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[King Of Gracelan...]

"On the drums from Dallas, Texas, is hard-working Ronnie Tutt", is how Elvis usually introduced Ronnie on stage, but I don't think that any kind of introduction is really necessary for our readers.
Not only did he play drums for Elvis from 1969 to 1977, but he's also a highly regarded session-drummer that has worked with the likes of Neil Diamond, Gram Parsons, Jerry Garcia and Elvis Costello.

Can you tell us a little about your background?
I started at about the age of three, singing to the record player and the radio, you know.
My mother put me in dancing lessons right away.
I started playing instruments...
I think my first instrument was a ukelele, which is a great little instrument.
And I went from that to four-string guitar and violin.
When I started school, I started playing trumpet, and I played trumpet all the way to my senior high school.
I switched over to drums when I was 17 or 18 years old.

What appealed you in playing drums?
I'd been a dancer all my life.
When I was three I started dancing.
So the rhythm of everything was more important to me than the melodic.
I was frustrated with playing trumpet and guitar, because I wanted to express myself rhythmically.
It was a very easy transition.

[King Of Gracelan...]

You were not back for the second Las Vegas engagement in February 1970, and was replaced by Bob Lanning.
Why was that?
That's because the Colonel did not let us know.
He did not inform us that Elvis would be coming back.
One of the first things I did after August of '69 was, I got an opportunity to play on the Andy Williams TV show from Los Angeles.
That was a one-year contract for the Mike Post Orchestra.
I had a verbal agreement to play.
I replaced a great drummer named Jim Gordon through Jerry Scheff's recommendation.
Colonel Parker never said a word about having to go back ever again to Vegas.
For all we knew, it was a one-time thing.
The interesting thing about it is that Elvis always expected his same people.
Once he liked what you did and respected you, he had no reason not to think that you would always be there with him.
Those were part of the games that happened with his manager.

The second Elvis biography by Peter Guralnick suggests that you couldn't come to a financial agreement with the Colonel's office.
That's not correct at all.
Not at all.
That was purely a matter of what I just said to you.
If they would've said to me: "We're gonna come back here in February", then we would have worked something out.
They never let us know, and that's the reason Glen D. left the group.
They waited till the last minute.
The Colonel guarded Elvis' image so hard and so carefully.
Even in the pictures, most of us were always blacked out.
The same thing with contacting us for playing.
We were individual contractors, we were never considered part of Elvis' entourage.
That's the reason Glen D. left after several years.
He got tired of waiting around.
The Colonel also, I believe, would wait until the last minute to let us know, just hoping that maybe we wouldn't do the job, so that he could tell Elvis: "Oh, they weren't available".
I think that's how that rumour got started, you know, like: "He wasn't available, he wanted too much money", or something like that.
If we had a great rapport with Elvis: fine.
If we didn't: also fine.
Jerry Scheff had to leave the country at one time, and went to Canada.
We had to hire Emory Gordy to come along and play for a while.
Of course Jerry was welcomed back when he made the decision to come, but the Colonel always tried to disassociate.
If I may read further into it, I think it was because of the problems they had with Scotty.
Scotty was Elvis' manager at one time, and I think the Colonel resented anyone having any influence on Elvis.
He wanted to be able to control him.