FROM OUR ARCHIVES POST (197) WHAT'D WE DO WITHOUT THOSE BLUE SUEDE SHOES ? CARL PERKINS and ELVIS PRESLEY

Carl Perkins' Rockabilly "Blue Suede Shoes," is so associated with Elvis Presley but Carl was first with it and the song was covered again and again, a true classic in its own time.

Here's a YouTube presentation of Carl singing "Blue Suede Shoes."

And here's one of many videos featuring Elvis Presley singing probably the song most associated with him other than "Hound Dog"...


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(381) RCA A GREAT BIG RECORD LABEL

Elvis Presley left the Sun record label because RCA bought his contract from Sam Phillips about a year later, in 1955. So when I met Elvis in 1957 the old hound dog was already on a great big label, RCA.

Elvis is still on RCA!

We're linking to the RCA site!

In the 1920's RCA (Radio Corporation of America), which manufactured radios - the way most Americans first heard a record, purchased Victor and the label became RCA Victor. In the early 1950's RCA Victor was one of the big five. The others were Capitol, Mercury, Columbia, and Decca. EMI, the biggest label in the United Kingdom bought Capitol in 1955.

The big labels had the money to market, and marketing was an important part of moving a record into stores quickly so that sales could move it up the chart.

The smaller labels didn't have much of a marketing budget so it was up to the entertainer to promote. Sometimes playing a song on radio or TV sent fans into the record stores where there were few to no records to buy. They bought something else, something available.

By the late 1950's, the smaller independent labels that had been pioneers in releasing Rock and Roll records began to loose sales to the great big labels.

(311) RCA - VICTOR RADIO CORPORATION OF AMERICA - and ELVIS PRESLEY

While so many of us pitched songs to smaller labels, the bigger labels attracted artists with bigger deals.

RADIO CORPORATION OF AMERICA - RCA - was the label that Elvis, Ann-Margret, and a lot of star performers recorded on. They had the money to promote and the stars working hard to keep their status. We're linking to the OFFICIAL RCA web site.

Elvis Presley recorded this one in 1956 at RCA in New York City... and singing to an RCA-VICTOR like "Hound Dog" on television was a great public relations coup for Elvis and his manager-agent-promoter Colonel Tom Parker!




Just discovered this historical music video of Elvis performing live in Tupelo in 1957. This was the Elvis Presley I first met in '57. Compare the live performance with what the producers at RCA in New York did with the song...

RCA RECORD LABEL (WITH THE HOUND DOG) FROM TED STAUTON's AMAZING COLLECTION

Take a peek at this RCA record label from Ted's collection which we linked to in it's entirety recently. Thanks again Ted for posting your collection on the web...

(310) DONALD IRWIN ROBERTSON INVENTOR OF THE SLIP NOTE FOR THE PIANO

The day that Rod Lauren was recording my song "Tender Love, I got to talking with Steve Shoals, the producer at RCA. We were walking up the street and I asked him if he had seen Don Robertson lately. Steve said, "No, but Wes, that guy is a genius."

Don invented the slip note for the piano. He was an amazing pianist and performed on Elvis Presley and Ann-Margret records.

Don was also known to be helpful. A couple years back my daughter Hollie, a singer with a three octave range and following in her dad's footsteps a bit as a songwriter, had a conversation with him on the phone for near an hour. She was looking through his music catalogue to see if she could find a song she'd like to record.

We're linking to Don's official site above as well as his page on the NASHVILLE SONGWRITERS FOUNDATION below...


http://www.nashvillesongwritersfoundation.com/p-s/don-robertson.aspx

(309) ROD LAUREN RECORDS a COUPLE JIMMY BOWEN - WES BRYAN SONGS

ROD LAUREN was, like me promoted to be an actor as well as a singer. And the exploration of space continued to fascinate the American public, then as it does now. (Scientist Stephen Hawkings recently said that alien life is out there and we do not want to meet it!)

ROD LAUREN RECORDED TWO SONGS that JIMMY BOWEN and me wrote, "Tender Love" and "Why Can't I Win Your Love?"

He was on RCA and Steve Shoals, the same man who signed Elvis Presley to RCA in about 1955, was the producer on these two songs of ours.

ROD is one of the actors in this space romp meets the beach party!
(Christine here: I called Wes and said "I think I found a video - did Rod do a movie? Wes laughed and started yelling THE HAND THE HAND! - it's a cult classic!"

(63) DAD TRIES TO GET COLONEL PARKER TO BE MY MANAGER

Dad had become my greatest fan, but what I needed at a time when I was shy of managers was a great new manager.

Dad thought that Elvis' Colonel Tom Parker would make the best manager for me - for anyone in the business. To this day I don't know how he got the address, but one day Elvis Presley admitted to me that he knew dad had approached Parker to be my manager. Dad got a letter back that I'll paraphrase by saying, "I only have one act, that's Elvis Presley!"

Parker got Elvis Presley a $35,000 recording contract with RCA Victor in the mid-1950s when Sam Phillips of Sun Records in Memphis decided to sell it. Maybe Sam lived to regret it, maybe not. Parker made his whole life revolve around Elvis.

Elvis himself told me that he thought that if Parker hadn't been his manager "The Hollywood Sharks" would have gotten him... Elvis thought that way, at least at this moment in time. But he wouldn't feel that way forever.

Colonel Parker has had a lot said about him. He turns out to be a controversial man, not only for his tactics for managing Elvis Presley but also because he took a higher than standard percentage for what he did for him. Parker and his assistants not only booked Elvis, they marketed him, took care of every detail of his performances and tours. But after Elvis died there would be law suits back and forth between the Colonel, RCA, and the Elvis Presley estate.

And I think Parker taking on just one act like this was an incredible act of faith.

ROCKABILLY HALL OF FAME - COLONEL TOM PARKER link above!