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Topic: Marvelous Elvis stories in 'Blue Moon Boys' Return to archive
14th August 2006 07:44 AM
Ten Thousand Motels Marvelous Elvis stories in 'Blue Moon Boys'
8/13/2006 7:50:19 AM
Daily Journal


"The Blue Moon Boys," by Ken Burke with Dan Griffin. (Chicago Review Press 2006, $24.95 hardback, 265 pages)

Dan Griffin will sign copies of "The Blue Moon Boys" from 1:30 until 3 p.m. Monday at Reed's book store in Tupelo.


By Jim Fraiser

Billed as a candid look at the relationship between three original Elvis band members and the King himself, "The Blue Moon Boys," by journalist Ken Burke and promoter/producer Dan Griffin, does indeed offer never-before-told stories of life with and after Elvis for legendary performers, guitarist Scotty Moore, bassist Bill Black and drummer D.J. Fontana.

It generally succeeds in transporting the reader back to the '50s and '60s, going backstage and onto movie sets with Elvis, offering insight into the decision-making process of music and movie industry moguls, and eavesdropping on the antics of a variety of celebrities such as Keith Richards, George Harrison, Chet Atkins, Glen Campbell, Lisa Marie Presley, Paul McCartney and Jerry Lee Lewis.

At the heart of the story are Moore and Black, whose innovative guitar and upright bass play helped Elvis forge the unique Sun Records sound that changed music history, and drummer Fontana, whose strip-club-friendly beats prompted a then-shy Elvis to shake, rattle and roll onstage, ensuring his ascendancy as King of Rock and Roll.

Along the way, the authors dispel Elvis-related myths and provide detailed information on the specific musical contributions of Elvis and each of the band members to the revolutionary Sun sound. They offer marvelous moments, such as the impromptu Coca-Cola drinking session that converted wasted weeks of work under Sun Records' owner Sam Phillips' watchful eye into the first Elvis hit, "That's All Right (Mama)."

About half the material will satisfy hardcore fans' desire to known more about Elvis, although a significant portion of that, such as the part about the Tupelo-born star's occasional lack of concern over personal hygiene, is less than complimentary. That Elvis was so generous with the Memphis Mafia, depicted here largely as oafish hangers-on, and substantially less so with his band members who greatly contributed to his success, is the worst of the revelations. Even so, Presley is mostly remembered as a musical and performing genius with a good heart and kind soul, despite a few memorable eccentricities.

The real bad guy is, as has often been maintained by other sources, Presley's brilliant but cutthroat manager, Colonel Tom Parker. While Parker cut the band members out of the fruits of Elvis' success, he artfully managed his singer's career, until he sold Elvis, an aspiring actor, down the river in lousy B movies with even lousier career-threatening soundtracks. The authors pull no punches in slamming some and praising others, but they always strive to give both sides of every story.

We're also treated to inside stories of other celebrities, such as singer George Jones, who scoffed at Elvis and the band early on and lived to regret it, and actor Milton Berle, who shunned conventional wisdom and allowed Elvis to strut his stuff on a national TV program, thereby helping the young singer reach a nationwide audience.

But for better or worse, the real story is about the three band members, the talented but reclusive Moore, the jocular, womanizing Fontana, and Bill Black, who found the greatest post-Elvis success with his best-selling Bill Black Combo, but who met an early death from cancer.

Burke, with many helpful contributions and insights from Griffin, tells his story in a workmanlike, journalistic manner, giving all sides to every controversy, and using eye-witness accounts to set all stories as straight as he can. Neither his straightforward style, nor much of the material about industry infighting in the latter half of the book (some of which contains to-be-expected siding with his co-author Griffin on the latter's disputes with Fontana), will place him in a league with America's top non-fiction authors.

But what is important here are the band members' stories, and Burke and Griffin tell them convincingly, giving us a rare bird's eye view of four musicians coming together by extraordinary strokes of luck, and converting their largely unimpressive early performances in sleazy Memphis joints into some of the greatest rock and roll performances of all time on the national stage.

"The Blue Moon Boys" offers priceless glimpses of its human, all too human, subjects, making the reader feel he or she actually knows these men, in both their personal and professional lives. And their story from rags to riches to rags again and finally to lasting fame, is one that was surely worth the telling, and one that Elvis, rockabilly and music fans everywhere will cherish for years to come.

Jim Fraiser is an administrative law judge in Tupelo, and the author of three novels and eight non-fiction books.

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