BLUE HAWAII
– Postcard production and… the beginning of the Presley formula-
(part 11)
Elvis Presley (Pearl Harbor, Hawaii)…. At around 6:30 p.m., less than an hour before the arena doors opened (people were admitted at 7:15 p.m.), the crowds on the city streets reached their peak. “Traffic in the area around the arena began to pick up just before 7 p.m. ,” local media reported. “Moments later, all parking lots and all available space on the adjacent streets and surrounding lawns were literally filled to capacity .”
Long before 8:30 p.m., the hour at which the organizers had scheduled the concert to begin, all the seats in the spacious and modern Bloch Arena were already filled with fans of the twenty-six-year-old singer from Memphis.
In the hall, you could feel the tension growing with every minute, the nervous anticipation for the star of the evening to appear. Unabated, even despite the endless support and performances preceding Presley’s appearance.
The first to be introduced to the audience was Sterling Mossman (or rather Sterling Edwin Kilohana Mossman, which was his full name). Nicknamed the “Prince of Comedy from Waikiki”, this Hawaiian comedian and vocalist * gained popularity for his performances at the then-trendy nightclub “Barefoot Bar” (which closed in 1969).
He was followed by the address by Father John L. Wissing, Commandant of the Chaplain Corps of the United States Navy Reserve.
Next to take the stage were Phil Ingall’s orchestra, legendary pianist Floyd Cramer, The Jordanaires and saxophonist Homer ‘Boots’ Randolph.
The excitement of the crowd reached its peak when, after Minnie Pearl’s performance, Tucker Gratz from the Pacific War Commission Foundation and Rear Admiral Robert L. Campbell, the new commander of the 14th Navy Division, entered the stage and was responsible for welcoming and announcing the long-awaited concert by Elvis Presley.
“Our guest of honor this evening is a very good American ,” Campbell told the audience. “He has played many different roles, and one of them was that of a soldier in the U.S. Army. His performances are extraordinary, and it is a great honor to welcome him here today and present him. This is Elvis Presley! “
After these words, the previously calm audience literally jumped to their feet. An indescribable uproar took hold in the hall. Noise. The interior of the Bloch Arena was instantly filled with a tumult of applause, mixed with hysterical, adoring shouts from several thousand teenage throats.
It was to this extraordinary accompaniment that Elvis Presley appeared on stage. Dressed in elegant black trousers, a white shirt and his famous gold jacket.
The singer began his performance with the song “Heartbreak Hotel”. His first gold record and first worldwide hit. And although it is hard to imagine, as soon as his first lines rang out in the speakers – ”
Well, since my baby left me… “, the hysteria among the audience grew even stronger! And it did not subside until the end of the concert. The screams and squeals of girls accompanied literally every subsequent song from then on (and at times they were so loud that even the music coming from the stage was not able to drown them out).
And Presley performed as many as fifteen of them. Starting with his golden hits from the fifties, such as “All Shook Up”, “(Now And Then) There’s A Fool Such As I”, “I Got A Woman”, “Love Me”, “I Need Your Love Tonight”, “Don’t Be Cruel” or “One Night”, to current hits from his latest albums. Among them were wildly successful and captivating versions of such classics as “Such A Night”, Reconsider Baby”, “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”, “It’s Now Or Never” and even the gospel “Swing Down, Sweet Chariot” from the album “His Hand In Mine”, which hit stores just a few months earlier – in November 1960.
As a curiosity, it can be mentioned here that the ballad “Doin’ The Best I Can”, from the soundtrack of the film “GIBlues”, was crossed out at the last minute from the set list for this extraordinary Hawaiian show (this is evidenced by the handwritten song list written by Elvis and preserved to this day).
“ The Hawaiian concert was notable for two reasons ,” guitarist Scotty Moore wrote in his book Scotty & Elvis: Aboard the Mystery Train. “ First, because it was one of the longest sets Elvis had played in a long time (almost forty-five minutes). Second, it was his last live performance before a seven-year hiatus. Wearing the gold blazer he first wore in 1957, he closed the show with a rocking, five-and-a-half-minute version of ‘Hound Dog.’ It was also the last time I saw Hawaii . ”
Gordon Stoker from the Jordanaires quartet also remembered this spectacular finale perfectly, saying that at one point Elvis literally threw himself on his knees and, sliding on them, covered almost the entire length of the stage. To the surprise of everyone – musicians and audience, he clutched the microphone in his hand and never lost his key for a moment. “We thought he was going to slide off the stage, ” Stoker recounted in an interview (recalled by Joseph Pirzada and Proud Mary in the booklet accompanying the album “Elvis Presley. Such A Night In A Pearl Harbor”). “Ray Walker, the bass singer in our group, was so surprised by this that at one point he didn’t even get the rhythm. He just stood there with his mouth wide open, from which no sound came out .”
The fans went wild! The audience, especially the females, were literally going crazy at the sight of Presley writhing on stage. “Elvis Presley’s performance Saturday night was more than just a special spectacle for the five thousand people who donated a total of fifty-two thousand dollars to the USS Arizona Memorial ,” wrote columnist Buck Buchwach in his review the next day in the Honolulu Advertiser. “His performance at Bloch Arena could have been a perfect vehicle for studying mass hysteria. With all the screaming, stomping, shouting and whistling that went on throughout. And when I say ‘all the time,’ I mean literally, all the time! Presley sang about sixteen songs during his hour-long set. His fanatical fans (I can’t think of a better word) soaked up every moment of it, breaking the sound barrier before, during and after each song .”
During a Hawaiian concert in March 1961, Presley was accompanied by a band composed of musicians with whom (in such a lineup), for various reasons, he never performed in public again later. In addition to the aforementioned Scotty Moore, Hank Garland played guitar. An excellent session musician from Nashville, who in September of the same year had a very serious car accident as a result of which he never again returned to work in the recording studio or perform on stage. In turn, bassist Bill Black, who had performed with Elvis until recently, was replaced that evening by Bob Moore. Another seasoned instrumentalist from Nashville (he worked with Roy Orbison, among others). Indeed, Black left Presley’s band in the late 1950s and in 1959 formed his own group, the Bill Black Combo. The musician’s career was interrupted by his untimely death in October 1965. DJ Fontana sat behind the drums, and Homer ‘Boots’ Randolph provided the audience with unforgettable saxophone solos. The vocal accompaniment was provided by the quartet The Jordanaires.
The total revenue from Elvis’ performance at Bloch Arena was sixty-two thousand dollars! This impressive sum, the largest single donation ever made to the construction of the Pearl Harbor Memorial, was made up of ticket revenue of fifty-two thousand dollars (two thousand more than Colonel Parker had budgeted), concession sales, memorabilia, and donations made during the March event at Bloch Arena, and a check for five thousand dollars presented to the Pacific War Commission by Elvis and Colonel Parker.
The monument was opened on May 30, 1962.
- Sterling Mossman was also a detective with the Honolulu Local Police Department.
- Scotty Moore remembered Elvis singing “Hound Dog” for five and a half minutes. In reality, however, as evidenced by surviving recordings, the song lasted just over three minutes (and it was an absolutely brilliant performance)
Article written and provided by Mariusz Ogieglo, EP Promised Land (Poland) http://www.elvispromisedland.pl/
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