556 - Colonel Tom Parker in Las Vegas (1969)

 

Halverwege de jaren vijftig werd Elvis Presley (1935-1977) een idool voor de jeugd, eerst in Amerika en korte tijd later ook in West-Europa. Zijn eerste platen nam hij in Memphis op voor het Sun-label van Sam Phillips, die in de stad aan de Mississippi over een kleine studio beschikte. Die singles, te beginnen met ‘That’s All Right’, gevolgd door ‘Good Rocking Tonight’, ‘Milkcow Blues Boogie’, ‘Baby Let’s Play House’ en ‘I Forgot to Remember to Forget’, werden weliswaar goed verkocht maar niet goed genoeg om een pop-hitklassering te verwerven.

   De carrière van Elvis kwam pas echt in een stroomversnelling toen Colonel Tom Parker (pseudoniem van Dries van Kuijk) hem als manager onder zijn hoede nam. Parker bracht voor ‘zijn boy’ een transfer tot stand van Sun Records naar het grote RCA Victor-label, met welk bedrijf hij al zaken had gedaan met artiesten voor wie hij in de weer was: Slim Whitman, Eddy Arnold en Hank Snow.

   Wat bij Sun niet gelukt was, lukte wel bij RCA. Met zijn eerste RCA-single, ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, verscheen Elvis al snel in de poplijst van Billboard om door te stijgen naar de nummer één-positie. Zonder de ruggesteun van Tom Parker was de artiest wellicht nooit zo groot geworden als hij werd.

 

Elvis Presley en Tom Parker

 

 

1968

 

Parker was er om geld te verdienen. Elvis en hij verdeelden de ‘buit’. Na een jeugd vol armoede werd Presley onder leiding van Parker een multimiljonair, die zich bij wijze van spreken ‘alles’ kon veroorloven. Omdat er veel geld te verdienen viel met het maken van films werd het rock & roll-idool ertoe gebracht om een goed betaalde hoofdrol in de ene film na de andere te spelen – vooral nadat hij in West-Duitsland zijn dienstplicht had vervuld. 

   Grote hitsingles bleven uit. Maar op 3 december 1968 maakte Presley door middel van een televisie-special zijn comeback. Al een jaar of zeven had de artiest niet meer live van zich laten horen. Dat veranderde door het succes van zijn tv-optreden. Met singles als ‘In The Ghetto’ en ‘Suspicious Minds’ wist hij opnieuw door te dringen naar de hoogste klasseringen.

 

Las Vegas, 31 juli 1969

 

Elvis wilde weer de bühne op. Zijn manager organiseerde een contract voor 57 concerten in één maand tijd. Die gingen plaatsvinden op een nieuwe locatie – het gloednieuwe International Hotel in Las Vegas, de gokstad. Op 31 juli stond hij er voor het eerst op de planken. James D. Kingly deed verslag in Billboard.

   Het concert was alleen voor genodigden. Opvallend, vond ik, was de aanwezigheid van Sam Phillips en zijn zonen Knox en Jerry. Aanwezig op 31 juli waren ook Elvis’ vader Vernon met Dee, zijn stiefmoeder, RCA-producer Felton Jarvis en Harry Kingsley van de RCA-directie. Ook vastgoedondernemer Ira Sachs werd door de redacteur van Billboard opgemerkt. 

   “It was probably Elvis’ toughest musical challenge since he rocked out of the South with long sideburns, rotating pelvis and a banged up guitar. It was Elvis and the Country Cats. Then bouncing through songs like ‘That’s All Right, Mama’, ‘Blue Moon of Kentucky’, and later with ‘Hound Dog’, ‘Blue Suede Shoes’, ‘Good Rockin’ Tonight’, and ‘Don’t Be Cruel’”, werd in het vakblad afgedrukt.

 

Volgens de redacteur was Elvis er op vooruit gegaan in vergelijking met de optredens in zijn beginjaren. “It was not the Elvis with the rough edges of the middle 1950s. It was a polished, confident and talented artist, knowing exactly what he was going to do and when. But it was the Elvis of the past as he ‘put the feeling into the songs, and let the vibrations of the music have their say, swinging hips, revolving pelvis and moving shoulders’”.

   Over zijn begeleiders schreef Kingly: “Elvis worked the show with five musicians from Los Angeles who sometimes record on his California sessions. The rhythm section included Larry Muhoberac, piano; James Burton, John Wilkinson, guitars; Ronnie Tutt, drums, and Jerry Scher, electric bass. Muhoberac played with Elvis at his last personal appearance in Memphis.

   Elvis is also backed by the 30-piece International Hotel staff band conducted by Bobby Morris, who for 15 years played drums for Tony Martin”.

 

Het optreden duurde slechts veertig minuten. “The Sweet Inspirations opened the show with ‘How High the Moon’. Comedian Sammy Shore followed. Elvis closed his show with the Sweet Inspirations and Imperials backing him during his 40-minute show”.

   Het was dan ook slechts een kort voorproefje, liet de journalist weten. “Elvis does not plan to keep his shows the same. He has between 50 and 80 songs he will work with during the International stay, he told me”.

   Over zijn manager schreef Kingsly: “‘Elvis has worked extremely hard for his show. But then he is one of the most dedicated entertainers I have ever been associated with’, said his eagle-eyed manager, Col. Tom Parker, who enjoyed his way working over the roulette tables, and putting everything together for the show”.

 

Parker

 

De Britse popjournalist Ray Connolly (geboren in 1940) hoorde eveneens to de genodigden; althans die indruk gaf hij in een artikel dat op 9 augustus 1969 werd afgedrukt in de Evening Standard. De kop van het artikel luidde: “To understand the Elvis phenomenon you must first understand the Colonel”.

   In die tijd was, zeker in Europa, nauwelijks iets bekend over de man die de zaken van Presley organiseerde. Dat is goed te begrijpen. Parker, Van Kuijk dus, zat ‘opgesloten’ in Amerika. De voormalige Nederlander beschikte niet over een Amerikaans paspoort. Met andere woorden: als hij de VS verliet was het maar de vraag of hij er weer toegelaten zou worden. Bovendien was vliegen van Europa naar Amerika in die tijd minder ‘vanzelfsprekend’ dan later. De manager van Elvis was misschien daarom wel een mysterieuze figuur. 

 

Voorzichtige gokker

 

Connolly greep de gelegenheid aan om in Las Vegas meer te weten te komen over de mens achter de manager. In zijn artikel schreef hij: “You can see the Colonel any day sitting at the roulette tables at the International Hotel, Las Vegas, during these stifling August weeks. He’s there with the old friends and cronies who make up the incredible organisation that has, for the last 14 years, been devoted to extracting every available penny from the Elvis Presley phenomenon”.

   Volgens de Brit was de voormalige Nederlander (in die tijd) een voorzichtige gokker. “There he sits in the middle of the table, lips permanently five-eighths of an inch apart whether or not he has his semi-permanent cigar tucked between them, wearing an ordinary green sports shirt and light slacks and a baseball cap advertising Presley’s current employers, the International Hotel. And though he stays there many hours, scattering the board with a litter of yellow chips, he never loses nor wins more than a few dollars.

   While everyone else around him is betting with five-dollar pieces, the Colonel sticks to his 25-cent chips. There never was a showbusiness manager so canny about money, so determined to make every penny count, so devoted to a single cause”...

   Parker kon zich best wel wat meer permitteren, vond Connolly: “God knows how much Presley and he are worth – it must run into many millions of dollars, but you’d never know it to watch him”.

 

Een stukje geschiedenis

 

De journalist was iets te weten gekomen over het verleden van de manager, kon je lezen. “It’s impossible to even think about Presley without Colonel Tom Parker, the man who discovered him in 1955 and has been his guide and mentor ever since. Between them they’ve made up the most financially successful and durable show business manager-star arrangement ever. If the Colonel does have a failing it’s in not understanding the artistic needs and abilities of his one client.

   Presley met Parker while he was playing at a cinema in Texarkana. He knew by then that he was going to happen, to some extent any rate, and needed someone to take care of his business. He and his parents had three Cadillacs and no phone. Parker clinched the deal by driving to his parents’ home and telling them what he could do for their boy.

   Brought up in circuses he was then 45 and apart from a time when he managed Johnny Cash had hardly struck it rich anywhere”.

 

Connolly was niet op de hoogte van de Europese achtergrond van de zakenman. “A carnival orphan, he had worked in his uncle’s great Parker pony circus, operated merry-go-rounds, been dog catcher in Tampa, Florida, and worked for a spell with a dancing chickens act. He loves to tell stories of early days.

   ‘How did you make the chickens dance, Colonel?’ you ask him, and he smiles, that bored country smile and says: ‘Well you’d dance if you had a hot plate under your feet. There was only one problem. We were pretty hungry in those days and we’d start off the week with six dancing chickens, but by Saturday we would always be down to the dancing chicken act’”.

   Geen woord dus over het Nederlandse verleden van de ‘kolonel’. Allerlei feiten waren bovendien onjuist. Zo heeft Parker bij mijn weten geen zakelijk belang gehad bij de loopbaan van Johnny Cash, in tegenstelling tot zijn activiteiten met Eddy Arnold en Hank Snow.

 

Uitgekookte ondernemer

 

Connolly vond dat Parker een nogal uitgekookte ondernemer was. “His deals for Presley have been outrageous. During the early Presleymania days he built up a considerable business out of Presley products like buttons, sweatshirts, and pens and pencils.

   Shortly after he first noticed the hysteria and devotion that his boy created, he struck on the idea of selling millions of ‘I Love Elvis’ buttons to the girls. The venture proved immensely profitable, as was his gag of selling ‘I Hate You Elvis’ buttons to their aggrieved boyfriends.

   His behaviour would suggest that he likes to play the part of the country boy who outbargains all the city slickers. He stands for no puffed-up cant from anyone, gently putting them on, bringing them down”.

 

Voorbeeld

 

De Brit ving verhalen op over het handelen van Tom Parker. In zijn artikel gaf hij een voorbeeld:

   “One story he loves to tell is of how a couple of New York businessmen flew out to Los Angeles to make a deal for half a million dollars with him. Five minutes before they were to meet him an old circus friend who’d fallen on bad times turned up trying to sell him a bunch of worthless, rotten balloons.

   ‘How much you asking, Sam?’ asked the Colonel.

   ‘Fifty dollars’, said Sam.

   ‘You’re kidding. I’ll give you 25’, retorted the Colonel.

   So for 35 minutes they hassled.

   Parker had already decided to buy the balloons but he was insistent upon saving the man’s pride. 

 

Eventually the men from New York who were being kept waiting outside were getting impatient so the Colonel had them called in just as he was settling the deal at 47 dollars.

   After Sam had left they turned on the Colonel in angry amazement. ‘You kept us waiting for 35 minutes while you did a deal for 47 bucks, when we’re here to do a deal for half a million’, they said. ‘Do you realise we’re busy men?’

   Answered the Colonel: ‘Well, I suggest you go and do business with somebody else if that’s your attitude because that 47 dollars meant more to him than your half a million does to me’.

   Said the New York businessmen: ‘Okay, we’ll go and do business with Elvis. We don’t want your name on the product’.

   To which the Colonel replied: ‘Go ahead, do business with Elvis’”.

 

Daar kwam niets van terecht. “That is, of course, impossible. No one can do business with Elvis. The Colonel had built such a security net around him that it’s impossible to get through no matter who you are”.

 

Buiten de schijnwerpers

 

De journalist vond dat Parker ‘slim’ was. Uniek in zijn aanpak was dat hij Elvis zoveel mogelijk buiten de schijnwerpers hield. Door afstand te scheppen bevorderde hij naar eigen inzicht de belangstelling voor het idool.

   “There’s no one cannier that I know in show business. His method has been to give Elvis as little exposure as possible thus always keeping up the interest in him, keeping the public wanting more”.

 

Ook Connolly werd aan het lijntje gehouden. “This week he kept me waiting for three days with the promise that ‘I just might be able to fix something whereby you can get to see Elvis, but I’m not making any promises’.

   True to form he ‘just managed to fix something’, a few hours before the time I told him I was leaving for Las Vegas”.

 

Geld

 

Connolly en Parker zouden samen een drankje genomen hebben in Las Vegas. De journalist kreeg de rekening gepresenteerd. 

 “ He’s a kindly warm man, although he pretends to be mean with money. ‘I’m not picking up the check’, he said after a drink. ‘I don’t want you to feel any indebtedness towards me’.

   But money is his joke. Despite the deals he pulls off for Elvis (such as a million dollars a picture plus half the take) he doesn’t live in any grand style.

   He never dresses up, and neither his Palm Springs house nor his Los Angeles flat are particularly grand places. He’s devoted to his wife.

   He’s totally a man’s man, all his staff being men of his own age, and he never stops work.

   ‘I’ve just been on the phone to a film company in Hollywood’, he said. ‘I’ll have to give them a couple of days to get over what we’re asking’”.

 

De aanpak van Parker kwam misschien wel heel Las Vegas ten goede. Presley was een enorme publiekstrekker.

   “He giggles. But he’s shrewd. The President of the International Hotel reckons that Las Vegas has never known anything to hit it as big as Elvis.

   ‘Not even Sinatra got this reaction’, he said as he went into battle with the Colonel again to set up a long-term deal. Now Parker’s planning the release of Elvis’s next single, ‘Suspicious Minds’, a million-seller if ever I heard one”.

 

Volgens Connolly had Parker meer verstand van zaken dan van popmuziek. “It is in this aspect of his career that he has been less than successful. He doesn’t understand good pop and he’s been less than careful to ensure that all of Elvis’s films and songs were of a good enough standard. But Presley himself appears to now have the aesthetic bit between his teeth.

   Basically, Parker, who actually is an honorary colonel in several southern states, is a promoter, even to a farcical level”.

 

De Brit kreeg nog wat mee voor thuis. “ For Elvis’s Press conference last week before the opening at the International he wore a white coat plastered with Presley slogans, while he was also very anxious that I should take home some of the local papers with Presley advertisements ‘to show the people in England how we spend some of our money’.

   He asks for nothing free. ‘I’m writing a book’, he says. ‘It’s called How Much Does it Cost if it’s Free? It was to have been 200 pages long but now I’ve got 300 pages of advertising’”.

 

Connolly was onder de indruk: “He’s an incredible character”.

 

Tom Parker

 

Harry Knipschild

14 november 2024

 

Clips

* Elvis in Las Vegas, 1969

 

Literatuur

Ray Connolly, ‘Elvis – back with a bang to prove he’s still the King’, Evening Standard, 4 augustus 1969

Ray Connolly, ‘To understand the Elvis phenomenon you must understand the Colonel’, Evening Standard, 9 augustus 1969

James D. Kingsly, ‘Presley faces toughest challenge in Las Vegas’, Billboard, 9 augustus 1969