on the side lines cheering Elvis' team on.) To my knowledge Elvis was not involved romantically with any of his co-stars on this film.

GUIDE TO OUR LINKS - WES BRYAN - MY LIFE IN MUSIC

To the sidebar on the left, you see a long list of LINKS. Clicking on a LINK activates it and takes you to another site. We were thinking about redoing this list to make it alphabetical rather than leave it as is, which is by mention and generally in the time-line of our story. We decided to leave it as is.


If you are reading along with our story - truly an education in the music history of my era- you may want to visit each link as it is provided to enrich your knowledge. If you are reading present posts or out of sequence we suggest that you use the FIND feature in the drop down menu of EDIT or you may find it easier to simply SEARCH THE BLOG using a name or subject !

Thanks again for your ongoing interest in Wes Bryan- My Life in Music.

Wes and Christine

(128) THE FIRST SURGE OF THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION / THE SHIRELLES & SONGWRITER CAROLE KING

Girl Groups were a rage in the 1950's and this carried into the very early 1960's. The Shirelles, a New York based girl group was maybe the most successful in that period. Shirley Alston Reeves, Addie “Micki” Harris, Doris Kenner Jackson, and Beverly Lee, New Jersey schoolgirls, formed the group and sang their way to stardom. Beatle John Lennon went on record with praise for them. (John is also known for thinking the world of Elvis, though the Beatles meeting with Elvis left much to be desired!)

The Shirelles scored a hit in early 1961 with a song called "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow," which was one of the first songs sung by women, from a woman's point of view, that acknowledged that women too were sexual. It was the beginnings of the sexual revolution and they even sang it at a J.F.K. Inauguration party.

Here's a YouTube presentation of the Shirelles Singing "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow," written by songwriters Carole King and Gerry Goffin. This song was the first number one hit by a girl group and the first number one hit for Carole and Gerry, who were part of the songwriting factory system in the Brill Building in New York. (See previous posts on the Brill Building scene, where I myself once worked.)

Here is what Oldies.com has to say about the Shirelles' influence on other groups.

OLDIES.COM on the SHIRELLES

Rock and Roll of Fame Inductees - The Shirelles!

SHIRELLES ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME

updated September 2012

(127) ELVIS AND MOVIE ROLES / MARLON BRANDO? JAMES DEAN? ELVIS PRESLEY?!

Now, friends, Elvis is criticized for his movie roles these days and I have to admit that he came to be disappointed with his acting career and where movies took his music, but in the early 1960's Elvis was generally open and enthusiastic with making movies. Hollywood was still a movie-making town and it was important to Elvis to be in the Los Angeles area to make them.

Elvis was being offered roles that had been written for actors with great prestige like Marlon Brando and James Dean.

"King Creole" was written by Harold Robbins with the original title, "A Stone For Danny Fisher." James Dean was supposed to star in it. (The movie James Dean is most often known for, "Rebel Without a Cause," was also offered to Marlon Brando, who did a screen test for it.) Marlon Brando was supposed to star in "Flaming Star," which had been written with him in mind but Elvis stared instead.

Elvis would think "If this role is good enough for Marlon or James Dean it's good enough for me."

The studios would add some songs, turn a script into a musical, give the job to Elvis...

Elvis could read a script one time through and know his lines and he was the consummate professional on the set, treating people from all walks of life with courtesy.