Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 1, 1992 TAG: 9203030350
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: E-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In the mid-1950s, the big band music that we had won a war with was gone and this had left me a little hysterical.
Even today, I would have to tell the King that I don't think "Heartbreak Hotel" will ever replace "Stompin' at the Savoy" or "I'll Walk Alone."
Johnnie Ray was part of this era. In case you don't remember, he sang a song about a cloud that sat right down and cried. I think I can be forgiven for thinking he was weird.
The loss of big-band music was a major cultural dislocation, for which Elvis can't be solely blamed.
I wanted Helen O'Connell, before an orchestra with music stands that had writing on them, singing "Green Eyes."
I wanted "Tangerine."
But it was gone forever and people like Jerry Lee Lewis sang this crazy stuff that you couldn't two-step to or jitterbug to - not that I was ever good at jitterbugging.
I began to blame it all on Elvis and I would later take up with the Kingston Trio and, getting deeper into rebellion, I would return to country music and bluegrass.
It was honest music that sometimes looked at life through the bottom of a short glass or sang of death on the highway as only Roy Acuff could sing about that.
You could also do the two-step or the Cotton-Eyed Joe to it.
I didn't realize until years later that Elvis - even with the sweaty scarves he threw to hyperventilating women - always stayed a little country.
I was reminded of this by the late King Edward IV of radio station WSLC, who was kind of a legend himself. King Edward would spin Elvis when other country DJs wouldn't, because, he said. Elvis never forgot where he came from.
But Elvis still came along at a bad time for me and, to be frank, I never saw an Elvis Presley movie I liked - including "Blue Hawaii." Make that especially "Blue Hawaii."
by CNB