Replies

[King Of Gracelan...]

In the first part, Jerry talks about his background and his career.
It's actually difficult to find anything other than the most basic facts on him, and even reference-books like 'Elvis - His Life From A To Z' are disappointing in that respect.
So we felt that some backgrounds were necessary to put the interview into perspective.
In the second part you'll find our interview about his years with Presley.

Jerry Talks:
"I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, played tuba in grammar school and started playing string bass in the seventh grade.
I played in junior symphony as well as the school orchestra and played tuba in the Vallejo municipal band at age twelve.
We moved to Sacramento, CA when I was fourteen .
My mother was very supportive and took me to see concerts such as Jazz at the Philharmonic and Lionel Hamptons band.
I played mostly Jazz and classical music at the time, and listened to black R&B as well as Jazz stations from Oakland, CA.
At about age fifteen, I started to play in clubs and "after hours" sessions.
I played with mostly Jazz musicians who were into the East Coast Jazz scene.
In 1957 and 1958, I hung out in San Francisco some and played in an after hour club called "Jimbo's Bop City".
All the jazz musicians who came to town would come to play there.
Miles Davis sat on as well as John Coltrane and his band.
I never got to play with them, I would have been scared to death!
It was the "beat" era and there were a lot of drugs floating around.
I would beg some of the musicians to shoot me up....
I was a skinny towheaded white kid and I always felt like I was being protected.
Fortunately they did not give in to my desires.
One morning at about 3:00 a.m. at Jimbo's, a women came up on stage to sing.
She had on a pendelton shirt with a skirt and work boots.
This was 1958 and I had never seen anyone dressed like that.
She turned around and said "blues in F" as she stomped the time with her work boots.
The dust flew up from the carpet into the spotlight and away we went.
I was in heaven!
The singer was Big Momma Thorton.

[King Of Gracelan...]

Do you remember what songs you rehearsed?
Oh, I can't remember.
Blues songs, and 'Trying To Get To You', 'My Baby'... things like that.
I read somewhere that you rehearsed about 150 songs.
Oh yeah, we went over a LOT of songs, and then later we never rehearsed at all, so it's a good thing we rehearsed then! (laughs).

It surprises me a little that you rehearsed so many songs, and yet stuck to the same 12 - 15 songs the entire engagement?
Well, that wasn't up to us.
It does after a while when you play the same songs, you know, get a little...
But the saving grace was that Elvis never did anything the same way twice.
We always had to keep our eye on him. You never could just, you know, relax (laughs), you had to pay attention.
You never knew what he was gonna do. Never.

When you compare the first Las Vegas season with the second, there's a definite change of accent.
During the first he did a lot of rock 'n' roll, while during the second, he seemed to concentrate on songs like 'The Wonder Of You' and 'Let It Be Me'.
Yeah, I think that was one of the sad parts of the whole thing.
Elvis didn't want to be a rock 'n' roll singer.
He just didn't want to.
I've seen this happen to other artists.
They've done that, you know, you get older and want to go on to something else, but people won't let you.
That was part of the tragedy of this whole thing, because Elvis felt trapped.
He had a great voice, and wanted to be known for that voice.
He wanted to sing songs that showed off the virtuosity of his voice.
Rock 'n' roll songs didn't do that, and he didn't want to do them.
Anytime anybody does a medley of some songs, you know that they don't want to do these songs.