Elvis: My Best Man: Radio Days, Rock 'n' Roll Nights, and My Lifelong Friendship with Elvis Presley
George Klein, Chuck Crisafulli
Language: English
Pages: 320
ISBN: 0307452751
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
When George Klein was an eighth grader at Humes High, he couldn’t have known how important the new kid with the guitar—the boy named Elvis—would later become in his life. But from the first time GK (as he was nicknamed by Elvis) heard this kid sing, he knew that Elvis Presley was someone extraordinary. During Elvis’s rise to fame and throughout the wild swirl of his remarkable life, Klein was a steady presence and one of Elvis’s closest and most loyal friends until his untimely death in 1977.
In Elvis: My Best Man, a heartfelt, entertaining, and long-awaited contribution to our understanding of Elvis Presley and the early days of rock ’n’ roll, George Klein writes with great affection for the friend he knew—about who the King of Rock ’n’ Roll really was and how he acted when the stage lights were off. This fascinating chronicle of boundary-breaking and music-making through one of the most intriguing and dynamic stretches of American history overflows with insights and anecdotes from someone who was in the middle of it all. From the good times at Graceland to hanging out with Hollywood stars to butting heads with Elvis’s iron-handed manager, Colonel Tom Parker, to making sure that Elvis’s legacy is fittingly honored, GK was a true friend of the King and a trailblazer in the music industry in his own right.
From the Hardcover edition.
The Music Industry (Introducing Issues with Opposing Viewpoints)
Youth, Music and Creative Cultures: Playing for Life
The Northern Soul Top 500 (Definitive Edition)
RocKwiz Decades: The Greatest Songs of Our Time
Singing Out: An Oral History of America's Folk Music Revivals
customized. The car had an incredible purple paint job, and the interior was purple and white to match, with custom EP floor mats. The car was so good-looking that we’d really dressed up for the ride in it, and Elvis looked exceptionally sharp in a new gray suit. That night we actually drove right onto the Fairgrounds and used the new Caddy to get from ride to ride and game to game. We were having a good enough time that when it began to rain, Elvis didn’t want to leave. The rain got heavier and
he dropped his voice to its lowest notes and started singing a few lines of “Hey Porter,” a song Cash had cut at Sun that seemed especially appropriate for a midnight train ride. The girl was thrilled, and even ended up with an autograph from Elvis, which read: “Best Wishes, Johnny Cash.” The commotion we experienced on the train was only magnified at concerts. In Vancouver, I was sent to scout out the football field where Elvis was going to perform for twenty-five thousand fans, and what I
Los Angeles while he worked on a film. In the summer of ’63, I headed out to join him for the making of Viva Las Vegas. “Okay, boys,” said Elvis. “Listen up. Ann-Margret is coming over for dinner tonight.” We Memphis Mafia members were hanging around the main den of a beautiful house on Perugia Way in Bel Air, which Elvis had recently begun renting rather than checking in for an extended stay at the Beverly Wilshire. At the mention of Ann-Margret, we all began to hoot and holler. Elvis had just
Singers, at the Frontier Hotel, where Elvis had played his first Vegas engagement in 1956 to less than enthusiastic middle-aged casino crowds. It was there I saw a rare occasion when Elvis lost his temper in public, after a cocktail waitress refused to serve Ann-Margret unless she produced ID. Back in L.A., just before I returned to Memphis, I had one other notable experience with the pair of stars. Elvis was considering moving to a phenomenal celebrity’s home in the Hollywood Hills that was now
to get any real work at WHBQ even as a fill-in jock, so I sent my airchecks out to all the smaller stations I could think of. They liked me at KOSE, in Osceola, Arkansas, so as soon as my freshman year’s spring semester was over in May, I headed fifty miles upriver to introduce Osceola listeners to The George Klein Show. Through the summer of 1954, I worked as a long-shift afternoon disc jockey, playing a mix of country and rhythm and blues records for an audience of both white and black
