ANN-MARGRET TALKS ABOUT ELVIS PRESLEY

(314) ELVIS and ANN-MARGRET SOUL MATES

Because of my full time, LA-based job with American Music, I didn't travel back to Graceland TM with Elvis when he went there between films. What went on there I heard from the guys, the ones who were my friends.

(The Entourage, sometimes called The Memphis Mafia, was an everchanging group of employees over the years by the way. Some stayed longer than others. Elvis had other friends, close friends, who were not The Entourage.)

In Los Angeles when I saw Elvis Presley and Ann-Margret together - well - at very first I didn't know that Elvis had Priscilla, the girl he introduced me to in 1962 as his girlfriend at a party, despite all the other women he dated, living in Memphis with him.

Elvis and Ann-Margret made Viva Las Vegas together and continued to see each other for some time thereafter. Ann has published her own memoir and continues to uphold the memory of Elvis.

To this day I think - as they did - that they were soul mates.

ELVIS PRESLEY and ANN-MARGRET THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR LOVING ME

This YouTube presented put together a collage of good photos of Elvis and Ann. Some on set and in acting roles, others not.

One of the things that strikes me as I see these videos is the pictures of Ann on her motorcycle. Elvis loved that Ann rode - because he did too. He loved to go off alone on the road and leave the Entourage behind. When Ann and Elvis were dating, they went off on their bikes together.

ELVIS PRESLEY and ANN-MARGRET : THE LADY LOVES ME from VIVA LAS VEGAS

ELVIS PRESLEY and ANN-MARGRET: They were making the film about this time of year in 1963. (The film was released in 1964.)

"Viva Las Vegas" remains one of my favorite films of all time.

And Ann-Margret remains one of my favorite ladies of all time too, and a great lady she is.

(313) JUST WEEKS BEFORE ELVIS WENT TO HOLLYWOOD TO FILM VIVA LAS VEGAS

Just weeks before Elvis Presley began to make VIVA LOS VEGAS in Los Angeles and met Ann-Margret, Priscilla Beaulieu, just shy of her 18th birthday, moved to Graceland TM from Germany to complete a couple months of high school and graduate in Memphis, or to be Elvis Presley's everything.

Priscilla has published her own memoir about this time in her life. And over the years it's been quoted and controversial. Was the whole memoir PR? What does Priscilla think about her young life now that she's a senior citizen? We leave it to her to say.

I met Priscilla briefly when she was out visiting Elvis in Bel Air at a party in 1962. Priscilla was beautiful and Elvis was proud to point her out to me. He called her his girlfriend.

She's still beautiful and more importantly she has self-actualized since those days when she lived to please Elvis.

(312) VIVA LAS VEGAS ELVIS PRESLEY'S BEST MOVIE?

Linking to IMDb movie database for the facts, just the facts man, about VIVA LAS VEGAS.

Do you think it's Elvis' best movie?

HAL WALLIS ON ELVIS PRESLEY

"A Presley picture is the only sure thing in Hollywood." - Hal Wallis (Producer)

COMMENTS CHANGED to ANY REGISTERED USER

Friends, we are just overwelmed at the numbers of you who are visiting our blogsite, which we started near three years ago just to see if we could. Honestly, if even a dozen people a month were reading us a couple years ago we were pleased, and now the numbers have burgeoned.

And with that so has the comment spam, junk, and sadly, harrassment. Sadly we have to do the right thing and report some of this to the authorities. We have been advised to change our Comments to ANY REGISTERED USER.

THANK YOU !

Wes and Christine

DENNIS HOPPER - THE LOS ANGELES TIMES OBIT

DENNIS HOPPER was an actor I met in New York City. He was one of the guys I went to the coffee houses to hear BOB DYLAN play at back in the day. He had a role in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE that James Dean starred in and after James Dean had passed away and I was being promoted as the Next James Dean, Dennis was one of the actors who wanted to meet me. He was really nice to me in New York and again when I moved to Los Angeles. I saw him out in Malibu and he gave me his home phone number. I gave him a call.

At the time I met Dennis Hopper in New York, he dressed conservatively and you might never have guessed he would become famous for portraying rebels or be considered a rebel himself from his exterior. HE WAS A STRAIGHT LACED IVY-LEAGUER TYPE just as George Hamilton IV was.

Wes Bryan

We're linking to the Los Angeles Times Obit for our readers around the country and the world can hear what his home town newspaper had to say about him

SWEDISH PROVERB about FRIENDSHIP

"Friendship doubles our joy and divides our grief." - Swedish Proverb

We've been saving this proverb to introduce May 2010 because this is the month that VIVA LAS VEGAS, which is one of my favorite movies of all time as you may know from reading my Google Blogger profile, was made. I was friends with Elvis Presley when he was making this movie and got to know Ann-Margret, who has to be one of the most famous Swedish-Americans ever, a bit. I've ever since respected her as a person.

And over the last several months we have come to know that we have some Swedish fans of early rock and roll and rockabilly as well...

(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...

BLOGARAMA LINK - YOU CAN VOTE FOR US!

If you like our blog and want to vote for us then follow the link to BLOGARAMA and put "WES BRYAN" in the search block... Of course we'd love to earn five stars... we love blogging but we work hard at it too ...

BUDDY KNOX, JACK SCOTT, WARREN SMITH, CHARLIE FEATHERS 1977 AMERICAN INVASION OF BRITIAN

HERE IS THE INFORMATION WE GOT FROM THE POSTING YOU-TUBER ON THIS FINE VIDEO PRESENTATION!

"Hi, you commented on a 'video' I posted recently. The Buddy Knox tracks were from a session (not concert) that was recorded for the BBC and transmitted on September 3rd 1977. There is an excellent article on all the American artists that came over and recorded sessions for the series that ran '76 - '79 in 'Now Dig This Magazine' Buddy, Warren, Charlie and Jack came over and performed a concert at the Rainbow theatre in April 1977. A LP was released of this concert. Buddy performed Lovey Dovey, I Think I'm Gonna Kill Myself, That'll Be The Day, Oh Boy, Peggy Sue, Hula Love and Party Doll. Hope this has been of some help to you!"

veejaythernrdj - United Kingdom

WES: BUDDY KNOX and me were on a road tour in '59-'60 and performed in every state but Alaska, Hawaii, and Utah... we were supposed to go to England at the end of the tour but it never was arranged. VIDEO REPLACED JULY 2013

HELLO to GARY OWENS ! DJ and FUNNY MAN

Gary Owens, the DJ and funny man, is another man who through the years encouraged me to write a book. I last saw Gary in Dave Dutton's store before Dave finally retired it. "You knew all those people - Elvis - all of them," Gary said. Gary is someone I admire greatly for all his accomplisments and - of course - his sense of humor!

Gary's in the Radio Hall of Fame - just click on the title to go there! -

(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!"

(308) THE ROSES - ROCKABILLY HALL OF FAME BACKGROUND SINGERS

The ROSES were a background singing group who worked on my recording with Norman Petty as producer. We're linking to the ROCKABILLY HALL article and pictures of the men. They worked with Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Buddy Knox, Waylon Jennings, and me - to name a few.

UPDATED JANUARY 2013 with link renewal:
ROCKABILLY HALL OF FAME : THE ROSES

March 2014 - Link added to side bar

WES BRYAN BLUE BABY (also called SO BLUE OVER YOU)

Arne did his thing and got this one up on Youtube before anyone else did and made up another beautiful photo collage to go with it. THANKS ARNE!

WES BRYAN I JUST WANT YOUR LOVE

OK Arne and friends! Here is the official scoop from me, WES BRYAN on the recording of this song! "I Just Want Your Love."

I split a session at Norman Petty's with BUDDY KNOX who recorded "I THINK I'M GONNA KILL MYSELF" that session. Yes! Jerry Allison of the Crickets was on drums, as was Joe B. on stand up base, and Sonny Curtis was on lead guitar. (Sonny went on to write the Mary Tyler More Show theme song...)

Jerry Allison was married to PEGGY SUE and she was there! Peggy Sue was beautiful and of course she's got the song "Peggy Sue" by Buddy Holly and the Crickets written for her!

THE SONG WAS WRITTEN FOR ME by two singer-songwriter friends from New York - ERSEL HICKEY and JOHNNY RIVERS!

WEST TEXAS BOP

This is an album that I believe was made of masters stored in Norman Petty's vault which was sold as part of his estate. (I do not profit from the sale of this album. However, the recordings I made at Petty's were unreleased and it's good to hear them years later.)

It's true that the intro for my song "Blue Baby" was also used on "That'll Be the Day." It works for both songs and I was recording with the Crickets left behind when Buddy Holly went on tour - and died in that plane crash.

NASHVILLE FLOODED GRAND OL OPRY A DISASTER

This YouTuber did a great job with this video with an appropriate song sung by Johnny Cash about a flood "Five Feet High and Rising."

Christine and I send our best wishes to the singers, songwriters, and all the people of NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE. We "stopped the presses" here, delaying posts to post this one...

ARNOLD H. GLASGOW Quote on Friendship

"A true friend never gets in your way, unless you happen to be going down."
-Arnold H. Glasgow

LAURENCE J. PETER Quote on Friendship

"You can always tell a real friend: When you've made a fool of yourself he doesn't feel you've done a permanent job!" - Laurence J. Peter