“The
Police filmed a show one time in Florida because of the P.G.A, Y.M.C.A., or
somebody. They thought that I was...something. He’s got to be crazy. So they,
the police, came out and filmed the show. I couldn’t move. I had to stand
still. The only thing I moved was my little finger like that. You ain’t
nothing but a hound dog crying all the time through the whole show”……….Elvis
Presley Comeback ‘68
Colonel
Tom Parker had originally wanted Elvis’ 1968 special for NBC-TV to be a
Christmas program, in which “His Boy” sang an hour’s worth of holiday
classics. The producers, however, had something more challenging in mind. And
for once, the Colonel did not get his way. Even with the change in format for
the program, however, the Colonel still expected Elvis to close the show singing
“Silent Night.”
The
immediate triumph of Elvis was that it wasn’t
all the things it could so easily have been. It aired just before
Christmas 1968, yet there was just one Christmas number, and Elvis sang it
dressed neck-to-toe in black leather. The ultimate triumph of Elvis was that it
was an act of career regeneration almost without parallel. There’s even a case
to be made for saying that the show paved the way for the tide of fifties
nostalgia that crested with American Graffiti, Happy days, and the rock ‘n
roll revival. Elvis, though, wasn’t looking backward so much as trying to
restore forward momentum. The old songs reaffirmed his joy in making music, a
joy that had slowly ebbed over the course of twenty post-army movies.
In a sense, Elvis was fortunate that he
hadn’t appeared on television since May 12, 1960 when he’d participated in
Frank Sinatra’s “Welcome Home” gala.
By
1968, there had been tremendous change in music and pop culture,
change that Elvis had helped pave the way for over a decade earlier. It had been
more t seven years since Elvis had appeared in front of a live audience.
Thought of primarily as a Hollywood star at the time, he had become less and
less a part of the current pop cultural scene. He missed the closeness of his
public, the energy and excitement of live performing, the satisfaction and
challence of music making unencumbered by movie production needs. He was ready
for a change. Elvis would be the show’s only headliner, no big name guest
stars. Elvis taped in the summer of 1968, first airde on December 3th, and was
one of the biggest television hits of the year, receiving rave reviews from the
public and the credits alike. The show closed with Elvis sitting on the edge off
the stage, singing “Memories” to a prerecorded backing track. Just two of
these performances, “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” and
“Blue Christmas” were used in the original edit that was broadcast in
December 1968. “Tiger Man” replaced “Blue
Christmas”, when the show re-aired on August 17, 1969. Another five recordings,
“That’s All Right”, “Are
You Lonesome Tonight”, “Blue Suede Shoes”, “Love Me”, and “Trying To
Get To You”, appeared in the legendary Performer series, but the complete
8:00pm show from NBC’s Studio 4
in Burbank is available in its entirety on BMG cd “Tiger Man”
By 1968, the rarity of his television
appearances was one of his few remaining trumps. The special was shot between
June 20 and June 30. Elvis’ buddy, Joe esposito told once that the shooting
schedule was so intense that he and Elvis camped on rollaway beds in a dressing
room. Elvis worked feverishly hard, very much aware of how much was at stake.
During rehearsals, Steve Binder noticed him sitting in his dressing room with
his buddies. They were singing, playing, talking and joking. This, Binder
realized, was a side of Elvis that few had seen, and his first instinct was to
bring in a camera to document these jam sessions. That idea gradually broadened
to the concept of the Sit Down Shows. Elvis would sit
informally with friends to play and reminisce as he’d done in the
dressing room.The original contract stipulated that there would be no live
performances, but Binder won Elvis over the idea of shooting this segment in
front of a live audience as well. Elvis then agreed to perform the Arena (stand
up) segment of the show in front of a live audience as well. The first two days
of recording were largely devoted to the travelog segment. There was to be a
fantasia on “Guitar Man”. In which several set-pieces showed the perils and
pitfalls awaiting a young guitar picker making his way through the world. The
script changed constantly, as did the song selection.
The first Sit Down show was scheduled
for 6:00PM on June 27. At the last minute, Elvis told Binder that he had changed
his mind and wouldn’t
do it. According to Joe Esposito it took some cajoling
to get Elvis on stage. When Elvis appeared it was in a black leather outfit
tailored by costume designer Bill Belew in the mistaken belief that Elvis had
appeared in leather during the fifties. It appealed to Elvis’ sense of drama,
although he had no idea how it would become under the lights. Elvis, Scotty
Moore, D.J. Fontana, Charlie Hodge, and Alan Fortras were grouped on kitchen
chairs in a boxing ring, with Elvis’ movie stand-in, Lance LeGault, off to one
side playing tambourine. Elvis had asked for the audience to be moved closer,
and the Colonel arranged for him to be circled by women.
The set largely bypassed the sixties in
favor of songs with which Elvis made his name. There were just three numbers he’d
never performed before, “Baby What You Want Me To Do”, “Tiger Man”, and
a new song, “Memories”, written specially for the show. “Baby What You
Want Me To Do” was a loping Jimmy Reed blues hit that Elvis alchemized into a
rockabilly romp. “Tiger Man” was another blues, first recorded by Rufus
Thomas for Sun almost a year to the day before Elvis cut his first record. Elvis
almost certainly considered recording it at Sun records, and later joked that it
was “my second record”, but not too many people got to hear it”. He hurls
himself into it with a wild-eyed fury that had been absent for a decade.
