blue suede dreams

The King may be dead… but the memories live on still

“You actually MET ELVIS?” Mom’s EYES WERE still red from CRYING

My parents’ generation always remember where they were when John Kennedy died. Well, that was before my time, but I’ll never forget the day in seventyseven when we heard Elvis had passed away.

I was twelve and can’t say the King’s music had ever meant much to me, but I got a crash course in it that day. Return To Sender, Teddy Bear, Are You Lonesome Tonight. They played his records one after another on the radio.

My mom put her hand over her mouth and sobbed when she heard the news. I guess that was the music of her youth. I should have said something to comfort her, but I felt kind of awkward.

Somehow I sensed she wasn’t just mourning a pop star, but her life before Dad and I came along – and maybe some dreams that got lost along the way.

I don’t think she saw me, anyway, so I turned around in the kitchen doorway and walked right back out.

To tell the truth, I was going through an awkward, withdrawn phase and I was in a sulk that day as it was. We’d just moved to Charleston, South Carolina, following Dad’s job. It was a lovely old Civil War house on a cobbled street near the Battery, where the cannons face out across the harbour. The air smelled of the ocean and the sky was full of squawking gulls.

It was a picture-postcard town, but I didn’t know anyone and I felt uprooted from my home up north in New England. So I was just slouching around the house, trying to write in my journal and wishing I was Sylvia Plath or Carole King or somebody deep like that.

I wanted to be alone, which wasn’t easy because we had some guy in painting the house. So you can imagine how I felt when I’d just found a quiet spot on the back porch and Mom came out with a tray of coffee and orange juice so our decorator could take a break.

It’s Now Or Never was playing on the radio in the kitchen, and the decorator said, “Man, that’s a real shame about Elvis. I used to know him before he was famous.” I looked up, in my sceptical twelve-year-old way, but he wasn’t talking to me. He was facing Mom, so I was able to take a look at him – a brawny guy in paint-spotted overalls. He had Elvis sideburns and his dark hair combed the same way. “I was a singer back home in Shreveport,” he explained in a syrupy southern drawl, as he leaned back on the swing chair. “There was a big radio show called The Louisiana Hayride and Elvis used to come in as a guest. This was back in fifty-four or fifty-five, right before he got real big.” “You actually met Elvis?” Mom’s eyes were still a bit red as she sat down at the table. The slanting sunlight played on her blonde hair. “Oh yeah. We were about the same age and Elvis was just a regular, shy, polite country boy back then. We used to sit in the dressing room before the showand sing those old Gospel songs we grew up with in church. Peace In The Valley and all that stuff.” The painter grinned. “Of course, he didn’t look like no regular country boy. Elvis already looked like a star. He’d just signed a record deal with RCA and I could tell he was going places. It made me wish I was, too, so I asked himwhat he thought I ought to do.” “And what did he say?” Mom asked. “He told me I should go and audition for Sun Records in Memphis, where he got his start.”

“Did you go?” Mum breathed. “Ma’am, you bet I did – and what a place that was! It was this tiny little hole-in-the-wall studio, surrounded by Cadillacs, and there was a line of singers stretching out the door and around the corner, all hoping to get a record deal.

“I must have waited in line all day, but they let me sing a couple of songs.”

He shot a grin my way, and I blushed, because for all my initial cynicism, I’d been staring at him, as enthralled as Mom was. There was something starry about the guy, and I could see he enjoyed having an audience. Even in speckled overalls I could imagine him in a spotlight with a guitar in his hands.

“So then what happened?” Mom begged, leaning forward.

“They said I wasn’t quite ready, but they put me on a tour to get some experience. Three months all over the south, opening for Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis.” The decorator’s eyes gleamed. “You shoulda seen Jerry Lee tearing up a piano back in those days! He played standing up, he played laying on top of it. Even Johnny and Carl would stand in the wings watching with their mouths open. The girls were screaming their heads off ! Man, I wished that could have been me out there, driving them crazy.”

He looked wistfully down at his coffee and let out a slow sigh.

“If I’d got what I WISHED FOR maybe THATWOULD be me they’re BURYIN’”

“But Elvis and Jerry Lee… they were rock ’n’ roll and I was too much of a country singer. I hung around Memphis for a while but I realised it wasn’t going to happen for me, so I headed up to Nashville, see if I’d have more luck there.” “Would you like some more coffee?” “Why, thank you, ma’am.” He held out his cup. “Nashville was a little kinder to me,” he resumed. “I wrote a lot of songs, did some more touring. I even got a little record deal.”

He raised his eyebrows at me, as if to say, Impressed, young lady? I looked away with an awkward smile, but yes, I was impressed. “You made a record?” Mom asked. “It did pretty well around Dallas,” the painter confirmed. “I remember turning on the TV one night, just after it came out. There was my old pal Elvis in a tux on the Ed Sullivan Show and I thought, That really might be me one day.”

For a long moment, he gazed into the distance, as if reliving the dream. At length, he came back to the present.

“But it was only a small record label and the song didn’t get played too much outside of Texas. Fact is, the only way my life resembled Elvis’ was I got my call-up papers from Uncle Sam. Two years of GI blues in Germany!”

Mom chuckled along with him, and looked somehow younger, I thought.

“Difference was, when Elvis came home he went into the movies. For me, I could see the music was changing. The Beatles had taken over. I wasn’t so young any more and I couldn’t see where I’d fit in, so I traded in my guitar for some brushes and moved out here to the sea to paint houses.” “You must miss that life,” Mom said. “Oh, I don’t know. I may not have a mansion or a pool shaped like a guitar, but I got a nice little place down here. I got a wife who loves me and a couple of kids, and I get home each night to see them growin’ up.”

He nodded towards the kitchen where his old pal from The Louisiana Hayride was crooning Love Me Tender on the radio. “Hearing what happened to Elvis today I’m glad things turned out the way they did. If I’d got what I wished for maybe thatwould be me they’re buryin’.”

It’s funny. I never knew the name of that house painter but I’ve thought about him a lot over the years, whenever I’ve heard Elvis on the radio, and especially now I have a couple of teenage girls of my own. They watch American Idol, they want to be celebrities and think it’s all going to be so easy.

I don’t want to take away their dreams, but I worry, and hope they realise that for most people fame won’t happen, and maybe that’s not so bad. I wish I could explain that to them.

Then again, maybe I’ve shown them. After all, I never became Sylvia Plath or Carole King but I’ve had a great life, I have a great family and I was always content with that. Perhaps it was something I learned from a painter who once wished he was Elvis.