Elvis, Hank, and Me by Horace Logan

Author:Horace Logan [Logan, Horace]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250108746
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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The Act Nobody Could Follow

Elvis didn’t exactly set the world on fire that first night on the Hayride in October 1954. When he finished his first singing stint and came offstage, you could tell by the look in his eyes he wasn’t sure he’d even ignited a spark. He knew something wasn’t right, that he hadn’t really connected with the audience the way he wanted to. His nervousness had dissolved into doubt and uncertainty. I could almost hear him wondering, “Oh, Lord, have I screwed up again?”

But I knew our audience well enough to guess what was behind their response—or more correctly their lack of one. Most of our regular patrons were traditional country music fans, a big percentage of them in their thirties, forties, fifties, and even older. This kid’s music was so different from anything these people had ever heard before they didn’t know how to react. “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” one of Elvis’s two songs that night, was an old Bill Monroe tune, but there was absolutely no comparison between the way Elvis did it and the way the “Father of Bluegrass” had done it. With a little encouragement from Frank Page and me, Elvis drew a subdued round of applause from the older fans and some enthusiastic cheers from several hundred teenagers in the auditorium. But it didn’t come anywhere near encore level.

There were other factors that worked against Elvis in that initial performance, too. With his oily, slicked-back hair, his odd little bowtie and well-worn sportcoat, he looked out of place on a stage where almost everybody else was dressed in Western garb. Even Scotty Moore and Bill Black, his sidemen, were wearing cowboy-style shirts.

But the main thing was, the whole time he was at the microphone, Elvis was so nervous his knees were almost knocking together, and his jerky leg motions added to the strange, wild look about him. There was electricity there, but he communicated as much uneasiness to the audience as he did talent. I think they wanted to like him, the same way I did, but a lot of them weren’t quite sure what to make of him.

Among young people in the Deep South, though, word was already spreading fast about this kid singer with a style so unconventional it defied definition. Some college students from Texarkana had found out Elvis was going to be there and several dozen of them had come down for the show that night. I’m pretty sure there were even a few faithful fans from Memphis who made the long trip to Shreveport for the biggest moment yet in the kid’s career.

All these youngsters hung around for the second portion of the show, while a few of the older fans left after the first part. By the time Elvis was introduced by Frank Page for his second appearance of the evening, he was a little less uptight. He’d had a chance to meet Merle Kilgore, Tibby Edwards, and several of our other artists backstage, and maybe that helped.

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