What Was it Like Working with Elvis?

This is a question I'm frequently asked, of course, and it's difficult to answer this without writing an entire book!

I would begin by answering that a performance with Elvis in concert on the tours was not truly what we would call a "musical event", but rather a bit more like a "HAPPENING". The fans of course had loved his records, wanted to hear his hits, but the Main interest, or EVENT, should I say, was just his "showing up"--LIVE--in person! People had waited for twenty years to just "see" him, and that was the most important part of the evening (or afternoon) for all. Many times it was really difficult to get a musical number even started, waiting for the shouts of the screaming crowds to die down ever so slightly, so that we would even stand a chance of hearing one another. There was more than one occasion when I felt the thunderous applause and screaming so loudly vibrate the entire arena so much, that I thought to myself, "this may be what it will sound like the day the world ends, if or when it ever does!"

And then the flashbulbs going off--tens of thousands of flashes a second for the entire hour, or hour and a half, deserve a chapter all by themselves. I still have optical damage from those things! It was as if we were under a strobe light for the hours we were onstage, day after day after day. In the larger arenas the audience really appeared to be "FROGS" to Elvis and us, as all we could see were binoculars reflecting light back towards the stage.

I know that I will NEVER, EVER, experience anything like the audience's reaction to seeing their "Elvis" again, and never have so much fun attending any "EVENT" in this way. Yes, it was FUN, and yes....IT WAS WORK!

A typical season of working with Elvis was as follows. We'd all be flown in from wherever we lived, one planeload of those of us from California, another from New York, and another from...wherever! We'd meet in Vegas for six days of rehearsals in the early seventies. Our rehearsals were at night, and there we'd "play" with different material. Having listened recently to some of the tapes of those rehearsals, I've realized that there are just so many songs Elvis picked out of thin air, just sang at the rehearsals, but were NEVER performed anywhere, nor at any time! What gems those are! The laughter, too, is so refreshing to hear, as that brings home the memories of those best of times. Just Elvis thinking of a song, beginning to sing it, and all of us joining in to create a new version of it. A few were "so NEW" they probably should never be heard, and I laugh as I listen to those. Quite amusing, yet not "release-worthy". The rehearsals were probably the most fun.

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