A Word on Words; 2329; Rose Clayton & Dick Heard

a word on words the program delving into the world of books and there others this week rose clayton and get her to talk about is your host for a word and words mr jon seaton hall chairman of the freedom forum's first amendment center at vanderbilt university poll i am john simple and once again welcome to word on words if you get a live elvis lives and we'll talk about elvis during this program with two people on who've written elvis a close roads clayton welcome roh's two world wars it's great to have you talk about this this icon elvis presley and the curtain the two you collaborated on over so close yes and there are one hundred and sixty five or separate interviews that you will conducted with ellis' leaving france

and i would have to say at the outset that their read about a half dozen books on elvis presley and an awful lot of newspaper articles and i know more bump after reading over so close and i'm going to try why it is that from our this book which is really an oral history i came to know so much more about i think is pretty good sense of him it's hard to remember the obscurity from which he came and may we should begin talking about that because it's hard to imagine that there was ever a time when elvis was a struggling young musician if i get it honestly you'll do that a court when you did when i first met elvis hours and due to high school and that elvis had not gone to sun records he was just a fella who hung around the neighborhood visiting his cousin who was their grocery boy and i over succumb to the house

with him to deliver groceries before and that's how it really was an advice that certain magic to this front porch and pick guitar and our eco man saying you know those boys reiley thanks allies complain to her that and now that we met tana like that but the spellers that i saw ended dan was there are really a fun loving and humorous fellow that had at a tender sad to him that he connected with people in a different way than what i read about later on and after la life than a lot of people are dead have no no the sun a purse the level and it has to do it's hard that would be nice to be able to write a book that showed out what alice was like in those early days because people tend to forget

that and they think that he was always a superstar well that's right and you ought to focus on those early days unique ways that i think hasn't been done for a reason i think it works is because you went back to the roots he found people who knew him then i guess the fact that that you had that exposure to another so it gave you want some some idea who sold people were but that's what you know you know and it and thought it was lazy in some cases where people didn't want the notoriety or fame of having their name printed in a book but other people had been passed over by other earlier biographers and and they seem to be very eager to co op i think what makes the book work you are commenting on that we do this so you know without really taking credit for it because this book is really

written by the experiences of those people who really knew or rather than by us we had no ax to ground we simply took the interviews that we got then and put them in chronological order and i think that personal experience that all these people had with elvis's what does make it well let's begin to talk about some of the people because of some note like they're the names and books and some do and the one who i think is not all by shue about the fact that she knew most way that was my actions and their fifth of the earth is that that first call to get from bob neil and she says of about this kid and then usc thing

is you you interviews him through these people and then later on them but many of them keep showing up again and again again and may remembers vividly bob neil calling their own and she takes a look and lewis says she does find something unique and different she tells the story in our book of her first meeting with elders how she picked him up i'm heading out on the highway in jacksonville florida where wright she was doing is promoting shows and now she said she was a little she offered him offered about male fifty bucks to go kill this at that time cause i was was totally unknown and now she says she was surprised when she got out on the highway and met them when they were three elements that have had a couple of musicians but maybe new

elvis from that moment which was very early in his career you know how she is you know our and she has a way of ingratiating herself today but she made she's a wonderful lady so she was very helpful to us and telling us things that happened to tell us that she had firsthand knowledge throughout his career then those who are pretty early on those the debris flow interviewer an excerpt of an interview with johnny cash reserves of love that he took him on tour with and through taxes i guess and a and so you're feeling that cash knew there was sewn talent there guess that time maybe they're both looking for discovered and they're both touring phenomenal alleys to die as our careers of the sect

intersected and will turn into into superstars then there's a line in there just about the same place in the book very young who is funny how is he would tell me about their music for foley interviews with cash and the mutation and was with a third step back with another comrade back to confirm one thing about my accident is that i believe if i'm not mistaken she's the first person in the book that suddenly recognizes this superstar quality that ellman says because here a completely unknown performer went down to perform on her show in jacksonville and the girl scouts removed even on the early eighties as she was but i recall a lot of that interview she says i was counting the money right then surprised me and i was like crying and suddenly all bedlam breaks

loose inside and you know he's not even an airliner and he just it just print some one person show shape went out to the audience and she tugged on the area code tale of little girl who's standing there just to tell me something what is it about this kid at your life and what was actually said that there's no facts and he says one big beautiful home and you'll use that quote learn what that one point the book and its own blowout it a larger than life has a job at all after a after the jacksonville things elvis was booked on a few shows with fair and unfair and in this book is very outspoken year so we caught him exactly but certainly some a crack colonel tom parker ob it would make the colonel roll over a couple of the i think of that story of karen having worked so most shows with him

what he did with that you know by not going on first mining not going on last not being the headliner yep you might wanna tell that that had on you well it seems that no matter how big an artist was well actually the better the artist was in of the later he went on to show that i never had big he was that after elvis had opened for hand he couldn't hold the attention of people that would always say we won't elvis and bring back ellison who is early on the affair and so what was happening in so he got where he would go on earlier but really it was in the state a dead heat as then he said well i don't care who he is on the star and i'm gonna open and so likes notion of the area and it does so is it mozart and when it goes on the stage or by stairs hollering we won out this way one elvis and he said you know listen on the star and i'm gonna finish

and so he tells the affair and afterwards he said dow why he said data hard time following that boeing and he said you didn't tell you now i've ferran says the way we're all out with him at the first time has a hundred and fifty bucks to overstep fifty himself and gave fifty twos to sidekicks career and to imagine that that elvis presley worked for fifty dollars a night somewhere for a long time i think before he was before he was really a whole year before he is really really discovered no front line shows obama voted on a critter and if there is one fellow who must have kicked himself the rest of his life with the biggest economic upturn you tell us why thirty tommy wasn't this chuckie at a station not good at the cage with another station in shreveport louisiana and

now so elvis was he played the record early that first record that out with their own son and he got a phenomenal response to that so when elvis went down to do perform on the louisiana hay ride which was a kind of a grand ole opry a very popular show of its day a for many years he went to c t town the threat picture here and now the people from sun records get paid keep mentioning names to some of these are the songs you'd years may not know their names so why don't you manage this kid and we think he's gonna be big and t tell me says i remember taking myself later but i said to him out he's get greasy hair and pebbles on this place on june third will help fund hundred ufo be a good audience reads whirlpool i wanna do this wrong

answer and then and to you know and i could've been her victory but the last meal out answers so what'd you think of elvis when you first met him and i think back at that time in hilo you know you freeze this busy there are allowing only he did have on hair dye he now it is complex and was really regular guy but i remember somebody's telling me went and those said do you know when a battery that ever get to look in barry as violet they'll bad that he did live there quickly bed at first whit we didn't think he was a look around first iowa grow our korean is in there and the quote you get in view of that a glimpse of that frill about five or six different

directions when there is peace in there from buddy killen they're backstage and was killed a great multi millionaire mogul of a tree records who was on this program with his own book only a few weeks back it was at that time and i get a side man who was at the opry and the opry people didn't want him to saying anything that that audience might take as such as a provocative you have to remember how conservative the opry was back and you know they didn't allow drums on stage in the fight and easily gain and blue moon of kentucky with bill monroe there in the bill monroe me i've heard bill monroe do blue moon of kentucky i can't play only times i have never understood a single word

hundreds of come out of bill monroe's now please include kentucky but it but he does it in the eighties he's a legend and i wondered when i saw that he hadn't was he goes in and he did and i think there was a tad of resentment from what built on there was a terrorism a little bit of being upset one el this first one other end of the song it riles but then bill said that he got used to it and as the royalties k man and the song became or more popular he got worried like well what he told you all these interviews i recall was weigh in all of those ways i could help young indians start the us the right to do it and i guess the question is whether he did that's all right mama that

all men in kentucky and the opry was a lot more comfortable with i think the fact that bill this was so polite and went up to munro and apologize for messing up it's also like that that really one monroe and then liane and there was the year and i guess it is a myth that i've heard it glad to have it straight not book that the the gen david suggested the young man that he continued for growing not nothing about musical career but that it down flat laid by build an agent's son says has fallen though said that you know i think i went to down to a yes that we have several people that say no gender and i never said that i think elvis had a wonderful sense of humor and when he came back from the opera he probably did kill some people call they said go back to

program but i think it that somehow through the years became the gospel truth of the incident you know i didn't really notice it is can a personality where people when they have a match there's a friend of man in the freight frederick talking about how his mother wanted and to go back elvis's record because of issues to give him a ride home from scrutinizing know we're going to get a record and help that boy yeah it was i am i should say don't you wanna go rick katz drugstore owner says yoga for having me johnny go out there and help that boy that's only partly crowds of the thinking they generously now for some reason i think he didn't fit the opry many of all about that what you're going to reveal in a row present a month he was the top the closer and i hadn't even at rutgers and a monkey was just read out an entity he was responsible not only for the wonderful

burst unpopularity of the louisiana hay ride but he is also and indirectly responsible for the death of the louisiana iraq because within a month or two you couldn't get the sense in that with that the older audience could coming because there's so many young people coming to see elvis so the audience change their then when elvis left the day right after a year and a half that young audience laughed americans now it's unfortunate that so not everybody i know thinks elvis made his first national television parents with it so again isaiah learn more here than i learned the other books because steve allen as you're born you have an interview with steve allen anthony nm first what if he didn't really have a first there were several tv shows for that before voyager the sullivan show and no

i can remember named those tv shows now because the doorstep rather showed yeah he did several dorsey brothers will and then allen says that you've played in senegal a box with an internal parts of the prices don't know about where you never know for raw as he said if you're rich and he says in the book if you just pay him ten thousand you can have him as often as you want it so that makes the parkers parker some characters might says kamel says suspect yemen will allen's perspective you couldn't get incentive i wondered so you went there's a lot of dry for ten grand jimmy well that has since become a collector eldest member billion a multimillionaire selling it is in the book about is that he comes at the same time that a match and shows up he was fifteen years old when he mailed us and he said he can remember i nervous

elvis would get because colonel parker would tell people that elvis was booked and he had to have so much money for him before he would allow them to blow game and that others didn't have any gigs at all there was a period there where he was an implant or colonel parker held out for and before long he get three times that amount just white women they grow a note but his life and all that comes out in i never heard of june janice go wanting kill one ego gets us from iowa down now on the gulf coast you've written summary only looks just so she's on vagrant visitor which he talks about the great history what is the one thing and he talked about you know would love the league ever present and they would get election this year and doug and she talks about our mother felt ever go of them and i guess mother is

only with little warning of dollars it was a nice things about the book is that there's pictures in there and sing in two separate section you've got multiple pictures of the valves salam i think a collector's items i didn't do it you don't really think about the soul of being that young you read it as it to him staring their side by side he's twenty something and she's fourteen occasionally been living around there when this was going on i just couldn't believe that girls can get by with it i go to school and i couldn't go out to graze on their bets a hot commodity pricing a rabbi wanted the hijab packages dollars at the day that i can't stay out all night on the go to the next day and drop as candidates are going to private school is because of the aggressive now my life in maybe didn't expect and when i went to college i was saying them freshmen sophomore year everybody was going out of grace and a party and all the tannin points with tickets intently on the witcher nixon was roz was me lyric in new york and you really

get a sense of that as you have people taken from one phase of his life to another it hits that clinical where he owns the way not just race but the whole world had an and literally he was a world of star not just a national star and then suddenly the change comes about back in a couple of shows up so i was surprised to read we get up and it was rose is a very good friend of the writers and has been for years follow if are a billionaire audiences forgotten he was tried among those things giving to repeal still as presley they talk about the islamization of illness i talk about how you know when i first read i got an accomplice it was so and seventy seven on the two are and have undergone some dates on the

last tour with a friend a man who's in a carling kogan and down at a summit have broken their finger and now i'm at that dr nik as a result of that and he was a very compassionate person and just really struck me as being so since sayer in everything away after hearing all these tales about a moment they are really miss just to me was such a nice person then all of the people around of us who were close to him said no you know we add on a what would happen to elvis and if it wasn't for not an accomplice so when the trial took place out covered it for rolling stone and i sat there and heard james neil defending for the entire six weeks ago as though is amazing to me is that all of the people who were close to elvis had said to you know wonderful things to say about him and that's when i really got to know him well well the interviews i think the more compelling first

time i'd seen talk about happy and linda thompson had tried to work together to limit ellis' accent you're couple of doctors quoted and their guests dr tennant he says there are patients like him over this movies in the can control and you i take it that once he got hooked on the pills that he was an adroit lyre and convince the doctors there that he needed argue would use other people to get stuff for you know is someone who can pick up the phone and get the president of the united states on the line that is around to pick a doctor on america's seminal book about how he kept president nixon reminded of an aspect of his life that i had forgotten bleacher did it and then sat there in the oval office and rummage through the president's desk and said no i'm you

know we'll take these pianos as souvenirs from our boys what is amazing is really had a way of getting people to do is betting that week attacking abadi uncanny think i tell in the town so i'm in high school and that actually her it was my best free and so i saw her role often on the social level and i remember when things were starting to become difficult with elvis in in seventy five and how upset everyone was with that is drug intake was increasing and how helpless they fail to do something boring really or you never have the last word in the book and i wondered why i mean i think what she said so to put a cap on the old story i thought it was so touching rose sabo the here's a woman or who devoted a major section of her life to this man who was rarely outright say kicked out but she

was put out and someone else replaced or in his life and she'd a woman who didn't like to sit around and watch and self destruct and i thought it was so tender and paul for what she said at three and that you know i guess it's all been said that you know but having their say at that last time i think david more meaning a home i think linda probably knew him better than anyone doubted al azhar as dave others agree on that and that's one advantage i think they've taken i had writing this book over other people that have written about all this is that we have now and the people in this book over all long period of time and we knew what it was like at the turnout was happening it wasn't planned after elvis bad that we became informed about this we knew when the drugs

started we knew what it was like on the last tour we knew what it was like to play them and the kurds fathers of bellow's up close kevin our guest on that we're done works for horses then john c compiler chairman of the freedom forum's first amendment center at vanderbilt university this program was produced in the studios of wbez in nashville