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Topic: A phone interview with Elvis Presley's right hand man Return to archive
1st September 2007 03:08 AM
Ten Thousand Motels A phone interview with Elvis Presley's right hand man
John Mackie, Vancouver Sun
Published: Friday, August 31, 2007

A phone interview with Elvis Presley's right hand man and head of the Memphis Mafia, Joe Esposito, on Aug. 29, 2007.

Vancouver Sun: So what kind of guy was the king?

Esposito: He was the nicest guy in the world. He really was. Just a real nice man, very polite. Treated everybody the same, no matter if you were a millionaire or you swept streets. It didn't matter to him, it was individuals that he liked. He was raised that way from his mother, you know, just treat everybody the same. I learned a lot from him, and I tell people 'You treat people the way you want to be treated. You want to be treated like a jerk, then you be a jerk.' It's very important to treat people nice, and it does pay off in the long run.

Sun: Elvis was one of those guys who seemed to like giving stuff away. He gave away a lot of cars, for example, didn't he?

Esposito: Oh yeah. Very, very generous.

Sun: Tell me a car story.

Esposito: We were buying some Cadillacs one time at the Cadillac dealership in Memphis. We were standing inside the dealership and Elvis looks outside and there's this elderly black lady looking in the window at this yellow two-door Coupe de Ville.

Elvis sees her, and she's looking at it and looking at it. He goes outside and starts talking to her. He says 'You like that car, huh?' 'Oh, yes, yes, that beautiful car.' He says 'Would you like to have one of those?' 'Oh I could never afford one of those cars.' He said 'Just a minute.'
He goes back inside the dealership, goes to the sales manager and says 'Give me the keys to that car.' Gives him the keys, he goes out and says 'Ma'am, the car is yours.' She just couldn't believe that Elvis just gave her that car. She was just in awe. Just couldn't believe it. He said 'It's yours, enjoy it.'
That's the kind of guy he was. He liked to give people things he knew people couldn't afford on their own.

Sun: Because he grew up poor he never really forgot it.

Esposito: No.

Sun: So how come you got along so well with Elvis? You met him in the army, right?

Esposito: Yeah we were army buddies. I don't know, our personalities clicked. I love people, I like to have a good time in life, be up all the time. I guess we hit it off together, became friends, and before we left the service he asked me to go to work for him.

Sun: So what was it like working for somebody like that, working for a friend?

Esposito: Working for a friend is always nice. He was a great individual. When you worked for Elvis, it was not just your nine to five job, it was seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Cause he wanted things done in the middle of the night. We didn't have certain restricted hours, we worked our asses off. But it was great, cause we did everything together. We vacationed together, we played together. We did everything together. That was the difference.

When I was with Elvis, we were all together, we were a family, one big family. My kids we'd take on vacation with us, his daughter was raised with my daughters. It was just like one big happy family.

Sun: Wasn't it kind of like living in a bubble, though, cause Elvis was so famous he couldn't really have a normal life?

Esposito: Oh absolutely, of course. No superstar could have a normal life, no way. But the idea that he liked people that he knew, people that he could trust, that's why he wanted to have those people.

You've got to remember also, he came from a real poor neighbourhood back in Mississippi, and then when he went to Memphis he was always the strange kid on the block. He didn't wear jeans with the rolled-up t-shirt, crew cuts and all that. He always had long hair, wild looking clothes. So he didn't have too many friends when he was young.

So when he got older and became a celebrity, he picked his friends that he knew from school and that was it. That's who he hung around with.

Sun: When you were with him, at first he wasn't playing live gigs, he was just doing movies, right?

Esposito: Yeah. When he got out, he had big contracts for three movies a year for different studios. The only performances before he went [back] on the road in '69, he did a couple of charity events. He did one in Memphis. So in '69 when the Colonel made the deal with the International Hotel to start playing there, that's what brought everything back. That's what Elvis loved to do more than anything, perform onstage in front of a live audience.

Sun: Was he frustrated with doing movies for so long and not having the time to play live gigs?

Esposito: Pretty much. Plus he got tired of doing the same old movies over and over again in different locations, with different girls and different dogs and animals. He wanted to get away from the travelogues.

Sun: What was Elvis like live? Few people got to see him...

Esposito: I never missed one concert in the 17 years I was with him, I never missed one concert. I was with him every show. It was great, it was unbelievable. Because they weren't the same concerts every night. He'd always do little fun things, had a great time, enjoyed himself. Changed right in the middle [of the set], add different songs. It was always a different concert.

Sun: So how did he get into the Elvis suits, where did that come from? The capes and stuff.

Esposito: He said 'I'm in show business. I'm there to entertain. If it entertains people what I wear, that's fine with me.' That's the way he felt about it. Not like the kids today, walking onstage in a t-shirt and torn jeans - that's not entertainment.

He felt that was all part of show business. And the reason he got jump suits was because when he used to have pants or a suit onstage, he did his karate moves and would do his high kick and would tear the seats out of his pants. All the time. Many times he had to walk off the stage. 'Sorry, I tore my pants.' So eventually his wardrobe guy said 'The only way to solve that problem is to get a jumpsuit that's not going to fall, that's not going to move from where it's tailored.' So that's how the jumpsuits came along.

Sun: Was it funny when he used to split his pants? Did he find that funny, or was he aghast?

Esposito: It happened a couple of times and he became used to it. 'Oh, excuse me. Give me a break, I have to go upstairs and change my pants.' And the people would just die laughing. The band would keep playing music, and sometimes, he'd walk offstage and we'd have extra pairs of pants there. And he'd be still singing while he was changing.

Sun: There's this legend that he wasn't so fond of Robert Goulet, and used to shoot the TV set whenever Robert Goulet was on TV. Is that true?

Esposito: Yeah, once. But not because of Robert Goulet, no no. He just did it for effect. He liked to shock people, that's all.

Sun: Were you there when he did it?

Esposito: Oh yeah.
Sun: Did it shock you?

Esposito: Oh yes, absolutely. A gun shot in a house? There wasn't a lot of people [there], just a few people. It was 'What the hell was that for?' He said 'Well, I just wanted to wake everybody up.'

Sun: Who was on TV?

Esposito: Robert Goulet. So that's how it went along: 'He must have hated Robert Goulet, because he shot the TV.' It had nothing to do with him, it could have been anybody.

Sun: Did he like to play with guns?

Esposito: Oh yeah, he loved guns. He loved law enforcement, he was very much into that. We used to have honorary badges, we had gun permits from the state of Tennessee. We used to go target practicing, all kinds of stuff.

Sun: Were you there when he met Nixon?

Esposito: No I wasn't. I was in Los Angeles that time.

Sun: That's a very odd combination, don't you think?
Esposito: Yeah, well he went there to get a badge. That's the only reason he went there. Somebody told him he could never get it, and that's something you don't tell Elvis, he can't do [something]. And he went and got it. Everybody said 'You'll never be able to get that. President Nixon won't do that.' And he said 'Fine, let me talk to him.' And when he left Washington, he had [the badge] with him.

Sun: Did he meet any other presidents, or just Nixon?

Esposito: Just Nixon. I think he met...no he didn't meet LBJ. The Colonel was a good friend of his. But no that was probably the only president he ever met. Well, he met President Carter before he became President. He was just a governor at the time.

Sun: When I went to Memphis I was quite surprised to see how small it was. Why do you think he stayed there, instead of moving to LA and doing the Hollywood thing?

Esposito: Because he liked Memphis. He had all his friends there; he liked to get away from Hollywood. Elvis was not a big partier in Hollywood. He didn't feel part of the crowd. He just had his friends there and liked to get away there. He could do what he wanted there without any problems, go see movies, whatever he wanted to do he could do in that city. That's what he liked about it.

Sun: Did he ever go see gigs?

Esposito: Oh yeah. A lot of time in Vegas, before he opened, we'd go a couple of times a year and hang out for three, four weeks and go see all the stars, all over town. Sinatra, Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis, Andy Williams, all kinds of stars, Fats Domino, everybody was in Vegas in those days.
We'd stay there and go see two shows a night.

Sun: Did a lot of other stars come to see Elvis, like the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Tom Jones?

Esposito: Oh yeah, absolutely. The Beatles when they first came here, they did an interview and they said 'What are you guys excited about doing in [America]?' 'We want to meet Elvis.' That was the first thing they said. They did [meet him], the second time they came in 1965.

Sun: What did Elvis think of the Beatles?

Esposito: He loved their music. He recorded three of their songs. He thought they were great songwriters.

Sun: What were Elvis' recording sessions like? Somebody gave me a bootleg [American Crown Jewels] which is incredible, of the raw Memphis Sessions without any overdubs. There's all these different versions [of the songs], and every one is different and every one is great.

Esposito: I know. He liked to have a good time. Elvis recording sessions were nothing like the recording sessions today. Recording sessions today, every musician is recorded one at a time and then it's overdubbed. Every [Elvis] recording session we did was like a concert; everybody was together in the same room, the voices, the band, everybody, and they all recorded together. So it was a lot of fun. Elvis liked to play around quite a bit. He'd make funny remarks and just had a good time, enjoyed the hell out of it. That's why his songs are so great, you can tell everyone is having a good time. He just loved to sing and record.

Sun: The Memphis Sessions, that was a really key part of Elvis's career. He recorded songs that were a little deeper than what he recorded in the Hollywood years.

Esposito: Yes, yes.

Sun: Was that a conscious decision? Was he looking for songs like Suspicious Minds and In The Ghetto?

Esposito: He liked songs that had great meaning to them. He loved good lyrics, great orchestration, great arrangements. And he did some great, great songs: if I Can Dream, In The Ghetto, Don't Cry Daddy, all those great songs. He loved doing those.

Sun: But the movies he wasn't so hot on.

Esposito: No, true. But when you listen to it now, there was a lot of great songs that he sang in the movies. And there was a lot of horrible ones, where he's singing to a cow or whatever. [laughs] Those didn't thrill him too much. But it was part of the scene of a movie and he was very professional. He said 'Hey, that's what I have to do.'

Sun: He seemed to be quite attractive to women, Elvis.

Esposito: Oh, they loved him. He loved women, loved women. He had to have a woman around all the time.

Sun: I was reading a Larry King interview with you [online] and it sounds like Elvis was never monogamous.

Esposito: No, not at all.

Sun: Never.

Esposito: Never happened. That's the sad, sad situation. That's why his marriage never lasted. Everybody knew he was not a one-woman person.

Sun: So what did you think about that at the time?

Esposito: Well, that was him, and that's the way we all were. That's why I got divorced 10 years after I got married. My famous statement I make to people is 'Our wives were married and we were single.' That's the way it really was. It's terrible.

Sun: So who besides Priscilla did Elvis really deeply care about?

Esposito: Very much for Linda Thompson, the last lady that he dated for a long, long time, for five years in the early 70s. He had a great affair with Ann Margaret, they were very very close. Always were, even until he passed away. Naturally Priscilla, Sheila Caan. Barbara Lee. He was very very close to a lot of women. And none of them really hated him for what he did, having these dates and going out with other girls. They still loved this man.

Sun: The Colonel, how do you look back on him now?

Esposito: I think the Colonel was the only person that could have been Elvis Presley's manager. Nobody could have handled him better than he did. Nobody. Not too many managers only manage one person. They become famous, a star, and all of a sudden they manage all these other people. Colonel Parker was offered many, many big stars, they wanted him to be his manager. He said 'Nope. I only handle Elvis, that's it.'

Sun: But the Colonel has been criticized for misguiding

Elvis. You don't think that's fair?

Esposito: Oh, he made his mistakes, there's no two ways about it. We all make mistakes. None of us are perfect. But overall, nobody could have done what he did with Elvis Presley. I'm sorry, nobody. I don't care who the hell they are, the biggest managers in the world.
It's just that you have to understand, the Colonel dedicated his life to him. He didn't care about anybody else. Twenty-four hours a day, he'd always be thinking about something for Elvis. He'd come up with these great ideas that nobody else ever did. He made mistakes too, but anybody that knew, that was around us could tell you, there was nobody better than Colonel Parker.
They were a team, basically. They became a team, they were just unbelievable together. But they had arguments, just like husbands and wives do.

Sun: But Elvis was really loyal, he never would have left the Colonel.

Esposito: No. They would have fights, disagreements, but I could never see him going to another manager. Never.
Sun: So were you the road manager, what would be your title?

Esposito: I was the road manager when we went on the road. Before that I was his right hand man. Before that they used to call me the foreman. I was in charge of all the guys.

Sun: Were you the only non-southerner in the Memphis Mafia?
Esposito: Yep, I was the only northerner, the only Yankee. There was Sonny West, [Elvis's] cousin Gene Smith, Charlie Hodge, Red West. There were others that would come and go. George Klein, a school time buddy.

Sun: There have been a lot of books about Elvis. You've written a couple yourself, I think. Obviously the most notorious one is the Albert Goldman book. How do you feel about the negative stuff?

Esposito: The only reason he did that book is because negativity sells. They want to know bad things about people, they don't want to hear good things. Albert Goldman loved Elvis Presley, believe it or not. When [Elvis] played New York and he did a review on Elvis, you'd think God was on stage. He adored Elvis. He wrote the most unbelievable review on this guy, ever. And all of a sudden Elvis dies and he writes the worst book ever written on Elvis. Does that make any sense? No. It was for money, that's the only reason.

Sun: What about the Elvis: What Happened book, what did you think about that?

Esposito: Well, that was devastating to [Elvis] while he was alive. To me that probably put him over the end. The last year of his life, that's all he talked about, that book. It was just hurting him so much inside that so-called friends would do something like that to you. He had a horrible last year of his life, and I [blame] 80 percent of it on that book.

Sun: So why did Elvis get into the pills that killed him?
Esposito: Well, you know, you get hooked on medication.

Elvis was an addictive person, no matter what. He didn't do anything in small ways, you know? He did it all the way. One car, 10 cars. Not one pill, four pills. What happens eventually, pain medication, you get hooked on it and you can't get off it. We thought one of these days he'd wake up and say what am I doing to myself and get his act together...cause you know if he had set his mind to doing it, he could have. But he didn't, he didn't. And you can't make a 42-year-old man do something he doesn't want to do.

Sun: And you unfortunately were one of the guys that found him, right?

Esposito: Yes, I was.

Sun: What happened? Ginger Alden found him?

Esposito: Ginger Alden, the girl he was dating at the time, she found him and called downstairs. I was downstairs, Al Strada was downstairs, a wardrobe guy who was getting his wardrobe together. Al went upstairs, he called me immediately. I ran up there and Elvis was on the floor in the bathroom. I got down real quick and turned him over, and I knew he was dead. I called the ambulance, waited for that to happen. We all jumped in the ambulance and took him to hospital, Charlie Hodge and myself and Dr. Nick [Dr. George Nichopoulos]. Thirty minutes after we got there, they came out and told us he was gone.

Sun: So Dr. Nick was at Elvis's house?

Esposito: No no. What happened was after I called the ambulance, I called Dr. Nick to tell him what had happened. He drove over. It took the damn ambulance 20 minutes to get there, which was ridiculous. We were putting him in the ambulance and Dr. Nick pulled up in his car and jumped in the back with us.

Sun: Why do you think the Elvis legend seems to be so strong, 30 years later?

Esposito: Because of his music, and if you look into his eyes on a movie screen or a TV special or something, there's something about him that you just cannot help but like. And his voice - let's face it, he had the greatest voice in the world, over any singers in history. He could sing anything, and he sang from his heart. People can feel that when they listen to his music. He doesn't sing just for the sake of singing, he sang from his heart. That catches people. Young people today love him. He's been dead 30 years, and they're only 10, 15 years old. I don't no another artist who does that [to people].

Sun: How come he never played another gig outside the US? Cause the last show he ever outside the US was in Vancouver, right?

Esposito: Elvis would never play outdoors again. After he played Canada, he told Colonel Parker I will never play outdoors again, because the sound [was bad], the people couldn't hear him. He hated that. So we never played outdoors after that.
In Europe, they didn't have any big indoor stadiums. They had outdoor stadiums, but nothing indoors. I think the largest one in England was 4,000 seats. Our idea was to go there and play 30 days, after they built [Wembley Stadium], which I think held 10,000 people. It opened in 76 or something. The plan was to go in 1978, go to London and stay there for 30 days and play all our concerts there, because everybody from Europe could go there - it's not that far away [from other European cities]. But it never happened.

Sun: But why wouldn't he have come back to Vancouver or Toronto?

Esposito: Cause they didn't have any indoor stadiums that big at the time.

Sun: They did, actually, they had 15,000 seaters.
Esposito: Really? Well, he just wanted to go to Europe, I know that much.

Sun: Did he ever talk about the Vancouver show?

Esposito: No, not really.

Sun: Bummer. Have you ever been to Vancouver?

Esposito: Oh many times. I love Vancouver. Great city. I love all British Columbia.
Sun: How old are you now, Joe?

Esposito: I'll be 70 years old in January.

Sun: So why don't you retire?

Esposito: I don't know what retirement is. I couldn't stop, it keeps me going. If I was to retire and sit on a couch, I'd probably fall over and die.

[Edited by Ten Thousand Motels]
1st September 2007 04:06 AM
guitarman53 And what Jagger said about him, "He was the first person (male) to wear make-up" one of Jagger's earliest influences, he was the first guy to bring on the female/male personalities.
1st September 2007 10:32 AM
Kilroy ELVIS
his Voice Never Failed Him
1st September 2007 08:46 PM
MrPleasant
quote:
guitarman53 wrote:
he was the first guy to bring on the female/male personalities.



There was also (IN CINEMA) Valentino (for the ladies) and Louise Brooks, for the dudes, in the silent era. Not forgetting, later: Brando, James Dean.

I think it's the "it" quality; the androgynous charm that's appealing for both men and women, sustained by performers who wore or did not wear make-up.

And, in music who can forget the homosexual charms of Ted Nugent?
2nd September 2007 12:18 AM
sammy davis jr. The Memphis Mafia....what a joke. Howabout The Hillbilly Hangers-on.
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