angeregt von einem thread von marie
aus den fruehjahr, der sich mit elvis angeblich schlechtestem konzert beschaeftigte, fiel mir beim surfen zu dem thema in den weiten des internets dieser artikel in die haende.
es war wohl nicht sein schlechtestes konzert, auf jeden fall schon wegen der umstaende ein eher ungewoehnliches. was mir persoenlich gefiel, war die einbettung in den geschichtlichen hintergrund und die fortfuehrung seiner bekanntschaft mit einem kollegen (dem countrysaenger jimmy dean) ueber fast 2 jahrzehnte.
(von meiner vorliebe fuer alles, was auf oder unter wasser schwimmt, nicht zu reden
)
wie immer erst das original, im naechsten posting die uebersetzung.
have fun!
Elvis Plays D.C.—One Night Only, 1956
Elvis Presley's debuts single for RCA, "Heartbreak Hotel". The first of Presley's 17 Number One hits, it holds down the top spot for eight weeks. "Heartbreak Hotel" establishes Elvis Presley and rock and roll itself as national phenomena. 1956, Presley's biggest year, he will also appear on The Milton Berle Show, The Steve Allen Show and The Ed Sullivan Show.
Elvis has left the building and his ship has sailed.
Fifty years ago, on a cold and windy March 23, a Washington audience got its first live look at the ascendant King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. For the committed and the curious, it was a moonlight excursion to nowhere with the former truck driver from Memphis. For the S.S. Mount Vernon, it was a frustrating performance as the sun began to set on the Potomac’s last steamboat.
Elvis Appears on the Wilson Line March 23 1956
By Peter Golkin / Copyright 2006 Peter Golkin
The nation’s capital was still very much a Southern town in 1956, having attracted a strong Appalachian presence following the Depression. Among those finding refuge was a government radio announcer from Lizard Lick, N.C., with the lilting name of Connie B. Gay. Gay had landed a one-hour country radio show on the new 1000-watt WARL in Arlington in 1946 and used the program to anchor a rapidly expanding music promotion empire with the trademarked brand, “Town and Country Time.” Among Gay’s most potent tools was a deal that gave him a regional monopoly in booking shows by Grand Ole Opry stars. Box office success was inevitable as he featured the likes of Eddy Arnold, Lefty Frizzell and Hank Williams at such venues as Constitution Hall, Griffith Stadium and the D.C. Armory. Gay became such a pillar throughout the young industry that the doomed Williams would spend some of his last months living at Gay’s Arlington home.
By 1950, Gay also was chartering some of the evening runs down the Potomac River on the Wilson Line, which by day took tourists to Mount Vernon on the banks of Virginia and the amusement park at Marshall Hall across in Maryland.
In a 1986 Washington City Paper interview, Gay remembered his Country Music Moonlight Cruises as “an absolute sensation from the start. We were always packed with about 3,000 people. On the first show, we had Grandpa Jones. I never missed a show.” Personal space was at a premium those nights aboard the Mount Vernon, the Wilson Line’s big boat with an official capacity of 2400. Advertised as “America’s finest steamliner,” the 201-foot, four-deck ship had been cruising the Potomac regularly since 1940 (with some time off during the war), rebuilt from the hull up and given a glamorous streamlined wedding-cake motif capped by a false diesel-looking smokestack. She was originally a ferry ship from the Delaware Bay, launched in 1917 as the City of Camden. By March 1956, the Wilson Line’s queen was a familiar and fetching sight on Washington’s main waterway, offering modestly exotic adventure three times a day.
The Elvis Presley show that first Friday of spring would kick off the 1956 season for Gay’s so-called Hillbilly Cruises. The weather was chancy, although Washington had experienced some warm, sunshine-filled days earlier in the week. Working off a folksy note from the promoter, Washington Post and Times Herald (the papers merged the year before) columnist Paul Herron reminded would-be concertgoers that the main decks of the Mount Vernon were steam-heated and glass-enclosed should winter reappear that evening.
As to the star of the show, Herron acknowledged no personal opinion, telling his "On the Town" readers that the 21-year-old developing phenomenon was simply "considered by many to be one of the most sensational country music singers in the past decade." Gay had too much invested in country to shift his publicity materials for what still might be the short-lived novelty of rockabilly or rock ‘n’ roll or whatever it was the boy sang. Besides, Elvis had just landed his first national No. 1 single the month before on Billboard’s Country and Western chart with the Sun-recorded/RCA re- released "I Forgot to Remember to Forget."
Herron added that Presley would be accompanied by his "Blue Moon Boys," although guitarist Scotty Moore and bass player Bill Black had pretty much become a nameless act with the addition of drummer D.J. Fontana the year before. Having signed Elvis in November 1955, RCA wasn’t interested in playing up the singer’s longtime instrumental support. Neither was Presley’s new manager, Tom Parker. Still, out of habit, promoters would give the “Blue Moon Boys” billing on the occasional concert poster for a few more months.
Opening aboard the Mount Vernon would be Melvin Price and the Santa Fe Rangers, almost locals from Easton, Md. with a few modest recordings of their own. Although Herron expressed little interest in Presley’s music, he was impressed enough to mention the young man’s $12,000 paycheck for a recent run in Norfolk plus his $40,000 deal with RCA. Nervous label executives had just been vindicated when Elvis’s first official RCA single, "Heartbreak Hotel,” finally entered the pop charts at No. 68 on March 3 after being released in January.
Elvis’s Washington debut would come the day RCA began shipping to retailers his eponymous first long-playing album--plus two abbreviated “extended plays”. All three releases bore the same cover--hot pink and lime green lettering framing the guitar-gripping artist, eyes closed and mouth agape in almost religious fervor. It was a face already becoming somewhat familiar to a national television audience.
Since late January Elvis had made five appearances on the Dorsey brothers’ "Stage Show" on CBS. Constantly lagging in the ratings behind NBC’s Perry Como, the Jackie Gleason-produced variety program could take multiple chances on the strange singer with the strange name. After the Washington gig, Elvis, Scotty, Bill and D.J. would be off to New York for their sixth and final appearance that Saturday night.
Having made the short trip from Richmond after a date at the Mosque Theater on Thursday night, Elvis had just one late pre-concert obligation in Washington that Friday: getting to the “Evening Star Television Center” at Connecticut and Van Ness for an interview on WMAL Channel 7’s Gay-produced "Town and Country Time," airing at 6:30. Hosted by Gay protégé Jimmy Dean, a tall 27-year-old Texan, there was bound to be some on-camera spark between the two young men. Dean was also the charismatic leader of his own tight group, the Texas Wildcats, and his star was also rising thanks to some national recording success and the recent syndication of Gay’s radio and television programming.
But in his autobiography, "Thirty Years of Sausage, Fifty Years of Ham," Dean remembered the on-air chat as "possibly the worst I’ve ever done.
“It went basically like this:
'Jimmy: So, you’re gonna be on the S.S. Mount Vernon tonight, are you Elvis?
Elvis: Yep.
Jimmy: Have you ever worked on a boat before?
Elvis: Nope.
Jimmy: I imagine you’re looking forward to this, aren’t you?
Elvis: Yep.'
And that was it. 'Yep, nope…' and that’s all he would say. "
Dean remembers that when both were Las Vegas regulars years later, Elvis apologized for his brevity, saying he was simply scared of the camera. A photograph taken on the “Town and Country Time” set shows that at least Presley’s sartorial flair hadn’t failed him: sport jacket, no tie and the flash of argyle socks next to Dean’s countrified boots and neckerchief. If the interview was a disappointment for all concerned, things were also not going well aboard the Mount Vernon.
As concertgoers began to gather during the early evening at the Wilson Line’s Pier 4 on Maine Avenue at N Street, SE, there was little to indicate that the ship’s engine had broken down that afternoon off Fort McNair while returning from a cruise to General Washington’s estate. Responding to the repeated distress signal from the ship’s whistle, the D.C. Fire Department towed the Mount Vernon and its 50 passengers up Washington Channel and back home, where a repair crew began trying to fix a faulty high pressure valve.
Wilson Line operators called Gay to tell him his ship might not sail. The promoter, who had invested some $4,500 for the charter and had already sold hundreds of advanced tickets, decided to keep the box office open and await a quick fix. Adding to his woes was a storm moving toward Washington from the northwest, bringing with it winds, some rain and temperatures down into the 30s.
Another Post and Times Herald columnist, Bill Gold, would recount that those boarding the ship began hearing rumors the cruise might be canceled. When the 8 p.m. departure time came, an announcement made clear that the engine was still not ready.
"'But even if we don’t cast off, we’ll give you two shows instead of one, and we hope you’ll all enjoy yourselves.'" A refund was offered to those who wished to disembark. Readers of the Gold’s "District Line" column learned that Gay himself stood at the gangplank and refunded the $2 ticket price for about 100 people. "Then the gangplank was pulled up, and the entertainment began. It was a bitter cold night, so the moonlight that bathed the open decks held little attraction. Most of those aboard crowded into the glass-enclosed main deck to watch the show."
"As a result, the floor was too crowded for dancing but the entertainment did last for almost three hours, and it does appear that an honest effort was made to keep the evening from becoming a total disappointment to the young folks."
Gold strongly defended Gay and the Wilson Line a few days after the show in response to “several” complaints the columnist says he received from young concertgoers bemoaning the canceled cruise. Responding to one claim that no refunds were offered, Gold told the teen: "I suggest that you get all the facts surrounding this moonlight cruise that wasn’t, and then review your judgment in the light of a better understanding of the incident."
For Gay, the evening would always stand out “as the only time I didn’t fill the boat.” He remembered deciding that the Mount Vernon should at least “push off shore,” but “since the boat didn’t go out, a lot of people wanted their money back. So I paid them off and they got off and missed Elvis.”
Those who stayed aboard the Mount Vernon would have heard highlights from the
Sun days and long-favored rhythm and blues hits like the Drifters’ “Money Honey,” found on the new album and chosen for “Stage Show” the next night. There also would have been new RCA material like “Heartbreak Hotel” and “Blue Suede Shoes,” written and first recorded by Carl Perkins, still at
Sun. Perkins and his band had been in a serious car accident that week in Delaware and Elvis and his group had sent their get-well telegram before leaving Richmond.
Whether Elvis took part in the promised second, unscheduled show during those three hours on the Mount Vernon isn’t clear but any last-minute contract changes likely still exist in the meticulous Tom Parker archives, still being cataloged at
Graceland. While Elvis had adjusted to more than a year of grueling tours, pushing himself that Friday might not have been in his best interest. He had been sick with the flu earlier in the week and was due in Manhattan in a few hours despite a snow storm somewhere in between. And on Sunday there was a flight to California for a Hollywood screen test.
Pier 4 managed to survive Southwest’s massive urban renewal projects of the 1960s, serving to this day as the home to Potomac Spirit excursions. Changes in the neighborhood gave it the new address of 6th and Water Streets but passengers are still greeted by the former Wilson Line pier house, which local architecture historian Peter Sefton appreciates for its colonial style “so similar to the brick houses and garden apartments scattered across Arlington and Alexandria” in the 1940s.
With engines repaired, the Mount Vernon sailed a few more seasons, carrying roughly half a million people each year including the crown princess of Japan in 1960. But without knowing it, the ship said goodbye to her last passenger on her last run of fall 1962. On the fifth day of 1963, the great steamer was seen listing in her berth at Pier 4. With the fire department called to the scene, she suddenly lurched before her steel hull sank 25 feet down in the icy water. Deck railings scraped the pier and twisted as all but the top deck became submerged. A seacock in the bilge line had frozen, then cracked, leaving the Wilson Line president to regret not packing such fittings with manure, an old-timer’s trick that would have generated heat.
The damaged ship was raised and towed to the dock at Marshall Hall. A few months later she was brought to the protected mud flats just north of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge in Maryland, where she sat with her hold full of water to keep from drifting without a heavy anchor. Meanwhile, the Wilson Line had found in New York a replacement for its queen--the much younger and diesel-driven Hudson Belle, soon to be renamed the George Washington for the 1963 season and many years beyond.
The Mount Vernon, subject of various restoration ideas, waited by the bridge until her salvage rights were finally sold in 1967 to the Seafarers International Union, which wanted to make the ship part of its new training school in Piney Point, Md. Towed to Norfolk, the Mount Vernon was refitted with interior bulkheads that helped create a 300-seat auditorium, classrooms and offices in the upper decks with a library in the hold. The great steam engine was removed. A 1969 ceremony at the union school saw the revived Mount Vernon re-christened the Charles S. Zimmerman in honor of a longtime labor leader.
The ship’s backstory and role at Piney Point would both fade over the years. By 1984 the school had new training facilities and no more need for the now haunted-looking Zimmerman. Two years later she was towed to New York, where a pair of aspiring restaurateurs pictured her the setting for fine-dining at a waterfront awaiting development in Yonkers. The 79-year-old former steamer, valued by the Seafarers at $500,000, was sold and given the new name River Princess along with a spot along the sea wall of a former landfill on the Hudson. But the Yonkers project stalled and the old ship’s newest owners declared bankruptcy in 1990. Two years later the Westchester County Business Journal reported that the City of Camden/Mount Vernon/Charles S. Zimmerman/River Princess was sitting three-quarters submerged at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the subject of impending legal action.
The ultimate fate of the Potomac’s last steamship lies somewhere beyond the reach of Google, Lexis-Nexis and a stream of phone calls to New York. One of the Yonkers restaurateurs hangs up upon hearing mention of the boat. The attorney who handled the ship after bankruptcy died suddenly last year. But the message board of Steamboats.org yields support to the notion that the
one-time queen of the Wilson Line was finally scrapped sometime during the Clinton era.
Elvis’s final years are more than well-documented. He never again played the District and his few remaining shows in the area required suburban basketball arenas and sometimes generous audience goodwill. He would have considered his once-unsung visit to the Nixon White House in December 1970 his most successful performance in Washington, charming from the president a much-elusive Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs badge. In return, Nixon got a gun. There was no mention of the Mount Vernon in their conversations.
quelle:
http://www.dc-rock-and-roll.org/elvis.html
das bild zeigt elvis mit jimmy dean im fernsehstudio